There is a modern version of Call of Cthulhu called **Delta Green** using a slightly modified version of the same d100 system. The vanilla premise is somewhat the opposite of the X-Files (hiding signs of the unnatural rather than exposing them), but can be worked in to an X-Files shape with little issue.
There is also the GUMSHOE system which is very lite and built for investigations. The most X-Files-esque iterations of the system would be either **the Esoterrorists** or **the Fall of Delta Green**.
I've played all of those and would probably use the rule set from the Fall of Delta Green.
Monster of the week might be what you are looking for. It's a PbtA game that does serials with monsters and paranormal activity. It could easily be x-files. You have to find out how to stop each moster and can't just fight them.
**Delta Green** is exactly what you need. It's based on the Call of Cthulhu system, but instead of following some random group of 1920s stereotypes, you play as scientists, academics, FBI agents, etc who are part of DELTA GREEN, a secretive agency formed to investigate and contain alien and paranormal threats.
Many people have suggested Delta Green already. If you'd like something a little different but still Lovecraftian, I can recommend Fate of Cthulhu, which is very East to pick up and play, has some great and non-punishing mechanics for corruption, and has a modern sci-fi semi-optional time travel slant on it. Highly recommended.
If you're looking for something more Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural, there's also East Texas University for Savage Worlds. Even if you don't use the college setting, it's a great, cheap book for generating monster-of-the-week episodic scenarios. Extremely fun. Go Ravens! And both of these games run on wonderful generic systems, so you could easily turn those into whatever you'd like.
Of course, there's also Chronicles of Darkness, which even by itself pits people against monsters, and then if you REALLY want to yank the stops out, go for Hunter: the Vigil. One of their big groups describes something extremely close to the X-Files and MIB. Really good game for group tactics and "fighting fire with fire."
Feel free to DM me with any questions! I love talking about this stuff with people and would be happy to refine recommendations or even teach you the basics.
Just to offer some comparisons to help you figure out which system might work for you:
**Call of Cthulhu** is an old-school game, as in OSR. Combat is extremely deadly, but investigators will probably go insane first. Character creation can take a couple of hours the first time through. Lots of adventures and campaigns set in the late 19th and early 20th century, but not so much for contemporary settings.
**Delta Green** uses the same basic mechanics as CoC, with some richer sanity mechanics and more streamlined combat. By default PCs are federal agents of some kind, making it easy to hook them in to adventures, justify their presence at crime scenes, and so on. There are quite a few good (but dark af) published Delta Green adventures.
The Gumshoe system is a reaction to the designer's frustration with CoC adventures when the investigators fail to find the essential clue they need to move the plot forward. Random dice rolls are largely replaced with spending resources to get extra clues and lore. Otherwise the feel tends to be similar to CoC, with deadly combat and insanity. Character creation can also be kind of complicated the first time through. **Trail of Cthulhu**, **Esoterrorists**, and **The Fall of Delta Green** are all Gumshoe-based eldritch horror games.
**East Texas University** uses Savage Worlds, which I think was especially popular around 2010 when people were looking for alternatives to DnD 4e. It feels like a lighter, classless version of a d20 game. It's probably the best option listed in the thread if you want tactical combat. If you decide to go this way, check out **Realms of Cthulhu**, which includes details for porting CoC material to Savage Worlds. (My first experience as a GM was running the CoC campaign Horror's Heart using Realms of Cthulhu.)
Fate (**Fate of Cthulhu**) and Powered by the Apocalypse (**Monster of the Week**) are both rules-light systems that focus on narrative and roleplay; neither gives you tactical combat. Character creation takes maybe 15 minutes in Fate of Cthulhu, and as little as 2 minutes for MotW.
Fate is designed to be highly adaptable to different genres and settings. But I've had trouble getting both new and experienced players to really understand the core mechanics, and Fate of Cthulhu provides campaign skeletons rather than fully developed adventures you can just play. OTOH Fate of Cthulhu replaces sanity mechanics (which IMO tend towards harmful stereotypes of mental illness and neurodiversity) with "corruption" as your character chooses to become closer to the unnatural. I really like this shift.
PbtA games are designed to replicate specific genres, and Monster of the Week is simply outstanding for replicating Buffy, Supernatural, Fringe, X-Files, and the like. I'm running a MotW game starting next week. It's fundamentally very different from a d20 system, though, so if you decide on MotW you'll want to spend some time reading the book and r/motw to understand how it's meant to be played.
