Origins of the Espionage/Spy RPG Genre
As the 1970’s came to a close, gaming juggernaut TSR had firmly established itself as the 800 lb. gorilla through its wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons line. TSR branched into other genres as well, some successful, others not so much.
One of their winning properties was Top Secret, an espionage RPG published in 1980 that allowed would-be James Bonds to take their turn at the world’s second oldest profession. The original box set included a 64-page rule set, and a sample adventure… “Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle.”
In 1987, TSR followed up on this success with Top Secret/S.I., a revised edition designed by Douglas Niles which cleaned up some of the mechanics, and added a more structured setting.
Not to be outdone, Victory Games released their own spy roleplaying game - James Bond 007: Role Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Supplements and game materials were published from 1983 to 1987.
Many still swear by this game as their go-to spy RPG, and it continues to see much table time even though its 1980s tech is outdated. The modern day game, Classified, is basically this same system with the serial numbers filed off.
Spycraft 1.0 (aka Classic Spycraft) helped bridge the gap between the 1980s and present day with its d20 based release in 2002. It has since been updated by Crafty Games to Spycraft 2.0. Devoted to cinematic spy action, Spycraft has many available supplements for both the second edition and classic version of the game.
With that quick and dirty history out of the way, let’s take a look at 9 Modern Day Espionage & 3 Classic Spy RPGs that let you bring super spy action to your table:
Modern Day Espionage RPGs
1. Covert Ops
There is a war going on every day. Its soldiers don’t march in lines or report to a large obvious pentagonal building. It is a shadow war where information and bullets hold equal weight, and enemies don’t always wear uniforms. This game is about clandestine Special Forces parachuting behind enemy lines to carry out a discrete mission that no government will claim ever happened. It is about special agents receiving their missions from men and women whose names and identities won’t turn up on any database. It is about mercenaries. It is about spies. It is about secrets, seduction, stealth, deception, assassination, bribery, infiltration, action, and adventure.
Welcome to Covert Ops, a roleplaying game of espionage and paramilitary adventure. This game takes advantage of the d00Lite system, a fast and simple set of game mechanics created by DwD Studios. Those of you familiar with BareBones Fantasy RPG will find the core mechanics familiar and the learning curve minimal. Those unfamiliar with our fantasy offering will find a game that somehow manages to be comprehensive, lite, and fun all in a tiny 6″x9″ package.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
2. Classified
Dash through crowded streets, careen around corners in high-speed chases, skulk in dark alleys, hack into secure files, infiltrate enemy agencies - Enter the world of a secret agent! Classified is a retro-clone of the 1980’s role-playing game about the world’s most-famous spy - James Bond 007. Classified is the action-packed game of covert operations that maintains the flavor of cold war spy-mongering while set in the modern day. Style and substance, baby, style *and* substance.
If you loved James Bond 007, then you’ll want to to check out Classified as it faithfully updates the old James Bond RPG to today’s tech level.
Grab your copy in Digital format.
3. Spycraft 2.0
Beyond espionage, beyond military mayhem, Spycraft 2.0 is your gateway to an unlimited world of modern action-adventure! It takes the wildly popular Spycraft RPG d20 system to a whole new level: expanding and updating character options, condensing and refining the rules set, and providing the platform for any scenario you can envision! Whether your play style is intimate or epic, freeform or stat-driven, this landmark release contains everything you need to launch into the adventure today!
- Updated skill system! The newly organized skill set and modified skill rules empower the players to become anything they want to be, and back it up at Level 1.
- Streamlined gear system! Be ready to play every session in 10 minutes or less! Rules for Agency and freelance play! Quick and easy gear options for any modern genre!
- Dueling System! Simplified, multi-utility head-to-head mechanics for any contested action, from chases to hacker duels to brainwashing.
- The only d20 product you need for any modern genre. Espionage, military, near-future, horror, and more - all in one book.
- Unlimited world and NPC options! Want a gritty world populated with unique villains, quirky henchmen, and minions with character? Look no further!
