HeapThaumaturgist said:
I'll humbly disagree about magic being as core to d20Modern as superspy cinema is to SC2.
Here's the crux of my argument (aside from the fact I think a part of the issue is the game is called "Spycraft," which in a sense damns it to the 'superspy game' label): Looking just at the parts of the game...no labels, just
parts...I don't see 2.0 as any more 'superspy' than d20M is 'magical.' Sure, Spycraft has gadget rules and "mastermind" and "henchman" as game terms. But when Modern has a chapter on modern day magic items and all its mini settings - one on killing monsters (Shadowchasers), one on being psychic (Agents of Psi), one on DnD critters in the modern day (Urban Arcana), etc. - involve magic/powers beyond human ability, that seems to paint d20M as a game where magic is just as much a part of the 'core setting' of Modern as spies are to Spycraft. IIRC, one of the WotC bigwigs (brain fart: can't remember his name, but I think it was the guy who pushed forward the OGL in the first place) said the core assumption of WotC was that magic is why people gamed in the first place, so that makes sense.
Modern has been brought away from magic a bit, now - due nearly entirely to the work of third party publishers' work and 4 years' development time - but that's all after the fact. Spycraft 2.0 has not had the time to develop in that way yet, thanks to the shake ups on the AEG > Crafty transfer and so on. So I think simply saying Spycraft "can't do multigenre like Modern" is less accurate a statement than "it ISN'T as multigenre as Modern...yet."
I applaud that the fan-base got changes through the door that made the game more to their liking ... but I do think those changes made the game less multi-genre and, as you say, more "simulationism" and better suited to the core genre it espouses. There are assumptions built into the rules about how people react to, say, getting shot or burnt or how they interact with others or have a "dramatic scene" or use a shotgun or use skills ... or what skills are included in the system and NOT included in the system. That there's a specific damage type called "Laser Damage". Etc.
I don't think these "assumptions" are not so much genre tropes as they are either observed behaviors or specific rules to govern situtations which players may encounter, which Modern does not address. I'm pretty sure in a real-life d20 land, the Modern character would use a shotgun the same way as the Spycraft character would, no matter the genre - it's just that Spycraft the game codifies and governs certain effects at a different level of detail than Modern does.
That doesn't make the game BAD ... it just makes the game, when taken as a whole, feel like a Cinematic Superspies game and the campaign qualities feel like afterthoughts. They do a good job of letting somebody who REALLY likes SC2 do another genre ... they don't, however, really seem to inspire somebody who wants a generalist system to take up SC2 as that system. EDIT: Which doesn't have to be a bad thing. I think many of the things that people see SC2 as doing "better" are things that make the game better for its genre. That this, at the same time, distances it from generalism is to be expected.
--fje
OK. Well all I can say to that is that campaign qualities and the like are core to the game and very specifically designed into the game to make it multigenre, not "afterthoughts." That said, I respect your opinion, and so agree to disagree
EDIT: Insight, my apologies for dragging the thread into a debate over Spycraft itself. I'll knock it off.
Spycraft will continue to receive continuous support from the Crafty Games team - now that we're at the point where we can actually start putting out product
- as well as Powered by Spycraft publishers, who have submitted a number of interesting and downright exciting proposals for products. As for converting old material - much of that material has been distilled down into a hearty broth and put into the 2.0 core book itself!
As for espionage-specific reference material - mastermind Patrick Kapera has composed an absolutely boxorz-roXorzing Tradecraft chapter in the upcoming World on Fire supplement (print and PDF) which will fill in all the missing spy-specific stuff into a big steaming pile of spysy goodness. Relevant older material which did not make it in will doubtless be appearing in supplements as the need/demand arises. So fret not about support - we've got a lot more to say about this game yet