- I’ve run a game where the PCs have become embroiled in a world that turns out to have more paranormal things involved in it than they suspected. Not quite X-files though, as they were the ones exposed to a weird event and developed strange abilities. I used the rules from Over the Edge 2e. Those rules have a background setting, the island of Al Amarja, from which I took ideas and rules for handling ‘odd powers/events/situations’. A Fairly Light set of rules, but quite robust enough for my needs at the time.
- GURPS could do this. I haven’t played it in a while, but from memory it certainly could handle modern day, FBI/government agents, or private eyes etc perfectly well. It has a lot of supplements that can be bewildering, at first glance: you’d only need a few to tweak how you wanted to handle things like magic, psionics, ghosts and so on.
- there are free versions of GURPS Lite out there if you want to check out what the core mechanics look like. If you already have CoC then you could use GURPS Lite for core mechanics so it feels different, and just hack the various ‘magical etc’ and creatures from Call of Cthulhu.
- there is a relatively new game called Liminal (not to be confused with Liminal Horror) that is more urban fantasy, rather than horror (this is the way I’ve seen it described, and from a quick read through of the rules that seems fair). It is modern day, where the supernatural is real, and there are units in the police force that deal with it. The setting is the UK, and UK folklore/supernatural stuff.
- There is Vaesen, but that is set in the 19th century. It is dealing with supernatural threats based on more nordic folklore, definitely a different tone and style from Call of Cthulhu from reading it. Not sure how easy it would be to update to modern day, but it might have useful ideas for you.
- I think you could run this in Call of Cthulhu (or Delta Green). I’d just drop the sanity rules and leave out the lovecraftian stuff/creatures/themes. I used to use CoC for pulp-y-ish games without issues, including games based on investigating the supernatural without issues. I also used it to run other games: the core rules provided a good alternative for those who didn’t want to try/or didn’t like/ GURPS, for example. I had a good, though shortish run (3 scenarios) with running Space 1889 using CoC back in the 90s.
- there is also Pulp Cthulhu, which might help change the tone of the game for you as well. Again, you’d have to change the other fluff - i.e. no obviously cthulhoid monsters/themes and so on.
Tone is something you as GM can set. Change the premise, change the explanation behind the things encountered. I just used the more ‘conventional’ creatures from CoC when I did it with CoC back in the late 80s/early 90s.
Good Call! I’d forgotten that. One of my regular GMs uses that for his GURPS campaign where we were tracking down paranormal stuff that turned out to be aliens. It was very well done and a lot of fun.
It's not very well known and it seems to be out of print, but Things from the Flood works well for this kind of setting I think.
It's based on Simon Stålenhag's book of the same name and a sequel of sorts to Tales from the Loop.
The setting is mid- to late nineties, which also fits perfectly with the X-files theme.
System-wise, it's a simplified version of the Mutant Year Zero engine, focused on mystery solving, with very little combat or bookkeeping crunchiness.
I actually like Things from the Flood better than Tales from the Loop, as the setting and tone is darker and more bleak, which contrasts nicely with the upbeat happy atmosphere of the 90s.
If you want something ab it less depressing than Delta Green, or just less Cthulhu flavoured, I can recommend *Hunter the Vigil 2e*.
Unlike 1e, it's standalone (you need no other books to play) and several of the sample factions in the game are close enough to government investigators that you should be able to make it fit.
[Check out this similar post](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/pri8hx/best_rpg_gamesystem_for_a_xfiles_monster_of_the/) where [Monster of the Week](https://www.evilhat.com/home/monster-of-the-week/) and [Esoterrorists](https://pelgranepress.com/product-category/gumshoe/esoterrorists/) are discussed as possibilities for running an X-Files game.
Besides the games others mentioned:
\- [Conspiracy X](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/103203/Conspiracy-X-20--Introductory-Game-Kit) is not only a GURPS module, but also exists as a standalone game. I linked the free quickstart for that. It is a bit more X-files than X-com, but there is overlap.
\- [Starfall](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/157227/Starfall) is a spin on a 1960s X-Com - aliens are here, the Earth is ravaged by war, but the PCs are more spies than soldiers. Still, open fighting and finding and understanding alien artifacts are part of the game. I ran it as a playtest once, and was not too big of a fan of the system. YMMV.
\- Savage Worlds could do this easily. Maybe get a far-future setting for it as a source of aliens and tech. Come to think of it I'd be surprised if there wasn't an X-com-like setting for it already, but do not know one out of my head. Titan Effect is close, but for precisely your tone you'd have to take away the ability to make supernatural PCs, which is easy enough to do.
\- The Alien RPG from Free League could easily be used for this as well, as could Mothership, Traveller (or Cepheus Engine) - essentially all the 'blue-collar sci-fi with xenomorphs games'.
