Post by Gilvan Blight on Aug 2, 2011 10:22:35 GMT -5
Note: This review is written from a player's perspective. I played this module on Sunday as part of a Single Session Sunday event. As a player I didn't read the rule books or the module though we did have quite a bit of discussion regarding the rules. Note also there will be spoilers!
Quickly: Quite a bit of fun but a little to Old School gaming for my tastes.
Summary:
I've been running events called Single Session Sunday's at my place for the last few months. This is a chance for local gamers to dust off some old games to see how they stand the test of time or to try out new systems. Last Sunday a friend of mine Kevin volunteered to take the reins and run a session of his favorite old school game Top Secret by TSR.
We started the session making characters and ordering some food. [-]The food was excellent and came from Bull's Eye[/-] wait you want to know about the game right?
Character creation was D100 based. You have 6 main stats, things like (PHYsical Strength and COUrage) and a bunch of derived stats. Each main stat was derived through a D100 roll. Interestingly a number was added to these based on how badly you rolled. So if you rolled 1-25 you added 25, if you rolled over 90 you only added 5. This generally meant no one had absolutely horrible stats. The derived stats were generally an average of two of the main stats. These determined things like your OBServation, MOVement, and EVAsion. There was also a set of tertiary stats derived from a combination of your primary stats and a secondary. OFFensive capability was here with some others.
From here we figured out exactly who we were. This included a name, code name, undercover name, handedness, weight etc. Nationality was a big deal as was what languages we spoke. From here we picked out skills. This was based on the KNOwledge stat with a score being assigned for all untrained skills with trained skills getting a D100 roll that was also modified like the stats to eliminate overly low rolls.
After this we got the mission briefing and picked out equipment which I was told was pretty standard for the system. The equipment lists were hefty as expected and the weapon list was no less impressive with stats for a wide variety of guns, explosives and grenades.
Then the mission started. Here was a great twist that I loved. It ends up that the mission we prepared for and discussed and picked equipment for was not the mission we were going on. Instead we were to be dropped on the U.S.S. Corona Cruise ship and trying to stop some terrorists, apprehend a mad Doctor and seize 4 vials of a biological weapon.
I'm not going to go into detail about the mission as this isn't meant to be a session report. What I do want to talk about are the various subsystems in the game.
Skills - these are used like any other RPG. Here you are aiming for a D100 roll under your skill. If you roll under you pass. I asked about degrees of success and it was noted by the GM that it's not a standard part of the system. If you roll under you do it. There are of course modifiers that are pretty much determined by GM Fiat. Skills were used a lot, which was great.
The Map - one of our first goals as players was to find a Map. When we did the GM tossed out this really nice two sided map of the area we were playing (mouse over the spoiler to see what that was). This was included with the module and was a great player aid. We endd up using a couple of minis on this map just to track our approximate locations. Note approximate, this isn't a grid based, miniature game and all combat and movement is done without requiring physical representation. No 5 foot steps and flanking bonuses here.
Hand 2 Hand Combat - this was one of the big selling points for me on this game when Kevin pitched it to me. H2H combat is done in a rock paper scissors kind of way. The attacker and defender each pick which moves they want to make secretly and reveal them simultaneously. Character skill determines how many things they can pick, for example up to 2 blocks and 3 attacks but no more then 3 total. So the attacker could pick 1 attack and 2 blocks or 3 attacks totally not worrying about defences. These picked blocks and attacks are chosen off of tables based on how the characters are fighting. There were tables for Untrained Combat, Knife Fighting, Boxing, Martial Arts and possibly more that didn't come up in our game. I thought this was rather cool. If a hit was scored then hit location and damage calculation was done based on D100 and D10 rolls. Damage was a mix of abstract and realistic. It was realistic in the fact that the wounds were described as Grazing, puncturing, internal damaging, etc. It was abstract as the damage was taken from a pool of life points that functioned like Hit points in popular games.
