This must be one of the most criminally underrated games, ever.

The setting is, IIRC, one vague paragraph about how the President of the USA and the Soviet premier (it was the 80s) are "innocent bystanders" while the real powers of the world duke it out in the shadows.

With ninjas.

And superspies.

Cue page after page of martial arts mundane (from Capoeira to Snake Style Kung Fu) and mystical, gadgets and cyberware.

There are also some clunky, if functional, secret agency creation rules, and a short adventure in the back of the book.

If you plug in Beyond the Supernatural, Mystic China and/or Nightbane, you get a modern-day horror/conspiracy game. But seriously, who needs this shit when you're a Commando Mercenary, or Private Eye, or Worldly Martial Artist?

I know it's not for everyone, but this is my favorite Palladium game. The much-reviled Palladium system works well enough for this "tier" of action (and IMHO only becomes really clunky for Rifts).

Besides, modern-day "Men's Adventure" is a dreadfully underserved genre in our hobby. I'm aware of the recent release of Dogs of W.A.R. but the BoL engine doesn't cut it for me.

Sadly, an old player borrowed my copy, and disappeared. And right now I'm commited to GMing either Starblazer Adventures, or The Day After Ragnarok.

But one of these days I'll pick up a new copy (Amazon.com and BN.com don't have it, but the Palladium online store does) and go back to rewriting the Cold War with cyborg supersoldiers, ninja assassins, hardboiled PIs and suave James Bond types.

Who else's played this game? Regale me with your "war stories".

Haven't played it sadly, but always thought it looked pretty awesome. In days of yore I did have a friend abuse it (as well as Rifts, Transdimensional TMNT and the Rifts Conversion Book) to create a mutant ankylosaurus mind melter with Zanji-Ryu swordsmanship for a Rifts game.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;385359Haven't played it sadly, but always thought it looked pretty awesome. In days of yore I did have a friend abuse it (as well as Rifts, Transdimensional TMNT and the Rifts Conversion Book) to create a mutant ankylosaurus mind melter with Zanji-Ryu swordsmanship for a Rifts game.

Madness. Bloody madness.
/approve

As to the OP, I never really played this too much. My buddies and I rolled up characters during lunch in middle school. I was making a dedicated martial artist with Zanji-Shinjiken (sp?) and Snake Style kung fu who was a complete rip-off of Kyoshiro Senryo (hey, I was 11!). I rolled a 3 for PB. I think we went through a fight or two during which I got to cut a bitch with a naginata.

Also, my younger brother ran a Mortal Kombat game where I played a cyborg ninja using the cyborg from Heroes Unlimited with the Ninjitsu style from N&SS. It was crazy. I hacked down thugs like there was no tomorrow and got saved by his own dreadlocked mutant animal gator with ninjitsu. I reiterate: It was crazy.

I know I owned this book, but I have no specific memories about it. Maybe the pure AWESOMZ of it flash-fried my feeble young mind. I know we never actually played, but we mined it for cybernetics and gizmos.

Quote from: The Butcher;385352. . .right now I'm commited to GMing . . . The Day After Ragnarok.

Drooooool!
/yay!

Quote from: The Butcher;385352But one of these days I'll pick up a new copy (Amazon.com and BN.com don't have it, but the Palladium online store does) and go back to rewriting the Cold War with cyborg supersoldiers, ninja assassins, hardboiled PIs and suave James Bond types.

My local Hastings has (or had, last time I was there) a copy for $5.  If you're in the US I would pick it up and send it over to you.

As for my experience with the game, I loved it.  We played a lot of this and Heroes Unlimited in high school and freely mixed the two games whenever we wanted.  Some really crazy crap came out of it, but it was a fun time back in the day.

I've got it on the shelf, and Erick Wujcik gave me a copy of the first volume of the grab-bag that is Mystic China (and regaled me with tales of what happened with the 2nd volume).

However, every time I looked at either book to think "can I do something with this?"... it just seemed much easier to use Feng Shui and get the same results, with a system I liked more.

I played the crap out of this. Despite the large number of things I dislike about the Palladium system, it was a huge, steaming pile of awesome, and I can't think of a higher recommendation for a game.

Quote from: stu2000;385415I played the crap out of this. Despite the large number of things I dislike about the Palladium system, it was a huge, steaming pile of awesome, and I can't think of a higher recommendation for a game.

I second this. I played that game into the fucking dirt. I just bought a new copy the other day sense my became so warn.

An old group I was in played quite a few game of N&SS.  Along with the TMNT game as well.  We got addicted to the Palladium system when one of my friends got dumped by her boyfriend and he had left his books in her car.  He never got them back.

I don't know if I would have as much fun with it nowdays though.  My tastes in games has changed a lot since then and I tend to go with a lot less system than what Palladium had.  Still those were great times and it was a great game.

I love the book. But despite multiple false starts, it never seemed I could get a game of this off of the ground.

These days Spycraft 2.0 scratches this it. However, I do occasionally use this game for inspiration (and doubly so for Mystic China.)

I've a friend who likes martial arts too much, he finds the game system not so suited to actual styles and their flexibility and too much focus on the mystical.

He wants action movie, not wuxia magic, I think.

N&S is spectacular. Particularly with Mystic China, which is one of the best sourcebooks Palladium ever released.

RPGPundit

i had included N & S in my old Heroes Unlimited game (and general palladium hodgepodge) back in the late 90's.  unfortunately the group dissolved before they could get into the "make your own organization" stuff

still a favorite, tho.  lots of goodness inside