GenCon, Operation Doublestrike and Top Secret

[CarlZog]

Anyways, combat was too deadly.



In fact, that's my gripe about Top Secret/SI. It wasn't deadly anymore. Full auto did +2 damage instead of filling a person with bloody holes.

That's why I didn't like SI either. Too campy.

I tempered the original TS's deadliness with TSR's old BIO-One rules for detailed hit location. Made it possible to take a slug in the arm without instantly dying.

CZ

 

[CarlZog]

Re: Re: Re: Re: GenCon, Operation Doublestrike and Top Secret

He is working in the midwest and at one point we were discusiing TS stuff, he was not familiar with d20 but man, could he write good modern stuff back in the day...at that time I emailed his wife and she replied for him and we talked on the phone, he seems to be doing well and is a very nice guy to boot.

I think there's probably a wealth of great stuff to be mined from old TS material and rebuilt for d20.

CZ

 

[MEG Hal]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GenCon, Operation Doublestrike and Top Secret

I think there's probably a wealth of great stuff to be mined from old TS material and rebuilt for d20.

CZ

I agree but it never came to fruition .

 

[Chaldfont]

That game was great. The XP table reads like S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s daily To Do list.

Skyjacking: 150 xp
Extortion: 150 xp
Use of Counterfeit Money: 125 xp

Too fun.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

I ran this adventure at Gencon this year. It was pretty fast paced and everyone had a blast. However I forgot to scale up the adventure for 6 PC's instead of 4 so they had too easy a time with it. And I didnt abuse them enough for not using cover.

However I got my revenge. After they "won" and left the island I Dm'ed in a nuke that exploded killing everyone! WOO!

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Re: Re: Re: GenCon, Operation Doublestrike and Top Secret

He is working in the midwest and at one point we were discusiing TS stuff, he was not familiar with d20 but man, could he write good modern stuff back in the day...at that time I emailed his wife and she replied for him and we talked on the phone, he seems to be doing well and is a very nice guy to boot.

Merle Rasmussen actually made a very brief appearance on the EN World boards. As I recall, this was during a particularly bad time, when the boards were continually crashing. I can't recall if this was on Eric's boards, or if it happened soon after Morrus took over. I felt badly about it, since we had finally gotten another of the guys who designed for TSR back during the 70s/early 80s to post here, and he was lost due to the damned boards being so wonky. It'd be great if you could get him to drop in, maybe do an interview, and maybe, just maybe, see if we could get him to do some new game work, d20 or something else.

By the way, yeah, I remember the original Top Secret. That was my brother's RPG of choice. His copy has long since vanished. I happen to have a copy of S.I. that I got way back when, but it is, indeed, quite a different game.

 

[blakwind]

I played an "infiltrator" character in the Sunday session of "Operation Doublestrike".

*waves to ArthurQ*

I had a good time sneaking around, shooting bad guys, and blowing stuff up. It was a fun session.

I must admit that I after signing up a d20 Modern event, I was a bit surprised to be unexpectedly playing Top Secret again after so many years. Although I had played the TS adventure "back in the day", I didn't make the connection until the session was underway.

This was my first exposure to d20 Modern. I suppose that I had been expecting the session to play more like Mage, Buffy, or even Call of Cthulhu -- a modern setting where complex characters have deep secrets and supernatural powers. Instead, the session was a linear commando raid with no supernatural elements, and the character sheets were lists of game stats without roleplay notes or even character names.

The session was a lot of fun -- just a different sort of fun than I was expecting.

Edit: Oh, and one more thing. I really liked the way ArthurQ ended the adventure with a surprise twist. Thanks Arthur!

 

[CarlZog]

Edit: Oh, and one more thing. I really liked the way ArthurQ ended the adventure with a surprise twist. Thanks Arthur!

Kudos to all the DMs who ran Operation Doublestrike in Indy. Though returning to the island was a great idea, the module was poorly edited. Our DM found it very frustrating, and our team found numerous errors in the stat calculations of our characters.

CZ

 

[CarlZog]

I felt badly about it, since we had finally gotten another of the guys who designed for TSR back during the 70s/early 80s to post here, and he was lost due to the damned boards being so wonky. It'd be great if you could get him to drop in, maybe do an interview, and maybe, just maybe, see if we could get him to do some new game work, d20 or something else.

I would love to hear from him and others from that time. It seems a lot of their work is falling so far into the background that there's a whole new generation of players and designers who are unfamiliar with the work done in roleplaying's first heyday. As I've witnessed on several other threads here recently, the lessons of that time still have a lot to offer.

CZ

 

[Henry]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GenCon, Operation Doublestrike and Top Secret

Merle Rasmussen actually made a very brief appearance on the EN World boards. As I recall, this was during a particularly bad time, when the boards were continually crashing. I can't recall if this was on Eric's boards, or if it happened soon after Morrus took over.

It was during the Reign of Morrus , back when we were on the Windows 2000 box. Dark indeed were those times, full of despair, and gloom, and expensive hosting...

I didn't have much to say to him, because I never got to play in the original Top Secret, but I did thank him for all of his hard work and all of the things he did write that I enjoyed.

ArthurQ? A friggin' NUKE!?!?!?

Man, you got style.