Not really Merc, but spies

[Adm.Lee]

Has anyone tried using the T2k rules for a spy game?

I converted to T2k v1 from Top Secret as my favorite "gun game" back in the day. This autumn, I've had a yen to run a spy game-- probably one too many James Bond reruns. I dug out old Top Secret rules & modules-- I still have two that I've never run, and perhaps that's pulling at me.

This winter break, I convinced my teenage son and wife to play through one of those never-runs, using the original rules and mid-'80s setting. I've run one session, and while I still remember a lot of the rules, there's a level of detail (especially in the weapons) that I don't really need.

I am wondering about, next time, should there be one, using T2k, v2.2, for my rules, no matter the setting. My other options would be Savage Worlds or the d6 system. I've been running some Traveller this year, and that's a possibility, too. [Since most of the weapons might be pistols, I think I'd want to do something to the damage from T2kv2.2.]

Opinions?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

If you have access to them, check out the Merc: 2000 and Special Operations supplements for T2k 2nd Ed. They have extra rules for such things as noise, parachuting, taking damage from falling too far, guard dogs, sleeping NPCs plus additional scenarios and maps that are more useful for spy/espionage games. They also include stun and tranquilizer guns and some vehicles more suited to espionage work.

As far as increasing the lethality of pistols, the quickest and simplest way to do it is to reduce the hitpoints of PCs and NPCs while in conjunction with the Quick Kill rules (which were originally in the Merc: 2000 book but I think are also in the T2k 2.2 rules).

[Adm.Lee]

Oh, yes, I have Merc and Spec.Ops, and have used them in the past for commando-style missions. The quick-kill rule is something I've often forgotten about, in the heat of action. My latest games have generally been, "If you did less than 10 points of damage, the NPC slows down, if you did more, he's done for the day or dead, it doesn't matter right now" and not even recording more than that.

So far, I've run 2 short sessions of just 2 agents, and a complementary session with 6 agents, the latter a commando-style operation.

I'd forgotten how finicky and hyper-detailed the Companion rules for TS could be with getting hit. One option is for 5+ separate d% die rolls to see the involuntary response of someone to being shot, another is for temporary stat losses, depending on the severity of the wound. Nice ideas, time-consuming (and table-momentum-draining) to implement. Putting all of the number-crunching onto a tablet-based character sheet app would be very useful, but I am not going to pursue that route.

Anyway, it's been an illuminating trip down memory lane. I remember now why I didn't have much trouble dropping TS for Tw2k v1 as my preferred system back in 1984-85.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I should have guessed that you had those supplements, I reckon most of the "old timers" here have them or know of them! Sorry I didn't have anything more useful for you however I do have another suggestion that might be worth exploring.

This is basically cut & pasted from a friend's house rules for his Dark Conspiracy game. Seems a bit fiddly at first and a bit underpowered for some ammo types but it was meant to be used with the Quick Kill rule.


Weapons Combat House Rule
Like many games, Dark Conspiracy can succumb to the “bigger guns” mentality because naturally enough, the PCs want the most effective tools when trying to dispose of Dark Minions. Unfortunately that typically leads to the notion of using the most powerful weapons regardless of their actual suitability for the job e.g. a machinegun in a house, sure it’s going to kill the badguys… as long as you can actually swing it around to target the enemy before they target you.

This means that pistols, although obviously useful because they are much easier to conceal, are discarded simply because most of them cannot do enough damage to the enemy.
This rule uses a game based system of optimum ranges for weapons, it is not meant to accurately model reality, simply to make some weapons more useful than the current rules make them appear.

The optimum ranges are as follows: -
Short -- Throwing knives, shurikens, small/short bows, pistols, machine pistols, sawn-off shotguns using solid shot, cut down/micro SMGs (e.g. Ingram M10), micro assault rifles (e.g. SR-3 Vikhr)
Medium -- Throwing spears, throwing hatchets, large/long bows, crossbows, sub machineguns, shortened rifles/carbines (e.g. AKSU/AKR, M177/CAR-15, cutdown rifles), shotguns using solid shot
Long -- Rifles/carbines (including most sniper rifles), machineguns,
Extreme -- Any specialist long range marksman/sniper rifle (e.g. any of the .50BMG sniping rifles), anti-material rifles

Shotguns using buckshot have their own specialized rules as listed in the DC rulebooks and are not considered here.
Note that a Range Band covers the distance up to its listed value, e.g. Pistol with Range 12, Short is from 0 to 12m, Medium is from 12 to 24m, Long is from 24 to 48m and Extreme is from 48 to 96m.

Effects:
Whenever the weapon is used within its optimum range band, it gains an additional 1D6 damage.
Note that this is bonus damage and is not included when working out Penetration. The rules and stats for Penetration are not altered in any way by this rule - if the round fails to penetrate any armour or other cover between the weapon and the target, then the bonus damage is lost.
This bonus damage is added when figuring out the results for determining a Quick Kill however.

For example, a pistol with Range 12, Dam 1 has the following Range Bands: - Short 12; Medium 24; Long 48; Extreme 96.
At Short Range i.e. from 1m to 12m, it is at its most effective and thus the firer benefits from the house rule i.e. the pistol has Dam of 1D6 + 1D6 bonus.
A rifle with Range 55, Dam 3 has the following Range Bands: - Short 55; Medium 110; Long 220; Extreme 440. Its optimum range is Long therefore it is at its most effective when firing upon targets at the 110-220m band. When firing on targets within this band, the bonus 1D6 damage is applied to the Dam value.

