Spycraft 2.0 is awesome!

[Plane Sailing]

When I say "first-timers" though, I'm more referring to people, veteran or not, who are new to SC2. Even as I am familiar with SC1, this one is familiar, yet option-laden enough to blow me away. For someone who is unfamiliar with Spycraft at all, it would still be a challenge to decipher.

Truth being spoken there. I've not played SC1 at all (I admit it, I was put off by departments == 'races' and never looked any further). Dipping in to SC2 randomly is an exercise in wonderment and strangeness. I love all the things that I'm reading but it is laced through with completely unfamiliar terms (action dice, error range, skill tags) - so much so that I decided I'd better read it straight through from the beginning to make sure I can follow everything that is going on!

Although this comparison isn't for everyone, I'm much more excited by SpyCraft 2.0 than Iron Heroes, although I thought it was going to be the other way around. Strange that

Cheers

 

[TheAuldGrump]

After listening to my wife's sinister whisperings, I am now the proud owner of a copy of Spycraft 2.0.

I'm only about 4 hours into reading it, now. I like a lot of what I see, but my biggest problem is twofold:

1) Character creation is as confusing as heck, because of the DOZENS of extra options now available. I would like to play this, but it will be sometime next year, as I ingest the options slowly, and try to come up with a way that this will be digestible by my players.

Weird - I found character creation very easy to follow, at least compare to a few other D20 and OGL games that I have played. Mind you, I sat down with an idea of who I wanted to create, then used the rules to create him, which may not be quite the same thing as sitting down to create a character with no initial direction.

2) I dislike its underlying core philosophy, which is different from every single d20 game I've ever seen until now (including 1.0). The core philosopy I'm speaking of is the "character level vs. in-game status" section of the book (it's a sidebar). SC2 is laid out such that everyone from level 1 to 20 could conceivably be the best at what they do, and be described as such. Level 1 Faceman? Best infiltrator in the U.S. Level 20 Faceman? best infiltrator in the U.S. Level becomes FAR less relevant to challenges, thanks to result caps, to the NPC rules, and the minion rules.

Whereas this is one of the things that I liked best about the game! A higher level simply means that the characters will be attempting more spectacular stunts as they increase in level, rather than the monsters getting tougher. Sort of like a movie series where the stunts budget gets increased with each iteration.

I can see why Denaes would be dissatisfied with Modern after looking at SC2. Many people (myself included) giving him advice were telling him he was aiming the play level at too low a level (3rd or so) to make a high-action wire-fu game. Spycraft implies you can do it at any level. In most over d20 games, you DO gauge power level by character level - even Mutants and masterminds, which recognizes its starting heroes at effectively 10th level. SC2's removal of DC's and instituting result caps means that the power level is gauged compeltely relative to what the heroes are like now, and the NPCs are on a sliding scale whose numbers are totally different based on the level of the PCs'. It's an interesting experiment, and I'm curious to see how it would play, because I'm not sure I like the connotations yet. If level is relatively irrelevant, then a levelless game would suit this better than a game still using levels.

Again, I'll have to see through further reading how this works. One thing's for sure -- I'll be haunting the AEG forums more, because I'm DEFINITELY going to need serious help understanding character creation and running the game. I "got" Spycraft 1.0 inside of a couple of hours of perusing it, tops, and I love the game. As it is, there's just TOO much for a first-timer to absorb - enough to turn them off from it, if hit all at once.

There is a godawful amount to absorb, aside from character generation I am going through the book as though approaching an all new game rather than a D20 game. But every time I go 'Aha!, so that's how it works!' I like the game more. I felt much the same way when reading 7th Sea when that came out. Maybe it is an AEG thing with me... Character generation I found easy, some of the other bits... not so much. But I am liking what I can understand.

The Auld Grump, nappy time!

 

[Henry]

What are these cards you speak of?

I know init hasn't slowed down any from normal d20 iniative.

We have a battlemat before combat we write down everyone's names and their iniative score. If someone does an action that modifes init, either they "X" off their old score and put the new score on or they tell the GM when they use the move and the GM writes it down.

