Spycraft 2.0 - is it as difficult as it looks?

[Bobitron]

I tell ya, this thread is making me look forward to my book coming in the mail.

 

[Henry]

Spycraft is in good shape. Support continues for the Living Spycraft campaign, there's plenty of rules support out there in our forums, and there's more news coming down the pike in the near future. Fret not, friend

Alex

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=155557

Not quite the "good shape" I had in mind, but good news nonetheless. I hope it works out, guys!

 

[Pbartender]

Thoughts on Character creation...

I finished building six 3rd-level characters for the "Wild Wild West" spoof adventure I'm running in the Chicago Gameday tomorrow. None of the characters are multiclassed. I had never before created a Spycraft 2.0 character, though I have built a handful of SC 1.0 characters previously.

Building them was pretty easy. The first character took about half an hour (excluding gearing up), and the rest took less. There's nothing there that's inherently more difficult than D&D, it's just that there are a great dealt more options at many of the steps. There are two things that slowed character creation down...

1. Feats. Feats are all listed by category, and the charts only show the Feat names and prerequisites. If you want to have even the smallest inkling of what the Feats do, you must page through the entire chapter. Often, the names of the Feats only give a small hint (and I, for one, really like the way AEG names their feats and class abilities) of what the Feat actually accomplishes. A master Feat list, listing each Feat, its category, its pre-requisites, and a short description of what it does would speed that step up greatly.

2. Gear. Figuring out how many picks of what type is actually pretty easy. That took all of two mintues, before I knew what I was doing. Actually choosing the gear, however... Oi! I simply can't seem to find where different bits of gear are listed in the chapter. Many of the charts are located nowhere near the descriptions of the gear, and soem categories of gear (most notably weapons) are divided into two charts... One for stats, and one for Caliber. In order to decide on a single gear pick, you have to flip back and forth between nearly a half dozen pages. Blecch. There is a "Gear Pick Tables" pdf downloadable one the Alderac website, but it uses the same formatting (in color) as the book, making it a huge file to download and print... even viewing it on a computer monitor is a slow-updating process. A simply formatted, print-friendly master Gear Pick table would make this go a LOT quicker.

Those are my only two complaints thus far... And those have more to do with the formatting of the book (an issue I've had historically with AEG products ), than with the actual rules or game play.

Tomorrow... A GC who doesn't know what he's doing runs a game for 5 strangers who don't know what they're doing.

 

[Jim Hague]

The Gear By Caliber chart threw me too...until I realized that all the charts are at the end of the chapter. I'd have organized it differently - say, put the charts next to the gear categories, or add a column with the Caliber of the pick - but that's just me.

 

[Pbartender]

The Gear By Caliber chart threw me too...until I realized that all the charts are at the end of the chapter. I'd have organized it differently - say, put the charts next to the gear categories, or add a column with the Caliber of the pick - but that's just me.

Well... It's also a matter of the book being so thick, and the Gear chapter being so thick, by itself. I still haven't gotten used to where everything is in the book yet. With D&D, I can flip the PHB open to the equipment charts, or a specific part of the combat chapter, or a particular section of the spell listings with my eyes closed.

With SC 2.0, I flip the book open, expecting to see combat rules, and I'm still in the middle of gear! I'm sure that'll change with use.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Tomorrow... A GC who doesn't know what he's doing runs a game for 5 strangers who don't know what they're doing.

So, did it go well?

Cheers

 

[Pbartender]

So, did it go well?

Cheers

In a word... Yes.

In particular... Dramatic Conflicts are a breeze. The Faceman completed his seduction of the notable stage singer Suzanna Sodapopolis with a critical success, making her his devoted slave for life! And the railroad handcar chase ended with the Indian Scout feathering one thug with an arrow, and everyone else jumping aboard with bowie knives flashing and shotguns blazing.

Also... Fluid Initiative wasn't so troublesome as I'd feared. Even with two characters using Manual Action pistols and rifles, it just didn't pop up often enough to worry about.

All in all, even with none of having played the game before and looking up action and skill checks in the book, the game ran at least as smoothly as any D&D game I've run in the last five years.

 

[Denaes]

In particular... Dramatic Conflicts are a breeze. The Faceman completed his seduction of the notable stage singer Suzanna Sodapopolis with a critical success, making her his devoted slave for life! And the railroad handcar chase ended with the Indian Scout feathering one thug with an arrow, and everyone else jumping aboard with bowie knives flashing and shotguns blazing.

Did you use the cards? They're great resources. Makes me almost want to come up with "options cards" for other aspects of the game as well.

Also... Fluid Initiative wasn't so troublesome as I'd feared. Even with two characters using Manual Action pistols and rifles, it just didn't pop up often enough to worry about.

Exactly. There are quite a few spots in SC2.0 that look awfully complicated and involved... but when you play, it's just not.

In this case with the Fluid Initiative, it is an added step, but I think the payoff is worth it in spades at higher levels when people get feats & class abilities that start messing with initiative scores. It also adds another level to the combat trying to get your init over 20 and/or keeping it above 1.

Pbartender, tell us a little more about your game/players/characters. What classes/levels did you use? Did you keep everyone involved?

 

[Pbartender]

Did you use the cards?

Yes, we did.

Pbartender, tell us a little more about your game/players/characters. What classes/levels did you use? Did you keep everyone involved?

It was a short one-shot adventure I ran at the Chicago Gameday at Games Plus.

In a nutshell, it was a spoof on the old TV show, Wild Wild West... Alvin Graham Clark, the great telescope maker, had dissappeared on his way to San Fransisco. He was last seen at the Train station in Reno. Unfortunately, Mr. West and Mr. Gordon are on vacation for the next couple of weeks, so the local US Marshall must relay on the dubious help of the Player Characters to locate and rescue Mr. Clark.

What the characters didn't know is that an evil Mastermind by the name of Lo Pan was using Mr. Clark to build a sun-intensifying heat ray mounted on a dirigible to terrorize the Californian coast.

The characters were all 3rd level pre-generated characters:

The Professor, a 3rd level Scientist.
The Vaudeville Comedian, a 3rd level Faceman.
The Prospector, a 3rd level Pointman.
The Indian Guide, a 3rd level Scout.
The Sargeant, a 3rd level Soldier.

Everybody got a chance to stand in the spotlight... The Faceman used his powers of persuasion to find out that Mr. Clark left Reno under suspicious circumstances and in the company of Mr. Lo Pan, an expceptionally wealthy old man from San Fransisco, and Mongo, an enormous Chinaman. The Scientist used his research abilities to find out the Lo Pan had resently bought up an old silver mine in the mountains. The Pointman used his local contacts to get a little additional firepower, and find out that Lo Pan, Mongo and Alvin had left in the direction of said mine. The Scout helped everyone to sneak up there. Finally, everyone got a chance to help with the rainroad car chase, and clobber the bad guys in a climactic battle on a ledge over-looking a 500 foot high cliff.