BRP Modern ( The Old TOP SECRET RPG)

[Bleddyn]

Comapred toTS? Quite a few. Here is a partial list:

1) Shot placement and skill play a major factor in weapon effectiveness. In TS (as with most RPGs) it is mostly random.

2) Stopping power. The WIL roll that people have to make when it means that someone who gets shot can just ingore the wound and shoot back (until his hit points/Life Levels run out).

3) Much easier way to handle modfiers. In TS, there are a lot of modfiers, and most are not very user friendly. For instance some weapon range modfiers are things like -147. Figuring out the chance to hit can get tedious when you have to work out several modfiers,, and several shots. For instance, the automatic weapons fire modifier is something like -11% per shot fired. -10% per shot woudl have been a lot more player friendly. Ease Factors are much, much easier.

4) No hit points.

THat are just a few things.

Now, to be fair to Top Secret, it was written in 1980, and pioneered a new genre for roleplaying. Soit deserves credit for doing many things first, even if they way it did somethings left a lot to be desired.

TS did have called shots.... albeit with offensive penalties., the Wil roll you mentioned is realistic (been there myself RL), I understand the math issue with modifiers considering flow of play (but it did still work). The Will roll with certain types of wounds is something to consider.

[Bleddyn]

Don7t let the tables fool you. Despite the huge number of possible targets zones to strike, the combat system was basically a form of "rock-paper-scissors". Skill didn't play much of a factor.

If you wanted to do that, you would ned to expand on things. There is amartila arts supplement mentoid eailer thad adds those types of maneuver to the game.

Now, if you want to add in the tactical elemt of matching maneuvers and counter maneuvers, I7d suggest typing to adapt the system used in the Streetfighter RPG.

it gave each maneuver a speed rating (determiend by the maneuver, your Dex, and your skill). Higher Speed would go off first, and some maneuvers could be "aborted to". For instance you cold "abort" a slow, powerful, attack for a faster block. it had rules for combinations, too. While many of "arcade game" aspects would need to be dropped, the underlying idea could be used in BRP.

Rock paper scissors did work until your unarmed combat got ridiculous with the amount of "retreating" that occurred. I concur though that "skill" or level of proficiency needs to be a factor in the process. The Arcade fluff .... yeah I was a combatives instructor in the army...the kata/arcade/hollywood nonsense ends real quick.

[Atgxtg]

TS did have called shots.... albeit with offensive penalties., the Wil roll you mentioned is realistic (been there myself RL), I understand the math issue with modifiers considering flow of play (but it did still work). The Will roll with certain types of wounds is something to consider.

TS did. It even had an assassination table. In fact, that is one of TS weaknesses. Like AD&D, pretty much every aspect of the game required some specific rule and an accompanying table, and host of modifiers. Most of those rules are very detailed, but sometimes to the point of comic relief.

I flipped through the TS book the other day, thanks to this thread, and ntoiced that, according to the bullet modifiers table, .32ACP rounds do more damage than 5.56 NATO rounds, and that a .45 ACP bullet,does more damage than a .30-06! For some odd reason, TS failed to differentiate between pistol and rifle ammunition!

So I think we might all be guilty of letting our nostaligia tint our view of some of these older RPGs. Not that TS was bad, just that it really needed to be streamlined. For instance, the assassination table could have been discarded and replaced with a modfier to the standard damage roll. There was a TS Companion book, but while it added some new stuff, it meant even more tables.

As for the WIL rolls in Bond. Yeah they made a big difference in how Bond played compared to other RPGs. We had one campaign where one PC opted for a Detonics Combat Master (a >45) and discovered just how much extra stopping power the weapon hand in the RPG. That extra - EF to Pain Resistance rolls made quite a difference.

Thing thing about the Bond RPG was that it could handle the Bond of the novels as well as the Bond of the films, so you could do a lot more with the rules than one might think.

