Krakow undercover

[Adm.Lee]

I think I've spoken of this before, but it's burbled up to the front of my thinking this week. Let me know what you think.

Ever since Top Secret was the first RPG that I owned (not first played), I've had a yen for that kind of game. Watching 007 movies on TV was one of the places I bonded with my father-- he let me read his paperbacks in 8th grade. I've long thought that a small party (1-3 players) should be ideal for an espionage game.

The "Casablanca" atmosphere of the Free City module was present, but I don't think I ever did much with it. I've run through Poland I think 3 times, all with large group (5+ players), all more interested in the shoot-'em-up style of play. Operation Reset and the atmosphere went by the board, I moved them on to the River Wisla after they'd done some shopping and recruiting.

This is the idea I'm currently having. The player character(s) are agents of one (or more) NATO powers, here undercover. Ideally, they could be couriers, come to town to collect the Reset items and/or guide Team Zulu back out of the city. But Zulu hasn't arrived, instead there are American stragglers floating into the city with wild tales of petroleum-powered Soviet armies. What's going on?

Potentially, this could spin into a larger game, with the machinations of the new and old powers into the politics of Krakow and neighboring Silesia. The Markgraf should be trying to get agents into the city, and so should the Czechs, the French, and the Germans.

As a nod to old Top Secret, I'm very tempted to insert the black market and underground casino from the original 001 module under Krakow somewhere.

Thoughts?