Where are all the great spy RPGs?

[aramis erak]

Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes just hit DrivethruRPG. It uses a variant of the Tunnels & Trolls rules with a beefed up skill system.

About bloody time... tho' I'd love to see it get a revised version in a manner not unlike T&T...

For those who don't know, the skill system moves the AP for skill based saves to the skills themselves. So each skill has a level and an experience point track. Plus the character does as well, which raises attributes (in a much less epic progression than pre-7 T&T). It's pretty good, and works pretty well.

It has the same issue with rather high TN's and low chances as T&T, but a good GM can work that easily.

 

[TBeholder]

Back in the 1980's, TSR put out a great game called Top Secret.
[...] I know there are "modern" RPGs, but nothing I know of is dedicated to spy adventures, with all the specialized information that would require: like information about spy equipment, spy terminology, spy methods, spy organizations, etc.
Is there any interest in running a spy campaign?

Back in the 1980's it was sorta kinda fashionable.
From relatively modern games, there are Shadowrun (and other cyberpunk games, erhas depending on how you run them) and Dark Heresy (also not all of it, but a large part of it).

 

[Lwaxy]

You can do espionage with basically any system. And despite the technological part of espionage nowadays, there is still a lot humans will need to do. Or you could place it all in the 80s, Problem solved.

I did love Burn Notice up to a point where it became a little bit too complicated and depressing, like many series nowadays. I always loved the A-Team, too.

 

[GrahamWills]

Real HumInt is still

1. go place under fake identity that's been backstopped,
2. make suitable friends,
3. get information by exploiting one or more of
   • laxity
   • greed
   • pride
   • lust
4. send anything even vaguely relevant back by the most secure means available
5. Analysts go over your data
6. Analysts have controller send you specific requests
7. Are you discovered, compromised, or burned?
   If not, go back to 3

Makes for great novels, and occasionally decent movies, but its not great for group RP.

So, from last night's NIGHTS BLACK AGENTS GAME

1. The characters arrived in Slovakia, each with their fake identities (various levels of COVER spent to establish each one)
2. Because they are running a little heat at the moment, one character had to run some interference at the hotel, diverting police attention. Unfortunately a second agency was tracking their electronic signature and so they had to hide their DIGITAL INTRUSION skill rolls. I ran that as a single contested roll; sometimes I run it as a series, but tonight was going to get busy ...
3. The previous session they had run a lot of HUMINT; posing as a fellow spy, getting friendly with local criminals via a shared interest in soccer and drinking; abducting and interrogating a key opposition asset. This session they digested the intel they had discovered and decided to go to the main site and investigate
4. Mostly unrealistic site investigation proceeded, but they did feed info back both to official contact at base and unofficial contact semi-aligned with an opposition group for analysis. No specific requests this time, but it does happen.
5. They were discovered by one opposition group, but had enough time for a dramatic explosive action, after which they pretty much burned with anyone local.
6. Next session will be starting with the aftereffects of being burned

Last session was about 50% HUMINT-related activity; this session spent most time in the site investigation, but still about ⅓ of the time was spent on more realistic spy activities, much as you describe. If it was always like this, it might be a bit much for anyone except extreme lovers of Le Carré, but in practice I've found NBA has a nice balance of Jason Bourne and George Smiley.

I'll also note that although the above opposition forces included vampires in the list, NBA can easily be played without them. The vampire-specific parts of the rules are nicely localized, so it's easy to simply ignore.

 

[Piratecat]

Night's Black Agents is an astonishingly good spy game. Toss the supernatural aspect if it isn't to your taste; either way, I find it ridiculously fun in a way that Spycraft just couldn't reach for me.

 

[JediSoth]

The new Kickstarter went live about 45 minutes ago, if anyone is interested.

 

[Silver Moon]

Night's Black Agents is an astonishingly good spy game. Toss the supernatural aspect if it isn't to your taste; either way, I find it ridiculously fun in a way that Spycraft just couldn't reach for me.

I will have to try that one. Big fan of spy stories, but most don't work well for RPG's for reasons already stated (largely individual vs. team play). I played Top Secret back in the late 80's and early 90's and found it clunky. I found that D20 Modern seemed to work pretty well as a game system for spy stories.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I just backed the Kickstarter for the Top Secret NWO. I hope its as good as my memories of it as a teenager are.

 

[mrm1138]

I realize that this thread is over a year old, but I wanted to chime in for anyone like myself who comes to it in the future.

I unfortunately haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I really like what I see for White Lies. It's from DWD Studios—who also publish a percentile-based espionage game called Covert Ops—and uses the Swords & Wizardry White Box rules. That may sound a little odd for a spy game, but it seems like it'll work quite well. It's class-based, so you have the Confiscator (thief-type), Eliminator (fighter-type), Infiltrator (disguise/charm person), Investigator, and Transporter. (I figure the last two are fairly self-explanatory.) There's a simple skill system—roll 1d6 plus any relevant bonus; success is usually 4+—and supplemental training to further customize PCs. (Supplemental training allows the player to roll 2d6 and use the higher result.) As with all White Box games, it's super simple and, since it's essentially based on D&D, it's easy for players to grasp without much of a learning curve.

 

[tuxedoraptor]

I find it near impossible to find a decent modern setting RPG anywhere, the closest I have ever gotten was Corporation and for urban fantasy I had to settle with ultramodern five.

Spycraft was a dead system the moment they used the trainwreck known as 3.5e, no sane developer should EVER use that system in my opinion, its one of the worst.

Shadowrun suffers from the same thing as spycraft;overly complex and complexity is generally a bad thing. Streamline it or cut it works for me.