[Atgxtg]

Rock paper scissors did work until your unarmed combat got ridiculous with the amount of "retreating" that occurred. I concur though that "skill" or level of proficiency needs to be a factor in the process. The Arcade fluff .... yeah I was a combatives instructor in the army...the kata/arcade/hollywood nonsense ends real quick.

The amount of retreating, or the amount of shooting. What teneded to happen with us was that PCs who weere good shoulds would pull an Indian Jones and just shoot people rather than risk a HTH encounter. Esepcially if the PC wasn't that good at HTH.

About the "arcade" stuff. What I was reffering to was that the Streetfighter RPG was based off of the Streetfighter series of arcade fighting games, and had some special maneuvers to duplicate the abilties of the game. Throwing fireballs and such. That is the kind of thing we'd need to eliminate if we wanted to adapt the mechanic to BRP. Unless you want spies throwing fireballs.

But the mthod is one of the few that would capture that "comapring maneuvers" feel of the TS tables.

[Bleddyn]

The amount of retreating, or the amount of shooting. What teneded to happen with us was that PCs who weere good shoulds would pull an Indian Jones and just shoot people rather than risk a HTH encounter. Esepcially if the PC wasn't that good at HTH.

About the "arcade" stuff. What I was reffering to was that the Streetfighter RPG was based off of the Streetfighter series of arcade fighting games, and had some special maneuvers to duplicate the abilties of the game. Throwing fireballs and such. That is the kind of thing we'd need to eliminate if we wanted to adapt the mechanic to BRP. Unless you want spies throwing fireballs.

But the mthod is one of the few that would capture that "comapring maneuvers" feel of the TS tables.

Supposedly William Wallace could do that, or was it lighting from his ass?

[Bleddyn]

TS did. It even had an assassination table. In fact, that is one of TS weaknesses. Like AD&D, pretty much every aspect of the game required some specific rule and an accompanying table, and host of modifiers. Most of those rules are very detailed, but sometimes to the point of comic relief.

I flipped through the TS book the other day, thanks to this thread, and ntoiced that, according to the bullet modifiers table, .32ACP rounds do more damage than 5.56 NATO rounds, and that a .45 ACP bullet,does more damage than a .30-06! For some odd reason, TS failed to differentiate between pistol and rifle ammunition!

So I think we might all be guilty of letting our nostaligia tint our view of some of these older RPGs. Not that TS was bad, just that it really needed to be streamlined. For instance, the assassination table could have been discarded and replaced with a modfier to the standard damage roll. There was a TS Companion book, but while it added some new stuff, it meant even more tables.

As for the WIL rolls in Bond. Yeah they made a big difference in how Bond played compared to other RPGs. We had one campaign where one PC opted for a Detonics Combat Master (a >45) and discovered just how much extra stopping power the weapon hand in the RPG. That extra - EF to Pain Resistance rolls made quite a difference.

Thing thing about the Bond RPG was that it could handle the Bond of the novels as well as the Bond of the films, so you could do a lot more with the rules than one might think.

LOL you have me flipping through both rules... The TS companion is pretty good stuff for back then. It is however good to talk about it.

[Atgxtg]

LOL you have me flipping through both rules... The TS companion is pretty good stuff for back then. It is however good to talk about it.

You got me doing it too. I haven't play TS for decades, so I needed to brush up on a few things to make sure I had the comparisons right. Not that it is that strange. Ikeep most of my espionage related stuff together. Even RPGs I don't run can be useful sorcebooks for the gameI do run. I remember incorporating Lady in Distress into a Bond Mission.

As for the RS Companion. It was a mixed bag. I thing the rules were archaic for 1984, but some of the soruce material was good. By the time the companion was written most RPGs had progressed beyond TS, and there were several espionage RPgs out there, inclduing Bond and Espion/Danger International. I suspect that was one reason why S.I. was written a couple years later.

TS did cover the genrefirst, but some of it's mechanics were poor. The way it handled death traps in particular was rather disappointing. In other RPGs players could try to talk thier way out, fight thier way out, tech thier way out, or even think thier way out. in Top Secret, it was all down to your Survival Value.

