Note: this review is based on the original Revised RECON of 1986. As it is now out of print, the above publishing information refers to the new Palladium reprint.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Recent archaeological excavations at my place have unearthed another little-known game worth reviewing. In fact, I discovered several, but the others will have to wait for a while. This time, we will focus on The Revised RECON published by Palladium Books.

RECON is unique amongst RPGs put out by Palladium. For starters, it does not use their established system. Conversion notes are provided, but in my opinion they completely ruin the feel of the game. Also, it starts with the following words: "Sometimes it comes as a shock to realize that most of the buyers of this game, youngsters under the age of 21, have only a dim idea of the Vietnam war. Regardless of what you may have heard, the soldieers who served there, and the soldiers that died there, were brave and gallant and served their country gloriously. The real shame of the Vietnam era is that our veterans were abused and ignored." In other words, it makes a statement. Not many RPGs do that. Certainly few put out by a major publisher. You don't have to agree with the statement, but it is refreshing to see that one is made.

RECON claims to be a "role-playing game of contemporary military jungle combat, adventure and espionage." And it pretty much fulfills that promise. I have used it successfully for Vietnam games, modern-day mercenary stories and police/spy action. However, this is not because there are rules for all those situations, but rather that the existing rules are so simple and loose that they are easily twisted for various purposes. They reflect the fact that RECON is basically a "shoot-'em-up kind of game." Character creation is fast and combat equally so. And when heavy weapons enter the game, body counts go through the ceiling. Many of them have a kill radius, inside of which all PCs simply die. No saving throws, no rolling for damage. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After a short introduction, the book proceeds straight to character creation. Every PC has three major characteristics: Strength, which determines your "hit points", carrying capacity and running speed; Alertness, which covers all the senses; and Agility, which affects climbing, throwing and melee combat. The combat-oriented nature of the rules starts to show, don't you think? All three are rolled randomly with percentile dice. If the total is under 100 or if you have a score under 30 your PC is declared 4-F, unfit for duty, and you may roll again. There is no balancing mechanism, which some will likely hate with passion, but I feel it adds certain charm to the idea of playing soldiers in Vietnam. Your PC was drafted no matter if he was a superior specimen or an average guy.

Next you roll for height, weight and age. Then you have to pick your Military Occupational Specialties (MOS). Every PC has a primary and secondary MOS. These include Grenadier, Intelligence, Medic, Pigman (machine gunner) and Sniper. Each MOS gives you access to some restricted skills and/or gives you a bonus for some actions. In addition to basic training, every MOS also allows you to select 10 skills from the following categories: Small Arms, Heavy Arms, Hand to Hand, and Non-Weapon Skills. You must spend a set number of skill selections in each category according to your MOS. The skill list is fairly short and extremely focused on military/mercenary stuff. Finally, there are some special MOSs for mercenary games, such as Airplane Pilot and Northern Climate Specialist. All skills are rated in percentage and they are also rolled randomly. Though if you roll less than the Base Effectiveness given for each skill you get the skill at the base level.

To round your character up, you choose an alignment. Yes, just like in AD&D or other Palladium games. However, these are slightly different and not always useful for non-military characters (if you could build those). They are: Idealistic, Idealist-Pacifist, Opportunist, Opportunist-Righteous, Opportunist-Karmic (strange fair-play warrior folks), Malignant (basically assholes) and Malignant-Psychotic.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Now your PC is ready. Equipment is usually assigned to you, except in a mercenary game. The book goes on to describe the combat system, which is an extremely quick and dirty percentile-based system. Hand to hand combat is not immediately lethal since people usually have enough Strength to soak up a few punches, kicks and knife wounds. Surprise attacks with a garrote kill instantly, though, or knock the victim out if the assailant is merciful. Small arms combat is based on the idea of three different combat situations: Turkey Shoot (you surprise the enemy), Stand-Up War (both sides come prepared) and Ambush. Your weapon skill receives a negative modifier based on the situation and whether or not the target has cover. The only time you get to use your full skill is when you ambush the enemy. In contrast, when you are ambushed and fire while running for cover, you get a hefty -80 modifier to hit. It is a novel system and I have found it to work well enough. Firearms damage varies from 2D10 (.22 pistol) to 5D10+15 (.50 heavy machine gun), so one bullet will rarely kill you. It will probably make you want to hit the dirt and stay out of fight, however, which I find pretty realistic. Still, the lack of a mechanism for instant kills or critical hits is a minus. (The book includes the original RECON miniatures rules, and they do have a hit location based system for instant kills. It can be imported to the RPG as is.)

