8. Designer's Notes
I've enjoyed this game greatly but found myself feeling that something was missing. The game has a great concept, theme, and materials, so there's no good reason why it shouldn't be a great game.
The tactical rules present in the game hinted at an intent, but were rather lacking. The rules for retreat fire, pass-through fire, and transports showed a glimpse of a tactical system, but failed to really deliver. An idea like the battle board, which allows the players to make tactical choices, was something that occurred to me right away. Similar ideas have appeared in other games before. I also added some more interesting options with certain units to spice up combat a little.
It did seem a little frustrating that gaining control of territory didn't improve your ability to engage your enemy. While that wasn't the original idea of the game designers, I decided to enhance the black market rules to simulate this. I had to tone down the level of the production twice during playtesting, but now I think I have the balance right.
The game comes with a set of 42 cards representing the territories, but these cards are only used during setup. I couldn't see any reason why not to use them later in the game, so I incorporated them into the game.
The leader powers were notoriously unbalanced, but they provided an important part of the game's "feel." It's clear that TSR didn't playtest its advanced rules very thoroughly, assuming that most people would just play the basic game. That's unfortunate, because the leaders are an important part of the game's theme. I incorporated a variety of "fixes," and I added some leaders to the mix; two from the old movie serials and two I made up, because I just couldn't help adding a little something.
The game also excessively favoured defensive strategies, to the point where players could easily build impenetrable fortresses but then could not muster enough strength to ever leave them. I changed the way gennies worked to make them less defensive and more offensive, and toned down the power of killer sattelites.
I had also noticed that turn order often turned out to be the deciding factor in conflict. The fact that moving last gives a particularly decisive advantage means that often strategic decisions get hijacked by a process that is completely random. I added a turn bidding system that was inspired by some other games. In this version, you need to sacrifice some factory production in order to ensure that you will move before your opponent, which balances out somewhat the advantage of controlling the turn order.
Finally, I added some housekeeping procedures to help the game run more smoothly; these mostly show up
in the status phase.
Overall I'm quite happy with the result. Feel free to share your feedback on these rules at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ . I hope you get as much enjoyment out of these rules as I have. Happy gaming!
Peet Smith
9. Credits
The material written here was written by Peet Smith in 2007.
These rules are based on the game "Buck Rogers: Battle for the 25th Century" by TSR Inc; copyright is currently held by Wizards of the Coast. These house rules are not intended as a challenge to that copyright, but rather are intended as a means for people to enhance their experience of the product bought from TSR.
BUCK ROGERS is a trademark owned by the Dille Family Trust, and was used under Licence by TSR. These house rules are not intended as a challenge to that trademark.
Thanks to Dennis "Cat" Avner, for the use of his image to represent King Grallo. You can see his website at http://www.stalkingcat.net/