Roleplaying with Phoenix Command

Recently I rediscovered the following notes I had prepared for a Phoenix Command Roleplaying Game manuscript back in 1994. I thought that you might want to see my interpretation of what the PC:RPG might have been. Sadly, I never did any more work on the game as other projects would take up all of my time.

PHOENIX COMMAND
THE DEATH OF NATIONS

ROLE PLAYING ADVENTURE GAME

Introduction

Anno Domini 2060; Earth is dead...

Technological advances allowed humanity to reach for and capture  a foothold in the stars. Though the promise of space was always tremendous natural resources capable of being exploited for the good of the Earth, there was always the danger, just as with the colonization of the Americas, that many people would rather leave the old order behind and strike out into the new frontier to build their own new nations.

Earth was worth abandoning. Its fragile ecosystem had been used up and crushed under the weight of ten billion people. Its nation-states were decaying as debt and economic collapse frayed and wore at the social fabric while resurgent tribalism sparked hundreds of tiny wars, each impossible to end. No one questioned the flood of would-be colonists eager to board any vessel that would get them off-planet, not when one considered what the colonists were willing to leave behind.

But there are the stirrings on the Earth; people are trying to rebuild their fragmented and decaying world. These are people who have run out of faith, out of hope, and out of options. They have to fight to reclaim the Earth from what it has become. For these few desperate visionaries, surrender and death ceased to be options years ago.

PHOENIX COMMAND: The Death of Nations Role Playing Game is a complete role-playing system including all the rules and background necessary to adventure in a game universe of space exploration and societal implosion in the year 2060.

In the Death of Nations setting, humanity has just started exploration of the stars. At the forefront of the exploration are a select few corporations taking tremendous risks in the uncharted reaches of near space. The prizes are habitable worlds, each becoming a base for further explorations and granting its owners a wealth of chemical and biological treasures for exploitation. Humanity's home planet of Earth has been torn apart by war, economic collapse, and unbridled technology. As corporate prestige grows through space exploration, the prestige of nations wanes. Conflict between the two is inevitable.

The time of nations is passing. A new order must assert itself.

Welcome to PHOENIX COMMAND: The Death of Nations.

About the Book

The rules and setting are divided into four parts and several chapters, each of which is further divided into sections. This makes it easy for players to find specific rules when necessary. The tables used when playing the game are presented in the text. For ease of reference, the most important tables are also repeated at the back of the book and are numbered; the number also appears in parentheses whenever the table is referred to in the text.

At least three six-sided dice and one or more ten-sided dice (available in game and hobby stores) are needed for play. The ten-sided die is usually used to generate numbers from 0 to 99. To do this, roll the die twice; the first roll is the tens digit while the second roll represents the ones. So a roll of 6 and 2 would be 62, and a roll of 4 and 9 would be 49.

About the Game

Phoenix Command: Death of Nations is a Roleplaying Game which is part of the Living Steel storyline, and is set 300 years before the desperate last stand of humanity on Rhand in the onslaught of the Spectral invasion, and 100 years before the time of the Seven Worlds rebellion against the Imperium and the invading Dragoncrest Empire. Death of Nations is the prequel to the future histories described in Living Steel and Dragonstar Rising.

Death of Nations tells the story of a future history that would become known as the Corporate Wars. The Corporate Wars served as the foundation for the Imperium that would ultimately enslave Humanity under an oppressive caste system in the Living Steel and Dragonstar Rising settings. In Death of Nations, the Corporations are trying to establish themselves as the new political rulers of the human race.

However, Death of Nations continues the theme of other games in the Living Steel storyline. This theme is that the Dream of the Human Soul, while being crushed and stamped out throughout history, can never truly be eliminated. Every place that it is crushed by tyranny, it rises anew in another place, stepping out of its own ashes like the Phoenix of ancient myths. And the struggle continues.

Nations may die, but the Dream will always continue.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

SITREP
      Worldview
                 
SYSTEMS
      Personae
                  Goals and Objectives
                  Karma System?

      Characters
      Skills and Skill Use
      Combat
      Tactical (& Tactics Overview)
      Vehicles
      Starships
      Mass Destruction
      Survival
      Computers

BACKGROUND
      Science and Technology
      History
      Sitrep: Earth
      Colonial Powers
      Equipment Lists
            Civilian Technology
            Communications and Data Processing
            Covert Operations Equipment
            Scientific Equipment
            Medical Equipment
            Computers
      Weaponry
            Military Gear
            Weapon Lists
      Vehicles
            Civilian
            Military
            Aircraft
      Starcraft Lists

GAMEMASTER
      Back to Basics
      Stories
      Campaigns
      Missions and Operations
      Integration
      Non-Player Characters
      Incoming
      Game Over

TABLES

DESIGNER NOTES: EYES ONLY