For about three years now, I've been using the free Initiative cards from Game Mechanics press (found here). Previously, and any time I'm caught with an impromptu game, I do it exactly the way you describe - write inits on a battlemat, and call them out as the person comes up. Now, I fill these out, and arrange them in order by the init called, then promptly forget the numbers that were called. If someone needs to delay, refocus, etc. it's covered by repositioning the cards, or a 90-degree turn until someone decides to jump back in sequence. Plus, the cards have all pertinent stats on them, including certain skills so that I can do secret checks without alerting someone to what I'm rolling for them (search, spot, etc.) Since I've used these cards, my combat rounds have sped up at least two to three fold.

My only concern is that going back to writing out inits and editing positions will indeed slow the action down, unless I can find some simple way to tie that back to init card movements. (Maybe certain actions slide your order one down the stack?)

Weird - I found character creation very easy to follow, at least compare to a few other D20 and OGL games that I have played.

After having given the rules a more thorough read, and having created some PCs, it is an easier process for me now, though high-level special NPCs may be a pain. I've really got to spend more time on the Game Control chapters, because the simplified NPCs are exactly what I've wanted for a long time now -- for the past year, I've been saying I'd like a system that offered players the tons of options they craved, but offered the GM a simplified rules that were compatible, but not necessarily the same. The GM needs the "black box" version of the "do it yourself kits" that the players have access to, but the abilities still need to be balanced. If SC2 does this, then I'm seriously considering moving some of its concepts to D&D, as well as using SC2 for most modern games.

NOW, my only other gripe is if the gear tables were broken up via web enhancements in several different ways:

1. By time period
2. by caliber in-line with stats
3. by category
etc.

A sortable and printable spreadsheet would be ideal for this purpose!

 

[Pbartender]

My only concern is that going back to writing out inits and editing positions will indeed slow the action down, unless I can find some simple way to tie that back to init card movements.

In a couple weeks, I'm going to run a few short tutorial sessions of SC2, so my players and I can get used to the rules before starting a regular game and get a better idea of what we like and don't like... Fluid initiative is on the the top of my testing list, because none of likes it at first glance. I'm going to try using a cribbage board with pegs to help keep track of the shifting initiatives.

(Maybe certain actions slide your order one down the stack?)

That's not a bad idea... Convert the initiative moves into #'s of places you move ahead or behind.

 

[Psion]

I use initiative cards too and I share Henry's concerns. I wonder if it was a good idea to make it part of the core.

It seems like you could use the block on the botton of init cards to track fluid initiative, but you'd have to like check the cards before and move cards around if it causes init order to change.

 

[nerfherder]

Although this comparison isn't for everyone, I'm much more excited by SpyCraft 2.0 than Iron Heroes, although I thought it was going to be the other way around. Strange that

Hmm, exactly the same thing happened with me.

NOW, my only other gripe is if the gear tables were broken up via web enhancements in several different ways:

1. By time period
2. by caliber in-line with stats
3. by category
etc.

A sortable and printable spreadsheet would be ideal for this purpose!

Now that would be a cool web enhancement. The PDF of the gear tables doesn't seem to want to print (Acrobat Reader 7) properly, so even a Word document would be an improvement.

Cheers,
Liam

 

[BaldHero]

there is a pdf of the gear tables somewhere to be downloaded? I could really use that. A lot.
Where might i have to look to find it?
L.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

there is a pdf of the gear tables somewhere to be downloaded? I could really use that. A lot.
Where might i have to look to find it?
L.

http://www.spycraftrpg.com/rpg/resources.html

The resources page has a lot of PDF aides; the Gear Pick file is the last one down.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It might be worth copying the text from the PDF and putting it into excel, so that you can sort it as you wish.

 

[Henry]

WARNING: The PDF is 25 Megabytes. (The "pick tables.") All it is is the caliber for each gear. It would be nice to have stats listed along with it, so that the players could, at a glance, see WHY a Colt Python is Caliber II instead of Caliber I, for instance, and how many shots come with it, why they'd want it instead of a 9mm, etc.