Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalYeah, 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.

This is correct in terms of movies, but not in reality.

Because everyone has a mobile phone, and there are still home phones, internet, etc, SIGINT isn't useful unless you already know who to look at - and that requires HUMINT, knowing people.

Torture does not get you any more correct or truthful answers, it simply gets you the truth or lies you would have got, but more quickly. There's a thing called "capture shock" - when a soldier or agent is captured by their enemy, most of the time they enter a period of psychological shock, where they don't know what's going to happen to them - will they be tortured, well-treated, shot out of hand, or what? During this period, the prisoner will be inclined to "help" their captors, and tell them everything. Special forces, well-trained regular soldiers, and field agents will tend to have training to help them deal with this, but that training won't always be effective, and in any case, the enemy can simply concentrate on other soldiers and agents - any chain, including an intelligence chain, is only as strong as its weakest link. As the captor, you can take steps to reduce or end capture shock - by kind treatment, etc - but it's not a war crime to fail to treat them for it, and let them be scared for a bit. To induce fear in them by threats of torture, etc, is a war crime - to let them imagine their own fears isn't. They'll get over it in 24 to 72 hours in any case. Torture is not carried out to gain information, but to please the captors' sadism. If a guy has been imprisoned by you already for a year, then he's got nothing more to tell you. You're only stacking him in a naked human pyramid for fun. Torture's also a sign of ill-disciplined troops, and amateur secret services.

Satellite surveillance, like SIGINT, runs into the problem of knowing where and who to look at. Even if they could read every number plate on every car in the country at once (they can't), they simply can't psychically know which ones are important to look at.

HUMINT is still the most important thing. Most terrorist or enemy saboteur plots in the modern West are discovered and stopped before they happen. This is because the authorities already have their eyes on some of the members for previous trouble they've caused, and also because many of the groups have informers in them. If the enemy agents or terrorists have no previous record of criminality or involvement in activist groups, and if there are no informers, then the authorities will simply have no idea what they're planning - as with the September 11th, 2001 hijackers.

No amount of SIGINT or satellites could have prevented those attacks. But two of them had been reported by a flight teaching school as suspicious, and one of them had overstayed his visa by a week or so - the warrant to search his premises was waiting on a judge's pile of warrants to approve on September 9th, but there's usually no hurry to approve warrants to search the premises of visa overstayers, there are warrants for drug dealers and murderers to check up on.

In the modern West, when dealing with terrorists and criminals, we often focus on their means - check them for weapons, etc. When Israel deals with terrorists, they focus on the people. If, for example, they find a guy who's wearing a collared shirt and jeans, doesn't have much luggage, checks into a five-star hotel the night before his flight and orders lots of champagne and hookers - but his plane seat is economy class - well then this is a guy who's worth watching. So while he waits in line to check his luggage, a couple of gentlemen in suits will come and take him aside to chat with him, unfortunately the chat means he may miss his flight, but they'll be sure to get him a later one.

This is HUMINT, talking to people. Saddam Hussein was caught by someone informing on him. Osama bin Laden has not been informed on, so hasn't been caught. Large amounts of SIGINT and satellites had no part in caturing these men, nor have they prevented escalation of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. HUMINT at an early stage could have prevented the formation of many of the militias, instead they're reduced to mass round-ups of all young men, and torture.

As with war, so with espionage - in the end, you need people on the ground, establishing a presence, dealing with locals on a human level. You can do war or espionage if you have people, but no equipment; you cannot do war or espionage if you have equipment, but no people.

Greetings Everyone,

Interesting thread. I loved the Victory Games James Bond 007 game -- revolutionary in its time -- but I've also dabbled in espionage-themed games in Top Secret and Indiana Jones.

The Pulp Egypt supplement I released earlier this year through Griffon Publishing Studio (//www.destinyrealms.com/griffon/) includes a section about espionage in Egypt during the 1930s (and suggestions for integrating it into a pulp-era campaign). Some interesting research revealed tensions between the British, Germans, and Italians vying for control of the desert, "desert expeditions" that had obvious strategic importance, and other bits about the delicate diplomacy of the time in an area rife with spies.

