Spycraft vs CoC

[Lord_AO]

Hi there,

Spycraft vs CoC?

I keep it short, but what would you people think would be a better buy?

I'm pretty short on budget, a veteran DM, and out for some good modern RPG.

Also I wonder what the difference in play and feel are between the systems.

thnx

 

[Crothian]

Wow, talk about comparing apples and poranges. Aside from them using the same basic system they have little in common.

CoC: Mystery, supernatural, characters cannot win and will doe many, many times. It's fun because you are playing normal people. You think and investigate, you run from encounters to live another day. It can be creepy and suspensful.

Spycraft: Mosern day CIA or equivalent. Best gear and guns money can buy. Souped up vehicvles chasing throw the streets of any city on the world. Action packed fun.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Unfortunately, they are both FANTASTIC. Either one will be a good buy. Both have plenty of material you can yoink for your D&D or other d20 games as well. I bought them both and love 'em!

 

[Crothian]

Unfortunately, they are both FANTASTIC. Either one will be a good buy. Both have plenty of material you can yoink for your D&D or other d20 games as well. I bought them both and love 'em! [/QUOTE

As you have said many, many times

They are both good. I can't decide which to run, myself. Personally, I'd like to do a spycraft and then clowly have the campaign turn into CoC so the PCs won't see it coming at all. But I think the PCs would not apprciate it because they would be expecting one type of game only to get another.

 

[MythandLore]

Personally I like Spycraft better.

CoC is good and all, but the main thing is Sanity in that game, to me that is was CoC is all about.

Spycraft is all about Action, and I'll take and action adventure over a game about characters losing their minds.

To me that's just more fun.

CoC and Spycraft are profoundly diffrent in those aspects, one the palyers are A-Team superstars, the other they are trying not to get eaten or go crasy, it's like the players in Coc feel pretty hopeless, but the players in Spycraft know they are taking on impossible tasks but feel like they have a chance.

The freedom of spycraft not having put magic monsters etc in their core rules to me was a huge thing too.

Now you can always add monsters, magic items etc. to a Spycraft game if you wanted to (Shadowforce Archer for spycraft is coming out soon to, if you felt like using it or just adapt regular dnd stuff you already have - I'm doing the second in my games), But in Coc you really can't take them out because deadly monsters is what that game is pretty much all about.

So I say go with Spycraft, if you have extra money you could always get CoC latter, or you could wait and see how d20 Modern and the Shadowforve Archer books are when they come out. (To me both of those look like they could be really useful)

Anyway, Yes they are both good, but Spycraft is the best RPG to have came out in a long long time, if not the best.

 

[MythandLore]

[Personally, I'd like to do a spycraft and then clowly have the campaign turn into CoC so the PCs won't see it coming at all. But I think the PCs would not apprciate it because they would be expecting one type of game only to get another.

That's what I'm doing too.

It's very Jackie Chan Adventures that way.

The great thing about it is that you can make them keep guessing about if some thing is 'really' magic or not with the great mix of high tech that game has, it really works out good.
The players will have to be on there toes to figure it out.

Theres so much you can do with it.
Just keep the game very very real all the time, then if you introduce the tiniest bit of magic into it, it's really some thing to remeber.

Like a 'monkey man' breaks into a military base in India and steals plutonuim, at first the players may think it had to be a trick, but after a while they may belive it, then it they end it turns out to be a faceman... or was he.

 

[The Furious Puffin]

Yeah, I am also thinking about sliding in CoC elements into my Spycraft campagian. First just hints and nudges around the edges, then a full blown encounter - and see what happens. I am going to use some sort of Sanity hardness rules however. Most likely a chart or just hardness = character level.

However if it just came down to one of the other spycraft would get my money, it's just some much fun!

Edit: Put smilies all though my post?

 

[mmadsen]

The great thing about it is that you can make them keep guessing about if some thing is 'really' magic or not with the great mix of high tech that game has, it really works out good.
The players will have to be on there toes to figure it out.

Scooby Doo d20?

 

[MythandLore]

Scooby Doo d20?

Exactly…
Well… Scooby Doo with Guns.

 

[NemesisPress]

Spycraft has a lot of new mechanisms and information. CoC is just CoC with d20 rules for characters and creatures (and a bunch of guns). And they still haven't made Sanity useful as a game mechanism. You certainly don't need CoC right away if you have one of the original editions. In short CoC is more of a setting than a system.

"Rots o' ruck!"