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Old 01-29-2005, 11:44 AM   #1
MattStriker
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Default [3rd ed]Another silly idea: X-Com GURPS rules

[Disclaimer: Still using 3rd edition because I'm way too much of a miser to buy 4th :P]


Anybody here remember the old PC game 'X-Com: UFO Defense', a.k.a. 'UFO: Enemy Unknown' (european title)?

It's still regarded as one of the best strategy/tactics games of all time.

Now, just think about it...X-Com the RPG. Investigate abductions. Track down alien infiltrators. Keep the public from freaking out ('You've built what under Chicago?') and take the fight to the little green men with an arsenal of weapons decades or even centuries ahead of earth's finest. Be a member of an organization that hand-picks only the very best of the best.

PCs could be members of a combat team, or covert investigators (those people who find alien bases for you, for example), or even ordinary people who saw too much and needed to be taken in to keep them silent. They could be scientists, fast-talking detectives, tech wizards, hackers, Navy SEALS or elite combat pilots.

It has lots of potential for a RPG.

And GURPS works nicely for it. Not only does it offer a lot of versatility, combat is also just as lethal as it is in the game...without serious armor, an X-Com operative hit by an alien weapon is toast. And even with armor, it's still risky. GURPS Black Ops has a similar background, and a lot of the material in there could be reused. GURPS Special Ops works nicely for putting together 'elite'-type characters. All the psionics you'll need are already in the Basic Set (limited to telepathy). And most of the X-Com and alien tech can be found in Ultra-Tech I + II.

Now, the basic weapons are easy. The starting pistols and rifles are TL 8 chemical slugthrowers as per Ultra-Tech II (X-Com pistol is a 10mm auto pistol, I'd say, and the X-Com rifle can use the stats of a 7.7mm Battle Rifle). Rocket launchers, the basic grenade types (proximity mines are in Ultra-Tech I) and high explosive are also no problem. Laser pistols and rifles can be taken from Ultra-Tech I without any major modifications. Alien plasma weapons can be represented by blaster pistols, blaster rifles, and heavy blaster rifles (which explains why even the best armor sucks against a HP...6dx3 impaling, sheesh ).

I'm not sure about some of the other weapons, though. The cannon and auto-cannon are difficult because of the different ammo types. It's obvious from the effect that the autocannon isn't a true 'minigun' but rather a rapid-firing launcher for some sort of self-propelled grenade, so I thought about building it based on the Gyroc weapons (which, nicely enough, have all the right types of bang-bang). The cannon might work in a similar way. Something to look for would be a GURPS conversion for a Shadowrun assault cannon, which is pretty much the same thing. The Small Launcher is fairly simple...rules-wise, it's a grenade launcher that can only fire a single type of grenade. I don't know what principle stun bombs work on, but there's GURPS options for every possible explanation (sonic stun, concussive stun, gas...). The Blaster Launcher, on the other hand, is a problem. Not so much in terms of power...using TL 9-10 (which the aliens seem to operate on) explosives works nicely to approximate its effect, but because of the odd guidance system. I have absolutely no idea how to represent that rules-wise. That leaves one more weapon...the heavy laser. Now, before you go and say 'but nobody ever uses the heavy laser anyway', in a RPG, people would use it. With high accuracy and power, it makes for an ideal sniper rifle...a role where the low firing rate doesn't really matter that much. Sadly, I've yet to find rules for a 'sniper laser'. The only single-shot laser in the books is the Dinosaur Laser, which is definitely not what I'm looking for.

When it comes to armor...the standard X-Com uniform might contain some TL 7 protection (kevlar or similar antiballistic material), that's it. Personal armor can be represented by reducing the weight of a CID (no helmet, though) to simulate the lesser weight of alien alloys. Power suits and Flying suits are a bit tougher, because the powered armor in Ultra-Tech is a bit more powerful than what we can see in the game. I'd say the armor itself can be approximated by giving TL9 Infantry Combat Armor some of the strength mods of the later power armor. The flying part is tricky again...a contragrav belt is a bit more agile than what Flying Suits can do (i.e. not much faster than a pedestrian)...


More idle musings to come later. Yes, I am nerdy beyond saving, and no, I don't have a life. Thank you for asking :P.
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Old 01-29-2005, 07:19 PM   #2
The Benj
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Platform Zero, Sydney, Australia
Default Re: [3rd ed]Another silly idea: X-Com GURPS rules

I think it's a perfectly good setting to use with GURPS. I did much the same conversion myself.
You don't necessarily need to use items that are already published in GURPS, you can just make new items that do what you need them to do.
For example, all the Flying Suit does is provide DR and let you fly. It doesn't make you move any faster, so you can just say "Yep, you can fly at your normal Move" and it works fine. Right down to it taking twice as much movement to go up.
Actually, come to think of it, do the Power Suit and Flying Suits protect you from environmental hazards? (limitted in the game to smoke inhalation from Smoke Grenades) I've never noticed.

The medkit seems to basically just be a TL 8 medkit, with doses of Hypercoagulin, Superstim and some sort of pain killer (I always loved how all this does is affect morale. heh). Nice little earners, medkits. Most effecient item to make for money, those.

If you want stats for the Heavy Laser, make them up. It's not that hard. Just pin down stats for the Laser Rifle, then scale up accordingly.

