Fugue

Ok sorry everyone for not giving any official announcements these last few weeks, we have been working on the project never the less. Currently we are compiling our first draft (with no format or pictures, just rules) And we have about 100 pages worth, which covers most of the Tactical combat, Aliens, Agents and Equipment. Psionics. Beta-testing has also been going well, and soon we should have most of the rules down in the barebones compilation. The target is to have 150 pages ready by end of month. Then we would begin formatting and working on the Ufopaedia, but the game would be ready by end of month. Of course we want to take a look at d20 3.5 just to be sure the rules are up to date. Sorry to keep you all waiting so long, and thanks Baastian

Ok good news. First we are using the HP/WP system of Starwars, with a few optional modifications such as wounds and things like that (Of course we encourage the use of these optional rules, but in the end it is up to each group to decide what they want to use). As for the Level system, you still gain XP, and levels. But yes Levels are determined by your skill not viceversa. So basically it is a seemless continium. You may be level 2.345 and your friend level 2.214. Of course we arent using silly numbers like that, but you get the Idea, there is no longer a "magical" jump (I gain 4 skills from one second to another). But it is easy to determine how powerful you are compared to a Typical d20 character, so your DM could easily grab a monster from another d20 source, say it is an Alien and throw it into the game. Also,iIf your Skills make you a 5th level character you should be on par with a 5th level Fighter or Rogue. The biggest changes are within the Character Creation, as there is only one class (Well we are considering an Alien class to make it easy to determine ability of for example a Sectoid of diferent levels.) . I do want to point out that diferent characters will ost likely be diferent, and perhaps very diferent, since the class as such is modular system. So maybe "Russel" is an excelent scout and "Will" an excelent psion, but with a little intensive training things can change as there is no defined linear path. I hope this will calm down some of the issues that have been presented by many of you. As for the contest, we are working on a list of things to do, but one tat is easy and fun is to Make a profile for a soldier. Name, reason he/she joined XCOM, strengths and fears, etc... We will then put all these soldier profiles on the CD along with stats, so the DM can have new NPCs with personality and background at the click of a mouse. We are also looking for Alien Abductee testimonies and Alien soldier testimonies (For example what a Muton felt as he was held in the Alien Containment). Lastly you can also work on short battle sequences (such as the one we all read earlier from STIM I believe). Once the server is up at the website please feel free to post your works on our forum, but for now either hold on to them or send them to us by E-mail. Last but not least, we are currently trying to set up a private Forum and Server for XCOMd20, because the free services used right now are not reliable enough. Lastly we would like to thank all of you for your support.

Well Back again, I didn't want to make a reply before checking out a few of these "new" systems Pendragon mentioned in his mail, of course when we got the swedish ones, well that's as far as we got. None of those systems did seem horribly better than d20, considering the comercial/exposure benefits of d20, and to be honest those are a BIG issue. Gurps could be a possibility, but who are we kidding d20 has its real benefits. Since we are aiming towards a comercial/legal product such issues must be taken into account. If we were a group of fanboys making some pirated/non-authorized rpg with out using copyrights and having to pay royalties. Things might be a bit different. I am sure any of you who are old enough to have a real job, and understand a bit about how the real world works will agree with us on this point. Personally (Robert) I think the old Chaosium system is probably the one the most apprpiate. Anyways the XCOMd20 game doesn't have classes as such. You may want to say there is ONE class (XCOM agent), levels are used to determine certain features, like rank and salary and a few other "special" benefits. Leathelness, the test games have proven good. It is fun and deadly, yet you probably (Anything can happen of course) won't die by dumb luck. As for the rational stat increase we have a system, and it might work fairly well, but we need further testing to make sure it is balanced in a long term campaigns. In skirmishes the system works just fine.

Hi again everyone. I've had 3 points come to my attention so far. First, about adventures. if all goes as we hope there will be a CD with the book, which may have tilesets for combat (print and set as you like, just like the game). The other thing we hope to include is 2 adventures. So you will have atleast 2 premade adventurers to help you get in the mood if you aren't familiar with what an adventure is supposed to look like. Who knows we may have a Cydonia expansion or something like that in the future, or perhaps we will have web enhancement adventures, things you can download from our website (but this is all still on the drawing board, so if you have any suggestions please tell). Second, about the contest. I have noticed that the creative writting contest is absurdly open ended, sorry about that! We need to give you guys a bit more guidance. Anyways, I would like to point out that in both art and writting you can send as many entries as you like, there is no limit of 1 per person. We will probably move the deadline for submissions too, so you may have an extra week or two. Third, X-com's future and license. We do hope that the release of our game will catalyze the production of more X-com games. We are working on the license, but as you can expect it isn't easy. Maybe we should start a signature campaign, so they can see that people are interested in the project. It would make things quicker. I am planning on visiting the offices in Japan this month.

