A Megaversal Recon?

[tgunner91]

We all know the story, Recon was the property of this fellow back in the 80's who made this neat little 'modern' game called Recon. It covered the Vietnam War and later supplements came out that covered the Arab-Israeli Wars and so on. Then he went out of business and Palladium and company took it over and put out a somewhat modified version of Recon and the game faded out back in the late 80s or so. We got our last word on Recon with Deluxe Recon which repackaged Recon and its one supplement in a new, snazzy book.

Anyway, I'm curious about who out there would like to see Recon revived as a Megaversal (ie Palladium House Engine) RPG? I think there is a lot of possibility here. The game would be an SDC system (I guess you could go Mega-Damage however I think it would fit better with Dead Reign and BTS-2) that would have a few O.C.C.s (you could easily pull the Soldier O.C.C. from Dead Reign and toss in maybe a few others or maybe just offer a bunch of MOSs), a nice selection of equipment (which Palladium has already statted out in various games), vehicles (ditto), and just mix in a ton of background info on the world situation to toss you into (like in Recon, but updated to reflect the current world).

This game is its own genre (military adventure) and it could easily meld with BTS-2 and Dead Reign. Actually, it might not even have to be a full RPG on its own. It could be a supplement for both of these SDC games. The Palladium engine is a pretty good one and it could handle modern weapons without too much work. So that side of things would be easy enough to do. Palladium has done most of the leg work with OCCs, equipment, vehicles. Maybe it could be done without a huge investment of time and effort. Heck, even the artwork can be pulled to some degree from Recon.

So how would you build a PC party? Easy. You could form Merc units, regular units from various military forces (if you think that would restrict your roleplaying then you need to read modern war nonfiction- books like "House to House", "Sniper 1", "Thunder Run", and "Ambush Alley" easily show you role-playing scenarios). There is plenty to do!

Some really cool stuff you could do:

Dead Reign: You could do the early days of the outbreak with soldiers responding to the zombie plague; ApSoldiers fighting in the aftermath; maybe even the wars to regain control over the Earth from the zombies?

BTS-2: Elite special forces units that are organized to fight the things that bump in the night (the old BTS had scenarios like that); soldiers based in the east facing ancient nightmares (who knows what horrible, ancient evils lurk in the sands of Iraq); maybe even ET isn't so nice afterall and he is messing around with the wrong people (black helecopters anyone?)

That doesn't even touch what you can do with just playing a modern warfare RPG. Maybe create some 'not' places to avoid sensibilities?

Just a thought. What do you think?

[Aramanthus]

I think that Palladium is going to update this when they release "Warpath". At least I feel that it'll be an update / new version on Recon. I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like. I mean after the updated Recon for fighting the drug lords and the other things that would have brought it closer to being part of the megaverse games by Palladium.

[Mercalocalypse]

Its a good idea and I would love to see it.

[Aramanthus]

I think we just have to wait until the author starts to give us some hints. But hopefully this (Warpath) will be the replacement for Recon.

[Peacebringer]

BTS-2: Elite special forces units that are organized to fight the things that bump in the night (the old BTS had scenarios like that); soldiers based in the east facing ancient nightmares (who knows what horrible, ancient evils lurk in the sands of Iraq); maybe even ET isn't so nice afterall and he is messing around with the wrong people (black helecopters anyone?)

That's really World of Darkness-ish. Revised Recon has a modern, realistic feel to it. It doesn't feel right to use it in a supernatural context. Like Cyberpunk 2020. That games about the future, yet I ran a World War 2 war game using it. It was realistic; the combat was, however, it didn't feel right in the 1940s.

And who knows what horrible ancient evil lurks below the Nevada Desert. There have been people in the American Southwest for tens of thousands of years. They just didn't have a written form of communication.

[Natasha]

RECON is perfect just the way it is.

They can do Warpath still, I'm happy they're not calling it RECON. I'd feel sad if they did.

[Aramanthus]

Still it'll be a fun game to try out and kill some bad guys!