The Blaster Launcher is so intuitive to use that you could just work with: When you fire the Blaster Bomb, it begins its flight. It flies at a Move of X, and once it hits something, or on command, it explodes.
Simple.

The Psi-Amp dynamic is interesting. You simply cannot access Psi without one. There is only one power (which can never improve, you are limited to your level of talent) and only one skill.
You could probably represent this with Telepathy (Telecontrol only) and a limitation meaning that it can't be used without aid.
However, possibly a better way (as the only difference between Psi Potential(?) and Psi Skill was that you could train Skill) would be to simply have it as a skill which is essentially like an Electronics Operation Skill.
Or a spell, if you prefer to think of it that way. Which is a good analogy, because they resist your Skill.
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Old 01-30-2005, 08:04 AM   #3
MattStriker
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Default Re: [3rd ed]Another silly idea: X-Com GURPS rules

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Benj
You don't necessarily need to use items that are already published in GURPS, you can just make new items that do what you need them to do.
Yes, but I like to use a balanced baseline item to build off of, rather than build something from the ground up. Most of those attempts end up flawed or ridiculously unbalanced. But I've had very good experiences with modding existing stuff...

Quote:
For example, all the Flying Suit does is provide DR and let you fly. It doesn't make you move any faster, so you can just say "Yep, you can fly at your normal Move" and it works fine. Right down to it taking twice as much movement to go up.
True. But my problems lie in the details. How much DR (and PD, which I'm still using - see the disclaimer), exactly? And how is the flight unit powered? How long will a charge last? How much power do the exoskeleton motors use? That sort of thing. I know I can probably 'wing it' and improvise something, but I'd like to have some sort of consistency to fall back to.

Quote:
Actually, come to think of it, do the Power Suit and Flying Suits protect you from environmental hazards? (limitted in the game to smoke inhalation from Smoke Grenades) I've never noticed.
Yep, they do. They also protect you from Stunbombs.

Quote:
The medkit seems to basically just be a TL 8 medkit, with doses of Hypercoagulin, Superstim and some sort of pain killer (I always loved how all this does is affect morale. heh).
That, and a TL9 Medscanner.

Quote:
If you want stats for the Heavy Laser, make them up. It's not that hard. Just pin down stats for the Laser Rifle, then scale up accordingly.
I'm going to try to build it so it is to the Laser Rifle like a modern-day sniper rifle is to a TL7 assault rifle...still looking for 'model weapons' to base it on, though. Oh, and the fact that the Heavy Laser's accuracy was actually lower than the rifle's in X-Com is explained by a crippling snap shot number.

Quote:
The Blaster Launcher is so intuitive to use that you could just work with: When you fire the Blaster Bomb, it begins its flight. It flies at a Move of X, and once it hits something, or on command, it explodes.
Simple.
I have two seperate control mechanisms in mind for this: Classic remote control (think Redeemer from Unreal Tournament) and preprogrammed course. One would require a sort of piloting skill, the other would use some heavily modified indirect fire rules.

Quote:
The Psi-Amp dynamic is interesting. You simply cannot access Psi without one. There is only one power (which can never improve, you are limited to your level of talent) and only one skill.
You could probably represent this with Telepathy (Telecontrol only) and a limitation meaning that it can't be used without aid.
However, possibly a better way (as the only difference between Psi Potential(?) and Psi Skill was that you could train Skill) would be to simply have it as a skill which is essentially like an Electronics Operation Skill.
Or a spell, if you prefer to think of it that way. Which is a good analogy, because they resist your Skill.
I'll give all psi-active characters (alien or human) points in Antipsi to represent the psionic 'resistance' element of the psi power stat. Apart from that, I'll probably allow some basic telepathy (short-range telesend and telereceive, plus some very minor ESP skills that can be explained through telepathy) for human characters without a Psi-Amp and limit everything with real power to aliens or psi-amping humans.
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Old 01-30-2005, 11:33 AM   #4
hackbarth
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Brasilia, Brazil
Default Re: [3rd ed]Another silly idea: X-Com GURPS rules

I've done a full X-com campaign, and used exactly the weapons you said, sadly my notations aren't with me anymore. The hard thing was not the technology, with came almost all ready in the Ultratech I (I didn't had UT2 and don't think it is needed), but the aliens.

I recall the mutons as having pretty high stats, and some others, like the floaters, as having some messed-up stats.

The campaign was one of the best I mastered ever, when it began the players didn't know what they where playing, as I've told them to make a militar character, and little else. They discovered in play that they where fighting aliens and much of the feeling of the PC game came from the introduction, from time to time, of new weapons, armor and technology.

The campaign had a very high mortality rating, with each player having spare characters to use when theirs died. Only two of seven players ended the campaign with the same char they began. One of them even died two times in one game, using three chars in a single game session.

The game progressed from capturing downed aliens, to fighting terror raids, to invading aliens bases, even defendig our base from an alien ride to the final battle at the martian Cydonia base, covering all scenarios the game offer, including some that the game implies (as rooting out alien infiltrators in the allied governments so that they don't cut X-Com funding)

It was one of the best SF scenarios I've played, high mortality, progressive technology nad some fearsome enemies.
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