Buck-Rogers.com - Buck Rogers XXVc TSR Games, Books, Etc.

"Buck Rogers"
TSR Games, Books, Etc. (1988-95)

The year is 2456. Earth is a polluted ruin, dominated by seedy urban sprawls and fortresslike arcologies. Its resources are tightly controlled and exploited by RAM (Russo-Allied Mercantile), an evil corporation from Mars. Earth's various power groups are played off against one another by a puppet government controlled by RAM.

The year is 2456. Mars is heaven, a terraformed wonderland backed by a monolithic power, combining the worst of socialism and capitalism. Genetically modified Martians swarm through the Corportes Metroplex, sail the polar Borean Sea, and ride into space via the Pavonis Space Elevator. Mars is a planet of wonders, made possible through the complete control of Earth's resources.

The year is 2456. Venus is partially terraformed, its own space elevator in ruins. "Normal" humans do the continents of Elysium and Aphrodite and sail the thick atmosphere in huge, baloonlike aerostats. The deeps can only be reached by humans severely modified to withstand the pressure—an alien race that is all too human.

The year is 2456. The Lunar Colonies are isolationistic, blowing everything out of its nearby space. Earth's orbital colonies are already space-borne slums, as the richer operations have moved into the Asteroid Belt and the Jovian Trojans. A Mercurian royal family hordes Mercury's energy and metal with a string of butterfly-shaped solar collectors.

The year is 2456. Mankind has never reached for the stars. Star-drive remains an impossibility. Mankind has tinkered with its own genes, creating an aquatic race beneath Earth's oceans and even the ice of Ganymede, a race of fliers deep in the heart of the Jovian atmosphere, and a line of cyborged men mining the rings of Saturn. Computers are a meld of technology and organic wizardry. Starships are piloted by the minds of long dead whales. Your best friend may be a computer-generated persona.

The year is 2456. Mankind, in all his myriad forms, acts as he has always acted: greedy, power-hungry, irrational. Many are oppressed by the few with power. The time has come for a hero.

The year is 2456. Buck Rogers arrives.

Welcome to the future.

The Buck Rogers world is the product of a great number of people. TSR began its association with Buck Rogers when Lorraine Dille Williams, granddaughter of John Flint Dille, the newspaper syndicate owner who originally conceived of and promoted Buck Rogers, became the chief executive officer of TSR. Her brother, Flint Dille, drafted a preliminary "bible" for the Buck Rogers world, with the provision that Buck return to its initial character: telling classic adventures in a plausible future.

Thus, the goal was to design a plausible twenty-fifth century world. But predicting the future is a dangerous business, a deceptively difficult task because we are poised at the end of a generation of science fantasy. Further, any attempt to predict the future is sure to spark debate, as Buck Rogers has since its birth in 1928.

A development team was formed at TSR, which consisted of creative and marketing executives Mike Cook and Michael Dobson and game designer Jeff Grubb, who wrote the first TSR "bible" for the Buck Rogers world, based on meetings with the rest of the development team, including Jim Ward, Warren Spector, and Jeff Butler.

During this time, the project was at the drawing board, so to speak. Artists Jeff Butler, Mark Nelson, John and Laura Lakey, Clyde Caldwell, Jeff Easley, Diesel, and Tim Paul gave the world a visual sense, with ideas from Chrsti Marx, Brian Augustine, Mike Pondsmith, and Len Strazewski.

Next, [they] moved toward putting the concepts into concrete form, first the BUCK ROGERS Battle for the 25th Century Game, designed by Jeff Grubb with Flint Dille. Free-lance designer Mike Pondsmith provided new ideas, editorial suggestions, and a fine-tuned bible for upcoming products such as [the Buck Rogers: Arrival] book, which was an invaluable aid to editors Mary Kirchoff, Pat McGilligan, Eric Severson, and Jim Lowder.

And along the way, an unofficial support team of free-lance futurists and anyone else with an opinion provided ideas, enthusiasm, and knowledge: Buzz Dixon, Augustine Funnell, Steve Gerber, Harold Johnson, S.N. Lewitt, and Frank Miller.