TSR’s “Buck Rogers XXVc” RPG in the 1991 Catalog
These pages from TSR’s 1991 product catalog show what may be my favorite sci-fi roleplaying game of the early nineties. The Buck Rogers XXVc roleplaying game (find at Amazon.com*) was a fun update to the classic Buck Rogers storyline, and I even reread the Arrival short story* collection last month and can report that it’s still a fun read. (I first read that book way back in the summer of 1989 while on a camping trip in Minnesota with friends and can remember how surprised I was at the stories in the book.)
These catalog pages show the game, supplements, novels, and even comics that TSR had planned for the Buck Rogers XXVc series in 1991. Not everything was produced — the Technical Compendium, for example, never happened — but what was published for the roleplaying game was a blast and I can still remember the very early days playing the game shortly after it was released.
Now, just where did those Buck Rogers comics from TSR get off to? There’s a complete set somewhere in the house.
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Very cool! Do you have the other pages too? I’d love to see them.
It’s interesting, too, as I’ve read that apparently Buck Rogers was a significant factor in TSR’s eventual demise. If I recall correctly, the owner of TSR at the time was also the rights holder to Buck Rogers…which meant the line was pushed well in excess of actual demand.
I’d be curious to know if this was actually the case, as it’s pretty well documented that TSR had plenty of other problems going on in the background at the time too…
This should be a good start to learning about the Buck Rogers/TSR connection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorraine_Williams
@Wolf – I’ll see what I can do about sharing more pages from this catalog.
I wish I’d picked up some Buck Rogers stuff back then–I was neck deep in WEG Star Wars at the time though. I’m surprised at how pricey the stuff is now on eBay!
@Jay – I got really lucky to have even identified the gameworld was neat when the game was first published. I think a lot of people out there missed this when it was first published.