[jazzencat]

Good review. I do agree about the XP bit, I wasn't overly pleased with that either. This RPG seems like it needs an experienced mystry writer as a GM almost, since you need to lay out the clues and have the descriptions in such a way that the players can find them if they need them from the description.

Personally I do not much care for rolling to see if you succeed at something, I prefer to play it out (an investigation for example). You could quite probably house rule that, and if a player totally misses something you think the character would notice (a character with a really high reason, say a mensa candidate) might be played by a character who is average. In this case the character may well know something the player missed and then a roll can be used to simulate this. This particular mechanic comes from a system I am familiarizing myself with: Wildside Gaming System.

As presented in the review I find the combat to be perhaps a little too simplistic. But this might not be a problem since Alethia, like the X-Files, focuses more on the investigation. One problem I could see happening is with a very specific metastory and an outcome that's wanted it might become necessary for the GM to McGuffin the characters in a certain direction, and even then the best laid plans of a GM can go straight out the window when a character comes up with something the GM never dreamed of. I have had adventures like that in D&D. The characters set off to do one thing and partway through the adventure as printed went out the window because the characters took a completely different tack to solving the problem and I was forced to make up the adventure and clues on the fly.

I would certainly like to look at this one more in depth, it could likely be adapted to other systems as well if the GM is so inclined. At the very least it might provide me with some good storyline ideas.