Pendragon

Woot! *pats self on back* It's very nice to see people so open to critcism. I wish it was more common. I wish you all the best of luck and may you modify d20 to hell and back, and then, even I might use it. Oh, and with the vitality, I'd be a lot stricter when people are able to "take hits to their vitality" an unexpected sniper attack from a hidden enemy should disregard vitality in most cases. A suggestion: In SW d20 a critical hit is a natural 20 (or in some cases 19-20, or even better) followed by a succesful attack roll. How about sniper attacks get a much higher probaility of critical hits, like 16-20 or even 11-20, or just declare that the critical number has been rolled automatically and all you need to roll is attack roll as usual. Succesful means critical hit, damage directly to hitpoints and a failed roll means the target gets lucky and take the damage off his vitality instead. Oh well, you get the general idea. Then again, Star Wars might already have this problem fixed. Another Idea is to have the X-com operative class receive a lot less vitality than Soldiers in star wars do, like a d6 instead of a d10. How are you going to do with the attack bonus? Break it out as a skill so people aren't forced to become more adept at fighting if theyd rather concentrate on skills (like scientists and engineers)?

Well the problem with this is, that theres a lot of things that do not take years to learn how. In four months of basic training in the army learned (among other things): Handling and firing 5 different types of small arms (2 assult rifles, 1 smg, 1 pistol, 1 machinegun). I can probably still field strip these at put them back together again with my eyes closed (although nowhere near as quick, it was a few years ago). Handling and firing both a recoiless rifle and disposable rocket launcher. Fieldcraft and camouflage. (This includes the art of having 10 people assemble a tent in a coordinated fashion in pitch darkness, without making too much noise) First aid and CPR. Crosscountry navigation (at night as well) Basic unarmed combat. Gurad duty with all the legal stuff that comes with it (education equal to a civilian security guard licence). Trapping, skinning, preparing and cooking animals like rabbits and such. Group and platoon tactics. Basic hand to hand, unarmed and armed. This is stuff I still know today. Sure I might be a bit rusty, but it's nothing that doesent come back to me within minutes. That would make my class soldier I guess? Now see here, we had platoon medic as well, who got there six weeks ahead of us. Helearned all the stuff we know, as well as his medic skills. It's called cross training, and guess what, its realistic. And it doesnt take years. I cant see any reason why a medic shouldnt be able to handle a rocket launcher. Or a grunt learning medic skills, that's why I dont like classes one bit. As for d20 XCom, couldnt you just do away with levels altogether? Or get it the other way arounf, meaning that instead of skills being defined by level, level is defined by skills. Meaning that instead of levels, you are awarded skill points wich can be used to raise skills, combat capacity (wich should be turned into skills instead of an abstract attack bonus and feats) etc. Level is then calculated from how good you are at your skills, basically. This gives more linear improvement rather than the huge leaps levels sometimes mean, If you decide to stick with d20 hitpoint type system, I'd like you to take a look at d20 Star Wars where hitpoints has been divided into hitpoints (wich is equal to your CON and never increases) and vitality, wich increases with every level. Vitality represents dumb luck, character shielding (aka the-not-dying-right-away-since-I'm-a-main-character-clause), near misses etc. When you run out of vitality, or receive a critical hit hower, damage is subtracted straight from your hit points, and you dont have a lot of those. The improvement with this over hitpoints should be obvious.

Well, on the hit points matter, I really dont mind players being killed with a single shot, it keeps them on their toes. But in all honesty, killed is probably a bit overkill. Instead, I would make it fairly easy to become incapacitated with a fair chance of survival if given to proper medical attention in time (back at the base, of course). With this in mind, both players and characters will be given the incentive to grab their wounded buddys and retreat while there's still enough people on their feet to carry them, rather than battling to the death (something faaar too common among most players). Naturally, this also opens up a lot more possibilities of wounded operatives being captured and experimented on by naughty sectoids. There's a swedish game called Västmark (3rd edition hits the stores tomorrow, previous editions available for free at www.foxtail.nu , unfortunately only in swedish) where dying from wounds is an optional rule. You can become mortally wounded fairly easy, wich basically means youre badly hurt, but with enough time to heal (wich is a long time) you'll recover, well unless the GM decides otherwise. Basically, if youre down the GM decides if you make it. Very good from a drama point of view, makes sure the hero isnt killed by the first lucky highwayman that comes along (beaten, robbed and left for dead perhaps) and thus foiling the GM's carefully planned epic campaign. I might add that minor npc's do not get this luxury, if they become mortally wounded, theyre dead, unless the GM wishes otherwise. But hey, theyre extras.

Whats unrealistic about D&D? I'll make a list of the first things that comes into my mind... Hit points. Levels. Classes. The combat system in general. It's 4:40 am here so I wont get into detail right now. I dont see why we, the consumers, should support a "mediocre" game when there a better ones out there?

And that's your problem right there. X-Com is going to be realistic. (At least, I sure hope so. ) Dungeons and Dragons is NOT realistic, It was never ment to be realistic. So don't compare X-Com to Dungeons and Dragons? Mmmmkay? Just because they are going to be using a D20 system, DOES NOT MEAN they will be ripping everything off Dungeons and Dragons. :hmmm: Have you ever tryed to make your own D- system? It is superbly hard. It took me 2 months to get a basic idea down JUST for a System that used only 2 D6 dice for X-Com, and let me tell you it is nothing NEAR being complete or in most cases even workable, but the my group and I manage to fill in the blanks with our imaginations but still keeping it as realistic. (And in alot of case's very graphic deaths. ) Also, you have to remember a simple yet one of the most important rules to have ever of been said. KISS. Or "Keep It Simple Silly" If you make the game too complex that only players who have weeks to learn the rules, no one will play it. But on the other hand if it is TOO simple there's usally nothing in-depth about it, and makes it uninteresting to play. I've never played any of those systems you have mentioned, but I do know for a fact that for brand new players. D&D is very easy to get into, while still retaining enough depth to make it fun and enjoyable. I think thats the main reason why D&D is so popular. Yup let me get off my soap box now. Well... uhm... throw me in a meatgrinder and serve me to the pigs if I'm wrong, but didnt Fugue say that it would be compatible enough with Dungeons and Dragons to import characters, like umm, a mage i think it was? That means, it would have levels, and levels means hitpoints, and hitpoints means screwed up realism. Of course, you could try to fix it, but the little trouble with d20 is this: If you try to fiddle with the system beyond minor tweaking, everything will crumble and you will have to rebuild evrything from scratch. Trust me, I've tried. The biggest problem with d20 isnt that it's bad, it's that is too hard to fix. Have I tried to chalk up a system? Yes I have. Several in fact. Better than d20? You bet. Better than anything else I can find? Not even close. What I have done is tweak a lot of system to fit me and the way I perceive the gaming world. There's hardly a system I've used that I haven't tweaked in some way. There are two notable exceptions. One is good 'ol AD&D where I ran two lenghty campaigns, before discarding it as hopeless to fix. This was with a group of six people, all experienced RPG'ers who tried several different system, and we couldnt make the damn system work even remotley satisfiyngly. The second was Star Wars d20. I admit, it was a great improvement over old AD&D and I was greatly optimistic. Until we started playing. You just cant tweak it to simulate any kind of realism. We've since reverted to the old Star Wars by the now defunct West End Games. As for keeping it simple, every single one of the systems are lot less complex than the overly-complex-without-any-benefit-whatsoever-from-the-complexity-d20 while still managing to be a lot mor realistic. Hell, I've seen 12-year old kids who barely speaks english (I live in Sweden) grasp Heavy Gear just from leafing through the book. It's basically the easiest system to learn I've ever seen, mostly because it's written very, very well. D20 is overly complicated, and abstracts things into absurdity. Honestly, compared to the systems I mentioned (and several others unavailable to the amrican/international market for various reasons) I cant see anyone calling it simple. Even White Wolf's storyteller system makes more sense (storytelling, in my opinion, is a poor excuse to make shoddy system). Hopefully, the most excellent swedish RPG Eon will be translated to english sometime soon. That's a system I will recommend from the bottom of my very soul. And to top it off, If some kind soul would be so kind to direct me to where one can find the complete UFOpaedia for any of the three first games and I will see what I can do to scribble together a plugin/mod for X-com for a system. Probably one of the generic widely available ones like GURPS or FUDGE. Ill take a look at Fuzion (another free system) and see how that is.

First of all I'd like to say that, the despite the fact that I'm both a big fan of the X-Com games and RPG's in general, I'm skeptical. Being a fan of X-Com means that I dont want it to be turned into a RPG. I want to see it as a great RPG. I'm not sure Fugue and his colleagues can live up to those expectations. So far, judging from the website and the post here, the would-be authors lack a good enough grasp of the english language to write a good game (I might be wrong, but this is the impression I get, and until I'm proven wrong, I'll stick to that). Also, the artwork is... well, lets just say, not good enough. Luckily, they seem to have realized this and asked for help, at least with the art. I do get intrigued when they present themselves as a company and that their RPG writing experience limits itself the d20. No offense, but it comes across to me like a bunch of X-Com fanboys who wants to merge their favourite computergame with the only RPG they know. Dungeons and Dragons. Wich brings me to my next point. Dungeons and Dragons. Or d20 games in general. I regard it as one of the absolute worst RPG systems available today. The fact that it's the biggest around only makes it worse, since a lot of people seem to think RPG's = d20. Now, I might be biased against d20 games, and some might argue that they have a lot of fun with them and that it works for them. Well thats good for them, to each their own, but what I'm worried about in this case is not that d20 is a bad system as much it is inappropriate for X-Com. X-Com (1-3) felt pretty realistic, at least in the lethality department where even your toughest operatives went down pretty easily when hit, especially without their armour. Dungeons and Dragons might be a lot of things, like fast-paced and fun, but realistic it is not. Not by a long shot. There are tonnes of gamesystems that would be more suitable, in fact, most of them would. I would advise the Fugue boys to look through the following systems before proceeding: Twilight/Merc 2000 (Loren K. Wiseman, GDW, Out of print, but scheduled to be re-released) GURPS (Steve Jackson games) FUDGE (Steffan O'Sullivan, available for free) Buffy the Vampire Slayer (C.J. Carella, Eden Studios) Heavy Gear (Dream Pod 9, seamless integration between tactical combat game and RPG) I doubt anyone who's tried them will disagree on their greater suitability to bring X-Com to the RPG scene.