Ranged Combat was much simpler but did have a cool twist. This was that every character has a speed rating and every gun as a speed factor that modifies this. Generally the bigger and more powerful the gun the slower. These factors were combined to figure out who shot first. So you may be holding the shotgun that can take someone out in one shot but you aren't going to get that shot off before the agent with the Walther PPK shoots it out of your hands. Weapons also modified accuracy which was further modified for range. A simple D100 roll is used, just like a skill check with a roll under your final accuracy score hitting. Hits were randomized for location using D100 (unless a called shot was used) and damage was determined by 2D10 like Hand to Hand combat.
Let me note here that combat was DEADLY! Not since Cyberpunk 2020 have a played a game where combat was so lethal, and this makes sense for the setting. Our group had an average number of Life Points around 10 and most attacks that hit were doing a minimum of 6 damage. This made combats fast and deadly and also meant that preparation and caution meant more then good rolls. Getting the first shot or a surprise attack was a must for character survivability.
This module in particular was very combat heavy. This was actually somewhat disappointing. I was hoping for more espionage and skill use. As a tournament module it was overly deadly and required the characters to basically 'take out all the bad guys'. Sadly this turned the adventure into a bit of a Dungeon Crawl once we figured out that was all that was required. I personally hope not all Top Secret modules are like this and the GM assured me that this isn't the case.
The Good:
The best part about this entire session was the role play that ensued. There's just something fun about playing a spy and everyone knows what that is and had no problem getting into character. Character Generation helped with this with a wide range of possible specialties and a nice long skill list to differentiate the characters.
Mechanically I liked most of what I saw in the system. I liked that you couldn't roll too badly and that there were modifiers to compensate for bad rolls during character creation. This generally meant that if you wanted to be good at a skill you were which was good.
I absolutely loved the way we prepped for one mission and then ended up having to do a totally different one. Another great moment I don't want to spoil was air dropping onto the ship, this was done with a D100 roll with all of us ending up on different parts of the ship. This added immediate panic for the entire team as we scrambled to get back together before someone got picked off being alone.
The Bad:
I did not like the fact that character generation was the equivalent of "3D6 in order” If I were ever to run this game I would have players roll 6 D100 rolls and then place the stats where they wanted. Due to the way the dice fell we had one character who was near useless in combat, based on the module played it wasn't much fun for the player and she only actually got to play for 2/3 of the session as her character died.
Sadly the Hand to Hand combat didn't live up to the hype. It sounded awesome when it was described but the two instances where we got into H2H combat it just drew the game to a screeching halt while two players did there little Mini Game thing. Even those players didn't have much fun as picking things off charts wasn't as exciting as it could have been. Also both players noted there seemed to be optimal choices and not much reason to choose anything else.
As noted above, this particular module was very combat oriented and had us basically moving around room to room and killing people. That's not exactly what I expected from Top Secret. It was noted by the GM that maybe he should have picked a different module, but since I am posting this under the Module and not the Game I figure it's worth noting.
The Ugly
My major complaint with the entire system came at the end of the night. Even though it was a single session event we asked the GM to give us our reward, XP or whatever the system uses. It ends up it did use XP and we got a ton of it. For killing people!?! What was this? A D&D style XP system where you get xp for killing off the 'monsters' in a objective based Spy game? Not only did we get XP for killing people we got more XP for delivering the killing blow. So now as a player I learn I would have been better off shooting first and asking questions later. This just seemed to go completely against what I thought the game should have been about. The GM went on to explain that the system even rewards you for things like Killing civilians and Arson, and noted that 'well by killing someone you learn your trade better, even if they were an innocent' What is this? This seems to totally reward what I would think of as 'bad play'. Now again I note, I didn't read the system, I was just a player. But I ended up with the most XP of the group because I delivered most of the killing blows.
Overall
I had a fun time playing Top Secret and there was some stuff in this module that was pretty damn awesome: the map and the stuff I noted under the Spoiler tags above. Everyone who played really got into character and we had a great time role playing. The system was pretty solid only really faltering during Hand to Hand combat which is sad because that mini-system looked very promising. I was very disappointed when we got to the end and the awarding of XP though, it seemed the system was giving out rewards for the wrong things, things that go against what I think a Spy game should be. Maybe it's just my thoughts on what I was expecting though, but I think it was just a sign of the times and what people expected in their RPGs back in the early 80s.