Personally I think WWII-era espionage offers a broad spectrum of missions, objectives, adversaries, and styles. I've always wanted to run a WWII Superspy type of game, an over-the-top James Bondonian campaign with bits of pulp super-science, ancient artifacts, and aliens mixed in; alas, if only I could find interested players....

Balbinus, I think the game you mentioned, "a free game the title of which suddenly escapes me all about playing the British resistance following a successful invasion," is called "1940 - England Invaded!" Author Simon Washbourne has it available as a free PDF at //www.geocities.com/england_invaded/ along with some other resources. I think he wrote the original version for the Forge's 24-hour RPG contest, then expanded on it to reach its current form. Though I don't care much for new game engines, it's a fun read and an interesting alternate-history setting, easily ported to your favorite game rules.

Best regards,

Peter Schweighofer
Griffon Publishing Studio
//www.destinyrealms.com/griffon/

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalActually no... I'm thinking of cinematic unisystem first and foremost.  If I don't run this I'll run something else entirely.

Conspiracy X? It's Classic Unisystem rather than cinematic, but that's an easy alteration, and I assume you want to write your own setting up anyway.

Quote from: JimBobOzThis is correct in terms of movies, but not in reality.

  Settle down there Tom Clancy...

  I was merely pointing out that compared to the 1970's there's more of a reliance upon SIGINT, satellite stuff and torture.  You didn't have the same technology as you do now so obviously it was all down to your networks.

  High-tech spying is less interesting dramatically for this reason.  It's also the reason why I wouldn't look at Conspiracy X, nice suggestion though.

Quote from: Griffon86Balbinus, I think the game you mentioned, "a free game the title of which suddenly escapes me all about playing the British resistance following a successful invasion," is called "1940 - England Invaded!" Author Simon Washbourne has it available as a free PDF at //www.geocities.com/england_invaded/ along with some other resources. I think he wrote the original version for the Forge's 24-hour RPG contest, then expanded on it to reach its current form. Though I don't care much for new game engines, it's a fun read and an interesting alternate-history setting, easily ported to your favorite game rules.

I should have remembered this myself as Simon was a regular at my previous club (I've actually for a signed copy of his Lashings of Ginger Beer game ). He did run a few games of England Invaded at the club and I can't believe I forgot about it. Someone to tap up for, potential, source material for my campaign

Quote from: dpmcalisterCanada 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?

    *hums "The Maple Leaf Forever"*
 
     Canada becoming the seat of a "Free Britain" government and developing into a world power would be deeply the awesome.  The RCN carrier "Ark Royal" armed with Harriers, anyone?  On a more thread-relevant note, google info about "Camp X", a British/Canadian/American joint spy and commando school that operated near Oshawa in the war years.  

    Oh, and on a side note, the new Bond flick "Casino Royale" totally r0xxors.  It's Bond meets Bourne.  Total reboot of the series of Bond as increasingly metrosexual action-droid to a frickin' blue eyed killer yob who looks excellent in a tux.  Plot's a bit paper thin and hokey due to the older sensibilities of the Fleming source material.  But...heresy I know...Daniel Craig manages to make even Sean Connery's Bond into a pale caricature.

As a GM who draws a lot from movies - in this case espionage movies - I find for the games I like to run, the 70's spy flicks the perfect inspiration for more low tech spy games. Obvioulsy low tech , but there seems to be the human element missing in the genre in todays spy movies...

I've based games on paranoid thrillers such as The Parallex View, The Conversation - these two strictly not spy films - but also Three Days To The Condor, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold spy flicks such as these...also Callan is a big influence.

What can I say, sometimes I find the high tech gets in the way of all the spy stuff. But as JimBob correctly points out, in reality it does not. So, yeah maybe I shouldn't rely so much on Hollywood....

