James Bond vs. Dracula? Eeeenteresting.....
Or Jason Bourne or Harry Palmer or ...
The game suggests several possible modes of play - with accompanying rules tweaks -
Burn Mode: "Some spy stories privilege psychological damage and the cost of heroism: the Bourne trilogy of films,TV series Alias and Callam, and the espionage novels of Graham Greene, for example. Horrors drain your soul as much as they do your blood; you look into the abyss and see the abyss welcoming you in."
Dust Mode: "To recreate the gritty, lo-fi espionage world of Anthony Price or Charles McCarry, similar to the TV series The Sandbaggers or Rubicon, or films like Three Days of the Condor, you can “depower” the game into Dust mode"
Mirror Mode: "Many spy stories, especially in the modern era, present a “wilderness of mirrors,” a world of hiddenagendas and shifting allegiances. They threaten personal identity and self-knowledge, mirroring those threats in betrayal and contests between corrupt opponents where the protagonist must trust only his own moral sense — if he can remember it. This is the world of John Le Carré’s Smiley novels and Barry Eisler’s John Rain thrillers, of movies like Ronin and Spy Games and the Mission: Impossible films, of TV shows like The Prisoner and MI-5."
Stakes mode: "Although more common in earlier spy fiction than now, some spy stories play for higher stakes. The
characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge. This is the world of James Bond and Jack Ryan, of Tim Powers’ novel Declare, of films like Taken, of TV shows like Burn Notice."
And you don't know what your opposition is going to be ...
[As I've just started playing this - great so far - I haven't read the GM's section but I've just grabbed this from the start of that section ]
"This chapter presents a series of questions to answer and decisions to make for the Director. Why do vampires exist? Where do they come from? What are their powers? How do humans stop them? When did they begin to corrupt Europe – or mankind as a whole? Who do they control? This chapter also presents a wide variety of answers to those questions, and options for those decisions. The Director builds her vampires, and their conspiracy, from those answers and choices, and from her imagination and creativity. Thus, no two games of Night’s Black Agents will have exactly the same vampires, so the players won’t know what to expect even if they expect vampires."
Hope you find this interesting.