Space: 1999 RPG Datafile #5: Your Vision of Alpha

Prepare to journey into the fantastic infinites of deep space with our forthcoming Space: 1999 Tabletop Roleplaying Game! Co-produced between Anderson Entertainment and Modiphius, the Space: 1999 RPG allows you to craft your very own unique missions and characters from the world of Moonbase Alpha in an immersive roleplaying game experience.

Modiphius' Andrew Peregrine has been sharing his handy guides for those new to the world of RPGs and how you and your fellow Alphans can join in with the Space: 1999 Roleplaying Game. From explaining what an RPG is to recommendations for how to start a game, how to make your game feel like a classic Space: 1999 episode and assembling fellow players, Andrew's guides are indispensable insights into how best to experience the Space: 1999 Roleplaying Game. 

To help prepare you for the release of the Space: 1999 RPG Core Rulebook even further (currently available to pre-order), we're releasing the game's Quickstart Guide as a free digital download! The Quickstart Guide is effectively a condensed version of the Core Rulebook and is designed to help you embrace the imaginative levels of immersive play this fantastic RPG can offer!

In Andrew's latest blog for us, he explains how you can craft your very own vision of how Moonbase Alpha should operate, using the Core Rulebook and the Quickstart Guide to help you inspire how your unique take on Moonbase Alpha could function.

How would you command Moonbase Alpha? What conditions would result in you triggering Operation Exodus into action? Andrew tells us all we need to know!

Background Heroes

The Space: 1999 Tabletop Roleplaying Game lets you create new stories of your own for your favourite series. But you can do a lot more to change the direction of the show for your own Year Three. The following are a few suggestions for the “campaign background” to your game.

This is the default assumption of the game. Your player characters are some of the other 311 men and women on Alpha, guest stars and background artists who get to take a lead role. All the series characters are still as they are, so you can lock horns with Koenig, research with Bergman or Russell, or adventure with Carter. This campaign tells the “other stories” of Alpha. You might pick either Year One or Year Two as your main background and potentially play out adventures based on particular episodes (like we did with Breakaway in the Quickstart Guide).

Your own Year Three

In this campaign, you push the series forward into a Year Three of your own design. In the same way that Year Two added Verdeschi and Maya, your player characters might be the “new faces who have always been there”. In this game, they take more of a lead role, possibly as the lead exploratory team for any new encounters. In this campaign, you continue Alpha’s journey into the depth of space with a host of new stories of your own design.

Thirty Years Later

An idea that came up on the discussion forum (and my apologies for not being able to find the originator to credit them) was to set the campaign thirty years after Year Two. In this game, Moonbase Alpha is still travelling but Koenig, Russell and the main characters have all decided to retire and grant command of the base to the new generation. This campaign places the player characters in lead roles on the base, but still keeps the series characters close by as advisors.

Divided Exodus

Throughout the classic series, there are a few plots by Alphans to leave Alpha and set up a new home on a particular planet (such as in The Séance Spectre). In some cases, they are even successful (such as in Testament of Arkadia). The difficulty is that with resources so thin, Alpha has little to spare. So a colony effort that does not involve a full Operation Exodus leaves both Alpha and the nascent colony in dire straits. In this campaign, after such a schism, the player characters might lead a new colony, or be among the few remainders of a base in dire need of new resources. Both options put the player characters in the lead, depending on what happens to the series characters, in a much grittier and more desperate campaign. The gamemaster might choose to tell both stories, weaving the narrative between two player character groups as a common destiny begins to become clear.

After Exodus

There are several episodes of the series where Koenig is prepared to trigger Operation Exodus but has to rescind or reverse the order (such as Guardian of Piri or Full Circle). In several other episodes, there is an offer to join another culture’s journey (such as Mission of the Darians). What if the Alphans had abandoned Alpha? If they discover that Exodus is a mistake, how to they make the best of the situation as the moon travels on without them? How do they manage their new home on another planet or spacecraft? In this game, the adventures involves the politics of dealing with the incumbent civilization and exploring their new home, but the adventure is far from over.

Download your free Quickstart Guide today and begin crafting your fantastic Space: 1999 roleplaying experiences! 

The Space: 1999 Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook promises to thrust you into even more exciting worlds of cosmic adventure - all created by you! The Core Rulebook is available to pre-order now and should be arriving late June.

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