- Easy-to-use customization rules allow you to build virtually any template and lay it over the standard Spycraft system, creating an all-new gaming experience.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital Format.
4. Night’s Black Agents
Night’s Black Agents has been nominated for five ENnie awards for Best Rules, Best Interior Art, Best Rules, Best Writing and Product of the Year.
Night’s Black Agents brings the GUMSHOE engine to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of Bram Stoker. Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with expanded options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.
Updating classic Gothic terrors for the postmodern age, Night’s Black Agents presents thoroughly modular monstrosity: GMs can build their own vampires, mashup their own minions, kitbash their own conspiracies to suit their personal sense of style and story. Rules options let you set the level of betrayal, grit, and action in your game. Riff from the worked examples or mix and match vampiric abilities, agendas, and assets for a completely custom sanguinary spy saga.
The included hook adventure gets the campaign going; the included city setting shows you what might be clotting in Marseilles’ veins even now. Rack silver bullets in your Glock, twist a UV bulb into your Maglite, and keep watching the mirrors … and pray you’ve got your vampire stories straight. Optional campaign frameworks allow you to play a straight espionage game minus any vampires.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital Format.
5. Conspiracy X - Second Edition
On the surface the world looks very much like the one outside your bedroom window. The same people are walking the same dirty streets, the same animals rummage through the same garbage, and the same mindless drivel is shown on the same television stations.
Sometimes that world just doesn’t seem right. You wake up in the morning and get the feeling that something isn’t as it should be. Why do certain figures appear out of nowhere and become famous overnight? Why do the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer? What is the government really paying for when it shells out 75 bucks for a screwdriver? Why is it the more questions you ask the less answers you get?
Why is it any answer always leads to another question?
Sometimes you cannot see what defines your world. This is the nature of conspiracies. This is the nature of Conspiracy X.
Conspiracy X takes place in a world of dark secrets and hidden agendas where the only certainty is nothing is what it seems. The president might not be human… and the sign carrying paranoid on the street corner ranting about CIA mind control satellites may very well be right.
In other words, a world just like yours, if you could see beyond the lies…
Grab your copy in Print or Digital Format.
6. Leverage
The rich and powerful, they take what they want. You steal it back. You and your Crew used to be the bad guys, but there are worse people out there. The weak and the helpless need you. You provide… leverage.
Based on TNT’s hit show, The LEVERAGE Role Playing Game puts you in the middle of a dysfunctional but highly specialized group of con artists, criminals, and crooks who are trying to turn over a new leaf. You protect the victims of corporations, mobsters, and corrupt politicians by using your expert skills to outwit and overcome the real bad guys.
Using the award-winning Cortex System as its foundation, the LEVERAGE RPG includes all the rules you need to create a high-voltage team of rogues, plan the perfect job, and get it done… even if it means going to Plan B. This game requires a set of gaming dice available from any hobby or game store. Earbuds and really big HDTVs are cool, but not required.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital Format.
7. Agents of Oblivion
Within the pages of Agents of Oblivion you’ll find everything you need to play any style of spy game you want to play from “The Company Line” where every nightmare and conspiracy you can imagine is real and you can wield the powers you need to drive back the darkness to “Spy versus Spy” where you can take things on in a gritty brutal fashion.
Agent generation is designed with flexibility in mind and expands the Savage Worlds base rules while remaining true to them. Within are options to even modify your agent’s abilities between missions. Add to that resources and you have a setting which truly shines — spytech, special training, SUDs (single use devices), and a multitude of ways to trick out your loadouts and options to grab!
If you’re the Director, there’s plenty for you within these pages as well. Advice on how to integrate spy and horror themes into your games along with details on modeling your campaign into one of the seven campaign frameworks and a robust spy sampler where we show you how by example of how to create a campaign in each of the styles. Combine this with mission generators, creature generators, and more and you can leap into the modern world of high stakes espionage and horror with complete confidence.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital Format.
