Battlestar Galactica RPG?

[akchf]

With the new series having pulled me in hook line and sinker, I'm wonder if there was ever a Battlestar Galactica RPG. I've seen a mini game that seems to allow starship combat between a baseship and the Galactica, but that's the closest I've seen.
Secondly, has anyone tried to make their own campaign in that setting? What rulesets did you use?
I think there's a lot of potential for some fun rpg'ing in either the old series or the news series settings...

 

[wingsandsword]

Since the end of Season 1 new BSG has aired just about everywhere, I guess spoilers are okay, but just in case, ye be warned, here there be spoliers:

I'm pretty sure there has never been an official BSG roleplaying game. I think it would be pretty easy to do, especially with a lot of the stuff in d20 Future. From a game mechanic perspective, BSG is pretty easy, since it's standard space opera: hyperdrives and capitol ships and starfighters, robots and guns, all off the shelf parts as far as rules are concerned. Personally I'd use either Wound/Vitality because of how combat has been shown, and how one lucky or well placed hit can really seriously mess up even a high level character (like Boomer attempting to assassinate Adama).

Nothing in the way of anything supernatural (generally, there was the weird Iblis/Angels stuff from old Galactica, and the ancient prophecy regarding Pres. Roslin in new Galactica, but nothing in the way of powers for PC's or 99.9% of NPC's). No new alien races really to worry about, especially in New Galactica (at most, the various Cylon models would need stats).

The trickiest thing I can think of is how to treat Humano-Cylons from new BSG, since biosynthetic robots from d20F just isn't close enough (I think biosynthetics were meant more for things like androids from Aliens). Humano-Cylons are probably best treated as humans with a sort of "Cylon Replica" template that makes the Cylons their primary allegiance and it cannot be changed, lets them stay in contact with other Cylons (subject to jamming and interference), they are sterile, and they suffer a double damage from any ability damage caused by radiation (judging by the events at Ragnar Anchorage during the mini-series.)

Licensed Sci-Fi RPG's that I can think of: Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Star Wars (d6 and d20), Star Trek (FASA, Last Unicorn, and Decipher versions, and the Prime Directive RPG based on the Starfleet Battles sub-license), Babylon 5 (Babylon Project and Mongoose d20 Versions), and Trigun (yeah, it's anime, but a sci-fi anime) and Men In Black.

 

[Turanil]

I think that Traveller 20 would be perfect for playing Battlestar Galactica. D20 Modern/Future could also fit (without FX).

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I'd actually prefer to see an RPG based on the original series rather than the new series. I don't care for the new series at all.

 

[naturaltwenty]

Coming soon

I got one of my Father's Day presents early. The Battlestar Galactica Complete Epic Series DVD's. This inspired me:

www.twelvecolonies.com

Still noodling which system I want to use though.

Later,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming
www.naturaltwenty.com

 

[GMSkarka]

Event Horizon Productions, the company that published the first edition of my HONG KONG ACTION THEATRE! RPG, negotiated for the license to the original BSG back in 97. We had Richard ("Apollo" - or "Tom Zarek" in the new series) Hatch on board to do fiction bits for the beginning of each chapter, the whole nine yards. Universal was ready to sign.

But then we looked at the financials and realized that doing so would mean something like 6 months with no product coming out before the BSG game launched, which would have killed the company. We just weren't that well-capitalized. So, we turned it down, which is something I still regret.

(Event Horizon ended up being sold to Guardians of Order within the next 18 months anyway. Sigh. )

I still fondly remember Lt. Achilles and the rest of Red Squadron, the subject of our playtest campaign, which lasted for 3 sessions before we killed the project.

 

[SWBaxter]

With the new series having pulled me in hook line and sinker, I'm wonder if there was ever a Battlestar Galactica RPG.

Nope. The original show was dead and gone by the time RPG licensing got rolling, and the new series has no licensing deal yet.

I think there's a lot of potential for some fun rpg'ing in either the old series or the news series settings...

The new one's pretty good, the old one... eh, to each their own. There's been a lot of talk about it in the Traveller community, any incarnation of that game would work fine. There was a website for doing the first series with GURPS, some googling might turn it up. Probably one or more Hero conversions out there, too. I don't think it'd be too hard to cobble together with d20 Future, but don't know off-hand if anyone has done so.

A good resource is the show's official website:

http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

Includes some nice crunchy info, like ship sizes.

 

[thalmin]

Nope. The original show was dead and gone by the time RPG licensing got rolling, and the new series has no licensing deal yet.

FASA did put out a Battlestar Galactica ship combat game, also a Last Starfighter game, which was very similar.

 

[Staffan]

I think that Traveller 20 would be perfect for playing Battlestar Galactica. D20 Modern/Future could also fit (without FX).

When talking about making a sci-fi game/campaign based on something (or heck, just in general), my first choice is generally Alternity. For BSG, you'd also need the Warships accessory (which is available online somewhere, but not from WOTC anymore) which covers the big ships (the core rules go up to what's more or less Millenium Falcon-size).

 

[Umbran]

I think it's a little early for BSG RPGs. There's only been a handful of the new series episodes so far - not much of the BSG setting has been revealed.