Battlelords of the 23rd Century, 7th Edition - Science Fiction Roleplaying Game
Created by 23rd Century Productions
Battlelords of the 23rd Century (Kickstarter Edition) is a full color, hardcover tabletop sci-fi RPG book. The new version features streamlined rules.
Kickstarter is now closed, but you can still purchase the book at retail price below.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
New playtest rules posted on drivethrurpg.com
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 08:26:34 PM
They aren’t live yet, but we well let you know as soon as the files are approved.
New files posted:
Gen-Con 2018 Characters
Vehicle & Ultra Armor Rules (New piece of art hidden in there!)
Space Combat Rules (New piece of art hidden in there too!)
Some changes were made to the existing PDFs. The updates to the prior PDFs may be live by the time you read this.
Character Generation & Skills Rules Only PDF: A typo in the Orion stats was fixed and the Gen-Human’s have been modified. The Skills rules were clarified.
Combat Rules Only PDF: Combat Rules were simplified and re-ordered into Basic, Advanced, and Optional sections.
This is how you know the police are tired of your antics. #SWAThopper
November Update
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 05:11:53 PM
PRODUCTION
The first five chapters are out of editing and being prepped for layout. We are working with our layout designer, a gaming industry veteran, to get the manuscript set up to streamline the editing process.
PLAYTEST
The vehicle & Ultra Armor rules will be prepped for playtest soon. The spaceship rules will also be prepped for playtest. We will likely be releasing an updated version of the combat and skills rules when the vehicle and spaceship chapters are released for playtesting.
GEN CON 2019
We have submitted out application to be an exhibitor at Gen Con 2019. Some quick math showed they have approximately 20-30 available booths for several hundred applicants. There’s no telling if our application will be accepted, but we’re all crossing our fingers over here. Thanks to our fans as supporters As we approach the tail end of our journey to release the newest version of Battlelords of the 23rd Century to our fans and supporters we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support, patience, and love of the game.
PRE-ORDERS
If didn’t get in on the incredible kickstarter deal there is still time to pre-order the book. Remember, with the additional pages we added to the projected book size since the kickstarter closed you’ll be getting even a better deal! Once the pre-orders close the price will dramatically increase. PRE-ORDER HERE: https://battlelords-revised-edition.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Savior Class Rescue Cutter on its way out to pull your bacon out of the fire.
October Update
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 09:55:23 PM
October Update
Production
The Hostile Alien Lifeform (HALS) chapter just went to editing. Vehicles and equipment aren’t far behind. We’re still putting the finishing touches on the Spacecraft chapter, Cybernetics Chapter, and the GM chapter. We’ve always felt the GM chapter could use a bit of a buffing up. The Battlelords universe is so vast and open to possibilities that we felt players might appreciate a bit more guidance on where to go for their mischief and the GMs might appreciate a bit more info on how to manage all that mayhem. Part of the new additions to the GM chapter are pre-made teams of mercenaries, pirates, soldiers, and spies.
For example, the artwork below depicts a team of pre-generated Alliance Galactic Armed Forces soldiers. I feel safer already knowing Private 3rd Class Kothic-Idan “Tantrum,” Private 1st Class Krim-Tar “Snarl,” Medic Second Class Ashlidene, Private 1st Class Gomer, and their commanding officer Takrasish “Tak” are protecting us from the threats of the Arachnids and Atlanteans!
Artwork
Except for a few spaceship deck plans and some corporate logos all the artwork for the book is FINISHED!
Production comes before playtest, so we probably won’t be releasing playtest materials until late November or December. Look for humpties and spacecraft. Probably revised rules and maybe those GenCon characters… time permitting.
SEPTEMBER UPDATE
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 06:56:54 PM
Release Date
We’ve had a lot of inquires about the release date for the 7th Edition Battlelords, which is understandable given the tentative release date we had listed for the Kickstarter. Obviously, the book did not materialize in August. Why?
There are two reasons. The first reason is that the 6th edition book required substantially more rewriting than we had initially anticipated. As we really started to dig into the 6th edition sections we planned on repurposing/reusing for 7th edition it was clear than many of them just weren’t a good match for the revisions we were making, both in terms of tone and writing style. We had to rewrite a lot more than we thought we were going to.
The second reason is one we’ve had a lot of positive feedback on. Our original plan was to have the 7th edition book be between 350 and 400 pages. If you recall, 6th edition was 288 pages. We had assumed this would be plenty of room for all the additional material we were planning on cramming into 7th edition. We’ve added a lot of new material to the core rules. Humpties! Spacecraft! Vehicles! Arachnids and HALs! Pre-gen teams with art! As we finished more and more of 7th edition, it was clear that it was not all going to fit and that we would have to do significant pruning of the material.
What we saw at Gen Con this year was that books were getting bigger. The trend to spread the content across multiple books is dead… or at least dying. Gamers want their content in a single volume. The advent of digital media and tablets means gamers don’t have to worry about the weight anymore. Your PDF only weighs as much as your iPad. And if for some reason you do need the physical book the preference appears to be for a single volume rather than a stack of books. With that firmly in mind we have opted to expand the page count of the book to 450-500 pages. Hardback. Full Color throughout.
The upside to this for our Kickstarter supporters and those who pre-order is that you’re getting MORE CONTENT for the same amount of money. The MSRP of the book will likely increase due to account for the added size and printing cost, but that will NOT affect our Kickstarter supporters and pre-order customers.
So when will it be here. We’re continually pushing on this book. There are 8 of the 13 chapters are already in editing and will be in layout soon, so you can rest assured we’re not sitting over here drinking margaritas. However, we’re not going to release the book until we’re sure it’s damn near perfect, which makes it difficult for us to assign a firm release date. As of right now we’re shooting to have the manuscript at the printers in the first quarter of 2019. Those who ordered PDFs along with hardcopies will receive their PDFs shortly after they book goes to the printer. We appreciate your continued support and patience with us.
We will be releasing playtest materials for some sections of the book you haven’t seen yet. Humpties, spacecraft, etc. We may release updated versions of the previously released rules, so you have them for playtest, but unless someone finds a glaring error the core rules of the system are tested and set at this point.
Gen Con Characters
We will also be publishing the pre-generated characters we used at Gen Con 2018, so you can utilize them for any playtesting or gaming you’d like to do.
The Bohemian Class Starcruiser seen here flying through the clouds puts most other luxury yachts to shame. The swimming pool and artificial beach under the large windows seal the deal for most discerning buyers.
A Short July Update
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 01:56:20 PM
Here is a short pre-GEN CON update.
GENCON
We are nearly done prepping for GEN CON 2018. We have 15 scenarios printed, along with 90 characters, 4 GM screens, and 45 reference sheets. In case you were curious that’s nearly 500 sheets of paper. Though the con takes up a lot of our time we felt it was important to have a presence there, and testing and prepping for so many games really let us polish the system.
We’ll try and post updates at the con.
If you’re attending, even if you’re not playing one of our games, please stop and say hi.
We have Battlelords goodies!
If you are attending Gen Con 2018 and haven’t signed up for a Battlelords game we have spots open, or you can use generic tickets to try and get into a game that’s at capacity.
PLAYTESTING
Once Gen Con is over we will be posting some additional new material for playtesting. In addition, we will release the characters we created for Gen Con so you can use them for your playtesting.
COPY EDITOR
We have received over a dozen inquiries regarding the copy editor position and should be making a decision shortly. Once the copy editor is done, those chapters go to the compositor for page layout. We hope to get some teaser previews out to you sometime after Gen Con.
"Yeah, they come in blue. You didn't think grass was green and brown on every planet, did you?
