Conspiracy X

"Conspiracy X takes place in a world of dark secrets and hidden agendas where the only certainty is nothing is what it seems. The president might not be human, and the sign carrying paranoid on the street corner ranting about CIA mind control satellites may very well be right.

"In other words, a world just like yours, if you could only see beyond the lies."

These words are from the back of the main rulebook of Conspiracy X, a roleplaying game that makes the X-Files look like the Teletubbies. Why? Because in the world of Conspiracy X, the Greys are just the tip of the iceberg.

In the world of Conspiracy X, there is a group known only as the Black Book, who are funded from Black Projects - secret militay activites of which the public, and the rest of the government, are unware. The Black Book also has ties to alien races known as the Greys - telepathic aliens responsible for "alien abductions", and Saurians - a reptilian race of whom some members have been molecularly altered to look human, and are known as the "Men In Black.'

Another group is known as Aegis - they exist to determine the true goals and motivations of the various alien races currently on Earth, and to find ways of eliminating them should they prove to be hostile. This group will be the one that player characters work for.

Conspiracy X is a well written book - it was a pleasure to read the timeline of the Conspiracy X world, and was interesting (not to mention disturbing!) to read about some of the real-life events and what REALLY happened - at least according to Conspiracy X.

Character Creation was easy to understand, and there were plenty of options to choose from with regards to occupations, training, backgrounds, and talents. The skills were numerous, and some (like Gun Fu) were dowright cool! The creators did a good job with the character creation.

The Psychics section has two types of psychic abilites: Lesser and Greater, and Conspiracy X has one of the most interesting ways of handling psionics. There are five Zener cards in the rulebook, each with a different symbol - square, cross, wave, star, and circle. The GM shuffles the Zener cards and the player picks one of the five symbols shown on the cards. The GM then draws a number of cards specified by the ability being used. If the card the player picked is among the cards drawn, the player has managed to successfully use his or her psychic abilities.

The world of Conspiracy X also has the supernatural, which is caused by the Seepage - supernatural energies which comes from the subconcious fears of mankind. With the seepage comes Corruption - permanent mental change induced by the seepage - and eventually corruption leads to either madness or transformation into the living nightmares known as the Incarnate - embodiments of the Seepage who boil with supernatural power.

Unfortunately, the system of Conspiracy X is imperfect. The section on Forming a cell for the player characters is daunting and may confuse most starting GMs. The attribute and skill tests will most definititely take some getting used to. The combat system could use a better way to define damage. It has too many abbreviations for damage codes, but this could easily be fixed if the GM Screen has the abbreviations for the codes on hand (at this time the screen is unavailable for review). Also, the skill and variable tests look very confusing at first - too many "if X is equal/greater/lesser than" - but again "practice makes perfect." Nonetheless, some gaming systems are easy to grasp, but Conspiracy X takes time to get used to it before the game can even begin, which slows down the enjoyment.

The Verdict

Still, with the upcoming release of Conspiracy X to the GURPS system, this game is worth checking out. It has a detailed setting, and the adventures the characters can get involved in are numerous, so give it a try, and good luck seeing through the lies to get to the truth!