James Bond RPG - Overview

[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode of Go Bag, Harrigan outlines a small problem with the Mission Impossible movie franchise. Hey. We found a forged in the dark espionage spy game. There's an author on Blue sky that we think you should follow. And we cover our first impressions of the James Bond tabletop role playing game by Victory Games. Hit it. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Strap in. Operatives, this is Go back. Your all access pass to modern day RPGs loaded with bullets, backstories and a whole lot of bad decisions. And here, here are your mission leaders, Sean and Harrigan. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Hello, agents, assets and operatives. This is Go Bag. I'm Agent Kelly. [00:00:49] Speaker B: And I'm Agent Harrigan. Good morning, Moneypenny. You're looking fantastic today. [00:00:53] Speaker A: That's a pretty good connery man. [00:00:57] Speaker B: Now. But. But I'll roll it out whenever you want. It's terrible and I. I don't care. [00:01:02] Speaker A: I expect that to come out in every RPG that I run. With you playing Connory. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. I don't think that's gonna happen. But that's okay. I do dumb voices. You know it. But you can't limit it to just one bad quasi Scottish accent. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Go back where we talk about espionage tabletop role playing games. Harrigan, starting off, do you want to share what you have been listening to, absorbing. [00:01:37] Speaker B: Over the last week? I can do that. I'll be quick because there's actually a bunch of things. So I'll talk about them all briefly. I think listeners might know that I've been diving into the Mission Impossible movies, trying to watch them in sequence. The streaming service I was watching them on just gave up the Ghost at the end of September and all the free versions are gone. So I got through Ghost Protocol and I started Rogue Nation and did not finish Rev Nation before. So I'll. We'll revisit this. I'm trying to watch them all in a row before I really sort of provide some feedback on them. But I will say it's. It's really interesting to see. I think most people probably know this if they're fans of the series. They started off with like meaning to have like auteur directors kind of thing. A different director in each movie. Brian De Palma, John Wu, J.J. abrams, Brad Bird. For the, for the first like four movies. And for that reason the tone is like all over the place in those movies. It's not consistent at all. The Impossible Mission Force, the IMF personnel changes. Like there's just this lack of consistency. But it's kind of strange then starting with, with rogue nation, Christopher McQuarrie takes over. And those are the Movies that people are probably think of right now when they think of the. Of the higher end, higher octane, incredible stunts, sort of the more recent ones are all the same director, so they kind of got like a cohesion thing going on. Anyway, I'm still watching those. My Covert Ops game that I'm running, Play by Post, the characters are all done. I'm now kind of putting together what the mission's going to be, etc. I already have opinions about that game. Having been through character generation, I was. [00:03:14] Speaker A: Going to ask, like, how much thought did you give to the system that. [00:03:17] Speaker B: You'Re going to run? Only a little. Like, I presented about four or five games to this group, group of players that I know, and we just picked one. So I prevented. Presented Tiny Spies and Covert Ops and operators and a couple of others. And we just settle on Covert Ops and we're kind of like, let's put it in gear, let's just get going. And the character process has been. The character generation process has been enlightening. I'll say that I like the system, but I think there's some. There's some real flies in the ointment that I'm going to have to think about while we. While I run it. So. And then, Lynn, I also finished a World War II episode of the Rest is Redacted, which was all about this. The COVID assault on a Nazi heavy water production facility in Norway. Operation Gunnerside, really good episode. It's the, it's the podcast we talked about last week. But it's just fantastic where like they. They parachute in Leyland, 30 miles from the site. They had to ski. The who ski is chest deep in some cases. There are ski chases. Like, it's. It's amazing what happened in that. In that mission. It's pretty cool. And then finally, this is a funky one that I just got into. Recently. I've been holding this in reserve as we've talked about, like, our influences and all that sort of stuff. When we first talked about, you know, the fact that maybe I like Austin Powers and Get Smart and you don't and that sort of thing. He's rolling his eyes right now, folks. I stumbled across this French series of spy films that more recently are spoofs. I think the original ones are not spoofs. So there's a series called OSS 11788 Novels written by Jean Bruce in the. Through the. From the 40s through the 60s. And then his wife takes over, his widow takes over, and she writes more than a hundred more of These stories well into the 1980s. And the French have produced like a dozen films or something all through the 50s and 60s and a couple in the 70s they were doing these films and I think they're a little more either straight ahead or they're a little more like Bond. Bond alikes kind of thing. But more recently in the 2000s, they are sort of spoof like films. And I watched the first one. It's actually the middle of the three, because the only one I could find easily last night. And I'll report back once I've seen more of these things, but holy crow, you know what? I'll just hold my tongue. There's. There's some questionable content in these movies since they're French. So that's all I'll say. Are you familiar with that series, the OSS 117? Not even a little 117. Yeah, it was I. Until I stumbled across them and they're a whole thing, for sure. Yeah. So that's me. What have you been up to? [00:06:02] Speaker A: So I've been listening. I've been listening to the Hunt for Red October, which is pretty decent. I mean, I don't know, as. As good as the ads, as good as the movie, I guess. I don't know how many Clancy audiobooks I'm going to listen to. Some of them I have a. Like, oh, some of all fears. Yeah, that's cool, man. But I don't know if I'll, you know, we'll see. The rest is classified. Hunt for bin Laden. I've been on a bin Laden kick. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Oh, really? [00:06:35] Speaker A: So I, yeah, I went. I think the rest is classified. The podcast I was listening to. Then I stepped away from it for other things. And then I came back to. [00:06:45] Speaker B: It's good, man. [00:06:46] Speaker A: And, yeah, and I came back to where they. They started the bin Laden hunt, basically, in that I think it's like five or six episodes at the same time. I was watching the one video on Netflix about the hunt for bin Laden. So I feel as though I'm a. I could be a CIA analyst on Finland from listening to those two shows. [00:07:10] Speaker B: You've been briefed thoroughly. [00:07:12] Speaker A: I mean, I think I could fill the shoes of Leon Panetta. And, you know, probably if I had known all that information ahead of time, I probably would have been able to find them too. [00:07:22] Speaker B: I'll have to. I'll have to listen and so I can keep up with you. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Right now it's getting into. What was it the last episode that I was looking to listen to? It was kind of an Interesting one. I have it up on my podcast right now. Oh. Roswell is the next New Mexico to two shows on Roswell and UFOs. Which will be interesting because, you know, this is. It's not overly espionage, but it seems like you get government, anything secretive, it's always. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:55] Speaker B: No, that'll be fun. [00:07:55] Speaker A: And then I need to prep for top secret vignette is on my list to do and have yet to start. So that'll be maybe the next episode. It can't be. It can't be that hard. I just gotta make up the characters and then, you know, you need to. [00:08:13] Speaker B: Go back and listen to the last three episodes to understand how hard it's going to be. Is that what you need to do? [00:08:19] Speaker A: I. I think if I remember correctly, creating a character in the past, wasn't. [00:08:23] Speaker B: That not that bad? [00:08:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Especially if you ignore half. Half the book. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:29] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You know what? I'll. So I. I think I told you this. I'll help you out. I'll make a character. You don't have to do it all, man. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:35] Speaker B: And there are. I'm pretty sure there's a. There's an early 80s supplement that has a bunch of pregens in it. So we also. We could hunt that down somehow. [00:08:43] Speaker A: Sure. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Right. We can look do it if we have trouble. But I'll create a spreadsheet to create my character like I used to do in the 90s with. I used to use Quattro Pro to do all of my Hero and Gurps and all those character sheets. I built my own because they all had various math functions throughout. Like, you know, this is an average of these three stats plus 100 divided by whatever. So the spreadsheets were the way to go there. So I'll create the characters. I'll alleviate that load off of you. But you have to figure out just how Rules is written. It's going to be my friend. [00:09:16] Speaker A: It's going to be per book. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Okay. I plan on having like a. Like an ankle holster and I'll do some hip shooting. And yes, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be waiting a lot. Yes. Yes. [00:09:29] Speaker A: I better tell. You better get ready. I better tell you the right edition so you don't decide to wrestle. [00:09:35] Speaker B: Very true. That's right. [00:09:37] Speaker A: And then you and I both, by the time this is out, will probably have. It is probably. It will probably have come and gone, but we'll be going to Gamehole Con in Madison. [00:09:47] Speaker B: We will. [00:09:48] Speaker A: Are. Do you have Any modern set games that you are going to be partaking in. [00:09:53] Speaker B: I do. You're. You're testing my memory here. But I may have more than one. I think I just have one. So Sean is. Is in a backhanded way here getting mad at me for dropping his game at Game Hole. So I was in it. I was in a Shadow Dark game. You know what I didn't realize? I didn't realize that Mirko was also in that game. Yeah, because the Game Hole freaking interface doesn't tell you who you're playing alongside, which I don't like. [00:10:16] Speaker A: I do. [00:10:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:19] Speaker B: The gm stupid. The players don't. So I could have had a lot of fun with another. A fellow BS or somebody else I really like to play with, but I didn't realize he was in the game, so I dropped it. With the intention being I'm gonna find myself some more modern games because I was signed up for a bunch of like swords and wizardry. Shadow Dark. Like a bunch of fantasy. Right. I did find one. It's not in the same slot, but I did find one on the Sunday, which is a top secret game by. Oh, my heavens. I'm gonna have to look it up. Tell you what, I'll look it up while you're. While you're getting us something on the sit Rep or something like that because I forget the guy's name. I think he's the author of the. Of the adventure. It's a top secret new world order game. Not si. Not the original game. It's the. It's the newer version of the game that came out, you know, five years ago or whatever it was in the teens, I think something like that. And I think you're in one of those too, right? [00:11:10] Speaker A: I am in a Delta Green scenario convergence, which will be interesting because I'm. Don't tell anybody, but I'm running it right now. [00:11:22] Speaker B: I'm gonna come by the table, bag of popcorn. So, Sean, are you going to be able to separate your GM knowledge from your player knowledge in this game? Is that how it's going? [00:11:32] Speaker A: I feel as though I'm a consummate professional at the table, whether I am behind the screen or in front of it. And I will be able to separate those two Personas. But I will tell you this. Nobody's gonna get stuck in that game. You're welcome. [00:11:47] Speaker B: You're welcome. Why don't we go to the post office? How do you know to go to the post office? We should go to this warehouse across town that I Never heard of. I trust me. We should go there. Me. [00:12:00] Speaker A: And then I also have Knights black agents with Mr. Ken Height. [00:12:08] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. I knew that. That's awesome. Sweet. [00:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's the two Modern games that I'm in. [00:12:15] Speaker B: So there weren't that many on offer, to be honest. [00:12:18] Speaker A: There's not. Next year it'll change because we'll be running 20 modern. 20 modern games. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Oh boy. [00:12:27] Speaker A: Harrigan. And that's just Harrigan 20 and me 20. That'll be 40. [00:12:34] Speaker B: They're going to be really high quality, really long, top notch, 15 minute sessions. Come to the booth. Oh dear. So there is one more, one more sort of, you know, person that we know, Chad. Well, I'm forgetting Chad's like Handle Gunderman. He's also playing in a top secret new World Order game I know from that's happening earlier in the weekend than the one that I'm playing in. So we can tap him as well to see how that goes. And because that, that might be by the author. I don't remember. Probably not. The author lives on the east coast, so probably not. Yeah. All right, we should roll on to. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Sit rep. Give me the sit rep. Sit rep. Where we share links and events and whatever we want that we want to bring to your attention. [00:13:28] Speaker B: Let me go first, please, Please let me go first. I got, I got nothing, Sean. I got nothing. Yeah. [00:13:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Well, over to you, buddy. [00:13:34] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate your effort. Thank you. [00:13:37] Speaker B: You're welcome. [00:13:38] Speaker A: So I have two this week. First one is the Spies that Death forgot. This is a Forged in the Dark espionage rpg. So I might have to put that on the list to look at because I'm interested in, through this, the adventures, if you will, of this podcast. I am interested to find out what game systems really work well for espionage. And I find that many are very trad. GM percentile, GM D. 20 GM players. Right. Fortune the Dark is a little interesting. I'm wondering if that facilitates a good espionage game because there's flashbacks and being able to change things in the moment based on its heisty, heisty background and mechanics. [00:14:28] Speaker B: So frankly, if you like Forest in the Dark games because they are kind of an acquired taste and some people love them, some people like them less. It's per. It's a perfect setup. It's that whole like, you're, you're in the middle of the mission, you didn't have to do all the planning, you didn't have to do all the setup and the, and in the moment, you, you know, the flashbacks and you just. It has a bunch of mechanics for capers and heists and that kind of thing, so it should work well. Actually, I'm kind of curious to see it for sure. Good find. [00:14:58] Speaker A: And then the second one is Corey Pearson. Oh, sorry, Robert Morton, which is not his Blue sky handle, but I'll have a link to it in the notes. I followed him on. I just did a search on espionage on Blue sky or something and his name popped up and he's got a bunch of posts that are all kind of all over the place. And most of it is. Some of it is his historic espionage tales. There is like recent news of espionage or. Or, you know, opera operations that involve other countries, forces and the US's and then. But he's also an author, so he's the author of Corey Pearson CIA spy thriller series, but he posts a ton of stuff on Blue sky that is very espionage oriented. So I just kind of tuned into him and if you find some of his books interesting, go ahead and check those out. I've not read any of his books, so that's all I have. [00:15:55] Speaker B: Sweet. Tell you what, I have found the. The name of the guy running the Top Secret New World Order game. You might know it. Scott Congable. Do you know him? [00:16:07] Speaker A: Do not offhand. [00:16:09] Speaker B: Okay, so I've seen his name on a couple of, I think, New World Order adventures because one thing that New World Order has done is they are relatively prolific at putting out adventures and whatnot for the game. And I think Congable, if that's how you pronounce his name, Congable, however you say your name, Scott. Apologies. So I'm kind of excited to see. To see what. What it's like. Should be good. