Hi everyone;

So my friend told me he was interested in playing a "spy game" of some sort. Whether or not his interest was fleeting, it got me to thinking. What are some good games out there that would let you run a modern-day spy game? I thought about converting SR4, but the matrix and magic have so much to do with it that I felt it would feel bland afterwards. I've tried Spycraft, but it struck me as more Inspector Gadget than James Bond. For whatever reason, I don't like the Alternity system (I know, heretical), so that's out. D20 Modern? I haven't heard anything good. GURPS? Maybe, but I've never run or played it before. Does anyone have any diamonds in the rough for a modern-day spy campaign? I'm thinking Mission Impossible (the show and maybe the first movie, but not the other two); maybe the Bourne trilogy? Any help would be appreciated.

-Dr Z

Spycraft is Inspector Gadget only if you want to play it that way. Certain classes can really shine with gear but you do not need to run a Spycraft campaign that way. Besides gear only count for a small part of a agent's abilities - have you checked out the Covert branch of feats?Not everything needs to be go go gadget.

I shudder at the idea of using d20 for anything, let alone a modern espionage game.

Have you checked out Savage Worlds? There are some spy/espionage conversions and packs over at www.savageheroes.com. Depending on how "gritty" you want your game, it might work.

I'd personally either try Alternity (out for you, I know) or SW, but that's because I already have them.

I have played and enjoyed Delta Green for Cthulhu... But that runs 100 bucks for a souce book on e-bay (its out of print).

Similarly the Dark*Matter setting for Alternity is easily adaptable to a spy/intrigue game.

GURPS might work (hell, when won't GURPS work? ... don't answer that...).

If my memory serves me correctly Palladium games publishes a spy based setting.

- der menkey

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~Ernest Hemingway

Palladium's is Ninjas and Superspies. If you can stand the Palladium engine, it's a good book. I played a character built using N&S in a Nightbane game. Rocked ass.

I've never played a "straight Palladium system" game of Rifts/etc. My Rifts GM had a set of changes and tweaks that he made to the system. So all of my Palladium experiences were quite fun. I just know that there's quite a bit of anti-Palladium-system sentiment out there. *shrug*

Don't forget about TSr's top secret. I don't think you can find them in print anywhere, but there are some scans you can find.

...Hero Games also came out with a spy related supplement titled Danger International a number of years back. Like Top Secret you probably have to hunt around for it as well. Considering that the game engine has pretty much stayed the same over the years DI may not really be that out of date.

Personally I always liked the spy and intrigue genres. With the Corp and European angles, Shadowrun has the potential for a good spy/secret agent campaign but you need to play down large parts of the metaplot and magic to make it work

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I thought to myself, "Put this one on overnight, then check on it the next day" and it has certainly delivered. I got a free PDF of "GURPS Lite" that basically explains the rules and systems that I'm going to check out later. I suppose I can re-read my spycraft PHB, see if it's worth another go. My friend just suggested a bastardized and re-worked version of Deadlands- any complaints on that end? I've only played it a few times. Other than that, I'll check out Palladium as well. Thanks again for the suggestions.

Dr Z.

Hmm. If you were going to do a "rework on Deadlands", I honestly think you'd be better off just looking into Savage Worlds. Deadlands now uses the SW system (and is now Deadlands Reloaded).

Here's a link to the Test Drive Rules
and the main Savage Worlds page.

Also, there's a 10 dollar "Explorer's Edition" available on Amazon (and elsewhere) that is literally the entire core system. Tack on what you like.

...hmmm, I even have the Delta Green chargen programme mod. I would be interested but alas am not online regularly enough outside of my work. The boss has a habit of frowning on "extracurricular" activities on the job & it's tricky enough to hide my regular DS habit.

You could run Oriental Adventures 1st edition where everyone is a ninja.

I'm not sure which version of Spycraft you have played. The second edition is really good. There are a number of aspects to Spycraft that make it really worth checking out.

The gear system is very easily modified. You can do everything from have lots of permanent gear to very little permanent gear. The published system is a balance, with some permanent gear (increasing by level) and some being mission specific. My preference is to lean more heavily towards the James Bond "Q" model, with agents receiving gear from the agency (today you get to choose from these two pistols, this sniper rifle, and this light SMG. We also have these motorcycles, and this collapsing knife-tipped umbrella...).

The dramatic conflict system emphasizes skills as the key to exciting play, and does so very well. Players get to really shine, and the mechanic for Action Dice (small numbers of bonus dice PCs get to modify rolls, the GM can hand out more for good play) is brilliant.

In general, Spycraft allows for plenty of PC cheese, without breaking the system. Because the spy genre is about tactics, flair, skill, and drama, having a PC that shoots some ungodly weapon an ungodly amount of times for ungodly damage is not at all game breaking (it is, in fact, fun). This is a big change to Shadowrun, where we spend nearly all our time on these boards moaning about the latest game breaker build (that sort of talk never comes up on the Crafty boards).

There are a ton of published adventures on the Spycraft Home Office site, though these will go down soon with the closing of their living campaign.

I find Spycraft to be superb for the spy genre, and an excellent system overall. The revised 2.0 print is out now and available at Drive Thru RPG and similar pdf outlets.

Also, I will slam savage worlds for suffering from the person with a higher skill level finds arbitrary tasks harder to do in adverse conditions problem.

Except instead of rarely happening ever it happens in 100% of gunfights, because you need to hit a TN of 4, and you are almost always playing with a -4 (-2 for range above pointblank, -2 for cover) or a -6 (-4 for range above short, -2 for cover) penalty.

Savage worlds used a stepped dice size model, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 model, with exploding dice (so a d8 that gets an 8 you re-roll the d8 and add the second result repeating as often as you get 8s.)

And as the max value for a skill is D12, and the min value is D4, lots of people have skills in the d6->d10 range where the problem beings, because the guy with a D6 is more likely to roll an '8' than the guy with the d8, for example.

So in a pistol fight when one guy is hiding behind a table and the other one behind the bar at 8 meters away, the guy rolling a d6 is more likely to hit than the guy with a d8. And if you shoot the lights out, the guy with the d8 is more likely to hit than the guy with the D10.

And my two examples are not exactly uncommon situations either, more like the cornerstone of many an action/adventure themed game.

Blergh.

Spycraft has problems too, but at least the combat resolution system isn't stupid. I'd be tempted just to use shadowrun really and make skills much cheaper (in line with frank's model), and delete cyberware and magic. Tada.

Part of the problem is the variance. Lower dice are more likely to get results in a tighter range, and more likely to get a given result within that range. As you get more skilled, your skills become less dependable.

When you're rolling side by side against say a TN of 9, the first roll on the d6 must be a 6 (1/6 odds of happening), the roll on the 8 must be an 8 (1/8 odds). Only after that first roll may you continue on to the second roll. In this case the d6 is more likely to get the opportunity for the die to explode, it's more dependable.

Granted, the d8 is more likely to hit the mark (1/8 * 1/1 = 1/8 vs. 1/6 * 1/2 = 1/12), but from the players perception, if the 8 can't dependably make it past the first of two rolls, it is a more frustrating option. There's something to be said for people with higher skills being able to rely on those skills better.

Firstly, I would say that any system which is counter-intuitive in that it makes it appear having higher skill is worse is fundamentally flawed for most purposes. Secondly, I would say that any system where being more skilled means you are less able to get dependable results has also failed for most purposes. While I understand the math behind Firefly, I dislike the dice system intensely because better characters face more and more random chance, while weaker characters find the world fairly dependable.

It used to be such a common occurrence in our Earthdawn games it became a running joke -- it seemed whenever I rolled a d20 + d4 step for something (also with exploding dice), the d4 would beat the d20. Every time.

Now, I know statistically and factually it wasn't the case. I know the times I rolled double digit numbers on a d4 weren't really common, they just stick out in my memory. I know the d20 more than pulled it's weight, and it would do so again if I sat down and rolled those two dice together a hundred, or a thousand, or a million times.

But the perception became that the d20 routinely sucked and the d4 routinely exploded like an all-star at a bukkake festival. And the fact that perception existed for so long in our campaign, and that it remains to this day a joke around our gaming table...does, in fact, lend a bit of credence to the "some systems just friggin' feel off" complaints.

If you're rolling an exploding d6 and an exploding d8 with a TN of 8:

d6 - 1/6 (roll a 6) * 5/6 (roll a 2-6) = 5/36
d8 - 1/8 (must roll an 8) = 1/8

Yeah, that does seem to be a difference. At TN of 9 it evens out again
d6 - 1/6 * 1/2 = 1/12
d8 - 1/8 * 1/1 = 1/8


That's an interesting problem, although it only occurs at a single point (per pair of dice). I suspect it's similar to the shadowrun TN of 7 problem and could be fixed pretty easily. Too bad they didn't.

It's exactly the same as the Shadowrun TN 7 problem and caused by the same mechanic (exploding dice and variable TNs). They could fix it by just using SR4's system but that seems to have eluded them as an option.

Yeah, it does even out as you move around, but it's a real problem in that game system because it happens at least once a combat and often a dozen times a combat which is very tedious.

