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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 2673223" data-attributes="member: 32740">I've done a fair amount of thinking and even a bit of work on a d20 X-Com game but haven't ever made a lot of progress.  The thing that really keeps stopping me is the fact that I can't find a good selection of appropriate minis - greys, snakemen, floaters, chrysallids, etc. - and I can ONLY picture it as a heavily miniatures and 3D-terrain oriented game.  I'd need the minis, 3D buildings, UFO's, and more and that would take time that I just don't have to spend on it so I don't make much progress on the rules-side.Some things I have determined though: aside from the basic set-up the RPG should NOT attempt to follow the progression of the computer game.  It must follow its own course which is not nearly as LIMITED as the computer game was.  Also, although there should occasionally be an introduction of a new piece of researched equipment the game would proceed for a long time using pretty much just the initial selection of equipment.  To do otherwise will quite rapidly spiral the game out of control.  This is just a basic factor that you have to accept as a difference between the requirements of an RPG vs. a computer game.  Finally, the basic structure of the computer game was one player running the platoon of troops on tactical missions.  An RPG isn't going to be able to follow that same paradigm very well.  You either need to pare down the concept to a small, tactical response team of PC's or else the players are going to be running a LOT more than one PC.The real potential for an X-Com RPG comes in NOT having the limitations of a computer game.  You can feature a much greater variety of missions including missions that are NOT just bughunts - even missions that do not directly feature aliens at all!  You can feature the political implications, the problems of RUNNING a secret organization and KEEPING it secret (at least the location of its base secret), the response of the general public to alien invasion, and more.  Heck, you don't even have to feature X-Com troops as PC's!  Speaking of Spycraft, you could run the game from the angle of operatives attempting to identify and root out alien influences throughout the world - the guys who try to prevent countries from withdrawing their X-Com funding or who hunt down the aliens that ESCAPE from X-Com military missions.In short, an X-Com RPG should not attempt to recreate the computer game - it should simply take the premise of the computer game and present an initial campaign setting to fit it.</blockquote>

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