For some odd reason, I have found myself contemplating Battlelords of the 23rd Century, which has been around for 20 years (believe it or not) and is in its 3rd edition. I’ve known of it all that time too, but never bothered to give it a look until now. My awareness of the game was that it was one of those insane kitchen-sink sci-fi/fantasy games, kinda like the infamous SenZar or the perhaps even more nefarious Synnibar, that many gamers would be embarrassed to have on their shelf (“Oh, I don’t actually play it…”) But where those games are truly awful and deserve their poor reputation, as it turns out, B23 (as I’ll abbreviate it) seems to be a rather more respectable 2nd-tier game and has even garnered praise from gaming luminary Ken Hite!
And although I still take my sci-fi pretty seriously, I’ve developed a greater sense of nostalgia for the kind of sci-fi I embraced back in the 80′s, when Hollywood churned out plenty of sci-fi B-movies of the so-bad-it’s-good variety, which is kinda what B23 is starting to look like to me. Something kinda like, oh, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Last Starfighter or The Ice Pirates.
In B23, the PCs are mercenaries/media stars who travel the galaxy blowing shit up (which in some respects reminds me of another acquired taste cult RPG, SLA Industries) . Can’t argue with that. The game seems to have a lot of gear list lurv going on and the requisite weapon and crunchy combat system fetish that plays to a certain taste (which I sometimes crave). Normally, high crunch games have to really hook me to be worth my time. The game also apparently wears its sense of humor on its sleeve, which may be the source of my relative disinterest over the years. But maybe I’ve gotten over myself a bit and so now I’m actually considering getting a copy and seeing what I’ve been missing the past 20 years.
