Recon (role-playing game)

Recon (appearing later as RECON) is a military role-playing game where players assume the role of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. The first edition featured a wargame with role-playing elements, somewhat like Behind Enemy Lines and Twilight 2000, then gradually evolved into a full role-playing game.

Description
Recon is a game set during American involvement in the Vietnam War, but can be moved to any modern war.

Character generation is relatively simple; each character only has three attributes (Strength, Agility, Alertness). The player chooses two military occupation specialties such as Demolitions or Heavy Weapons. These then determine secondary skills such as Forward Observer and Demolitions Disposal.

The rulebook includes weapons, recon teams, missions, recruiting and debriefing, and terrain generation.

The referee uses a Random Encounters table to generate terrain and villages, and to create groups of adversaries, obstacles to overcome, and problems to solve.

Original Recon
The first edition of Recon was written by Joe F. Martin and published by RPG, Inc. in 1982 as a 44-page book covering rules for a miniatures wargame.

Role-playing rules were included in the 44-page digest-sized second edition released in 1983 with a gamemaster's screen. This edition introduced the idea of easily created and disposable characters.

RPG, Inc. also released a number of supplements and adventures for the first and second editions:
 * San Succi (1982) is a map pack that details a 16-block area in 1:72 scale for use with 20mm or 25mm lead figures. It also contains a guide to the 40 buildings on the map, a non-player character generating system, and a vehicular combat system called "Roadkill".
 * The Haiphong H.A.L.O.: SOG Operations in North Vietnam (1983) was the first adventure campaign, and involved missions behind enemy lines in North Vietnam. Expanded rules include Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, and Marine Force Recon commando characters, and detail real-world airborne, sea, and amphibious insertion techniques. Missions include reconnaissance, raiding, sabotage, assassination/ambush, prisoner snatching, and search and rescue.
 * Hearts & Minds (1983) was the second adventure campaign, and involves a Special Forces A-team assigned to a cadre training mission in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The team must train and equip a local Montagnard unit to be able to defend its community from raids by Viet Cong Main Force troops. Includes a random tunnel generation system.
 * Mission Director's Screen (1983) - a 3-panel gamemaster's screen.
 * Sayaret/Track Commander (1983) provides a setting during Arab-Israeli Wars (1967 to 1983). Players could generate Israeli soldier characters that could operate as a commando detachment or a tank crew. It allowed the Mission Director to run Israeli commando raids or tank battles. The additional rules could also conceivably be used to simulate other contemporary conflicts involving urban warfare or armored combat from World War Two to the present (1980s).

A final adventure campaign featuring mercenaries, Headhunters Ltd., was advertised but was never released before RPG, Inc. went out of business.

The Platoon 20 (P20 system) line of 20 mm (1:72 scale) metal miniatures were also produced by RPG, Inc. for use with the game.

The Revised RECON
After RPG, Inc. went out of business, Palladium Books acquired the intellectual property and released The Revised RECON, designed by Erick Wujcik, Kevin Siembieda, Matthew Balent, and Maryann Siembieda in 1986 as a 152-page book. The focus of the game was transformed from miniatures to a role-playing game. Because of its origins as a miniatures game, The Revised RECON is the only Palladium game, aside from Valley of the Pharaohs (1983), that does not use the company's house Megaversal system. However, Palladium does provide conversion rules to bring play in line with the rest of their role-playing game series.

Whereas RPG Inc.'s version had only limited information regarding firearms, the Palladium edition has almost 40 pages of gun statistics as well as fully illustrated, detailed descriptions of aircraft, seacraft, and vehicles, rules for playing mercenaries, rules for small arms and heavy weapons, garrote, bayonet, knives, and hand-to-hand fighting. This edition also includes several scenarios.

Advanced RECON
The Revised RECON received only one additional book, Advanced RECON, released February 1987. It is an expansion of the rules allowing the creation of Special Operations characters and detailing a four-mission campaign set in 1960s Laos. There are also sections on American and North Vietnamese tactics and strategy, period electronic equipment, a primer on the game world in 1965, and briefings on the Kingdom of Laos and other military and government agencies.

Deluxe Revised RECON
Palladium published Deluxe Revised RECON in April 1999. This integrated and reprints the content from both The Revised RECON and Advanced RECON into one book. It also introduces new rules, focusing more on the characters' lives after the wars.

Reception
In Issue 70 of Space Gamer, Brian R. Train reviewed the original edition and commented "Recon is the game for the mercenary fan. It is a pleasure to play and a fine addition to the large inventory of roleplaying games." Train concluded with a positive recommendation, saying, "If you are at all interested in this historical period, Recon is well worth the money."

Robert Neville reviewed The Revised RECON for White Dwarf #83 (1986), and did not like the game, commenting, "Unluckily, some people may well realise that the sections on military hardware and equipment are probably the best in any contemporary roleplaying game. Luckily, I hope people have more sense than to touch this with a bargepole. Unluckily, I'm not so sure they have."

In his 1990 book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games, game critic Rick Swan called the Revised Recon edition "a gem ... Recon does an impressive job of capturing the tension of jungle warfare fought under the most extreme conditions imaginable." Swan lauded the result, commenting, "It's all impressively researched, succinctly explained, and illustrated with detailed artwork." Swan's only issue was with the game's "narrow focus", which he felt "limits its appeal to mature players with an interest in the military." Swan concluded by giving this game an excellent rating of 3.5 out of 4, saying, "Recon is a prince of a game, easily the definitive treatment of its subject."

Other reviews and commentary

 * Different Worlds #26
 * Different Worlds #46
 * Sorcerer's Apprentice #16