As I mentioned in the Fanfic area, lately I've been reading a thread on Forumopolis where they're running the cheap version of an XCOM sim. http://forumopolis.com/showthread.php?t=2601

The gamemaster(s) named the soldiers after the forum regulars and then (with occasional respawns using captured cloning technology) just play the game and post updates and screenshots telling what happened to who.

It's pretty hilarious.

I'd love to do this here but I (a) have another distracting trip coming up in September and (b) may not be in the best situation to take screenshots, although I have yet to experiment. Someone with loads of free time would maybe also be in a better situation - anyone bored on summer vacation?

I'll let the idea simmer. Maybe some of our better players could keep nearly everyone alive.

Sounds interesting but very uninteractivelessnessive... :/ Does anyone actually have input to this style of fanfic or is it just down to the gamemaster to not let people die?

Well, we did that at XcomUFO for TFTD and Xcom, i ran one for TFTD once, what happens is you play a game and name soldiers after forum members. Then you post what happens on missions, with your own fluff to make it more interesting

I stopped because i didn't have enough time and it was slightly monotonous to play a mission, minimize, write in notepad what happened and who said what(interesting, but it took a very long time)

Sounds about right.

@Vet, people got input on their choice of weapons. (There was a queue for the BlasterLaunchers, of course. Winner wielded two Blaster Launchers Akimbo.) Otherwise they made the usual peanut gallery comments about strategy and tactics which had some effect. Interactiveness up to the gamemaster, I guess.

I can't take screenshots with my setup, it turns out, so I won't be running one of these myself any time soon. But hey, I might name soldiers after you guys anyway, even if it's just to see who gets psionically controlled and shoots whom in the back.