Would I play again, yes, but I would hope it was a more skill based module..
Quickly: Quite a bit of fun but a little to Old School gaming for my tastes.
Summary:
I've been running events called Single Session Sunday's at my place for the last few months. This is a chance for local gamers to dust off some old games to see how they stand the test of time or to try out new systems. Last Sunday a friend of mine Kevin volunteered to take the reins and run a session of his favorite old school game Top Secret by TSR.
We started the session making characters and ordering some food. [-]The food was excellent and came from Bull's Eye[/-] wait you want to know about the game right?
Character creation was D100 based. You have 6 main stats, things like (PHYsical Strength and COUrage) and a bunch of derived stats. Each main stat was derived through a D100 roll. Interestingly a number was added to these based on how badly you rolled. So if you rolled 1-25 you added 25, if you rolled over 90 you only added 5. This generally meant no one had absolutely horrible stats. The derived stats were generally an average of two of the main stats. These determined things like your OBServation, MOVement, and EVAsion. There was also a set of tertiary stats derived from a combination of your primary stats and a secondary. OFFensive capability was here with some others.
From here we figured out exactly who we were. This included a name, code name, undercover name, handedness, weight etc. Nationality was a big deal as was what languages we spoke. From here we picked out skills. This was based on the KNOwledge stat with a score being assigned for all untrained skills with trained skills getting a D100 roll that was also modified like the stats to eliminate overly low rolls.
After this we got the mission briefing and picked out equipment which I was told was pretty standard for the system. The equipment lists were hefty as expected and the weapon list was no less impressive with stats for a wide variety of guns, explosives and grenades.
Then the mission started. Here was a great twist that I loved. It ends up that the mission we prepared for and discussed and picked equipment for was not the mission we were going on. Instead we were to be dropped on the U.S.S. Corona Cruise ship and trying to stop some terrorists, apprehend a mad Doctor and seize 4 vials of a biological weapon.
I'm not going to go into detail about the mission as this isn't meant to be a session report. What I do want to talk about are the various subsystems in the game.
Skills - these are used like any other RPG. Here you are aiming for a D100 roll under your skill. If you roll under you pass. I asked about degrees of success and it was noted by the GM that it's not a standard part of the system. If you roll under you do it. There are of course modifiers that are pretty much determined by GM Fiat. Skills were used a lot, which was great.
The Map - one of our first goals as players was to find a Map. When we did the GM tossed out this really nice two sided map of the area we were playing (mouse over the spoiler to see what that was). This was included with the module and was a great player aid. We endd up using a couple of minis on this map just to track our approximate locations. Note approximate, this isn't a grid based, miniature game and all combat and movement is done without requiring physical representation. No 5 foot steps and flanking bonuses here.
Hand 2 Hand Combat - this was one of the big selling points for me on this game when Kevin pitched it to me. H2H combat is done in a rock paper scissors kind of way. The attacker and defender each pick which moves they want to make secretly and reveal them simultaneously. Character skill determines how many things they can pick, for example up to 2 blocks and 3 attacks but no more then 3 total. So the attacker could pick 1 attack and 2 blocks or 3 attacks totally not worrying about defences. These picked blocks and attacks are chosen off of tables based on how the characters are fighting. There were tables for Untrained Combat, Knife Fighting, Boxing, Martial Arts and possibly more that didn't come up in our game. I thought this was rather cool. If a hit was scored then hit location and damage calculation was done based on D100 and D10 rolls. Damage was a mix of abstract and realistic. It was realistic in the fact that the wounds were described as Grazing, puncturing, internal damaging, etc. It was abstract as the damage was taken from a pool of life points that functioned like Hit points in popular games.
Ranged Combat was much simpler but did have a cool twist. This was that every character has a speed rating and every gun as a speed factor that modifies this. Generally the bigger and more powerful the gun the slower. These factors were combined to figure out who shot first. So you may be holding the shotgun that can take someone out in one shot but you aren't going to get that shot off before the agent with the Walther PPK shoots it out of your hands. Weapons also modified accuracy which was further modified for range. A simple D100 roll is used, just like a skill check with a roll under your final accuracy score hitting. Hits were randomized for location using D100 (unless a called shot was used) and damage was determined by 2D10 like Hand to Hand combat.
Let me note here that combat was DEADLY! Not since Cyberpunk 2020 have a played a game where combat was so lethal, and this makes sense for the setting. Our group had an average number of Life Points around 10 and most attacks that hit were doing a minimum of 6 damage. This made combats fast and deadly and also meant that preparation and caution meant more then good rolls. Getting the first shot or a surprise attack was a must for character survivability.
This module in particular was very combat heavy. This was actually somewhat disappointing. I was hoping for more espionage and skill use. As a tournament module it was overly deadly and required the characters to basically 'take out all the bad guys'. Sadly this turned the adventure into a bit of a Dungeon Crawl once we figured out that was all that was required. I personally hope not all Top Secret modules are like this and the GM assured me that this isn't the case.
The Good:
The best part about this entire session was the role play that ensued. There's just something fun about playing a spy and everyone knows what that is and had no problem getting into character. Character Generation helped with this with a wide range of possible specialties and a nice long skill list to differentiate the characters.
Mechanically I liked most of what I saw in the system. I liked that you couldn't roll too badly and that there were modifiers to compensate for bad rolls during character creation. This generally meant that if you wanted to be good at a skill you were which was good.
I absolutely loved the way we prepped for one mission and then ended up having to do a totally different one. Another great moment I don't want to spoil was air dropping onto the ship, this was done with a D100 roll with all of us ending up on different parts of the ship. This added immediate panic for the entire team as we scrambled to get back together before someone got picked off being alone.
The Bad:
I did not like the fact that character generation was the equivalent of "3D6 in order” If I were ever to run this game I would have players roll 6 D100 rolls and then place the stats where they wanted. Due to the way the dice fell we had one character who was near useless in combat, based on the module played it wasn't much fun for the player and she only actually got to play for 2/3 of the session as her character died.
Sadly the Hand to Hand combat didn't live up to the hype. It sounded awesome when it was described but the two instances where we got into H2H combat it just drew the game to a screeching halt while two players did there little Mini Game thing. Even those players didn't have much fun as picking things off charts wasn't as exciting as it could have been. Also both players noted there seemed to be optimal choices and not much reason to choose anything else.
As noted above, this particular module was very combat oriented and had us basically moving around room to room and killing people. That's not exactly what I expected from Top Secret. It was noted by the GM that maybe he should have picked a different module, but since I am posting this under the Module and not the Game I figure it's worth noting.
The Ugly
My major complaint with the entire system came at the end of the night. Even though it was a single session event we asked the GM to give us our reward, XP or whatever the system uses. It ends up it did use XP and we got a ton of it. For killing people!?! What was this? A D&D style XP system where you get xp for killing off the 'monsters' in a objective based Spy game? Not only did we get XP for killing people we got more XP for delivering the killing blow. So now as a player I learn I would have been better off shooting first and asking questions later. This just seemed to go completely against what I thought the game should have been about. The GM went on to explain that the system even rewards you for things like Killing civilians and Arson, and noted that 'well by killing someone you learn your trade better, even if they were an innocent' What is this? This seems to totally reward what I would think of as 'bad play'. Now again I note, I didn't read the system, I was just a player. But I ended up with the most XP of the group because I delivered most of the killing blows.
Overall
I had a fun time playing Top Secret and there was some stuff in this module that was pretty damn awesome: the map and the stuff I noted under the Spoiler tags above. Everyone who played really got into character and we had a great time role playing. The system was pretty solid only really faltering during Hand to Hand combat which is sad because that mini-system looked very promising. I was very disappointed when we got to the end and the awarding of XP though, it seemed the system was giving out rewards for the wrong things, things that go against what I think a Spy game should be. Maybe it's just my thoughts on what I was expecting though, but I think it was just a sign of the times and what people expected in their RPGs back in the early 80s.
Would I play again, yes, but I would hope it was a more skill based module..