LOL!

We use have a certain special decal that PeryPub used for official Flying Buffalo Incorporated-approved material. It reads "FBI Approved," and we try to make it look "federal-esque." One day I'll tell you, in private, the long, long story behind why we get such a kick out of it.

Quote from: Laggy;438569LOL!

We use have a certain special decal that PeryPub used for official Flying Buffalo Incorporated-approved material. It reads "FBI Approved," and we try to make it look "federal-esque." One day I'll tell you, in private, the long, long story behind why we get such a kick out of it.

Cool.  I would like to hear that story

Can anyone who has played Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes give me a little information on how it plays?  Is it a smooth game to run?

Fundamentally, it's pretty much the same system as Tunnels & Trolls, so it plays just like it. MS&PE also adds a layer of skills for realistic characters, and I'll confess that sometimes I play that way and other times I simplify by just ignoring the skills. Seems to work smoothly either way!

It's smooth as hot buttered glass.

You want to give the players some scratch paper to note their rolls. That's an important part of character development. They might be annoyed, since most games don't do it like that, but there's no reason for you to have to do it. Let them get used to it.

You don't need minis or a grid, but you will want some nice location maps and a means of noting range and cover for gunfights.

Let the players know what kind of adventure they're playing, and let then roll characters old-school style. You take the numbers you get for your stats and buy skills appropriate for the mission. If the characters live, then they develop. Trying to artfully assemble a character to be a long-term alter ego might be a little counter-productive at first.

Mysteries can be tricky to run, but there are whole threads here on that. I would just encourage you to go through your maps/scenes, populate them with interesting npcs and things, and have plenty of interesting results in mind for both successful and failed rolls. I might encourage a more straightforward mercenary mission to start. You get plenty of lethal combat, some money and experience at the end of it, and opportunities for plenty of cool npcs. But of course, that would depend on what your group would like.

Oh--and just a note--skim a couple issues of Soldier of Fortune or a book about Blackwater and get some reasonable amounts of money to offer the characters for the mission. MSPE uses concrete money--no abstract substitute mechanic--as an important part of the character reward structure. Let that work for you.

Along with that, if you aren't setting your adventure in the early 80s, have a multiplier ready for them to use to adjust their starting money and the cost of their equipment.

Make the players keep track of their ammo, if it's a gunfighty scenario.

Rules are spread through the book. Read all the skill descriptions. Read the notes under the equipment charts.

The rules are extremely consistent with their internal logic, so if you hit a snag, resolve it however seems easiest and keep rolling.

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I just listened to Tetsubo's ponderings on action points and it made me think of a couple things.

MSPE doesn't have action points or mook rules or any other built-in genre emulation or assumption that characters are going to be vastly more skilled, resillient, or combat-ready than their enemies. Everybody has the same rules and difficulties. If Unnamed Guard #3 has the same Dex and firearms skill as Harry Withers, local crime boss and target of your sting operation, then the guard will be as likely to kill your character as Harry is. Sometimes I like games that feature that inverted difficulty funnel as you move up the food chain to your climactic target. But mostly, I like the level field. It feels more logical and consistent. At any rate--it's something to be aware of as you're designing ncs.

There are no points to spend to automatically get certain clues at certain times, if you're running a linear clue-finding game. Have multiple clues leading to the same information, or make certain critical clues easier to spot. Some folks are put off by mysteries that stall, but I've been lucky to usually have players that enjoy the challenge of solving a mystery, and feel more satisfied if it was tough, as long as it seems like the puzzle was fair.

I don't know if I have any other advice, but I've logged some hours playing, so if you have any questions, I can tell you what I did or would do, for whatever that's worth.

Quote from: stu2000;439799MSPE doesn't have action points or mook rules or any other built-in genre emulation or assumption that characters are going to be vastly more skilled, resillient, or combat-ready than their enemies. Everybody has the same rules and difficulties. If Unnamed Guard #3 has the same Dex and firearms skill as Harry Withers, local crime boss and target of your sting operation, then the guard will be as likely to kill your character as Harry is. Sometimes I like games that feature that inverted difficulty funnel as you move up the food chain to your climactic target. But mostly, I like the level field. It feels more logical and consistent. At any rate--it's something to be aware of as you're designing ncs.

Haven't played MSPE (I have the Jade Jaguar adventure which I got because I was curious about the Hero guidelines, and that's about it) but somewhat familiar with T&T...with Tunnels and Trolls, I tend to think that LUCK is something you can use to tell apart mooks and non-mooks. This goes up quickly with level and gives extra combat adds and hence more attack and defense...though, if MSPE is largely missile based it perhaps won't make as much difference as in T&T?
Minion rules aren't so necessary in T&T anyway either, since the damage is based on the combat roll difference...your damage ramps up quickly against an inferior foe.

