Again another computer game series that would make excellent RPG materials

The premise is as follows, for years earth has been visited by aliens, people have been abducted, experimented upon and worse... the world governments decide that action needs to be taken to protect earth and its inhabitants and find out what these aliens are up to, so they form a group called X-Com, candidates are drawn from all the militaries of the worlds armed forces into these elite, globally funded organisation.

RACES:
Humans (National feats would be a major plus with these)
Human/Alien Hybrids (introduced in later X-Com games)
Androids (introduced in later X-Com games)

CLASSES:
Soldier
Agent
Technical Officer
Scientific Officer
Psychic Specialist

Game has heaps of equipment both earth based and alien, as well as hybrid earth/alien technology. It also has vehicles from mundane earth transports and interceptors to alien/earth hybrid craft and full alien vessels, tanks etc..

The Aliens of course are of many types all produced by one major alien kind the Ethereal who have a base on Mars, Cydonia. Later it is discovered these aliens have bases under the earths seas, add lots more aliens, and later the aliens actually turn out to be under the control of an alien virus like parasitic life that is controlling them all and seeks to take over earth... these are of course from another dimension... as a result the scope of creatures and places and depth of story potential is massive, from people hunting out aliens in urban locations, to checking out downed vessels, destroying alien facilities, revealing alien presence, exposing thier plans, going to other planets in our solar system and more...

_________________
Cpl. Mark "Neo" Howe MI68-94
http://www.neo73.plus.com/
MI Forward Reconnaissance, The Wolf Pack
Mongooses "Old Man" of Playtesting
completed playtests #130!
Gaming since 1980

X-com game 1 and 2, the best games i have ever played on a PC. You got my vote Neo..

Now this would be something worth seeing, though I'd be a little more interested in the under water bits, but then I always prefered TFTD over the original X-Com.

One cool thing too might be to do such a game with multiple characters, with players taking on the roles of scientists, agents, pilots, and landing parties.

Having some sort of system for base customization and tech trees for alien research would be a nice step as well.

good idea. I would like to see an x-com rpg as well

cmnash

Something Like Conspiracy X without so much of the Conspiracy bit. Now this is always a very popular idea. The setting is so cool the way it evolved over the games, a source book for each (Enemy Unknown, Terror From the Deep), a campaign guide to take us to the single earth city of the future, and an interceptor book to cover starships and outerspace for all eras.

Enemy Unknown Core Rules - Covers Extra terrestrials, Mars, Moon, Earth Governments, X-Com, Bases, alien races, research etc with Campaign notes from Computer Game.

Terror From the Deep - Campaigns based around underwater missions etc... Lots of new alien races and aquatic rules. With Campaign notes based on taking from the game

Appocalypse - Corporations, Dimensional Aliens and Ships. Campaign notes from Game and how the future came to be.

Interceptor - Rules for taking X-Com into outer space.

I like the idea of having several layers of game. A political one, research one, covert operations and military one. Personally I think following a kind of Military/Covert Ops route would be best.

I am now thinking of B-5 as a core X-Com system...... Its got all the character types covered and a nice realistic combat system.....

_________________
"I agree with everything I say, but not necessarily everything I have said".

X-COM could also incorporate certain ideas such as FGU's Freedom Fighters and possibly the TV series "V", "Invaders", "UFO", etc.. Earth fighting back against a known or unknown (to the general public) alien menace.

_________________
Cpl. Mark "Neo" Howe MI68-94
http://www.neo73.plus.com/
MI Forward Reconnaissance, The Wolf Pack
Mongooses "Old Man" of Playtesting
completed playtests #130!
Gaming since 1980

I like it, but it sounds like it might fit into the product line better as an "Alien Invasion" supplement to a more generic "OGL Sci-Fi" system (which would also avoid any licencing issues)

So long as it covers all the themes then I don't mind what they call it

_________________
Cpl. Mark "Neo" Howe MI68-94
http://www.neo73.plus.com/
MI Forward Reconnaissance, The Wolf Pack
Mongooses "Old Man" of Playtesting
completed playtests #130!
Gaming since 1980

Well, I'm thinking the sales on a big hardback X-Com book might not be commercially viable (unfortunately, as I loved the games, and still play Apoc from time to time), but a 96-page X-Com (or similarly-themed) sourcebook might be far easier to get into production, with a hardback generic Sci-Fi hardback rulebook (seeing as its probably the biggest omission in the OGL range at the moment) aimed at a wider audience.

As far as usability goes, I'm torn between the usefulness of an entire game in a single volume, and the affordability/storage advantages of a single copy of the rules with smaller settings sourcebooks.

_________________
Matt Thomason
http://www.runetwister.com

Hardbacks are Mongooses thing they haven't released a Setting Rulebook that hasn't been hardback.. its one of the reasons I love the company so much,, perfect bounds just dont ring my bell.

Also Mongoose are one of the most proactive Companies to date and have a number of licenses under thier belts though to date only wizards have tackled a computer game license for use as an RPG (Warlands) and X-Com along with the likes of Fallout are some of the most loved computer game series ever released!

However as I say I wouldn't be opposed to a blatant "this is based on but not called" Alien Invasion type OGL book

_________________
Cpl. Mark "Neo" Howe MI68-94
http://www.neo73.plus.com/
MI Forward Reconnaissance, The Wolf Pack
Mongooses "Old Man" of Playtesting
completed playtests #130!
Gaming since 1980

Well, Cenega managed to pretty much take the entire idea for UFO: Aftermath (technical issues with that game to one side for now), which shows how far you can go without licencing

_________________
Matt Thomason
http://www.runetwister.com

True, but the game ended up having all the original elements that made it fun, removed. I was really disappointed with aftermath.

I am a big fan of the original UFO and Terror from the Deep. I also love the tv show V. I think you might have more success if you marketed it as V, the rpg.

Is could just be an expansion for d20 modern though. Would that come under ogl?

You can indeed produce work based upon the d20 Modern system under the OGL.

The d20 Modern SRD is available at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd

_________________
Matt Thomason
http://www.runetwister.com

I created my own X-Com rpg why back when Terror from the Deep first came out on the pc (around 1996/7) and got to say I loved the tension that came across with both computer games.

I tried to mimic said tension in my own game by only allowing the players access to weaponry and equipment that they had captured from crashed alien craft or terror attacks, following very closely to both of the first games. I also put my wife to work on the number crunching using the X-Com and Terror from the Deep strategy guides and working out the chances of each ship appearing (as in the game). Luckly for me my wife is a mathamatician so she did a great job.

Then it was a case of launching the interceptors to bring down alien bogies, and send the PC's out to investigate the crash sites.

X-Com was one of the best computer games I have ever played and we spent almost a year roleplaying in that world and I would kill to see an official version. From totally destroying Paris and Seattle, too mounting a counter invasion on the Greys homeworld we had a blast!

Marc

_________________
Dredd Times
Upholding the Law since 1999
http://dreddtimes.co.uk