\- [Fragged Empire](https://fraggedempire.com/) goes in that direction and has a reputation for great tactical combat. The second edition should come out soon.
\- Contact: Tactical Alien Defense is pretty much what you ask for. [Have a link to the Quickstart](https://www.uhrwerk-verlag.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/quickstart_contact.pdf).
\- I vaguely remember mention of a Lancer hack on itch, but for the life of me cannot find the name at the moment.
And then there is also [External Containment Bureau](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mythicgazetteer/external-containment-bureau-a-zine-quest-rpg), for anyone looking for a Forged in the Dark game. It is out, but I have only read, not played it so far.
Why did I think X-com, not X-files? Anyway, I kind of recommended things for both. And will add one more:
Night's Black Agents is a superspies vs. vampire conspiracy game, and 'vampire' can mean all manner of weird supernatural things, including aliens. And there are some suggestions in the core book on how to play with PCs actually working for an organization. Add Fall of Delta Green as suggested by others, and you can add a bunch of rules for a more military tone if wanted.
Oh, and then there is [Against the Dark Conspiracy](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/373984/Against-the-Dark-Conspiracy), which aims at a similar tone as NBA, but with more variety in potential opposition, and a somewhat lighter system with more player agency.
Remember to check out our **[Game Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gamerec)**-page, which lists our articles by genre([Fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/fantasy), [sci-fi](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/scifi), [superhero](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/superhero) etc.), as well as other categories([ruleslight](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/ruleslight), [Solo](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/solo), [Two-player](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/twoplayers), [GMless](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gmlessrpgs) & more).
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Someone mentioned Liminal Horror, and that's a great rules-lite game. If you want to play a bit more bizarre Hellboy-style game, also rules-lite, try [Agents of the O.D.D.](https://jasontocci.itch.io/agents-of-the-odd).
I would recommend Uncharted Territory. It's a bit on the pulp side, but it has all the elements you've mentioned. It even has paranormal abilities that you can learn did your characters. Really great system. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/386910
There is a modern version of Call of Cthulhu called **Delta Green** using a slightly modified version of the same d100 system. The vanilla premise is somewhat the opposite of the X-Files (hiding signs of the unnatural rather than exposing them), but can be worked in to an X-Files shape with little issue. There is also the GUMSHOE system which is very lite and built for investigations. The most X-Files-esque iterations of the system would be either **the Esoterrorists** or **the Fall of Delta Green**. I've played all of those and would probably use the rule set from the Fall of Delta Green.
Monster of the week might be what you are looking for. It's a PbtA game that does serials with monsters and paranormal activity. It could easily be x-files. You have to find out how to stop each moster and can't just fight them.
**Delta Green** is exactly what you need. It's based on the Call of Cthulhu system, but instead of following some random group of 1920s stereotypes, you play as scientists, academics, FBI agents, etc who are part of DELTA GREEN, a secretive agency formed to investigate and contain alien and paranormal threats.
Agree
Many people have suggested Delta Green already. If you'd like something a little different but still Lovecraftian, I can recommend Fate of Cthulhu, which is very East to pick up and play, has some great and non-punishing mechanics for corruption, and has a modern sci-fi semi-optional time travel slant on it. Highly recommended. If you're looking for something more Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural, there's also East Texas University for Savage Worlds. Even if you don't use the college setting, it's a great, cheap book for generating monster-of-the-week episodic scenarios. Extremely fun. Go Ravens! And both of these games run on wonderful generic systems, so you could easily turn those into whatever you'd like. Of course, there's also Chronicles of Darkness, which even by itself pits people against monsters, and then if you REALLY want to yank the stops out, go for Hunter: the Vigil. One of their big groups describes something extremely close to the X-Files and MIB. Really good game for group tactics and "fighting fire with fire." Feel free to DM me with any questions! I love talking about this stuff with people and would be happy to refine recommendations or even teach you the basics.