[vagabond]

VG's James Bond was more of a "Hollywood Espionage System" in my opinion. Espionage meets Playboy. But I did plunk down the cash for it as well.

Actually I've talked about this before. James Bond is almost a direct drop in for BRP in many ways. And, it is very easy to gritty it up some, but leave some of the Hollywood stuff as options.

Ian

[Smoking Frog]

I flipped through the TS book the other day, thanks to this thread, and ntoiced that, according to the bullet modifiers table, .32ACP rounds do more damage than 5.56 NATO rounds, and that a .45 ACP bullet,does more damage than a .30-06! For some odd reason, TS failed to differentiate between pistol and rifle ammunition!

But I don't understand your criticism. Isn't it obvious that a hole that is .32 inches in diameter would be more "damage" than a hole that was .223 inches? And the same for .45 and .30. It's just obvious looking at the numbers. Isn't it?

Yeah, I hear you, brother. My pimply adolescent friends and I played lots of Top Secret when it first came out, but my thought when I saw this thread was "do you really prefer the old cheesy James Bond movies with the comic super-villains being defeated by Bond's super magnet watch, which Q conveniently supplied after reading ahead to the climax of the plot, or do you prefer seeing Daniel Craig just straight up pound the crap out of some international terrorist banker?" The 80s were great while they lasted, but I think we can get so much more game for our effort now, even if we mostly have to do the details ourselves.

Remember the Yugo?

[Atgxtg]

But I don't understand your criticism. Isn't it obvious that a hole that is .32 inches in diameter would be more "damage" than a hole that was .223 inches? And the same for .45 and .30. It's just obvious looking at the numbers. Isn't it?

I just can't figure out why there wasn't something like a flat +3 modfier for rifle rounds or some such. It would have helped a lot. I won't even get into the problem low velocity "dum-dum" bullets. But a simple fix for rifles would have been nice.

Yeah, I hear you, brother. My pimply adolescent friends and I played lots of Top Secret when it first came out, but my thought when I saw this thread was "do you really prefer the old cheesy James Bond movies with the comic super-villains being defeated by Bond's super magnet watch, which Q conveniently supplied after reading ahead to the climax of the plot, or do you prefer seeing Daniel Craig just straight up pound the crap out of some international terrorist banker?" The 80s were great while they lasted, but I think we can get so much more game for our effort now, even if we mostly have to do the details ourselves.

Movie or RPG? The RPG was a very nice, flexible toolkit. As for the Bond movies, well. I do prefer From Russia With Love to Quantum of Solace. So I don't think newer is necessarily better. For the most part, I'd rather forget the 70s films. But as far as game mechanics go, sometime older RPGs handle some things better than some newer offerings. I think the Bond RPG handles firarms as well as anything out there. And I'd stack RQ2 or RQ3 up against any of thier more "modern" offspring.

To be frank (and don't ask me who frank is being), I think the quality of RPGs has been in a bit of a decline. CCGs, and D20 OGL did a great job finishing off most of the innovative companies, and the current trend towards simplicity and "anti-simulationist" RPGs has left up with a bunch of RPGs with poor mechanics. And these days, if you discuss the math, some people get angry and say you are not role-playing. And now even role-playing is being discarded in enchange for an arcade game experience. Look at D&D 4E.

Remember the Yugo?

Yup.So what? It sucked back then. Or do you think a new VW Beetle is better than a Porsche 911?

Just because something is old doesn't mean that it is no good. It doesn't mean that it is good, either. Just old. There are cases where newer RPGs outstrip older ones, but we shouldn't take it as a given.

I'd say that an old game like Bond is better than Spycraft. I'd also say that RQ3 is better than Wayfarer, D&D 3E is better than 4E, and that Traveller and MegaTraveller are better than New Era, or any of the other rewrites that have come out since. I'd put Cults of Prax and Borderlands up against any MRQ Glorantha offering.

So being new is everything.