Where have you been all my life? (Spycraft)

[Henry]

As an early Xmas present, My wife picked me up Spycraft last night. First time I've ever had a chance to read the rules in depth. and I've only played one game of it ever (at Gencon), and I'm only up to Dept's and Classes, and I skimmed the rest, but I've got to say:

My God. This is the coolest rules set ever devised with d20. I've never seen a game that did so much with d20 outside of Mutants and Masterminds. Just playing it demo-wise, I never realized the depth that it had. Just reading the Faceman class had me wanting to play one. Then, reading the Fixer, had me wanting to play one. THEN, reading the Pointman made me want to play one. And THEN...

You get the idea. Peter Kapera, and all others on this project, you are god.

At the same time, darn you to heck, because I cannot simultaneously run Forgotten Realms, Arcana Unearthed, and Spycraft all at the same time. There aren't enough hours in the day. I'm screwed.

But thank you, all the same.

 

[Vigilance]

I agree, Spycraft is a great set of rules.

Chuck

 

[Luddite]

"Look Martha, we got another one!"

Now you can see why there is all the big debates of Spycraft v. d20 Modern. Both are realy good, but also very different.

Welcome to the collective

-The Luddite

 

[Henry]

To be honest, the Faceman had me hooked from the minute I read the "ask 3 questions" ability, to the "tell one lie absolutely convincingly" ability.

The feats are VERY well rounded.

I can't wait to get to the chase rules, based on all I've heard about them!

I'm done rambling now.

 

[Pierce]

We've stolen the chase rules to use in our d20Modern campaign. Lotsa fun!

 

[Corinth]

Just remember to grab the errata.

 

[Atridis]

I bought d20 Modern & Urban Arcana, and was a little disappointed. Can Spycraft be used for non-espionage games? When I see Spycraft on the shelf, I think "Alias", "The Bourne Identity" and "MI-5."

Perhaps a quick survey from our audience: Which genres could Spycraft handle, without too much fiddling, and which couldn't it handle?

Let's limit it to modern-ish genres. I say "-ish" to include things like World War Two - I was thinking about a WWII espionage game, OSS and the French Resistance against the Gestapo and SS.

What about modern, non-Shadowrunny, supernatural ("the X-Files", "Buffy" or "Ultraviolet")?

 

[Pierce]

One of my crew is threatening to do a WWII campaign in Modern. I might be tempted to try out the Spycraft rules for that if they fit. We're too far into our current Modern campaign to convert, but a new campaign ...

 

[jonrog1]

I bought d20 Modern & Urban Arcana, and was a little disappointed. Can Spycraft be used for non-espionage games? When I see Spycraft on the shelf, I think "Alias", "The Bourne Identity" and "MI-5."

Perhaps a quick survey from our audience: Which genres could Spycraft handle, without too much fiddling, and which couldn't it handle?

Let's limit it to modern-ish genres. I say "-ish" to include things like World War Two - I was thinking about a WWII espionage game, OSS and the French Resistance against the Gestapo and SS.

What about modern, non-Shadowrunny, supernatural ("the X-Files", "Buffy" or "Ultraviolet")?

The some-would-say epic Pulp WW 2 Story Hour below was run with Spycraft rules and a slight variation of gadgets for Nadia Tesla. But yeah, man, all the expansion books have rules I'm dropping into games left and right. They hadle complex skill checks better than D20Modern, the chase rules are so pretty, I use a stripped down variant of their skills & feats psi for all magic FX and Psi Fx ... the only book from the expansions not worth the money was, oddly, the '60's Decade book. Everything else is pure gaming goodness.

Between the core book and the SHadowforce Archer world setting (for the Psi rules), you can run all of the above. Not taking away from D20Modern, which I like a LOT, Spycraft is amazing.

 

[Luddite]

Spycraft Combat, Chase, Skills, and Feats will easily port to any modern-ish setting. The Equipement (non-gadget) also works, though you will need to come up with some alternate way of accuiring it. The Spycraft book assumes some type of organization that will "give" the characters some equipement.

The big consideration is what classes to use. Some of the classes in the Spycraft book may not be flexible enough for the type of campaign you want. However there are additional classes in the various "Class" books.

Startgate SG-1, which is the same system has different means of assinging equipement, as well as different classes for a more "military" campaing.

Between all the Spycraft, Shadow Force Archer, and Stargate SG-1 Books, you could piece together most any modern game with light para-normal elements. But you may not find all you need in one book.

What did you find lacking in d20 Modern/Urban ARcana, and what type of campaign do you want to run? IMO, Spycraft and d20 Modern both need some tweaking to get the campaing and feel that you want.

-The Luddite