[Spycraft] Er ... new game.

[Azure Trance]

Is it just me, or does it seem more odd to make a storyline for Spycraft? While I realize that it's meant to be hollywood-esque it also seems that more thought has to go into it instead of it just coming to you. To clarify, just how many times can they save the world?

I guess that sort of bothers me because maybe I'm still stuck in a D&D / Star Wars adventuring group mindset where their free to act as they want and they have the freedom to do what they want (proactive, wandering the countryside/sector, whatnot).

How can I get rid of this mentality? From reading I guess that saving the world culmination types happen once every few levels, say three or five or so. But my ideas dont really seem original (ie, virus was so '96), among other things. I know that current events are an important way to garner new ideas for missions though.

I'd like any and all advice on what you guys use for not so cliche ideas (if they exist) and how to execute them properly (most important). But reading the back of the book for example, it seems that since every henchman has a plethora of minions in which there must be some sort of showdown with guns a blazing with that adversary, in different tiers, until you reach the main bad guy.

Curiously though, so far, how many of you people out there are constantly involved in world-saving events? Are they common or rare?

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Here's some adventure ideas, none of which involve saving the world (just making certain sections of it a bit safer):

1) Take out a drug cartel, or at least one aspect of it, or just stop a big drug shipment from coming into the country

2) Take out a foreign dictator, prominent government official (secret police head, for example) or terrorist organization leader, crippling his power structure

3) Infiltrate a domestic hate group to prevent an armed car robbery to get funds for their "race war revolution"

4) Prevent a shipment of chemical weapons or nuclear devices from reaching Iraq or some other rogue state

5) Capture or kill Serbian war criminals in Eastern Europe

6) Hunt down a Nazi war criminal in South America for Israel's Mossad

7) Stop evil mind control, cloning or other nefarious experiments that don't necessarily outright threaten the world--but might if not stopped now

How's that?

 

[Azure Trance]

Aye, that's wonderful KKantrip. I have my first game this Friday

 

[Game Control]

Even James Bond doesn't save the world in every movie.

Let's see...

Golden Eye; Prevents the bad guy from becoming filthy rich and returning London to the dark age in the process.

Tomorrow never die: Prevents the bad guy from becoming filthy rich and starting a war in the process. (do I detect a trend?)

The World is not Enough: Prevents the bad girl from becoming filthy rich and transforming Istanbul in a nuclear wasteland in the process (yep, there is a trend).

 

[Glyfair]

The best place for inspiration is going to be TV. Even the rules suggest this (using the term "series" for example).

Think about the similarities. Both a game & tv series will usually have a new "episode" every week. Some will have a running plot throughout a series of episodes, some will have a new "adventure" week-to-week.

Find some spy series episode guides. There are several on now ("Alias" comes to mind). There have also been several other series in the past that should have episode guides available.

A few I've found:
http://www.tvtome.com/Alias/guide.html
http://members.aol.com/Wmkoenig/unclepg.htm
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~kaleid/avenge/episodes.html
http://www.marciniak.com/dangerman/danger.html
http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/episodes.html
http://www.geocities.com/rollinhand.geo/episode.html

The Get Smart one is particularly intriguing. If you take the some basic plots and make a serioius adventure out of it, it may be completely unrecognizable, even to a huge fan of spy tv shows.

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[Eye Tyrant]

The first series that comes to mind for me is "The Agency" and "24", though I have only seen a few episodes of each.

 

[2mas]

If you put some CoC into the game (which I'm going to do), you can make the game more X-fileish, something nice if you want a change from the regular James Bond-type of plots. Instead of the agents saving the world from some atomic threat, they investigate the unknown, massacre cults, go partially insane...etc..etc.
Fun,fun,fun!!