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Very cool. Yeah. [00:16:31] Speaker B: Nothing else. Nothing else from Sit Rep on me. [00:16:33] Speaker A: All right, excellent. Let's move on to encrypted comms. Sir, we have an incoming encrypted transmission. We do. And we have one this week from a special, special listener. [00:16:49] Speaker B: Hey, guys, Great here in the new podcast. Best of luck to you. In fact, I'm driving home from Shirecon in Connecticut where I got to play in Top Secret the New World Order. That was a modern game done in 2025. Nobody minded working for the organization in that game, but it's a lot of fun and yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing all the great things that you do. Take care and, you know, maybe I'll talk to you soon. [00:17:19] Speaker A: So that was Jason from Nerds Variety Podcast, if you're interested in checking out his show. Thanks, Jason. For the call in and letting us know that you're listening. And, you know, would have been interesting to hear a little bit about how you thought about Top Secret New World Order, how it compares. But. [00:17:38] Speaker B: So I think we've mentioned Jason Connolly at least once before on the podcast. I think maybe we. Maybe it's on the editing room floor, Sean. But Jason has said on his own podcast on that Nerds RPG variety podcast that he does that he likes the original Top Secret more than the other Top Secrets. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Oh. [00:17:55] Speaker B: And having. Okay with you and I having just, you know, plowed through that and emerged on the other side bloodied and bruised, I'd like to talk to him a little bit about that to understand his perspective. [00:18:08] Speaker A: I would like him to run our vignette, actually, and then see if his has changed or not. [00:18:14] Speaker B: Wait a minute. You're shirking your duties? [00:18:16] Speaker A: I am shirking my duties, but I play. I would be a participant. [00:18:20] Speaker B: And, yeah, that's true. [00:18:22] Speaker A: He might know the rules better than I do, which is not probably very hard. But I would be interested to know if he's like, when's the last time he's played and how solid he knows the rules. [00:18:34] Speaker B: So I'll tell you what. But by the time he called, because we have this sort of staggered release to first to patrons and then to the public, he probably has not heard us discussing, I will say discussing Top Secret. So we'll probably get another call from him. Once we have it in a headlock and we're starting to apply the. The punches and whatnot, he'll probably call it and say, what are you talking about? It's the best game ever, and here's why. [00:18:58] Speaker A: Yeah, the. The downfall, too. Like, our public releases are, like, three weeks out almost. But thanks, Jason, as always. Good to hear it from you. I appreciate it. So let's get into. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Have a seat. Let's get on with the mission brief. [00:19:21] Speaker A: I have to do that because I can't get the music and put it in here because we'll get flagged. And I don't have to even. [00:19:27] Speaker B: Just snippets. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Little short snippets. [00:19:30] Speaker B: You couldn't just have the blast like the da na da da na da. And then you couldn't just do that. [00:19:37] Speaker A: I think we just covered it, though, probably better. [00:19:43] Speaker B: It's so good. It's so good. [00:19:46] Speaker A: We couldn't. So we had things planned. We're like, okay. And we put up a poll which Patreons will be. Patrons will be like. [00:19:54] Speaker B: They'll be mad. [00:19:54] Speaker A: What's the point of voting if you guys are just not gonna do whatever the hell you want anyway? [00:19:59] Speaker B: Our voices are meaningless. That's right. [00:20:02] Speaker A: That's right. So we put out a poll to find out what episode or what game we should cover next. And one of them was, like, mercenary spies and private eyes. And then the other one was James Bond slash Classified. And I'm thinking to myself, our next episode is episode seven. We cannot do any other game. [00:20:23] Speaker B: It's not episode seven. It's episode 007. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyways, James Bond 007, or better known as role playing in Her Majesty's Secret Service. [00:20:43] Speaker B: I don't think it's better known as that. That is the subtext, man. [00:20:47] Speaker A: Basic game, the complete basic game is sitting here in my hands, ladies and gentlemen. [00:20:53] Speaker B: I made him buy it. [00:20:55] Speaker A: Have you played? Okay, let's start out. Have you played this game before? [00:20:59] Speaker B: I have. I have. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, throughout our discussions here, we'll talk about our experiences with it. Right. This is one of many games that in the 80s I bought when I saw at the local shop and was like, what is this? When I was either getting itchy about not wanting to run D&D, AD&D, or just seeing neat things in the shop. Right. I don't remember the timing, unfortunately. I bet it was actually the latter because I think this came out in 83, which we're going to cover. So I think it was early enough that I probably was, you know, quite happily running the ad and D campaign for my friends, but it was James Bond. And if you could flip through this book, we'll get to this as well. It's so well laid out and looks just so, like, crisp and snazzy that I probably just snapped it up. I think I. To answer your question, I think I ran two sessions before my. My players were like, nope, we want to play D D. Part of that was probably the. The complexity of the system, which is not. It's not. Not complex, it's not crazy, but it's. There's some complexity versus rolling a D20. Right. And part of it may have been just, I don't know, maybe the way I was running it, you know, maybe I wasn't doing a good job with it. I don't know. What about you? What. What experience do you have with this game? [00:22:09] Speaker A: Never played it, Never owned it. I never owned it until, like a week ago. [00:22:13] Speaker B: Crazy. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Well, and here's, I think, why. People used to rave about this, and they still do to this day. And I found it so Offensive because I was a top secret guy and I'm like, I don't want to play James Bond because I don't want to play as James Bond. And if that's who you play in that game, I'm out. And Top Secret is the bomb because we're not playing it by the rules as written and it's a great game. So I never, I never played it and I always had kind of poo pooed it and didn't realize, I think over time how real popular it was. [00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll talk about. So let me, let me say this. I don't know that we're going to go into a three episode breakdown of every single game we talk about. Like we did with Top Secret. Right. Top Secret. Required some unpacking. Yeah. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Scared. [00:23:05] Speaker B: You know what I'm talking about? [00:23:06] Speaker A: It's scared. Yet it's, it's shocked you. Now you're like, whoa, I'm not doing three episodes again. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Well, it just took a lot, it took a lot to unpack the, not just the rules, but the history and all that sort of stuff. So for this game, here's what, here's what I proposed and you and I have talked about this at least a little bit. Like I think we should talk today about the history of the game, the publishing of it, the popularity up to like, let's not get deeply into the mechanics which we will do next week. Right. [00:23:31] Speaker A: That dive format that we would have. [00:23:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So there's plenty to talk about. And I think one of the really interesting things about this game is indeed it was published for a very short period of time. And in fact, you know what, let me. Do you mind if I go into some, some particular, some stats? [00:23:46] Speaker A: Please. [00:23:47] Speaker B: After I cover this, maybe we'll pivot a little bit because this game got. It gets a lot of love. Now if you go back to, you know, various either Usenet discussions in the 90s and 2000s or Reddit or wherever now people are. People point to this game as like one of the greatest espionage games that's ever been written. It's kind of this moment in time, which is kind of amazing. So created and published by victory games in 1983. It's 160 pages long. It's two types of releases. It has a basic set which was a box and it had a basic game which is just the book. The book is what Sean and I both have back in the day. I didn't buy the box. The box had some charts and some chits and those sorts of Things kind of accompanying it as well. It won awards in 83 and some of its adventures won awards in 84 and it was really popular. It immediately dethroned Top Secret as the number one spy game, which maybe was why young Sean had his tighty whities in a bunch. Perhaps almost a hundred thousand copies were sold. And they, they did all this between 1983 and 1987 when they lost the license. So it only ran for like three and a half, not quite four years, I think something like that. And they put out a ton of crap in that time. So in that, in that three or four year period, they put out 11 adventures and five supplements along with some other, like there's a board game, there's a few other little things that they did as well. So when they got the license, Victory Games was, was CR on trying to capitalize on the license. And what they, what many people will retrospectively look at and say one of the reasons why it sold so many copies is exactly because of the James Bond license. The same thing that drove you away as a kid saying I don't want to play that character, I want to build my own. Well, we, we know now and you know now from reading it, of course, you're usually you build your own character you can play as Bond and they include in the book, they include a lot of the characters from the movies. They stack them up. But the game is all about create your own character, whether they're a rookie or an agent or a double O or whatever. Right. That kind of thing. It was published in English, French, Spanish and Japanese. And those other, in those other locations they swapped out the art in many cases. So there's a lot of different versions of this, of this game floating around, even though it existed for such a short period of time. And I guess the last thing. I think I was going to cover this later, but I'll just throw it in now. What happened is at some point TSR or excuse me, Watsi Wizards of the coast acquires some Fragment of Victory Games somehow. And in the early 2000s they almost tried like a resurgence bring the game back. They were about to publish a From Russia with Love module, but it never got off the ground. I think there are rumors that it's float around there some floating out there somewhere in PDF, but I've not seen it, haven't been able to find it. But you know, it's. It's. This game is, is one of those curiosities where when the IP gets yanked, it just dies. Right? Do you want to tell us a little bit about Victory Games because I think there's. That's a, that's an interesting story of its own. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean people are probably wondering who the hell is Victory Games? Because they're not around anymore and they didn't publish, I don't think anything as Victory Games. In the RPG space past James Bond. They were a subsidiary of Avalon Hill, avalon Hill Game Company which was created in 1982. So not long afterwards did they get the James Bond rights to put out the rpg. And they. And Avalon Hill Game company was formed from a core of X spi, which was simulations, product publications, incorporated design employees. So they're following the family tree of all these designers and where they came from and what companies bought who and took them over. So SPI had it specialized in war games. That's who that. What they were known for. And that were more complex and more exacting simulations. And so they also did War in the Pacific, the campaign against Imperial Japan, Pacific War, the struggle against Japan. And then, and then that. That was more Avalon Hill Game company that had normally published like typical war game stuff. That was something equivalent to. Well, I think there's plenty of them now out there that are. There's all kinds of them. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Renaissance now for, for war games, for, for those, those types of like encounter kinds of war games. When I dug into this, Sean, I found some real. It's really interesting. And Avalon Hill in fact goes way back. They're back throw through the 70s, they're making stuff maybe even even in the, into the 60s. Right. And spi, what I used to call Spy, but I think is now I, I better know better that they called themselves SPI when they were still around. All these war game companies were watching what TSR was doing with D and D because TSR was also a war game company. But they pivoted and it became wildly popular. So many of the war game companies were watching the smaller competitor Disrupt and Innovate, and they were trying to kind of mirror or model it. Quite frankly, their sales were dropping. Like the war game sales were going down as the RPG sales were going up in the hobby. So SPI tried various things to stay relevant and they, they didn't. And they were eventually disbanded or picked up by tsr. TSR bought spi and what Avalon Hill did was they came, they swooped in and they picked off a few key people, developers who would help them get their RPGs off the ground. And that I think is part of the design team that came over and work on James Bond. So their former spi. The rest of those SPI war game guys went to tsr. It's, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of crazy how it all, how it all went down. Yeah. The quote that I have that I, that I, I think sums it up really well is one of Avalon Hill's competitors, SPI produced war games that were more complex and realistic simulations than those that Avalon hill published in 82. After SBI's assets were acquired by TSR, Avalon Hill hired away some of their design staff, form them into a subsidiary company, Victory Games. And you're right, Sean, Victory Games, I think, I mean they were all in on James Bond for that three or four year period, but they were producing war games too. And some of those war games actually won awards. So it was a, it was a really skilled little design team. And the reason why I'm emphasizing this is because I think we saw with Merle Rasmussen and Top Secret, like a love for the genre and a just, it's just drenched in tables that, you know, are emulating what, what Merle thought spy novels and fiction should have. Right. With James Bond, you see a high functioning game system design team just hitting on all cylinders. Like we know how to make games already and we're going to happen to make a spy game that has this amazing license attached to it. So it was kind of a moment in time. Spark, I think, which is, I mean, Sean, now that you've seen the two games, James Bond is a hundred times the game that Top Secret is. Would you not agree? [00:30:59] Speaker A: I mean, I haven't gotten to the table yet, but it does seem to read a little bit more clear. [00:31:07] Speaker B: A little. A little bit, yeah. Yep. Yeah. [00:31:11] Speaker A: They would go on to be Avalon Hill game company which folds in 1989. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Poof. [00:31:19] Speaker A: And so. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:20] Speaker A: And then also, although a few titles already well into the production side cycle appeared with the Victory logo after that date, which is kind of interesting. [00:31:30] Speaker B: It is. You want to tell us a little bit about the staff who were involved in the, the Bond project? [00:31:35] Speaker A: I want to go into the staff only because it's like, who, like some. Who would they be and what did they do and did they contribute to other things in the past? And we didn't really get into it with like Top Secret necessarily. We did mention Murrow and Alan Hammock as kind of the two people behind that team and then. But Top Secret Si. Different. Like Merle was not involved in Top Secret Si. And so with the, with the folks at Victory Games. Gerard Christopher Klug was credited for game design, development and project coordination. He was the designer referred to in the dedication. Gregory Gordon and Neil Randall handled game development. Robert Kern served as the systems development and James Bond savant. And then the rules editor was Michael E. Moore. I have to admit I don't know how many of these individuals went on to do many, many, many more games. And it could be that they went into. And maybe they came from the war gaming space and they are probably more known in that space. I don't know. I'm very unfamiliar with some of these personalities. [00:32:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't, I don't know a single one of them either. And I, you know, but that's probably my ignorance more than anything. These guys might be storied, storied game designers from the 70s, right. And the early 80s. So. So one of the things flowing on here that is interesting is that this team had some real obstacles in their way. They had some real challenges or impediments that they had to overcome. Right. And the first one being. And this I read in doing the research for this episode, I've read an article that actually interviewed. You're saying Klug K Lug is the guy's name, right? What's his first name? Sorry? [00:33:16] Speaker A: Well, it's Greg Christopher or Gerard Christopher. I'm sorry, not Gerard Christopher Klug. [00:33:22] Speaker B: So Klug comes to the table with, you know, his new boss is saying, you got to develop this rpg. The espionage space is not very crowded like the fantasy spaces. There's a bunch of science fiction games. There's only top secret that's out there right at the time and 80, 82. And he has an immediate decision to make which is, wow, the books are very different from the movies, like quite different. And in my research for this I've come just come to discover just how different, so different in fact than when they was tried to turn the books into movies. They had to like do a whole reset on like no, we're not going to make these books into movies as is. Even though many of the names are the same between Fleming's books and the movies, they actually had a whole like set of meetings and design processes around what should Bond look like on the screen. And he is not like the Bond in the books even. So like the Bond in the books does not say Bond. James Bond. He doesn't do that all the time. Right? He doesn't, at least in the early books. He doesn't have a shaken, not stirred martini every time. So the suaveness that they bring to the movie and that, you know, I don't know, they're just the. The sleek and the. The romantic part of the spyness is not in the books. So Klug decides, and probably influenced by the IP owners, I would think, to lean towards the cinematic side of things. This is interesting because later in the retro clone Classified, they introduce a scale that tells you. I think I mentioned it in the podcast before, and I think I incorrectly attributed it to the James Bond system. The whole, like realistic, adventurous, cinematic and heroic. That's Classified. That does that. Bond, the. The original game, The James Bond 007 game comes down firmly in the. It's cinematic. And he even says in the forward. Klug does. He says in the forward, where I had to make a decision. I leaned towards the movies. Now, having said that, he also talks about striking a balance, so it's kind of cool that he's in this, like, sort of middle, middle space. There is one thing that's missing from The James Bond 007 game. One big. At least one big thing. Sean says two things. So let's find out. What are they? What are they, Sean? [00:35:35] Speaker A: To the big bad organization they cannot use, and they can't use the name of the head of that organization. [00:35:43] Speaker B: Ah, yes. [00:35:46] Speaker A: If you've guessed, we'll give the. We'll give the listener a little bit. You guessed. If you guessed Spectre, that you would be correct. And Blofeld. [00:35:57] Speaker B: Yep. They are not in the game. [00:36:00] Speaker A: But everything else, like Felix Leiter is in there as an mpc. [00:36:05] Speaker B: No, there's tons of characters that are in there. Yeah. So do you know that, do you know that story? Do you want me to tell that story? You want to tell a story as to why they can't use Spectre? It's really interesting. So remember I. I mentioned that they had these design discussions when they were. They were looking at the movie franchise. And Fleming's already written a whole bunch of books by then, but he's still writing the books when they start. Start the movies. Right. Kevin McClory. So there's a. The producer of the Thunderball movie. And even though Thunderball is not the first Bond movie, I think it's number three or number four. I'm trying to remember. I think it's number three, isn't it? Dr. No. And then Russia with Love and then Thunderball. Or is Goldfinger before Thunderball? I don't remember. [00:36:46] Speaker A: I do not recall. [00:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll have to. We'll check that. Long story short, even though McClory doesn't, isn't involved in like the very first movie. He's involved in these early discussions about how to take the franchise and turn it into movies. Right. And they develop Thunderball, the movie with his involvement. And that movie gets into some significant stuff around Spectre and around Blofeld etc, which Fleming hadn't written about fully yet. So when, when the, when they. I forget if the movie's already out or if I think it's after those discussions. Fleming writes Thunderball writes the book, but it's not just his ideas. There's a few things from McClory and others. So I can't pretend to know all the ins and outs. I haven't read deeply about this, but I do know that basically when they got down to Spectre and Blofeld, McClory was like, you know, I have some stake in that IP and you know, you have to pay me as well. So in the end they decide to skip it. And what, what do they replace it with, Sean? Because they do include a world spanning villain organization. [00:37:48] Speaker A: The name is Tarot, I think. [00:37:53] Speaker B: Right. Tarot. Technological ascension, revenge and organized terrorism, which. [00:38:00] Speaker A: Is probably not much different than smershoot. [00:38:05] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know what, do you remember what SMERSH means? [00:38:08] Speaker A: It's like submersion, subversion, something, something. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Oh, it's. It's the blending of two Russian words. It's, it's. There's two Russian words that are smashed together. So it's not an acronym. Maybe I'm wrong, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Left to look it up. I believe it means Death to spies. [00:38:28] Speaker A: That's spectre. [00:38:29] Speaker B: No, nice. I think that's smash. [00:38:32] Speaker A: One or the other is an acronym. [00:38:35] Speaker B: SPECTER is totally an acronym. