Top Secret...

[Lidgar]

There was a time when we played way more Tops Secret than D&D. I still have half a dozen or so of the old modules and the rule book. The martial arts and skills were wonky, and everyone owned an FN Browning and assault rifle (or 10 gauge shotgun). Great modules though - from infiltrating the secret island to rescuing the president of the U.S., made for some great role playing. I always thought some of the examples in the rule book were strange - the skill use example had an agent trying to bluff a chef that he was cutting the lettuce the wrong way or some such. Good times!

 

[GMSkarka]

Top Secret is the GREASTEST spy RPG EVAH!!!!!!

The fact that Louis and I agree on this point should tell everybody just what an amazing game it was.



...and for the record, I preferred the original version. S.I. was a different system, and was far more "G.I. Joe vs Cobra"-esque unbelievable BS, in my opinion.

Although, it should be said-- my first RPG experience was the original TOP SECRET, pre-dating me getting into D&D by 6 months, so I'm definitely biased.

 

[Delta]

Top Secret (original version here, only one I played) would be my least favorite of all the 1980's TSR genre games. I'd eagerly join in a game of Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, or even Boot Hill.

Top Secret not so much, it's just "meh" as a system. A bunch stuff without any great creative spark behind it. Gangbusters & Gamma World probably come ahead of it, too.

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

I had a lot of fun with top secret in jr high. I played through several of the adventures and had a wonderful time.

 

[Glyfair]

Great modules though - from infiltrating the secret island to rescuing the president of the U.S., made for some great role playing.

My favorite was....
[SBlock]The one that had the players prepare their characters to raid a drug lord's base. They had full dossiers and such.

Then, on the way to that mission, the PCs find out an ocean liner has been hijacked and are diverted to deal with that....the real mission.[/SBlock]

 

[Banshee16]

I still have that game A few of the modules too. I got my start in RPGs through Top Secret. I remember thinking at the beginning that D&D sounded like a silly children's game, whereas Top Secret was cool, like the old Mission Impossible show, and GI Joe and such........eventually playing that game led me to try D&D.

I was guilty of playing a character trained by ninja, and I gave him the code name "Stormshadow"

I don't remember the mechanics anymore. I seem to remember it had damage boxes for different body parts...so sort of like a primitive version of a condition track or something. I've wondered at times if Spycraft is comparable in feel, as I've never tried Spycraft.

Banshee

 

[Cirex]

James Bond was the second game I ever DM'ed. I still got the book around here, with its lousy art and endless tables.

I'm a James Bond fan and my friends like the movies, but the game failed in so many ways. I stopped DMing because I got sick of everything about it. Eventually a friend decided to try to DM it. After hours of carefully planning my character, work on his personality, etc. we started to play. Two hours of talking with random people (it was quite enjoyable, probably our real first roleplaying), we got into a fight. First round, a lucky shot by the enemy sent me to the grave.

Great.

 

[JPL]

Loved it. My favorite game when I was 15.

I only played SI, particularly with the Commando sourcebook. Did a lot of late-80s ninja / vigilante / Vietnam vet on a mission kind of stuff, which twenty years later all sounds goofy yet intriguing.

Char gen was on a point buy system that in retrospect had some problems . . . it was a cinematic game at heart, but you started with 30 points to spend on skills, and that was barely enough to get you up to "competent adult" much less "rookie agent" much less "superspy".

My quick fix would be to just modify the "untrained skill" rules --- anything skill that normally defaulted to 1/4, PCs can default at 1/2. Any skill that defaults at 1/2, they can use as if trained. James Bond and Sydney Bristow are never completely at a loss --- "agent training" in a cinematic system just means you're ready for anything.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I played the original, back when it was the only spy game around.

Taken as a whole, I didn't like it - but it might just have been the adventures.

Rules I remember I didn't like - Grapple trumped every other form of hand to hand combat, whether boxing or the various martial arts they included. I had to wonder why they included anything else when grapple shut everything down so easily!

Rules I remember I did like - fame and luck. You had 1 point of fame per level, and 1d6 of luck which was secretly rolled by the DM. You could avoid a 'really bad thing(tm) happening by spending either one of your points of fame or one of your points of luck. These were non-reusable!

The neat thing is, you knew how much you could count on your fame to survive, but nobody knew when their luck was going to run out...

 

[DM_Jeff]

I played Top Secret once back in the day and didn't care for it. Tried Top Secret S/I years later and wound up getting the whole line and playing it for over a year. Some great times.

"Oh-one - head shot!"

-DM Jeff