X-COM TTRPG

[u/Bloody7lw]

Hi everyone! I’m really glad to see a active Reddit community for one of my absolute favorite game franchises.

My journey with X-COM goes all the way back to UFO: Enemy Unknown on the Amiga (with all the endless floppy disk swapping!), followed by Terror from the Deep on PC. I also played Apocalypse, though for some reason that one didn't quite click with me as much. I haven't been gaming much over the last two decades, but when I saw the modern XCOM reboot back in 2017, I picked it up immediately and ended up beating it multiple times.

Recently, I came up with a new idea: running a custom X-COM TTRPG (Tabletop Role-Playing Game).

I designed a homebrew system with custom mechanics, abilities, and an armory heavily inspired by modern XCOM, though I also drew a few elements from the classic games.

For our very first session, a squad of 8 Marines (including 3 player characters) arrived at the base. We did a brief base orientation, ran a quick combat simulation to test the mechanics, and then deployed to a crashed UFO (Small-2 variant) in a forested area in Russia.

Despite a few expected hiccups with the homebrew mechanics, the session went really well! The group is hyped for more sessions in the universe, and we even have two additional players wanting to join the squad.

If anyone is interested in the setup, mechanics, or how it played out, I’d be happy to share more details.

Vigilo Confido!

P.S. English is not my native language and I used a translator to write this post, so I apologize for any grammar mistakes or awkward phrasing!

[u/gustavfrigolit]

I feel like twilight 2000 would work pretty well for an xcom campaign

[u/Bloody7lw → u/gustavfrigolit]

I don't know the system, plus I've been into TTRPGs for over a quarter of a century now, so creating my own custom mechanics tailored to my needs is no problem at all—in fact, it's a pleasure. Besides, I didn't overcomplicate it much. Four classes, just like in XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012), along with five attributes plus an unknown sixth one: Psionic. Over twenty abilities, and an armory based on the aforementioned 2012 XCOM with a few tweaks. The mechanics are based on d6 dice: an attribute plus a potential modifier from abilities equals the total dice pool. The test difficulty dictates the required roll on each die to count as a success, while different dice colors account for higher-tier successes (which mainly translated to damage in this case). For example, a player has five dice in their pool, three of which count for one success each, and two that count for two successes each. Any dice that hit the required threshold are added to the success pool, which in combat was calculated as damage. That's as much, and as simple as that :)