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Maybe that I got it mixed up with Specter. [00:38:39] Speaker B: I don't know. We better do some research on this for this show next time. [00:38:42] Speaker A: What are we doing here? [00:38:43] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:38:44] Speaker A: Okay, everybody, we're gonna stop right now, check out the next episode where we come back and tell you what's going on. [00:38:49] Speaker B: So long story short, I think SMASH was real. Like SMERSH was an actual. That's an actual Russian part of the, of the. The before the KGB and all that sort of stuff. [00:38:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:59] Speaker B: And that's what Fleming writes about in the early BO books. And then SPECTRE comes in later, I think because of these conversations that he had. Right. That sort of thing. I do think both SMERSH and Specter. I have to, I'll have to double check this. I think SPECTER gets Introduced in a later book, like in 86 or 87, maybe in the Villains book. I'll have to go back and check that. Sean's searching right now. [00:39:27] Speaker A: Can you hear my keyboard? Clickety click. I can't. [00:39:32] Speaker B: It's fine. It's all good. So while you search, I will say this about Tarot. Many people who reviewed the James Bond RPG say that Tarot is actually a cooler villain organization than Spectre is. It's just not as familiar to people, but the way they, they name their agents and there's just a bunch of things about Tarot that are. Are pretty neat. Other side of the coins. SMERSH is an acronym, but it's from the Russian phrase. I'll never be able to say this because it's in like Cyrillic kind of thing, but it does mean death to spies. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:05] Speaker B: And it was a real Soviet counterintelligence organization founded by Joseph Stalin during the Second World War to eliminate German spies. So there you go. [00:40:14] Speaker A: There you go. And Spectre is. Some of these nerds that find us will be like, you know, and if you know, bonus bonus special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion. [00:40:34] Speaker B: Revenge. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Revenge. [00:40:35] Speaker B: I love it. There's Specter. Yes, there you go. So one is made up and one is not right in the end. And Tarot is another made up one that they have to use because there's these IP and there's actually, there's not. Not a lot of value in getting into it, but there's actually several IP agreements they have to make with different people who own different parts of the franchise and that kind of thing. But they navigate. But here's what one thing that blew my mind, Sean. They don't start this project until 1982. And in this interview with, with Klug, he talks about how difficult it was dealing with the IP owners and how many approvals they needed and going back and forth. And I'll talk about the adventures here in a minute and how they got involved in the adventures that they were going to put out. They did this in like six months. Like it didn't take long at all in the, in the grand scheme of things. They had the game out by the summer of 83 and they didn't start work until 82. And they got all the design done, all the art done, all of the ip, like checked off with a couple of different bodies. I mean, that with a property that's like hugely popular. So kudos, man. They did, they did some amazing. [00:41:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I would have to ask, like Modiphius or Free League if their negotiations or even with the Star Wars RPG that Edge now has and wizards has owned before, how easy it has been to negotiate those ips. [00:42:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean maybe some cases it's easy if you give them the big cut. And you know what, let's. If we fast forward just a little and we're not, we're still not done with the challenges that the design team had. But if we fast forward a little bit to why they lost the license, it's not clear. You know some people say Avalon Hill Victory Games wanted a bigger cut and tho those designers and the game company says actually it was the IP owners who wanted a bigger cut. So it's not clear. I've never seen a good, a good, a really good breakdown of exactly what happened. But the fact of the matter was after three and a half or four years, suddenly a very successful, very popular game vanishes from the market. And that's partly why a lot of folks, a lot of folks that you and I know in the, in the, the gaming and BS or the BS Landia community, why they don't love IP games because they have this fragility where it's like oops, lost the license, you know. Now I mean Conan's one of the best examples. Lord of the Rings is a great example where these, you know, you especially if it's the game, a game that you love, you're like, yeah, keep making content for it. What? Wait, wait, wait. Oh, maybe the best is actually Marvel. Like Marvel has jumped around like crazy and many people believe if you, you know, if you research deeply that Marvel heroic role playing, the Cortex game is like, it's a gem of a game and it, it suffered the same fate as Bomb but even faster. I don't think it even got us maybe one supplement if that and then done. And now we have a different Marvel game that's out right now which mark my words, will not last. There's going to be a different Marvel game five years from now, right? [00:43:36] Speaker A: Well, maybe I only say maybe because Marvel is putting that out, not a game company. [00:43:42] Speaker B: Oh, then, then I stand corrected. [00:43:44] Speaker A: Maybe, maybe that's a Marvel initiative. Yeah. That's not a third party. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's unfortunate. [00:43:48] Speaker A: Matt Forbeck, we can talk to him at gamehole Con about that because he's the, he's the driving force behind that game. [00:43:54] Speaker B: I know you say he's a good guy. [00:43:56] Speaker A: He is. [00:43:56] Speaker B: I just don't love that system. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And I haven't, I don't have much Experience with it, But IP address, you know, it's ip. Star Wars, Star Trek. Same thing. [00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, so lastly, the adventures presented a challenge. So the. The. The fact that they had to figure out movies or books, where do we focus? They couldn't use some of the property in the book. The adventures were interesting because they wanted to leverage all this content they already had. Right. So why not put out adventures that are around Goldfinger? Put out Dr. No, put out Live and Let Die. Why wouldn't you do that? Right. Well, they sat back and were like, everyone knows these stories. These fans know what happens in these stories. And we all know as players, it can be hard to separate that knowledge and still keep things interesting. Right. So they developed not a system, but they developed a methodology for changing key pieces of the adventures in terms of locations, characters, plot devices. So they were thematically the same. You know, I think, you know, Blofeld's or Goldfinger is still trying to get. Destroy gold and become rich because he's got all the gold in the world kind of thing, but it's not Fort Knox necessarily. Right. That he's trying to destroy. Those are the flips that they tried to make. And this is where the intellectual property owners came back in and were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing? Changing our stories kind of thing. So they had to go through rounds of discussion with them to get them to understand how these games worked and why they needed to sort of switch it up. So, yeah, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty interesting challenges they had to overcome as they got the game off the ground. [00:45:26] Speaker A: I can imagine. [00:45:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:28] Speaker A: Can you imagine being the designer? Be like, okay, great, fine. Now what are they gonna do? [00:45:37] Speaker B: Yeah. One last thing that Klug said in the interview that I thought was really cool and that I don't think a lot of designers necessarily do, and they should. He was reading all the books while he was designing, and