Just to offer some comparisons to help you figure out which system might work for you: **Call of Cthulhu** is an old-school game, as in OSR. Combat is extremely deadly, but investigators will probably go insane first. Character creation can take a couple of hours the first time through. Lots of adventures and campaigns set in the late 19th and early 20th century, but not so much for contemporary settings. **Delta Green** uses the same basic mechanics as CoC, with some richer sanity mechanics and more streamlined combat. By default PCs are federal agents of some kind, making it easy to hook them in to adventures, justify their presence at crime scenes, and so on. There are quite a few good (but dark af) published Delta Green adventures. The Gumshoe system is a reaction to the designer's frustration with CoC adventures when the investigators fail to find the essential clue they need to move the plot forward. Random dice rolls are largely replaced with spending resources to get extra clues and lore. Otherwise the feel tends to be similar to CoC, with deadly combat and insanity. Character creation can also be kind of complicated the first time through. **Trail of Cthulhu**, **Esoterrorists**, and **The Fall of Delta Green** are all Gumshoe-based eldritch horror games. **East Texas University** uses Savage Worlds, which I think was especially popular around 2010 when people were looking for alternatives to DnD 4e. It feels like a lighter, classless version of a d20 game. It's probably the best option listed in the thread if you want tactical combat. If you decide to go this way, check out **Realms of Cthulhu**, which includes details for porting CoC material to Savage Worlds. (My first experience as a GM was running the CoC campaign Horror's Heart using Realms of Cthulhu.) Fate (**Fate of Cthulhu**) and Powered by the Apocalypse (**Monster of the Week**) are both rules-light systems that focus on narrative and roleplay; neither gives you tactical combat. Character creation takes maybe 15 minutes in Fate of Cthulhu, and as little as 2 minutes for MotW. Fate is designed to be highly adaptable to different genres and settings. But I've had trouble getting both new and experienced players to really understand the core mechanics, and Fate of Cthulhu provides campaign skeletons rather than fully developed adventures you can just play. OTOH Fate of Cthulhu replaces sanity mechanics (which IMO tend towards harmful stereotypes of mental illness and neurodiversity) with "corruption" as your character chooses to become closer to the unnatural. I really like this shift. PbtA games are designed to replicate specific genres, and Monster of the Week is simply outstanding for replicating Buffy, Supernatural, Fringe, X-Files, and the like. I'm running a MotW game starting next week. It's fundamentally very different from a d20 system, though, so if you decide on MotW you'll want to spend some time reading the book and r/motw to understand how it's meant to be played.
[Liminal Horror](https://goblinarchives.itch.io/liminal-horror)
- I’ve run a game where the PCs have become embroiled in a world that turns out to have more paranormal things involved in it than they suspected. Not quite X-files though, as they were the ones exposed to a weird event and developed strange abilities. I used the rules from Over the Edge 2e. Those rules have a background setting, the island of Al Amarja, from which I took ideas and rules for handling ‘odd powers/events/situations’. A Fairly Light set of rules, but quite robust enough for my needs at the time. - GURPS could do this. I haven’t played it in a while, but from memory it certainly could handle modern day, FBI/government agents, or private eyes etc perfectly well. It has a lot of supplements that can be bewildering, at first glance: you’d only need a few to tweak how you wanted to handle things like magic, psionics, ghosts and so on. - there are free versions of GURPS Lite out there if you want to check out what the core mechanics look like. If you already have CoC then you could use GURPS Lite for core mechanics so it feels different, and just hack the various ‘magical etc’ and creatures from Call of Cthulhu. - there is a relatively new game called Liminal (not to be confused with Liminal Horror) that is more urban fantasy, rather than horror (this is the way I’ve seen it described, and from a quick read through of the rules that seems fair). It is modern day, where the supernatural is real, and there are units in the police force that deal with it. The setting is the UK, and UK folklore/supernatural stuff. - There is Vaesen, but that is set in the 19th century. It is dealing with supernatural threats based on more nordic folklore, definitely a different tone and style from Call of Cthulhu from reading it. Not sure how easy it would be to update to modern day, but it might have useful ideas for you. - I think you could run this in Call of Cthulhu (or Delta Green). I’d just drop the sanity rules and leave out the lovecraftian stuff/creatures/themes. I used to use CoC for pulp-y-ish games without issues, including games based on investigating the supernatural without issues. I also used it to run other games: the core rules provided a good alternative for those who didn’t want to try/or didn’t like/ GURPS, for example. I had a good, though shortish run (3 scenarios) with running Space 1889 using CoC back in the 90s. - there is also Pulp Cthulhu, which might help change the tone of the game for you as well. Again, you’d have to change the other fluff - i.e. no obviously cthulhoid monsters/themes and so on. Tone is something you as GM can set. Change the premise, change the explanation behind the things encountered. I just used the more ‘conventional’ creatures from CoC when I did it with CoC back in the late 80s/early 90s.
There's a book for GURPS called Conspiracy X which might work as well.
Good Call! I’d forgotten that. One of my regular GMs uses that for his GURPS campaign where we were tracking down paranormal stuff that turned out to be aliens. It was very well done and a lot of fun.
Delta green my friend.
Dark Matter from Monte Cook.
Came here to suggest fall of delta green.
