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Space: 1999 - The Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook
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Expected 22 Sep 26This is a pre-order. Shipping is expected to start March 2025. You will also automatically receive the Quickstart PDF immediately after purchase and the full Core Rulebook PDF as soon as it is available. If your order includes pre-order items, it will delay your shipping until the items are in stock. A cataclysmic accident has sent Earth’s moon hurtling into space, leaving behind a broken planet. Life has become a fight for survival for the people of Moonbase Alpha as their journey takes them far deeper into the universe than they ever thought possible! Take part in a journey full of danger, wonder, and mystery as one of the dedicated crew of Moonbase Alpha on their search for a new home. Play an adventurous pilot, a stalwart security guard, a bold commander, an audacious medic, or any one of the 300 Alphans. Whatever you choose, each mission puts the future of Moonbase Alpha in your hands. What will you do to rise to the challenge on the frontier of space? 1999experience. The 196-page full colour 1999 Core Rulebook Extensive detail about life on Moonbase Alpha, its locations, departments, and how the people of the base spend their time. A complete rules system using the award-winning 2d20 system. Create a unique character or play as one of 1999’s iconic cast, such as John Koenig or Dr Russell. Advice and rules for running the game and creating new adventures, whether you are an experienced gamemaster or running a game for the first time. A host of non-player characters with systems and advice for creating new and exciting people and aliens to encounter. A ready-made adventure - ‘Project Arrow’ - to begin your campaign, where the people of Moonbase Alpha launch one last, desperate attempt to reach Earth. Anderson Entertainment Limited 2024. 1999 and ITC Entertainment Group 1975 and 2024. Licensed by ITV Studios Limited. All Rights Reserved.
296 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication September 22, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 15, 2026
A glimpse back into the glorious, colourful history of 1970s science fiction, with an opportunity to make your own mark on the fate of Moonbase Alpha.
The Space: 1999 Core Rulebook offers a simplified and stripped-back version of the Modiphius house system, 2d20. The core mechanic involves rolling two twenty-sided dice (thus 2d20) and aiming to roll beneath a target number determined by the player character's own statistics. In Space: 1999, that's a Skill — determined by their spread of expertise in various departments like Command, Science and Flight — and Attitude — associated with how the character approaches a task, like with Bravery or Perseverance. If you roll a 1 — or below your Skill, if you have a useful focus, you get two successes on that die.
The book looks great with a layout and colour scheme shared with the Moonbase Alpha Technical Operations Manual, published by Anderson Entertainment. A ton of pictures from the series, in both colour and black-and-white, with a clear layout and bright colours, make this an engaging visual experience.
There's plenty of background information to get a grasp of the series, with an episode-by-episode overview, but I would recommend watching the series on streaming or disc to truly appreciate the wonders of the original series and the aesthetic that informs everything you see here.
For me, as a roleplayer, the system is both overly simple and yet overworked. Fathoming the specifics of a challenge, the use of Momentum, and the modifications involved tips the balance toward a level of complexity that doesn't fit the otherwise simple setup of characters.
The business of creating characters makes them all professionally capable, but in doing so, makes them all quite similar. Much of the individuality available only comes from secondary or tertiary qualities like Traits, Focus, or physical appearance and quirks — all non-numeric qualities.
Departments as skills mean that certain activities sit uncomfortably together, like Flight, which includes athletic actions. The outcome is that someone with a low technology level can't have any athletic talent - a cave dweller has a Flight of zero, because sensibly they can't pilot an Eagle or drive a moon buggy, but they also lack the coordination to chase someone.
Attitudes, as the second part of the challenge equation, have a lot of room for wiggling, such that a Player might make an argument that their best scores work for everything. And if you're going to have fun at the table, you don't want to have an argument every time about whether you can fix an exploded panel or make a good cup of coffee with Bravery or Mystery.
The adventure, Project Arrow, calls for a level of experience and event handling that warrants a seasoned game runner rather than a newcomer, as it is quite freeform in the second and, especially, the third acts. There are uses of complications in the adventure that don't figure in the earlier explanations in the book, where they link more to complex injuries and conditions than to social attitudes and mission faux pas.
