Anyone still play Top Secret?

[cliff]

Bond was an assassin, totally.

[Casimir]

No - Bond was in MI6 (which doesn't exist anymore). There were rare occasions where he worked with other countries' intelligence outfits like the CIA and Mossad (and even one bit where he worked with KGB and GRU agents).

Top Secret certainly isn't for everyone - especially if you are really into the fantasy genre. For me, especially at the time it was released, it was during the Cold War, and I was planning a military career (and was intensely interested in the military, military history, modern weapons, intelligence and covert operations, etc.). So it was the perfect game for the group I played with at the time.

I think I'd gotten a bit tired of the D&D deal where high level characters can be hit by arrows so many times they look like porcupines and it hardly scratched them. A system whereby a single shot could bring a character down was the anti-thesis to that and added "risk" back into gaming for us (I didn't know about RuneQuest until several years later).

I personally prefer a percentile dice system - because I feel it adds more possible variability to the game system. That's just my opinion though. D20 systems are really just percentile systems themselves - they just lump it up into 5 digit increments essentially.
--- Merged from Double Post ---

Bond was an assassin, totally.

Well, not really. He was in the MI6 division (I forget the name Flemming gave it now) that was highly specialized for extremely dangerous operations... there were only ten agents in it at any given time (001 - 009), and each of them were given a "License to Kill" - which simply meant that during their job should they require the elimination of people they were above the law of Britain because they were "serving the crown".

Bond (and all 00 agents) primary mission was intelligence and espionage. I can't think of any situation in any of the books where he was specifically tasked with deliberately killing a target in the typical sense of the word "assassination", but in several instances he was give fair leeway by having orders presented in such a way that he could interpret them that way.

Bond's personal ideology typically lent him to shoot first and ask questions later simply because in his line of work leaving a live enemy behind him could get him killed. In other situations, such as his run-ins with Ernst Blofeld and SPECTRE, the feelings were personal due to the murder of his wife.

I guess it shows that I'm a rather heavy Bond fan... lol.

[korhal23]

I think you may just be thinking of SIS, which is the true name of the branch called MI6.

And Bond isn't NEARLY as gun happy in the books as he is in the movies. In the book "The Living Daylights" he actually IGNORES a kill order because he found a better way to resolve the situation.

And Bond does get several kill orders: He earned 00 status in the first place by completing 2 assassinations, and there's also The Living Daylights, and You Only Live Twice off the top of my head.

[Casimir]

SIS - right, MI6 was just what it was referred to in passing.

Definitely in the movies he's way more trigger happy - but then that's Hollywood, and the desire to spice everything up with explosions, gun battles, etc. My favorite book is actually Icebreaker... I'd love to see them make that into a movie (they'd have to change some plot elements though, as there's no USSR any longer - but they wouldn't have to change TOO much). He actually gets in a bit over his head in that one, and pretty much gets rescued. And you're right - I'd forgotten about the 2 assassinations prior to his 00 status. In regards to You Only Live Twice - I haven't read the book for that unfortunately, but I don't recall in the movie him being presented with an assassination order... was there one in the book? At any rate, I stand corrected on him not being specifically ordered to assassinate individuals - I hadn't realized it was more common that I surmised.

I haven't read a lot of the "newer" Bond stuff - I wasn't a fan of Dalton or Brosnan (I grew up with Connery and Moore - even though Moore, and the Bond movies he was in, were a little too campy for my taste). I never saw the Living Daylights. I know that may sound strange as a fan of Bond - but I'm pretty picky. Same thing for me with Batman - as far as I'm concerned, the Michael Keaton and subsequent line of movies up until Batman Begins "don't exist".

I haven't had the opportunity to see the "reboot" with Craig yet - but I've heard they are very good.

[korhal23]

That's the one with MI6 and the KGB and Mossad allying and backstabbing the hell out of each other, right? That could be awesome... but I could also see it being too convoluted for your average moviegoing audience.
Actually, other than Dalton I like all of the James Bond actors. Brosnan was decent (and I think the closest to the description of the character from the books) undermined by some very meh scripts. Craig is totally awesome, but I was also a huge fan of him before he was Bond. He definitely has the Bond swagger spot on, but whether or not you like him will be based on your liking of the Bourne movies, because they lifted a page or three from the Bourne movies pacing and style. Though, in a sad turn of events, Quantam of Solace may have the worst Bond girl ever in it... the girl is somewhat attractive but annoying as hell. That made me especially sad after Vesper Lynd from "Casino Royale" who is by far my favorite.

[Casimir]

Yep, that's the one. Bond is co-joined by agents from the KBG, Mossad, and the CIA to determine, and eliminate, the source of several terrorist attacks perpetrated by the same group against political targets worldwide with no apparent motive. It wouldn't be too convoluted if good attention was paid to the script to make certain that the audience stays aware of all the backstabbing - really wouldn't need much more than subtle innuendo for the most part.

[Drivvic the Southlander]

It's hard enough to find players from a D&D game down here where I am and it's even harder to convince the few player I have found for D&D to attempt to play any thing other than D&D.

[CarlZog]

I think I own everything ever published for original Top Secret, but haven't played in years. I've been thinking about setting up a game for a local gameday.

I love it, but I used it for more realistic espionage plots than the over-the-top antics of later Bond movies. Combat could be pretty deadly, and for a while I amped it up even more by using TSR's old Bio-One hit location rules.

TS's core mechanics were later adopted and expanded by Louis Porter for his "Haven -- City of Violence" game.

Carl

[prestonp]

I really enjoyed Top Secret back in the day. The original system had a few quicks, such as:

-If you were an investigator, and you get assigned a combat mission, expect to get no experience.
-The Tommy Gun was the best weapon you could buy.
-If someone is standing 10 feet away from you with a revolver, and you're an unarmed boxer, you're almost guaranteed to kill them when they try to shoot you with three unanswered Rabbit Punches.
-If you had a sword cane there was serious trouble trying to cross reference any defense moves your opponent could do if they didn't have a cane.


The last two points were quirks of their unarmed combat system which was really ambitious, but not well play tested. In retrospect, I really enjoyed how deadly combat was (with the above caveats). I feel Spycraft is a much better system, but still enjoy the nostalgia of the old TS system.

I played a demo at Gencon So Cal of "Haven: City of Violence" by Louis Porter. 5 minutes into the demo, he's showing me how the percentile stats get averaged into secondary stats, which get averaged into tertiary stats. I said, "You used to play a lot of Top Secret, didn't you?"

He fessed up that Haven was basically using the old TS system. So fans of that system should check out the original Haven.

[Black Vulmea]

I tried running a Top Secret play-by-post last year, but I never really got it off the tarmac. I'd still love to run the campaign, Cold Warriors, as a face-to-face game if I could find interested players.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

I have many of the games, and would love to get a campaign going again - it's been years. As it is, finding reliable, consistent players has become an "epic" challenge these days, no matter which rpg is advertised.

[magic-rhyme]

Okay, you have me nostalgic about running Top Secret again. Problem : the character sheets never survived, including the one at the back of the book.

So, you have any idea where I can find copies of the old character sheets, the ones with all the possible knowledges on the sheet?

[girtablilu]

I used to own this. Never got a chance to play it, though. Now after so many years, I have no idea where my copy is.

[nijineko]

hmmm, i played it twice, once with and once without the weird "supers" rules. don't recall which edition it was... the equipment lists were awesome, but i recall not enjoying actual gameplay very much. at this remove, i don't recall if it was a player-unfamiliarity, dm presentation, and/or ruleset issue or issues.

i think i'm more the sci-fi/fantasy/supers type anyhow - i'd likely not get too interested unless it was over-the-top with abilities. (like nano-augs or something near-future tech in the spy area.)