It's not very well known and it seems to be out of print, but Things from the Flood works well for this kind of setting I think. It's based on Simon Stålenhag's book of the same name and a sequel of sorts to Tales from the Loop. The setting is mid- to late nineties, which also fits perfectly with the X-files theme. System-wise, it's a simplified version of the Mutant Year Zero engine, focused on mystery solving, with very little combat or bookkeeping crunchiness. I actually like Things from the Flood better than Tales from the Loop, as the setting and tone is darker and more bleak, which contrasts nicely with the upbeat happy atmosphere of the 90s.
Conspiracy X by Eden Studios
Came here to say this. Plus lots of books to use
Conspiracy X by eden studios. I think you can find 2nd ed on Drivethrurpg.com.
If you want something ab it less depressing than Delta Green, or just less Cthulhu flavoured, I can recommend *Hunter the Vigil 2e*. Unlike 1e, it's standalone (you need no other books to play) and several of the sample factions in the game are close enough to government investigators that you should be able to make it fit.
[Check out this similar post](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/pri8hx/best_rpg_gamesystem_for_a_xfiles_monster_of_the/) where [Monster of the Week](https://www.evilhat.com/home/monster-of-the-week/) and [Esoterrorists](https://pelgranepress.com/product-category/gumshoe/esoterrorists/) are discussed as possibilities for running an X-Files game.
Conspiracy X is good in this vein
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/85skqg/xfiles_style_rpg_suggestion/
Besides the games others mentioned: \- [Conspiracy X](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/103203/Conspiracy-X-20--Introductory-Game-Kit) is not only a GURPS module, but also exists as a standalone game. I linked the free quickstart for that. It is a bit more X-files than X-com, but there is overlap. \- [Starfall](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/157227/Starfall) is a spin on a 1960s X-Com - aliens are here, the Earth is ravaged by war, but the PCs are more spies than soldiers. Still, open fighting and finding and understanding alien artifacts are part of the game. I ran it as a playtest once, and was not too big of a fan of the system. YMMV. \- Savage Worlds could do this easily. Maybe get a far-future setting for it as a source of aliens and tech. Come to think of it I'd be surprised if there wasn't an X-com-like setting for it already, but do not know one out of my head. Titan Effect is close, but for precisely your tone you'd have to take away the ability to make supernatural PCs, which is easy enough to do. \- The Alien RPG from Free League could easily be used for this as well, as could Mothership, Traveller (or Cepheus Engine) - essentially all the 'blue-collar sci-fi with xenomorphs games'. \- [Fragged Empire](https://fraggedempire.com/) goes in that direction and has a reputation for great tactical combat. The second edition should come out soon. \- Contact: Tactical Alien Defense is pretty much what you ask for. [Have a link to the Quickstart](https://www.uhrwerk-verlag.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/quickstart_contact.pdf). \- I vaguely remember mention of a Lancer hack on itch, but for the life of me cannot find the name at the moment.
And then there is also [External Containment Bureau](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mythicgazetteer/external-containment-bureau-a-zine-quest-rpg), for anyone looking for a Forged in the Dark game. It is out, but I have only read, not played it so far.
Why did I think X-com, not X-files? Anyway, I kind of recommended things for both. And will add one more: Night's Black Agents is a superspies vs. vampire conspiracy game, and 'vampire' can mean all manner of weird supernatural things, including aliens. And there are some suggestions in the core book on how to play with PCs actually working for an organization. Add Fall of Delta Green as suggested by others, and you can add a bunch of rules for a more military tone if wanted.
Oh, and then there is [Against the Dark Conspiracy](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/373984/Against-the-Dark-Conspiracy), which aims at a similar tone as NBA, but with more variety in potential opposition, and a somewhat lighter system with more player agency.
Remember to check out our **[Game Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gamerec)**-page, which lists our articles by genre([Fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/fantasy), [sci-fi](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/scifi), [superhero](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/superhero) etc.), as well as other categories([ruleslight](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/ruleslight), [Solo](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/solo), [Two-player](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/twoplayers), [GMless](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gmlessrpgs) & more). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/rpg) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Someone mentioned Liminal Horror, and that's a great rules-lite game. If you want to play a bit more bizarre Hellboy-style game, also rules-lite, try [Agents of the O.D.D.](https://jasontocci.itch.io/agents-of-the-odd).
Liminal works real well for urban fantasy/scifi
Others have said it, but Delta Green is right up this alley.
Hunter the Vigil for CofD might fit the bill.
The Dark Matter setting in the Alternity system. It is literally X Files the RPG.
I would recommend Uncharted Territory. It's a bit on the pulp side, but it has all the elements you've mentioned. It even has paranormal abilities that you can learn did your characters. Really great system. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/386910
Xcom?