I love the series, and I want to love the game, because the presentation is great. I plan to run it, and for that reason, I can go no lower than "I Like It"/three stars in my rating, but the game needs more to be useful for anything beyond a couple of one-off games. It probably needs a different system, but when you have a house ruleset, you use it. I think 2d20 could work, but it needs more options and maybe something different to replace Attitudes that create more issues than value.
There are also aspects of the series that don't necessarily receive sufficient consideration in the game. Many episodes of the series end with almost no conflict, in ways that almost defy logic, because the story needs to conclude. I'm not certain what the mechanic would be, but it would have been nice to see that covered — probably some form of non-combat extended task that allows the simple folk of Moonbase Alpha to defeat god-like entities with inexplicable solutions.
Anyway, the book definitely warrants a place on your shelf for the look, the nostalgia and the potential, but you might not get the long-term campaign out of it you hoped for without working some of your own magic (possibly with the Improvisation Attitude and a dose of Mystery).
The Space: 1999 Core Rulebook offers a simplified and stripped-back version of the Modiphius house system, 2d20. The core mechanic involves rolling two twenty-sided dice (thus 2d20) and aiming to roll beneath a target number determined by the player character's own statistics. In Space: 1999, that's a Skill — determined by their spread of expertise in various departments like Command, Science and Flight — and Attitude — associated with how the character approaches a task, like with Bravery or Perseverance. If you roll a 1 — or below your Skill, if you have a useful focus, you get two successes on that die.
The book looks great with a layout and colour scheme shared with the Moonbase Alpha Technical Operations Manual, published by Anderson Entertainment. A ton of pictures from the series, in both colour and black-and-white, with a clear layout and bright colours, make this an engaging visual experience.
There's plenty of background information to get a grasp of the series, with an episode-by-episode overview, but I would recommend watching the series on streaming or disc to truly appreciate the wonders of the original series and the aesthetic that informs everything you see here.
For me, as a roleplayer, the system is both overly simple and yet overworked. Fathoming the specifics of a challenge, the use of Momentum, and the modifications involved tips the balance toward a level of complexity that doesn't fit the otherwise simple setup of characters.
The business of creating characters makes them all professionally capable, but in doing so, makes them all quite similar. Much of the individuality available only comes from secondary or tertiary qualities like Traits, Focus, or physical appearance and quirks — all non-numeric qualities.
Departments as skills mean that certain activities sit uncomfortably together, like Flight, which includes athletic actions. The outcome is that someone with a low technology level can't have any athletic talent - a cave dweller has a Flight of zero, because sensibly they can't pilot an Eagle or drive a moon buggy, but they also lack the coordination to chase someone.
Attitudes, as the second part of the challenge equation, have a lot of room for wiggling, such that a Player might make an argument that their best scores work for everything. And if you're going to have fun at the table, you don't want to have an argument every time about whether you can fix an exploded panel or make a good cup of coffee with Bravery or Mystery.
The adventure, Project Arrow, calls for a level of experience and event handling that warrants a seasoned game runner rather than a newcomer, as it is quite freeform in the second and, especially, the third acts. There are uses of complications in the adventure that don't figure in the earlier explanations in the book, where they link more to complex injuries and conditions than to social attitudes and mission faux pas.
I love the series, and I want to love the game, because the presentation is great. I plan to run it, and for that reason, I can go no lower than "I Like It"/three stars in my rating, but the game needs more to be useful for anything beyond a couple of one-off games. It probably needs a different system, but when you have a house ruleset, you use it. I think 2d20 could work, but it needs more options and maybe something different to replace Attitudes that create more issues than value.
There are also aspects of the series that don't necessarily receive sufficient consideration in the game. Many episodes of the series end with almost no conflict, in ways that almost defy logic, because the story needs to conclude. I'm not certain what the mechanic would be, but it would have been nice to see that covered — probably some form of non-combat extended task that allows the simple folk of Moonbase Alpha to defeat god-like entities with inexplicable solutions.
Anyway, the book definitely warrants a place on your shelf for the look, the nostalgia and the potential, but you might not get the long-term campaign out of it you hoped for without working some of your own magic (possibly with the Improvisation Attitude and a dose of Mystery).
November 2, 2025
A worthy read for anyone nostalgic about the 70s TV series.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews