Top Secret / SI

Morik · May 2, 2003

Hello to all,

does anyone still play the TOP SECRET /SI game.
IMO it is the most "realistic" game ever created (as far realism can go in a RPG).

And to just squish that realism I decided to take that game into the realm of Fantasy.

I'm also playing heavily DND 3rd (maybe I'm something like a veteran since I playing DND almost since it first comes out)

I transfered many monsters and spell-ideas to TOP Secret /SI now and I'm just wondering if someone else had done that before already (in which cases I will broke out in tears because all the work has been done already).

The spells for example were difficult to incorporate in TS/SI but I found an interesting way (spells are having "Levels" now which you can increase like TS-Skills. And you get more powers from the spells if you increase your levels).

Then I incorpated some classes/races:
I implemented a
half-vampyre class (similar to BLADE)
dwarf (fighter)
mage
halfling (close to a thief-class)
dark angel (it's like a demon)
monk
paladin
and many more.

For those who don't know the TS/SI System or don't like it or whatever... well.. I know for those I'm just bubbling some nonsens but... if something is interested then PLEASE answer me.

Maybe you just had the some idea some time ago and like to spare me some insights on your experience with TS/SI in a fantasy setting?

I'm playing now with my group in the real world but with some magics. The players and some super-bad-guys are the only one which can do magic which makes some actually really powerful (but this was my intention).

In TS/SI no character can inspect to life long if he is not carefully.
The game mechanics are just too deadly to let a "Arnold Schwarzenegger" type do not get his "share" of bullets in a middle of a full-blown street fight with firearms of all sort.

Hope all this text makes some sense to you...
If not I appologise in advance but always thank you for just listening to me....

Thanks

Bob5th · May 2, 2003

Well our group still plays Top Secret on ocassion. (Got to love my .501 sniper rifle) And we have toyed around with converting but never actually got anywere with it.

Desdichado · May 2, 2003

No, I haven't played it in years. I probably won't, now that d20 Modern is out. But I did certainly enjoy it in at once point.

Gargoyle · May 2, 2003

I used to run it, years and years ago. It was quite a deadly game as I recall.

It was fun though, because it was almost completely opposite from D&D in feel. In D&D, our characters would survive falls off cliffs...in Top Secret, they'd die in one or two combat rounds.

In D&D, we'd spend lots of time drawing out dungeon maps. In TS, we'd hop in our Ferraris or on our motorcycles and go.

Instead of swords and spells, we had martial arts and uzis.

As far as running it in a fantasy environment, I never even thought about it. For us, it was an escape away from our normal campaign. Kind of ironic, actually, we needed an escape away from something we were using to escape reality with.

You might want to take a look at WOTC's Urban Arcana when it comes out this month. It may not have exactly what you need rulewise, since it's a d20 modern supplement, but as a setting and for ideas it might be perfect.

I'm running d20 Modern this weekend, and prefer those rules to TS, but TS was fun when I ran it. Good luck with it.

Doppleganger · May 2, 2003

I was a Top Secret fan, but we don't play it anymore. The martial arts rules we're cool. I ran alot of campaigns, the most fun part was handing out all kinds of props like photos, keys, dossiers, magazines, matchbooks, etc.

There was a thread about this same subject here around a year ago, and I seem to remember that the Top Secret author (Earl Rasmussen??) showed up and posted that he hadn't ruled out the possibility of returning to gaming and publishing a D20 Top Secret style game.

KnowTheToe · May 2, 2003

Top Secret was one of the first games I ever played; what a great game.

Truth Seeker · May 2, 2003

Top Secret S.I.

Yes, so many dead agents....Web, Orion....ah, the good old days.

HellHound · May 2, 2003

No offense, but calling the crippled firearms system in Top Secret / SI more realistic than the firearms system in Top Secret is a load of malarky.

Top Secret / SI may have been more playable than Top Secret, but it definitely wasn't more realistic. We played it a few times but gave up when a single 9mm slug did 1d6 damage, and 30 9mm slugs did 1d6+2 damage.

And went right back to running Top Secret.

For overblown realism, look at Phoenix Command instead. Or Top Secret with the addition of the Top Secret Companion (which included piles of math to determine knockdown from various bullet wounds and so on).

bolen · May 2, 2003

Is Phoenix command like rolemaster in that you have an ungodly number of charts

Cybertec · Apr 11, 2016

Doppleganger said:
There was a thread about this same subject here around a year ago, and I seem to remember that the Top Secret author (Earl Rasmussen??) showed up and posted that he hadn't ruled out the possibility of returning to gaming and publishing a D20 Top Secret style game.

BTW, his name is Merle Rasmussen, The Administrator, and he does have a new updated Espionage game in development. Currently, known by the codename, ACRID HERALD. Plus, he's on the Top Secret Facebook page.