he was stopping and making sure the mechanics could model fiction that he was reading about. And he would stop reading and model and then go back to keep reading, which I think is pretty cool. And which is why we end up with seduction mechanics and chase mechanics and torture mechanics and all kinds of stuff in this game. Pretty sweet. [00:46:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:11] Speaker B: There's a core design philosophy here. Right. [00:46:15] Speaker A: There is. [00:46:15] Speaker B: That makes this game a little different than D D and a lot of the other games that are out of the time. You have some good notes on this. You want to lead us through the discussion on Be happy to what that looks like. [00:46:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And with James Bond, it distinguishes itself from other TTRPGs of its time and even to the today. For the most part. They say it's deliberately designed in the favor of the players. They actually have a quote I think from one of the designers in the game that says what good is it being James Bond if the game says you will fail rather than succeed? [00:46:50] Speaker B: Mm. [00:46:51] Speaker A: So I'm gonna win. I'm gonna win this game. [00:46:53] Speaker B: Competent spies. [00:46:54] Speaker A: That's. That's right. Checkbox. Yep. One of the elements. Anti grim dark. So the game world is explicitly described as the exciting world created by Ian Fleming, which is a bit more fantastical than our own, where the good guys always win or at least break even. And I get going to what Harrigan had mentioned about leaning towards more the movies than the books protagonists. Focus. So the rules emphasize that the player characters are agents of MI6 and should never, quote, unquote, should never take a backseat to any NPC or act as a mere caddy or messenger. End quote. So the other one would be encouraging boldness. So players are expected to develop confidence in their decision making. Even acting contrary to orders if they feel it is necessary. As a bold style of play has proven most effective. There's actually a blurb I make note. I think this would be the time to put it in there. Is that you are actually penalized, I believe inexperience points. If you keep going back to headquarters. [00:48:10] Speaker B: I don't think I've seen that. I need to read that more carefully. Cool. [00:48:14] Speaker A: I could be wrong. Could be wrong. [00:48:16] Speaker B: We'll dive in. [00:48:17] Speaker A: Stop calling M. Just do the job. Like they're encouraging the person to make a judgment call on the spot. Needs to happen. Let's do it. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Well, if you think about the movies, it's the reverse usually. Like, where the hell's Bond? He hasn't checked in. Where is he now? What's he doing in Istanbul? [00:48:34] Speaker A: Well, that's because he's taking it the bull by the horns. Harrigan. That's not. That's consulting with those goofballs in the office at back in home office. [00:48:43] Speaker B: Right, right, right. [00:48:45] Speaker A: And then money is extract abstracted. So in a move to retain the flavor of the Devil May Care lifestyle of the movies while reducing bookkeeping. Characters never have to worry about money. MI6 pays them well enough to enjoy a Bond lifestyle. [00:49:01] Speaker B: And. [00:49:01] Speaker A: And all mission expenses are covered. Sign me up. Like, hey, per diem. Like throw it out the door. [00:49:09] Speaker B: There's even a list of equipment that you can just have. Like they'll give you these things. Right. And it includes Some. Some cool stuff including like bugs and firearms and all sorts of stuff. And it's a special stuff that you have to like have reputation or whatever for. It's pretty cool. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Now we've done deep dives for top secret riveting episodes I would say explaining how things are derived and some of those details. But I think it's important as we do a hundred foot view of a game of just some of the things that incorporate the actual game and that are maybe a little bit unique without going into the nuances and details. So if you'll allow me. [00:49:52] Speaker B: I will. [00:49:53] Speaker A: So the stats, strength decks, will perception and intelligence sound familiar? A little bit different. They range from 1 to 15. We won't go into how they're derived but 1 to 15. It's a percentile based system at its core. But there is also an ease factor chosen by the game master which you know the quality, it goes into the quality of the result. So you have to roll a percentage and a target number and then based on that you cross reference it on a table that with an ease factor and that will tell you the degree of success. [00:50:31] Speaker B: Acceptable. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Good. [00:50:33] Speaker B: Very good. And excellent. One of the first times I think we're seeing this really mechanized in that not just a 1, 2, 3 levels of success but they're named. Pretty cool. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Skills are fleshed out like spells in a fantasy book. So if you wanted to know what a skill does it. It's got a little spell block and. Or spell block. A skill block in James Bond which include base time, success, information repair if it applies and a paragraph and description for the. The skill. That was kind of interesting. So example interrogation. 18 hours determined by the amount of info obtained as indicated by the skill use chart. And then if any equipment is used then there's, you know, there would be repair. The repair time is two hours. And then there's a brief description about what interrogation means. Everybody starts at rookie maybe. Of course, unless you are a game master. That's like everybody can start at double O level but usually start at rookie. Then you go to agent, then you earn a double O. And there's also ranks that the bad guys have. I did not get into that. I think what is it like? I don't remember the bad guys ranks, do you? [00:51:58] Speaker B: Nor do I. But we'll go, we'll get into that next. Next episode. I didn't, I didn't. I'll be honest, I didn't look carefully at that stuff yet. I was trying to get the overall impressions right. [00:52:09] Speaker A: Surviving Inescapable traps. So competency. And they wanted Bond to have the ability to. If he's in a. If he or she is the character's in a pickle to be able to get out of that. And they have hero points. So each one is. You're awarded 12 and you could spend them to influence the world around you and essentially, you know, withstand some plot armor. So it is the time when you're tied up and you're like, oh, or you need to get into a room and it's like, I don't have the lock pick. Oh, I have it in the heel of my shoe. And then you spend a hero point. The bad guys also get something equivalent. They call. They're called survival points. But it's all used defensively, not offensively. And it's usually to stop players from mowing down these bad guys willy nilly. Especially like the big bad evil guy. Like if you. Because you all know like I did with Harrigan's Outcast Over Raiders bad guy at the end, I kill him. Well, wait, hold on a second. No, no, I charge in, I kill him. No monologue, no explanation. I know that's the bad guy I go in there and kill. [00:53:15] Speaker B: Yeah, right, you did do that. [00:53:17] Speaker A: So with this you could spend survival points for your. For your big badly for guy to show up in the next film, if you will. And then weaknesses. So there are human failings is what they're termed at character generation to earn more points. So it's a. Almost like. Think of it as advantages, disadvantages and savage worlds or hindrances and things of that nature. Actually hindrances in savage worlds. And then I think gurps. You can also take disadvantages to get more points to be able to build your character. Because it is a kind of a. [00:53:54] Speaker B: Point system, an early version of this. Right. I think Fantasy Trip has the point thing and then Hero games comes along and introduces advantages and disadvantages and like, you know, weaknesses and those sorts of