Weapon Bulk
Note that the Bulk rating on the Weapons Cards is a rough indicator of how 'handy' the weapon is and the speed that it can be brought into action and as such serves as a rough guide for determining how useful the weapon could be in close quarters. So, something with a low bulk is faster to bring into action and should therefore be more useful for indoor work.
As a rough rule for closed-in areas (and other special circumstances), it is suggested that the Bulk rating be taken away from the users Initiative score with the remainder being the users new (temporary) Initiative.
This serves to illustrate the difficulty in weilding a rifle that's a metre long in a tight corridor as opposed to a pistol that's only 20cm long. It's hoped that this will also illustrate to the Players the difficulty in trying to conduct combat with a rifle when a pistol or SMG would have sufficed.

It's bad enough having a low Initiative but if you insist on bringing your Daddy's .30-06 hunting rifle with you into the sewers, you really are just compounding the problem. Sure a pistol won't do as much damage as the rifle, but it's helluva lot quicker to bring to bear when the badguy's behind you (or you could always get a sawn-off shotgun!)

[Adm.Lee]

Interesting, thank you. I will think on them.

[swaghauler]

I like your espionage ideas. Try to get a copy of Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes. It has a good section in it on designing "mystery" sessions. I have been developing a MERC based hybrid game I call Contingency Force based on my Security and LE experiences. In a nutshell, my players will be PMCs forced to deal with a variety of situations in the third world. Based on my experiences with companies like Blackwater/Xe, GlobalTech, and Saris. They will have an operational budget and have to answer to superiors about their actions. Since the world is still intact, they may get a reputation or make enemies who haunt them. I'm basing it mostly in Africa (because I served there) but they may end up anywhere in the world where "guns for hire" are needed (there are several opportunities in Eastern Europe, South America and Asia right now). It will be part military and part espionage game.
I have blended several rules to allow for CQB which may help you.

I changed my damage rules to increase weapon damage and make injury slightly greater. I use the older D10 system mixed with the newer D20 system. for damage dice I use D10's instead of D6's. This increases pistol damages to where it almost merits carrying them. But players must be more careful as a result.
Hit capacities get seriously lowered. I use a system incorporating CON, WILL (an added stat), STR, and Stature (from V1 rules) but you could just use CON. Hit Capacities are: Head (CON), Chest (CONx3), Abdomen (CONx2), Arms (CONx2), Legs (CONx3). This is for your Slight damage threshold. I use 5 Damage Thresholds (with appropriate penalties) My Damage Thresholds are Slight, Moderate, Serious, Critical, and Deadly wounds. Death occurs in CON+WILL minutes from exceeding Deadly wound threshold. For NCPs, I would just use CONx3. Limb hits would do 1/2 damage, Head hits would do double damage. Just make note that this system increases player mortality. A typical player will have 25 Hp in the head and a 9mm FMJ can do 20 points of damage under my system (hollow points would do +1 per die more).
I throw out the auto fire of weapons rule and just throw a number of D10's (you could use D20's) equal to the burst size. The difficulty is one level worse than firing SA. Recoil rules stay the same from version 2.2. I found out an interesting fact shooting competitively for several years. Full auto weapons with realistic rates of fire (where the shooter is going for accuracy) are easy to mirror in Twilight. Just divide the weapon's cyclic rate by 100 and round down. An AK with a cyclic rate of 600 RPM would have a ROF of 6. This rate of fire will result in slightly lower or higher rates than listed in Twilight. I does add variety to your weapons without complicating things too much.
To get a detailed action sequence that's still playable; I hijacked 2013's "tick" system. My "Initiative system" is determined by a character's WILL (I added this trait) and AGL and is ranked from 1 to 10. You then roll 1D10, generating a modified (by Damage, Coolness, or Surprise) score from 0 (min) to 20 (max). Each "tick" is 1/4 of a second.
The players state their actions for a round from highest Initiative to lowest. The actions are assigned a "point/tick cost" based on how long they would take in real life. If drawing a pistol takes one second, that is 4 "ticks." This allows for dynamic actions to be resolved in a realistic order (ie. is that knife attack faster than your shot?).
I also like 2013's Coolness Under Fire rules so I hijacked them too.

Good luck with your game. The game I'm working on now is my continuation of a project I started way back in 90' while in college (that was interrupted by my military and LE careers). I went to Allegheny College before I finished my degree at Mercyhurst (Criminal Justice). We might have gamed together.

[kcdusk]

I;ve long said "James Bond" is one of the best rule systems i have used. For 3 reasons, and i'll end with a down side.

1. I like that the skills and tasks system can be used in any genre. Very transferable.

2. I like how for skill checks (including shooting), have a degree of success depending on the original success chance. If something is very likely to happen for example, then anything under 50 is a success level 1 (major success, so quicker or better outcome than wanted).

3. I like how the system handled car chases (or foot chases) with different moves, with different potential outcomes, and abstractly adjusting for ranges.

So yeah, I love the james bond system if you can get your hands on it. Best i've seen. Interesting since you said one too many Bond movies!

The downside to the system? Due to the typical encounters, pistols are overpowered while rifles and sub machine guns are dumbed down. Also, i don't like how automatic weapons use ammo or do damage (simple, but not quite right). So anyway, this one downside is kind of important in a T2K setting (it doesn't bother me in a bond or spy type world).

[Adm.Lee]

Thanks for the recommendations; JB007 gets quite a few whenever I mention spy games, I wish I'd picked it up back in the day. This project has moved to the back-burner for me, but I'd really like to drag the 2 players to finish the module sometime soon. Can't leave the story hanging, after all, there's still a nuke on a countdown somewhere in Buenos Aires! Maybe a quickie conversion to v2.2 can be done when there's a day off in Feburary.