I know of the original James Bond game and the (to my mind) partly successful Delta Green Cthulhu retcon but I'm wondering, does anyone else have any experience with this genre?

Was it more James Bond or Anthony Price?

Gadgets and glamor or cold pizza and motel briefings?

The only spy game I've played is James Bond, so our campaign was more Bond then Price.

I've played similar situations in Shadowrun, which is a ver cold pizza setting.

I've run Top Secret S/I, and used Gurps for Espionage as well as planning a MSPE (Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes) game.

I've owned James Bond and Spycraft 2.0 (Both nice games Btw, but traded them for other games when I realized  I liked the simpler systems for my style.)


A lot of the tone depends a great deal on the settings your using (Orion/WeB in TSSI is more James Bondish for example)

I've also run a game of Millennium's End (albeit I had inserted low level 'supers'--more supersoldiers with a single super enhanced trait and serious drawbacks) but that fit the technothriller/superespionage style I was after.


Default:
James Bond 007 Game: James Bond of Course, albiet "teams" of non 00 agents come across more like the Mission Impossible TV series.

Spycraft: Default seems GI JOEish comic book--high action superspies, slightly more action or superhero like but big martial arts, big gadgets--The GM can adjust it, but it feels like the straight default play is that--what with the prestige classes like the Raptor (Snake Eyes) they offer.

Top Secret S/I: James Bondish, closer too books than movies though.

MSPE: More Avengers or Bannerman/Bourne stuff, focus on the action, no real gadget stuff.

Gurps: Closer to Real world espionage, skilled people who die easily.


I've not run a lot of espionage without something else in it (mecha, aliens, etc.) simply because I don't care for playing in the mundane world, I like a little twist here and there.

System-wise I'd either be using BRP or Cinematic Unisystem.  I'm not a big system nut and I have those I prefer and don't really want to move outside that.

Mood-wise I'm actually thinking of something like The Usual Suspects, with some gadgets, some action but also the idea of sinister but terrifying forces out there somewhere plotting.

Actually no... I'm thinking of cinematic unisystem first and foremost.  If I don't run this I'll run something else entirely.

I've run a few espionage campaigns. The last one, using d20 Modern. I've also used OtE.

Regards,
David R

I have run campaigns using Milleniums End, with much handwaving to deal with the complex combat system. Later campaigns used a much simpler percentile homebrew. In that homebrew, I began obscuring exact percentage scores from the players, giving them a "personnel file" instead of a character sheet, in which they were rated in their abilities simply as poor, ordinary, good, excellent or outstanding; this, combined with the inspiration of the subtractive dice (d10-d10) of Shatterzone or the Masterbook system, were the inspiration for d4-d4.

Rather than using the American fictional company BlackEagle/BlackEagle, I used a European one called Oser-e. "Oser" is French for "dare", and was the name of the founder of the Organisation Securite Et Recherche - Europe. (Yes, I know it's horrendous French.)

The first campaign was called "Vengeance", set in the 1970s, and based on the George Jonas book of the same name, on which book was based the recent movie Munich. This was before September 11th, 2001, when only fiction talked about a Worldwide Islamic Jihad and similar silliness.

Later, the characters undertook missions of corporate and government espionage, counter-espionage, the occasional non-gratuitous assassination, and hostage rescue. It was rather like a modern Mission Impossible - but the old teamwork-style one, rather than the modern Lone Maverick Wolf Superhero one.

A particularly inspirational movie was Ronin. Another was the French movie Les Patriots - a spy thriller where no shots were fired!

It was very enjoyable GMing these games, and I'd be delighted to run or play in one again. Surveillance, stealth, tactics, interrogation - fun stuff! However, most of the gamers I know these days enjoy more light-hearted games. That's great for a fun evening, but being so light-hearted and taking things easy will get agents killed... So no more espionage games for me in the near future, unfortunately.

I ran a 1930s British intelligence game using the CoC rules, but no supernatural elements.  Relatively combat light, though there was one great fight between a character in a pitch dark alley and a Russian agent with a gun, the unarmed character crawling on his knees and flailing with a loose plank in the hope of hitting the gunman.