There is actually some marginal compensation for the d8 guy in the given example, in that hitting by more than 4 than the target number gives you a 'raise' which means you do some extra damage. A d6 to be exact. In a setting with guns that do 3d8+1 though its not particularly relevant. (Due to the soak mechanic guns either do nothing or incapacitate you, rarely venturing into any sort of middle ground)

Attributes also seem badly managed - if you don't have a skill you default to, get this, not the linked attribute, but rather to a D4. Huzzah. All attributes do is govern soak tests, carrying capacity, guts tests and create a break point at which it costs more to advance. Hurrah.

I really detest that system. It's almost bad enough to make me stop playing with that group. (Un)fortunately the other players don't actually seem to see the huge problems so I just play a character designed to avoid all of them and put my fingers in my ears and say 'lalala' the rest of the time when they come up so I don't vent my spleen.

Disclaimer: Some of my perception is colored by the deadlands setting which is even worse. You can take a 'negative' trait at character generation which actually just gives you the awesome and some free character points, but comes with a 'random disadvantage' except that the random disadvantage ranges from 'flavour text the GM will never care about' to 'having one arm' (ouch) to 'getting super powers with the downside you smell funny, but don't worry, make like an alcoholic and you don't have that disadvantage either' (!) and this is in some way balanced.

I'll shut up about it now.

To be constructive, I quite enjoyed running the first edition of spycraft, it had some flaws and the equipment stuff in the book took forever so I binned that and said 'here is the gear suckas' and the chase mechanics are great it and worked quite well. I understand the new version is the same but better so if you want something james bondy, I'd give it a look. It's not gritty though. At all.

I've also heard nothing but 'AWESOME' in respect to top secret so if you can russle up a preview copy its probably worth a look.

The SR4 system has its own flaws which have been discussed to death already. The simpler solution I was thinking of is, when a dX explodes, instead of adding the full value of X, add X-1. For example the d6/d8 problem rolling against a TN of 9, it would effectively become a TN of 10. For a TN of 8, it would effectively be a TN of 9 for the d6, TN8 for the d8. If you're at truly astronomical TNs it becomes problematic to remember how many times you subtract, but if it only explodes once it's not hard.

I prefer the minus one each time you reroll, as it doesn't require I buy a new set of dice.

But that dramatically changes the odds for lower dice like d4s. Target numbers of 11 are not too unusual in Deadlands, and your 'fix' would require and entire extra re-roll on a d4 to achieve (4 + 4 [-1] + 4 [-1] + ? ... as opposed to 4 + 4 + 3). I'm not sure if the problem is as bad as the cure.

You're complaining that when using small dice against highly improbable TNs, you have to reroll one more time?

Yes, because in my experience, facing a TN of 11 in Deadlands is not a terribly uncommon occurance. That's just one example though. Your cure scews the whole spectrum of TNs, making each level of success (and all that accompanies that) harder to achieve.

I may be generating some confusion for using the term deadlands (which is a stand alone RPG system in its own right first released in 1996) for Savage world's Deadlands: Reloaded (which is a different RPG system, and an instantiation of the savage worlds system, kinda like Gurps black ops or whatever, first released in 2006).

As savage worlds is striving to be an easy to use generic gaming system, imho, d20 really isn't an option as it is best for 'heroic' games, but SR4's core dice mechanic of dice pools with a fixed TN and sucesses is quite a bit more flexible and generic, so I don't think the idea is quite so silly as you make out.

As the system they did use for savage worlds generic RPG system is a modified version of that taken from the original deadlands RPG, which uses a dice pool mechanic with successes, I'm not so sure why the suggestion of using the slightly less bizarre dice pool with successes mechanic from shadowrun provokes mockery.

d20 deadlands is best avoided from my limited experience with it.


The dice mechanics are similar, but there is a significant difference between Savage worlds and Deadlands.

Instead of rolling a selection of exploding dice as in deadlands, with the size of the dice and the number of dice varying by your skill and attribute, you roll a single exploding dice varying on only by your skill (or for soak tests and the 'pinning' test that isn't guts checks based on your attribute) in reloaded

Player characters or BBEG NPCs get to roll an addition d4 (unless they are legendary characters in which case it is a d6, I think), called the edge die, with every test. So it is not really a 'dice pool' system.

Also, AFAIK, every single suggested dice modifier in both the core savage worlds book and the reloaded book is an even number, but that may be wrong (but it is what clued me into the fact that I'd forgotten to clearly demarcate between reloaded and the 1996 product)

Oooo yucky!

Deadlands is better!