Next we find some general discussion of artillery, air strikes, different types of recon teams, insertion, extraction and mercenaries. Then follows a long section on equipment and vehicles. This includes everything from M16 assault rifles to AH-1G Huey Cobra attack choppers. A few special rules for tanks and helicopters are given next to their descriptions. Then follows a list of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese gear, including various booby traps. I think most of the items you would want for a Vietnam campaign is included. Some information is suspect, however. For example, the writers seem to have confused the .30 caliber M1 carbine round with the .30-06 cartridge used in the M1 Garand and some machine guns, and as a result all .30 caliber weapons are rated as if they used the lower-powered round. Also, I have a hard time believing that the SVD Dragunov was the main sniper weapon used by the enemy. A quick glance at one reference tells me that is was designed in the 1960s, not that is was widely used by every communist guerrilla by then. But these faults and others like them will not bother all gamers and some might not even notice.

The Mission Director section includes, among other things, lots of tables for random terrain, encounters and VC tunnel systems. There's also material on radio procedures and US Army organization, several NPCs, a good glossary of 'Nam terminology and slang. The original miniature rules are also here, and they make combat considerably more complex. Still, things like vehicle hit locations can be used verbatim in the RPG.

At the end of the book there are plenty of short scenarios and two campaigns, and also the part I really don't like at all. You see, instead of using our world, the writers have decided to use a close replica, with countries such as Stateside and People's 'Nam. For mercenary campaigns there is a whole lot of completely fictional entities which are supposed to stand in for Africa, South America and the Middle East. I think. Strangely enough, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia have kept their names. In the introduction the writers say that they wanted to avoid offending anyone, using the Contras as an example: "[S]ome people call them Freedom Fighters and heroes, others call them terrorists." I can see a tiny bit of that point when we are talking about mercenary operations in various third world countries, but why, then, try to ruin the whole idea of a Vietnam game by inventing almost-identical replacements? Why make a statement in the very beginning and then use a cheap escape route like this?

Physically the RECON book is rather average. The illustrations are all right, if not always exciting, but the layout looks dated (well, it is dated) and things could be organized better. Still, I found RECON less confusing in this respect than some other Palladium games. There are a couple of typos but they do not affect understanding.

Overall, I have enjoyed the game. I recognize its faults but have learned to live with them. Factual errors can of course be corrected and then never thought of again. The Revised RECON is a comprehensive package for people who like their action fast and furious. Palladium is now selling a reprint version, which includes the Advanced RECON supplement (a slim book introducing some new rules and a 1965 Laos campaign).

