Top Secret...

[Hussar]

I loved Top Secret games, but hated the rules. I didn't get a spy RPG where I loved the rules until the James Bond game (which I still love to this day). Espionage was pretty good, Top Secret: SI seemed like it would be OK, but James Bond was right on the money, IMO.

I didn't play Top Secret that I recall, but I agree with Glyfair that James Bond rocked on toast. I wish I still had my box set. Fantastic sourcebooks, really good supplements and some very innovative mechanics.

Heck, it even had player editorial authority in a game made in the 80's. PC's could spend Action Points (can't recall the term used in Bond) to change the scene as long as it was in keeping with the theme. Fantastic rules.

 

[Festivus]

Scribble, that sounds like the module that module. Was it Operation: Rapidstrike!? It really has been over 30 years so my memory is fuzzy.

Of that era, my favorite games were Boot Hill and D&D Boxed set.

 

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

Got to love a game where the hand to hand combat is resolved by both combatants blindly picking a maneuver. They usually went something like this:

PC: "I choose 'duck'."
GM: "Ooohh, too bad. The guard choose 'groin kick'."
PC: "Damnit!"

 

[00Machado]

I never played either, though I did own the SI box. What I was told, though, was that the original rocked, but SI sucked.

It didn't read too bad, to me, though.

In the original combat was more deadly. The Top Secret SI follow up made things more cinematic.

Basically, some might prefer one style of game, while other prefer another. Thus you get the this sucked/that sucked scenario.

Really though, that's the main difference (aside from the above mentioned better product support that Top Secret SI had).

 

[MerricB]

James Bond was great. I played a lot of it back in the day.

 

[Hussar]

James Bond was great. I played a lot of it back in the day.

As I said, I'd love to go back to it now when I'm not the little munchkin bastard I was back then. Elephant guns are NOT standard issue for a double O.

 

[Shroomy]

I owned Top Secret SI back in the day, as well as several of the supplements and box sets. I gleaned a vast knowledge of worldwide terrorist organizations circa late-1980s thanks to one of those supplements.

 

[Psion]

The one thing I really thought was cool about Top Secret SI -- ahead of its time, really -- is the optional "reality rules" that you could selectively add to a game.

 

[trollwad]

Top Secret the original was great. The death of the Soviet Union kinda took the wind out of the sails.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, I loved the original TS... what was that module in Dragon, "Operation: Whiteout" I think, which took place in Antarctica...

One of the possible hazards was shattering your teeth by drinking hot coffee outside in the cold!