Conspiracy X 2.0 Corebook

Conspiracy X RPG

by David F. Chapman, M. Alexander Jurkat, Janice M. Sellers

On the surface, the world looks much like our own. The same people walk the same dirty streets. The same animals rummage in the same garbage. The same mindless reality-shows are on the same television stations. Yet something is not right... The public only sees the facade covering the truth, the veil hiding the machinations of alien invaders, conspiratorial plots, and supernatural horrors. In Conspiracy X, players take the roles of government officials, civilians, researchers, FBI agents, CIA spies, NSA code breakers, and more. All connected as part of a grand conspiratorial organization called Aegis, formed in the aftermath of the Roswell crash, they are the last defense against alien invaders, subversive agencies, and paranormal terrors. Conspiracy X 2.0 is a complete role playing game. In this book, you will find: A gritty yet fantastic conspiratorial setting, updated to the present day. Character creation for movers-and-shakers, the operatives who pull the strings of modern society. Cell creation rules, allowing teams to access covert op gadgetry, alien technology, orbital gunstars, black helicopters, magic vans, and much more. Full exposition of the Unisystem, a universal game mechanic fully compatible with CJ Carella's Witchcraft, Armageddon, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and Terra Primate, allowing hard-core realism or high velocity cinematic action. Background information on Aegis, the history of the paranormal and the conspiracies that surround us, as well as details on the supernatural and alien threats to humanity. An introduction to powerful psychic abilities, ritualistic magic use, and cinematic martial arts. Conversion rules for easy adaptation to and from the original Conspiracy X game system.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2005

Reviews

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically 90s conspiracy fiction the RPG. Well, this and Delta Green, but unlike Delta Green this is focused on X-Files style space aliens and magic rather than the Cthulhu Mythos. The game does a pretty good job of setting up a compelling world and has some neat twists to its mythology that I like. One of the things that's especially cool is the unified basis for supernatural events and powers. The premise is that almost all of humanity is psychic, but most people don't know it. Most people's psychic abilities aren't trained or controlled and so instead they seep out and form a sort of Jungian subconscious group mind thing called the Seepage. This Seepage is like a well of supernatural power suffusing the planet, and those who know how to manipulate it can use it for magical rituals, while those who become corrupted by it can be turned into various monsters. Plus it's also responsible for things like ghosts, which are basically psychic impressions left in the Seepage playing over and over like a tape on a loop.

Unfortunately, a lot of the details of how to use this really cool setting aspect are left for the supernatural stuff sourcebook rather than being presented in the core book. Which is really my main critique of this rulebook, one that is similar to WitchCraft from the same company. (Though unlike WitchCraft, all of the promised supplements do exist, and I imagine I'll find that when put together the four books make a pretty good game.) There's a lot that's left out here. There's only three psychic powers, four or five magical rituals, a handful of details about the three alien races. There's enough to tantalize you about the cool supernatural and sci-fi stuff but not really enough for you to easily build off of. But the biggest issue I have is that there's absolutely no GM advice. I think strong advice on how to do a conspiracy game would be crucial to the success or failure of a Conspiracy X campaign and yet there's no guidance on that, which I find frustrating as somebody who now feels interested in running this game. I do also wish there had been a list of inspirational material since that could be a good way to get a better sense of how to handle this sort of game.

I did like the bits of advice about making the game more or less cinematic, as I could see this being a fun basis for running something in the vein of Agents of SHIELD or Torchwood. And I generally liked the character creation stuff enough that I wouldn't want it to be shortened to make room for GM advice. Probably the book should just have been longer. Cause character creation is pretty cool and in-depth. The big innovation compared to other Unisystem games is professions and their related Pulling Strings. Professions are similar to those in games like Call of Cthulhu or D20 Modern, determining some of your character's starting skills and abilities. But since this is an X-Files style government conspiracy game, the professions are all different jobs at different government agencies. And each job grants access to some of the powers of the relevant government agents, from making arrests to using secret supertech. Part of why I like this is because it's treated as a more formalized version of contacts in other games: you roll a skill to see if you can use the Pulling String and if you succeeded there's a specific concrete thing you can do, rather than the GM having to figure out something from a vague defined contact. It's definitely a mechanic that's perfect for borrowing for other systems, and I hope to see it expanded upon in the supplements.

There's also some nice stuff with basebuilding, which uses a point buy system that reminds me of Palladium's organization building stuff as well as things like making a lair for your vampire coven in World of Darkness. The neat bit is different professions give you access to different stuff so a team of FBI agents will have a base different from a team of a CIA operative, an astronaut, and two MKULTRA psychics. Also the options for where to put the bases gave me cool ideas, like having one team in a skyscraper and another in a big underground base below the skyscraper the first team doesn't even realize exists. I wish there had been an option for a cool plane like in Agents of SHIELD but since there are plenty of vehicle writeups it wouldn't be hard to extrapolate that. And I do like how equipment is handled not as something individuals buy but as bulk purchases. You don't have each PC spend money to buy a single handgun but instead buy fifty for the whole team to use. It's a pretty great system and I feel like the pagecount spent on character and cell generation (about half the whole book) is well spent.

Over all, this is probably my second favorite Unisystem game that I've read, and that's really only because All Flesh Must Be Eaten manages to pack even more great stuff into an equivalent space. Still, I'm definitely going to read the three supplements to this book which I imagine will assuage some of my concerns about this core book (though I don't expect to find the sort of GM advice I want, sadly). And when I'm in the mood to do some X-Files style gaming, I think this will be my go to.

[Benjamin]

How? In my Facebook RPG auction group, someone put up all these books and I was interested, but decided to give them a look.

What? It's this game https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... -- but a second version, aligning it with the Eden Studios house system now. The original game line was published mostly '97-'99, with one book coming out in '02; the second edition came out in '06, with three additional sourcebooks funded via Kickstarter in '10-'12 (Extraterrestrials, Paranormal, Conspiracies).

Yeah, so? I don't know what I was expecting, but this really is the first edition with a light gloss of a new system: things are condensed (so the Paranormal sourcebook for 2nd edition is, I think 3 books in the 1st edition) and sometimes they make reference to how this or that bit of the world might work with their other games. But otherwise, it's reuse/recycle. Reading this in 2023, I had to remind myself that this only came out in '06 (originally), so maybe I should cut them some slack for selling the game with just a sidebar about how 9-11 affected the intelligence community, but... that's a lot of slack.

Rereading some reviews, I was reminded that the 1st edition system was considered convoluted and almost unplayable, so maybe it's a good thing that it got a new system -- but really I think what I wanted was a new game with some of these themes and tropes, and this game is not interested in being that for me.

[T Flop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the closest I've come to finding a successful and enjoyable X-Files game... obsessed selective amnesia thirty somethings and redheads not supplied.