Firebase Mike Kilo out.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

The Deluxe Revised RECON
Author: Erick Wujcik (based on Joe Martin's original RPG) Category: game Company/Publisher: Palladium Books Line: n/a Cost: $20.95 Page count: 200 ISBN: 157457-023-4 SKU: 600 Playtest Review by Mikko Kauppinen on 04/19/00. Genre tags: Modern_day Historical	Note: this review is based on the original Revised RECON of 1986. As it is now out of print, the above publishing information refers to the new Palladium reprint. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Recent archaeological excavations at my place have unearthed another little-known game worth reviewing. In fact, I discovered several, but the others will have to wait for a while. This time, we will focus on The Revised RECON published by Palladium Books. RECON is unique amongst RPGs put out by Palladium. For starters, it does not use their established system. Conversion notes are provided, but in my opinion they completely ruin the feel of the game. Also, it starts with the following words: "Sometimes it comes as a shock to realize that most of the buyers of this game, youngsters under the age of 21, have only a dim idea of the Vietnam war. Regardless of what you may have heard, the soldieers who served there, and the soldiers that died there, were brave and gallant and served their country gloriously. The real shame of the Vietnam era is that our veterans were abused and ignored." In other words, it makes a statement. Not many RPGs do that. Certainly few put out by a major publisher. You don't have to agree with the statement, but it is refreshing to see that one is made. RECON claims to be a "role-playing game of contemporary military jungle combat, adventure and espionage." And it pretty much fulfills that promise. I have used it successfully for Vietnam games, modern-day mercenary stories and police/spy action. However, this is not because there are rules for all those situations, but rather that the existing rules are so simple and loose that they are easily twisted for various purposes. They reflect the fact that RECON is basically a "shoot-'em-up kind of game." Character creation is fast and combat equally so. And when heavy weapons enter the game, body counts go through the ceiling. Many of them have a kill radius, inside of which all PCs simply die. No saving throws, no rolling for damage. But I'm getting ahead of myself. After a short introduction, the book proceeds straight to character creation. Every PC has three major characteristics: Strength, which determines your "hit points", carrying capacity and running speed; Alertness, which covers all the senses; and Agility, which affects climbing, throwing and melee combat. The combat-oriented nature of the rules starts to show, don't you think? All three are rolled randomly with percentile dice. If the total is under 100 or if you have a score under 30 your PC is declared 4-F, unfit for duty, and you may roll again. There is no balancing mechanism, which some will likely hate with passion, but I feel it adds certain charm to the idea of playing soldiers in Vietnam. Your PC was drafted no matter if he was a superior specimen or an average guy. Next you roll for height, weight and age. Then you have to pick your Military Occupational Specialties (MOS). Every PC has a primary and secondary MOS. These include Grenadier, Intelligence, Medic, Pigman (machine gunner) and Sniper. Each MOS gives you access to some restricted skills and/or gives you a bonus for some actions. In addition to basic training, every MOS also allows you to select 10 skills from the following categories: Small Arms, Heavy Arms, Hand to Hand, and Non-Weapon Skills. You must spend a set number of skill selections in each category according to your MOS. The skill list is fairly short and extremely focused on military/mercenary stuff. Finally, there are some special MOSs for mercenary games, such as Airplane Pilot and Northern Climate Specialist. All skills are rated in percentage and they are also rolled randomly. Though if you roll less than the Base Effectiveness given for each skill you get the skill at the base level. To round your character up, you choose an alignment. Yes, just like in AD&D or other Palladium games. However, these are slightly different and not always useful for non-military characters (if you could build those). They are: Idealistic, Idealist-Pacifist, Opportunist, Opportunist-Righteous, Opportunist-Karmic (strange fair-play warrior folks), Malignant (basically assholes) and Malignant-Psychotic. WANT TO KNOW MORE? Now your PC is ready. Equipment is usually assigned to you, except in a mercenary game. The book goes on to describe the combat system, which is an extremely quick and dirty percentile-based system. Hand to hand combat is not immediately lethal since people usually have enough Strength to soak up a few punches, kicks and knife wounds. Surprise attacks with a garrote kill instantly, though, or knock the victim out if the assailant is merciful. Small arms combat is based on the idea of three different combat situations: Turkey Shoot (you surprise the enemy), Stand-Up War (both sides come prepared) and Ambush. Your weapon skill receives a negative modifier based on the situation and whether or not the target has cover. The only time you get to use your full skill is when you ambush the enemy. In contrast, when you are ambushed and fire while running for cover, you get a hefty -80 modifier to hit. It is a novel system and I have found it to work well enough. Firearms damage varies from 2D10 (.22 pistol) to 5D10+15 (.50 heavy machine gun), so one bullet will rarely kill you. It will probably make you want to hit the dirt and stay out of fight, however, which I find pretty realistic. Still, the lack of a mechanism for instant kills or critical hits is a minus. (The book includes the original RECON miniatures rules, and they do have a hit location based system for instant kills. It can be imported to the RPG as is.) Next we find some general discussion of artillery, air strikes, different types of recon teams, insertion, extraction and mercenaries. Then follows a long section on equipment and vehicles. This includes everything from M16 assault rifles to AH-1G Huey Cobra attack choppers. A few special rules for tanks and helicopters are given next to their descriptions. Then follows a list of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese gear, including various booby traps. I think most of the items you would want for a Vietnam campaign is included. Some information is suspect, however. For example, the writers seem to have confused the .30 caliber M1 carbine round with the .30-06 cartridge used in the M1 Garand and some machine guns, and as a result all .30 caliber weapons are rated as if they used the lower-powered round. Also, I have a hard time believing that the SVD Dragunov was the main sniper weapon used by the enemy. A quick glance at one reference tells me that is was designed in the 1960s, not that is was widely used by every communist guerrilla by then. But these faults and others like them will not bother all gamers and some might not even notice. The Mission Director section includes, among other things, lots of tables for random terrain, encounters and VC tunnel systems. There's also material on radio procedures and US Army organization, several NPCs, a good glossary of 'Nam terminology and slang. The original miniature rules are also here, and they make combat considerably more complex. Still, things like vehicle hit locations can be used verbatim in the RPG. At the end of the book there are plenty of short scenarios and two campaigns, and also the part I really don't like at all. You see, instead of using our world, the writers have decided to use a close replica, with countries such as Stateside and People's 'Nam. For mercenary campaigns there is a whole lot of completely fictional entities which are supposed to stand in for Africa, South America and the Middle East. I think. Strangely enough, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia have kept their names. In the introduction the writers say that they wanted to avoid offending anyone, using the Contras as an example: "[S]ome people call them Freedom Fighters and heroes, others call them terrorists." I can see a tiny bit of that point when we are talking about mercenary operations in various third world countries, but why, then, try to ruin the whole idea of a Vietnam game by inventing almost-identical replacements? Why make a statement in the very beginning and then use a cheap escape route like this? Physically the RECON book is rather average. The illustrations are all right, if not always exciting, but the layout looks dated (well, it is dated) and things could be organized better. Still, I found RECON less confusing in this respect than some other Palladium games. There are a couple of typos but they do not affect understanding. Overall, I have enjoyed the game. I recognize its faults but have learned to live with them. Factual errors can of course be corrected and then never thought of again. The Revised RECON is a comprehensive package for people who like their action fast and furious. Palladium is now selling a reprint version, which includes the Advanced RECON supplement (a slim book introducing some new rules and a 1965 Laos campaign). Firebase Mike Kilo out. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

The Deluxe Revised RECON

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

WANT TO KNOW MORE?