8. Agents of S.W.I.N.G.
Agents of SWING is a FATE-powered Spy-Fi adventure game in which you take on the part of secret agents, working throughout the world in the 1960s and 70s to avert catastrophe, punish evildoers and stop the two superpowers from annihilating each other.
A slimmed down and sped up version of FATE, derived from Cubicle 7’s Starblazer Adventures, SWING simplifies the system and lets you get right into the action.
There are rules for agents, villains, henchmen and goons. There are rules for coming up with nefarious organisations, hints and tips on how to run the game (including a ‘plot stress’ adventure structure) and a ton of starting level PCs so that you can pick up and play right out of the book.
Grab your copy in Digital Format.
9. Terror Network
From the Mountains of Afghanistan to the Streets of Boston, fight on the front lines against Terrorist Networks like Al-Qaeda. You and your fellow agents are the nation’s unsung heroes.
With 42 Skills and a gritty, high body count system, Terror Network is sure to get your adrenaline pumping.
Includes:
- A full list of counter-terrorism agencies to choose from
- A simple and fast system that gets you immediately into the action
- A thorough overview of terrorism and terrorist groups
- A sample adventure
Grab your copy in Digital Format.
Classic Spy RPGs
If you don’t mind doing a little digging on Amazon or Ebay, you can still snatch up copies of these 3 classic rpg titles:
1. James Bond 007
Enter the exciting and dangerous world of spies, high speed chases, gadgets, casinos, glamorous women, thugs, goons and villains scheming to rule the world. In the James Bond 007 RPG, you play a secret agent taking action against enemies of the free world. You can play James Bond himself, or any Agent or Rookie you create.
The game is especially designed to favor the players. After all, James Bond doesn’t end the movie as the loser, does he? You cannot beat the bad dice rolls, but the GM is encouraged to balance the game in the players’ favor.
The 160pg softback B&W book is illustrated with drawings taken from the films and contains all you need to play. The core rules cover character creation, combat, gadgets, a good introduction to RPGs and the style of the game. There’s advice for GMs, lots of NPCs straight from the films (Rosa Klebb, Karim Bey), MI6, info on casinos and international travel. The book also has a solo adventure to let new players practice the rules.
The feel is very strongly of the films, but you can easily use the content for any spy genre game.
Grab a copy while you still can!
2. Top Secret
Top Secret characters are employed in specific bureaus—Assassination (Killing), Confiscation (Theft), or Investigation (Research)—all in the structure of an unspecified espionage agency. Despite a character’s primary vocation, he may be called on to perform any type of mission.
The in-game effect of a character’s bureau is a 100-point experience bonus for mission objectives which fall within that bureau as well as bonus mission pay for those actions specific to the chosen bureau. An appendix in the rulebook lists dozens of historical and fictional espionage organizations which could serve as employers or adversaries for missions.
Grab a copy while you still can!
3. Classic Spycraft
The fate of the entire world is in your hands. As a superspy working for MI6, the CIA, or an Agency of your own creation, only you have the skills, the experience, and the gadgets to take on the greatest threats the world has ever known.
- The Only Espionage Roleplaying Game You’ll Ever Need: Any spy movie, television serial, comic book, or novel, right at your fingertips.
- Fully d20 Compatible: Bring the spy genre to vibrant life using a system everyone already knows.
- All-New Classes: Play a Faceman, Fixer, Pointman, Snoop, Soldier, or Wheelman. Gain new abilities at every level. Unleash your inner agent!
- Over 150 Feats: Become a master of martial arts, sniping, hand-to-hand weaponry, weapons of mass destruction, vehicles and chases, style, covert action, gear, or your own lethal combination.
- Unique Chase System: Leverage your wits and your dice in high-speed pursuits on foot and in vehicles.
- Complete Game Control Support: Over fifty pages just for Game Controls of the action-espionage genre. Everything from designing and building your own missions to creating and running NPCs, all in one place.
- The Mastermind System: Create a personalized Criminal Mastermind and pit him against the team. Build a game session or an entire campaign around your villain.
Grab a copy in Print or Digital format.
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