Regards,
David R

Quote from: SamarkandOh, and on a side note, the new Bond flick "Casino Royale" totally r0xxors.  It's Bond meets Bourne. Total reboot of the series of Bond as increasingly metrosexual action-droid to a frickin' blue eyed killer yob who looks excellent in a tux.

I must say I too really appreciated this Bond-With-A-Snarl, this is the most I've enjoyed a Bond film in a very long time.  Even when factoring in how the script really broke down towards the end. It really, really bogged for me. It has, I don't know, maybe 3 scenes too many and about 10 minutes too much film?

I also like how it wasn't just a bunch of hokey gadgets (Q didn't even make the cast). It didn't come off quite as tight as Borne, not quite as polished, but it's one hell of an improvement for the franchise.

QuotePlot's a bit paper thin and hokey due to the older sensibilities of the Fleming source material.  But...heresy I know...Daniel Craig manages to make even Sean Connery's Bond into a pale caricature.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to diss Connery like that, and I think it's more how the movie was approached than Craig. I'm left wondering what the movie would be like with Connery in the role (I mean Connery 15 years ago, not the 70ish Connery). But he's at least a solid second in the Bond rating in my estimation, which is way better that I had expected.

On the downside the wife didn't really dig him, said the long shots of him epecially the one of him standing in the ocean looking at the beachhouse reminded her of a peanut with ears. Also something about she felt he bulked up too much from, say, his Tomb Raider 2 form. No -direct- impact for my enjoyment of the film, but if we are to hope to see another Bond-With-Snarl film the women have to swoon to the box office.

Quote from: blakkieI'm not sure I'd go so far as to diss Connery like that, and I think it's more how the movie was approached than Craig. I'm left wondering what the movie would be like with Connery in the role (I mean Connery 15 years ago, not the 70ish Connery). But he's at least a solid second in the Bond rating in my estimation, which is way better that I had expected.

   Well...I'll grant you that.  The Connery Bond is the iconic Bond, the Ur Bond. Connery's performance had an effect on Fleming's work after the first film came out, I believe.  He retconned Bond to be part-Scottish.  

    IMO, the best espionage flick is "Ronin".  I don't know about realism.  But it shows an amazing sense of versimilitude in how the characters act, right down to their instincts.  They *feel* like spook-war veterans.

Easily De Neiro's finest post-Goodfellas role is Ronin.  Absolutely fantastic film... less so towards the end but the bit at the beginning when they're all planning the operation and he ambushes a guy with a cup of coffee... excellent.

GAME STYLE
Cinematic (2 parts), Realistic (2 parts)
Hack (2 parts), Thesp (2 parts)
Schtick (1 part), Drama (3 parts)

WHAT HAPPENS
Action / Fights (4)
Building (1)
Character (3)
Character Power (1)
Destroying (1)
Exploration (3)

HOW IT'S DONE
Athletics, Combat, Communication, Detection, Driving, Gadgeteering, Intrusion

DETAILED DESCRIPTION
No questions, no answers. That's the business we're in. You accept it and move on.

The characters will work for Oser-e, a private security firm founded in France. Osere is a Marseilles-founded organisation which specialises in paramilitary and police-style operations. Operations include, but are not limited to: intensive background checks, criminal investigation, security, hostage rescue, counter-terrorism, and what the company calls, "specialised covert investigation," which is to say, espionage. Osere in no case carries out gratuitous assassinations or terrorist acts. It will carry out assassinations of military targets, or of targets for which there is significant proof they might receive the death penalty in most countries.

These missions bring the company into clashes and co-operation both with other agencies both official and unofficial. [/FONT]

Whenever I complete a campaign, I pitch six new ones to the gamers I know. One of those I recently pitched was as above. No prizes for guessing where I got the image, and where some of the text...

Most of what I have run recently with Spycraft 2.0 has been Bourne and Bond type... heavy chase scenes and other action scenes and subterfuge. With a little Hackers thrown in.

I'm leaning towards a bit lower key tense spy thriller material for upcoming games, though, where characters are a bit more mortal. Spycraft 2.0, happily, accomodates.