Quote from: Daedalus;439700Can anyone who has played Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes give me a little information on how it plays?  Is it a smooth game to run?

How it plays is rather quick and deadly when the combat starts. In the broad overview I'd say you do the Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eye types of scenarios, or the parts within an ambitious scenario, in reverse order.  

In one "campaign," I tried for P.I. versus gangsters thingy and had a shootout at the docks as the climax for the session. All the characters were dead in ten minutes of dice rolling. Another 1937 campaign I did a jewel thief and his cohorts; it went from figuring out who set him up, to finding out the mayor of Newyark, New York was an Italian spy, to an island somewhere around Sardinia to destroy a U-Boat base that would threaten Gibraltar and southern France with laser beam strikes from radio controlled blimps. The thief actually died defusing a bomb but his muscles buddy and Peter Lorrie-like sidekick saved the girl as well as the British garrison. The second one, needless to say, was much more satisfying to all involved.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;439832I tend to think that LUCK is something you can use to tell apart mooks and non-mooks. This goes up quickly with level and gives extra combat adds and hence more attack and defense...though, if MSPE is largely missile based it perhaps won't make as much difference as in T&T?

That's a good point. You can use the Megadeath (coined before the band) Luck saving Roll to get your pcs out of tight spots. It's a tough roll, though. You want their Luck to be high. And if you deny the Luck stat to nps, I guess that gives them a marginal handicap. But important npcs should have a Luck stat, same as anyone else. Thugs should just get general combat adds reflecting their competence or lack of it.

Characters and their skills advance level separately, which generally has the characters advancing in level more slowly than in T&T, although that's really comparing apples and oranges. When a character advances his level, he only gets two Attribute points to add, much fewer than T&T, so his Luck won't really scale up very quickly. Players tend to add Luck for the adds and IQ to get new skills. Skills can scale up quickly, if they're used often. That helps out in a gunfight, and ther areas, as well.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;439832Minion rules aren't so necessary in T&T anyway either, since the damage is based on the combat roll difference...your damage ramps up quickly against an inferior foe.

The only caveat to that is that attributes go up slowly, compared to T&T, so the pcs stay closer to on par with the thugs for longer. Just remember that if you want the pcs to blow through the thugs, you have to give the thugs pretty low numbers.

A handful of pcs is almost never going to make it against a small army of similarly-armed thugs, like they could in Feng Shui or some pulp-flavored games. Which I like. Players have to plan the ultraviolence out a little. Distractions, booby traps, cons, heists, deception and ingenuity--A-Team, MacGuyver--that sort of thing.

If you're adept at keeping the players focused on the main adventure, the constant short side adventures they get into as they steal welding gear to build a homemade shark cage, or overly-successfully seduce a foreign ambassador who now wants to defect and cause an international incident can be the most fun part of the game. MSPE is light enough to easily facilitate creating these strange things on the fly, but logical enough, with a gritty enough baseline, for the players to feel some verisimilitude.

It sits in a very sweet spot.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think MSPE is the system behind the old computer game Wastelands.

Quote from: stu2000;439869When a character advances his level, he only gets two Attribute points to add, much fewer than T&T, so his Luck won't really scale up very quickly!

Ouch! I'd expected MSPE characters to have lower stats than T&T PCs just since all the magical power ups and racial bonuses weren't there, but that's a bit of a kick in the teeth. One of the things I like about T&T is the ridiculously bloated attribute scores, even if it does get silly after awhile (I started RPGs with T&T and when we switched to AD&D 2nd ed I remember being baffled when the GM said your stats couldn't go  higher than 25...I mean, you'd hopefully hit that in just a couple of sessions and what do you do after that, right?)

But OK, if that's the case then my thoughts above aren't really applicable to MSPE. I still think you can justify Luck as so easy to raise in T&T as higher level = higher plot importance, but yeah...inapplicable here. Ah well, carry on...

The 'Megadeath saving throws' is interesting, though.

Right now I have my hands full of Tunnels and Trolls love but I would like to check out MSPE some time in the future

Quote from: Daedalus;440087Right now I have my hands full of Tunnels and Trolls love but I would like to check out MSPE some time in the future

I am not sure if Mr. St Andre would be happy to hear that or creeped out.  

Quote from: StormBringer;440140I am not sure if Mr. St Andre would be happy to hear that or creeped out.  

Anyone can indeed ask him.

kenstandre(at)Yahoo.com

Quote from: StormBringer;440140I am not sure if Mr. St Andre would be happy to hear that or creeped out.  

Maybe a little of both?  

Quote from: Laggy;440228Anyone can indeed ask him.

kenstandre(at)Yahoo.com

He was joking