Nasty stuff, they were trying to take a defector before any of a number of rival agencies got him and as news came in of Germany mobilising for war.  

Now I'd probably do the 1970s, which seems to me a golden age for this sort of thing, but I thought that game worked well and the world on the eve of war is full of intrigue.

Yeah, it has to be the 1970's really.  Nowadays spying is all SIGINT, torture and satellite surveillance.  It's less about human intelligence and games of cat and mouse.

Being a massive espionage RPG fan, I've played and run more than my fair share of games. I've also got most of the, obvious, systems for running such games (Danger International, Espionage!, GURPS Espionage, James Bond 007, Millennium's End, Spycraft (both versions), Top Secret, and Top Secret/S.I. - I don't think I've missed any )

Personally, I prefer Top Secret/S.I. due to it's ability to run both gritty and Bondonian (I think I've just made up a word!) game types, and everything in between.

I was heavily involved in Spycraft (especially on the Living campaign front) for a while but it's too crunchy for my liking - especially now with v2.0.

With regard to games, running a game set in the modern day is pretty tough and I much prefer the "golden years" of the Cold War (specifically the mid-80s). Having said that, I'm currently in the process (albeit extremely slowly) of putting together a mini-campaign pack in an alternative universe where Germany won the Battle of Britain and invaded Britain. The PCs are members of the British Resistance. My big stumbling block at the moment is whether to set the campaign immediately after the successful invasion (i.e., between 1940 and 1950) or move the timeline forward a bit (to between 1970-1985). If I go with the latter then I need to work out how technology has evolved in that time...

I've often thought it would be cool to run a campaign based on Dad's Army and what they'd have done if the Germans really had invaded.

Has anyone tried that weird spy game where if you did well and got XPs you had a series of action figures made of yourself?  I can't remember for the life of me what it's called though.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI've often thought it would be cool to run a campaign based on Dad's Army and what they'd have done if the Germans really had invaded.

Has anyone tried that weird spy game where if you did well and got XPs you had a series of action figures made of yourself?  I can't remember for the life of me what it's called though.

No, though I once did that independently in an online sf pbem, the Luca Carlotti action figure range was a big seller as I recall.

There's a PIG game called Home Front which is basically Dad's Army the rpg but played straight.  There's also a free game the title of which suddenly escapes me all about playing the British resistance following a successful invasion.

If I were to run a genuinely modern day espionage rpg I would probably base it on the Queen & Country comics.

Quote from: dpmcalisterMy big stumbling block at the moment is whether to set the campaign immediately after the successful invasion (i.e., between 1940 and 1950) or move the timeline forward a bit (to between 1970-1985). If I go with the latter then I need to work out how technology has evolved in that time...

     I don`t think there would be major changes.  The Germans had developed pretty much most of what we consider common, modern technology in the second part of the 20th Century.  They had radar (although weaker than the Brit version), jet engines, the first fielded assault rifle, and of course rocketry.  I have no doubt they would have eventually created nuclear weapons if given sufficient time to overcome the loss of talent when the mainly liberal and Jewish physics community left the continent before the war.

     Politics and strategic alliances, on the other hand...  Would the US have aided the USSR as a counter to the Reich?  Or would the US have taken the stance it did in the original Iran/Iraq conflict, assuming the Germans would be a useful counter to the godless Commies?

Andrew

Quote from: SamarkandPolitics and strategic alliances, on the other hand...  Would the US have aided the USSR as a counter to the Reich?  Or would the US have taken the stance it did in the original Iran/Iraq conflict, assuming the Germans would be a useful counter to the godless Commies?

That's another area I'd need to look at. My initial thoughts would be that the US would concentrate on the Pacific and tend to leave Europe to it's own devices. Like you said, assuming that the Germans would make a good buffer against the Communists.

Canada though... well I think the British Royalty and portions of the government would evacuate there. This would enable the Canadians to lend, covert, support to the British Resistance.

Or is all this in the wrong thread?

To betray you must first belong - Kim Philby

This has always been my guiding light (theme) when I'm running espionage games. Some of these campaigns have perhaps more action than others, but nearly every time, this theme seems to emerge, always from the actions of the pcs - which I encourage, naturally

Regards,
David R