Hello again everyone, I'm glad to see that there is such interest in the project, and we will redouble our efforts to deliver the book as soon as posible (That still means months unfortunately). I have also noted the interest in the European population, and be sure that if we cannot get another publisher to help us in Europe, you will be able to order the book and supplies directly from us, a distributor or amazon. I would also like to announce two small contests. The first is an Art Work contest, and the second a creative writting contest. The artwork contest is fairly straightfoward. Produce a good piece of artwork and send it to us by May 1st. We will select the best pieces and publish them in the book. The first 3 places will recieve prizes, besides the honor of becoming part of the XCOM legacy and getting exposure (And maybe becomming part of our Art Team) you will recieve a free copy of the Book as a prize, and maybe some other trinkets. All artwork used in the book will recieve proper credit and exposure The creative writting is to give flavor to the book. This is fairly open. You can write anything you would like such as quotes, descriptions of aliens or equipment, cool XCOM feel text ,like codes or anything you like. Once again if your work is among the top 3 you will recieve a copy of the book (and maybe a position in our staff). Even if you don't make the top 3, if your work appears in ur book you will recieve due credit and exposure. You can check our website next week for the official rules of the contest, but I though it would be good to give you all a head start. -Fugue

Well the tentative publication date is within this year, but as any big project we might have a small delay at the end. So far we have most of the mechanics done, and are waiting for the d20 3.5 version to update the mechanics. The book will include everything to play a campaign and or skirmishes. It will also include an UFOpaedia. The bones of the project are quite well set in, and after play testing balance seems to be working fine. Well a release in Norway... even though I have some friends over there, I don't think we can release over in europe unless sales go really well. But of course you will be able to order books. If you want you can also tell your local gamming shop to stock up few.

Last weekend we had our first trials with the XCOM system, and it seems to be working nicely. Basically the game is ready to be played except for the aircraft and research part, which we shall be working on this week. There is still some tweaking to be done with weapons and aliens and some of the class special abilties, but we are confident to deliver a solid product. As for the UFOpaedia, we are planning on incorporating a UFOpaedia in color with quality art, just for all the hard core fans out there. We want to give you an UFOpaedia you can show to your friends and get them excited about playing even if they don't believe in Aliens. There will be a few new additions to the setting based on XCom fan works and recognized UFOlogy, like some famous aliens recognized by any one who knows there stuff like Lemurians, Cethians and Mothmen. If anyone has any sugestions, of any kind they are more than welcomed. After all the game is made for you guys and other like you who loved the same game we loved! -Fugue

The rules are d20, thus as you say similar to DnD 3rd edition. It is not the same but compatible in many ways. You can grab a Wizard and make him fight ethereals if you want. But the book will be contered on playing XCOM games not as an Add-on to DnD 3rd ediion

We have been working really hard these last few weeks. We have done tons of progress and will have our first betatesting of the rules this weekend. We have got the Xcom agents and Aliens ready plus the psionics system ready. Now we are working on adapting all the equipment and a few extras too. Next week we work on the Aircraft combat (which will be fairly simple I think, since it wasn't an important part of XCOM, but that may change...) and the Research system. by the end of March we will have our first functional campaign with the rules so far and begin the serious playtesting. We also have began working on the art for the book, and our web designer is working on the web site. ( www.sectoidx.com ) right now you can see the splash page with a bit of the art we are working on. And yes you can expect a nice Ufopaedia too! -Fugue

Well let's see... first we are trying to make it similar to XCOM as posible, which means we are tweaking many rules, but we do want to keep the system d20. So far we have had some ideas that would work like a time unit system, but we are not sure if we keep it or drop it, We'll let you know as it progresses. We will include the macromanagement and research, so the players have to decide where to allocate their resources in order to get better and better technology. Character will gain XP, but they will be highly customizable so it works fairly similar to XCOM. Our current idea is a single XCOM operative class with many choosing and picking. Players will be the top agents and they will be able to hire other operatives just like the game. Basically we are doing everything as close as posible to the game. So far we are working on the First game, but I would like to incorportate the TFTD and Apocalypsis. You should also be able to play all three wars as you raise levels. Our only problem is the Ufopeadia is starting to look really big. We might have to make expansion books in order to keep the game within the 250page limit. But don't worry you will be able to play any setting. The rule system would be the same for all three campaigns, just choose a diferent setting. For those wondering yes the game will be highly militarized, you wont be running around with rogues and fighters. The game takes place in XCOM, you are not a group of civilians or an xfiles thing. But of course you can still use the weapons, and equipment aliens in any setting you like, so if Dragons and Mutons is your cup of tea go ahead. EDIT: The web site is being revamped, and you should be able to visit in in 12 days. I'll post the link ASAP

Hello everyone, I'm Robert, director of Fugue a small pen and paper d20 enterprise, with bases in Maryland USA and Kanagawa Japan. In the past our members have made free materials and articles for magazines and freelance work for other d20 publishers. Now we are working hard on releasing an XCOM based RPG for d20 system. We have many very skilled people, but if you honestly are interested in joining this project, and have time, we would be happy to have more help. Our current releae date is estimated to be end of November with a hardcover book of 250pages. We are planning on including a macromanagement system, which so far hasn't been included in d20 games, mostly because we believe that it is a fundamental part to keep the flavor of the game. -Robert Jay Gould, Yokohama, JP.