things. So this is early. Yeah, this is like maybe the third game that does this. Something like that. It's kind of cool. [00:54:15] Speaker A: So some of the examples, attraction of to members of opposite sex. Fear of spiders. The only one that is restricted. I don't know if you knew this was sadism. That is going to keep you heroic for the baddies. [00:54:28] Speaker B: Yep. [00:54:29] Speaker A: And then of course it has a unique chase mechanic which we will go into when we do a deeper dive where you know, there's a maneuver that you pick. It's secretive and then you divulge it at the same time as the opposition. And then the lowest bidder wins advantage. There is also fame points in the game. So the more famous. Like when we first kicked off the podcast, we were talking about fame and fame not being always the best thing to achieve because then you're recognizable. So this game incorporates that. There's a way to lower your fame by faking your death. Did you read about that mechanic Harrigan? [00:55:11] Speaker B: Yeah. You only live twice, man. That's where it all comes from. [00:55:13] Speaker A: That's right. [00:55:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Well, and also if for some reason somebody realizes that you had faked your death, all that comes spiraling forward. [00:55:24] Speaker B: We, we briefly touched on it in an earlier episode. I think we were talking about Top Secret and its fame kind of thing. We lightly mentioned that if you're tall or attractive or basically if you stand out, yes, it's bad. It costs you fewer character points. But your, your recognizability, your, your fame goes up and that's bad. I mean in the movies they give up where he just walks in and you know, I'm Bond and James Bond. Like why would you tell them your name? [00:55:51] Speaker A: Right? [00:55:52] Speaker B: But hey. [00:55:54] Speaker A: And then there's no hit points in this system. So it's called wound levels. So you could get shot and there's a chart that you reference. One of the results on that chart is killed. But you can use a hero point. [00:56:13] Speaker B: To lower the wound level. [00:56:14] Speaker A: Yes. And then it's stack. [00:56:17] Speaker B: You know, it's really elegant and the whole thing is really a really cohesive system. It's not perfect, but it's man, it's. It's a good game. [00:56:27] Speaker A: I'll just say that that's all I had for some of the high level mechanics. [00:56:32] Speaker B: Let me, let me add to your high level pieces here. So just generally speaking, the layout, really clean, easy to read. It's not exactly a control panel layout like you would see these days where they're trying to put everything on a two page spread or a one page spread. But they, they do a really good job with the tables. The, the text is well written. It's. The prose is really easy to kind of grok. They have a lot of use in the, the marginalia in the margin. They'll have other notes to either the GM or something else that they want to kind of like a comment on that they're talking about specific examples etc. Right. So they use good use of that. The chapters. Let's, let's. So when I think of high level Sean, what I think of is like what I'm scrolling back Here on my PDF. So I get to the table of contents. There are 20 chapters and they are broken immediately into a player section and a GM section. The player section is intro creating a character skills, combat, chases, how to interact with non player characters, gambling and casino life, fame, hero points, experience and character growth and equipment. Right. So a lot of what Sean just talked about, each one of those, and sometimes the chapters are two or three pages long. They're very succinct. They do a great job of presenting them. Then the game master section has how to be a successful game master, how to use non player characters. The non player character encounter system, which. Sean, while I read. Get yourself a pair of 6D 6s, please. I'm going to eat a roll in a minute here. Get a pair of D6s and then there's a chapter on MI6. There's a chapter on James Bond as a non player character. Non player character, Sean. Non. There's a chapter on Tarot, the villain organization. There's a chapter on allies and enemies of James Bond. There's one on thrilling cities, which leads to a later book called Thrilling Locations, which is a whole book about, like, cool places to go and adventure in. And then they end off with a little like, adventure. The. And I think it's a solo sort of thing. Right. The island of Dr. No. Is it. Is it a solitaire? [00:58:33] Speaker A: I don't know if it's solitaire. [00:58:36] Speaker B: We'll have to look at that in a minute. [00:58:37] Speaker A: I'm not sure. [00:58:38] Speaker B: All right, you have your D6s out. [00:58:39] Speaker A: I do. [00:58:40] Speaker B: Okay. So I love the non player character encounter system. And I think I talked about this very brief briefly before about how there were tables that you could use so you're not encountering bands of wandering orcs. This is the first use I've seen, Sean, of a D66 table. Eroll. One D6 for what's called first die roll and a second D6 for a second die roll. So give me a. First of all, let's. Let's establish where you are. Let's say you're in Jamaica. Jamaica Fingers figures strongly in a lot of the Bond stories. Right. It's hot. There's a hot encounter table, hot area. So roll. Give me a D66 roll. Tell them what you get. First die. Second die. I'll tell you who you encounter. [00:59:24] Speaker A: A51, sir. [00:59:26] Speaker B: 51 is an employment offer. Interesting. I can then look up what this means. What employment offer means, huh? You can. Interesting. You can use a hero point to avoid this if you want to if no hero point is expended, a shady contact offers the character an unsavory contract to eliminate arrival. If a hero point is expended, the offer is made by the major villain. Oh, my God. So you can use it to, like, get in good with the people you're after. The character may accept the offer as a pretense for infiltrating the villain's operation. This may be done only once per major villain, even if the same villain returns in another adventure. So how cool is that? Like, it is totally emergent gameplay baked into these tables. Beyond two D6 thugs show up. Forgive me. Here, allow me this. Now it's cold. Now you're in Switzerland. Roll your D6s. Two or two of them, and I'll tell you what you get because the tables are a little bit different. It's pretty cool. 34 Hotel operator. Let's see what that says. If the major villain is not yet aware of the characters, then this encounter is nullified. Otherwise, the hotel operator will inform the character of a peculiar message in which the caller confirmed that the character was staying at the hotel or other location, gave a peculiar laugh, using the word peculiar multiple times here, and then hung up, leaving no message. Some details about the voice of the caller may be obtained. I'm not going to keep reading this long story short. You. You've just revealed that the major villain now knows where you are, and you can kind of go on from there. So the table is. The tables were filled with, like, you can get arrested. The newspaper, newspaper stories. There are television stories. You can encounter soldiers, fellow agents, technicians. There's all I just noticed. You can encounter James Bond. He is. He is, if you're old, a 12 on that table just now. So anyway, long story short, like, kind of like I felt about, like, top secret, like there's some inspired content here. These. These people are not going through the motions in making a game. They are thinking deeply about how to model a fiction. And it just. It bleeds through the page, for sure. I love the art all through this book. And it's all by James Talbot. And I think this book along with, I would say games, design workshops, Judge Dredd, and perhaps the Marvel superheroes game, where everything looks so unified. Like, I think in Marvel superheroes, those are some different artists in there, but they're all using the same Marvel house style. But in Judge Dredd. And the same thing is probably true for Judge Dredd too, actually. But in all three books, there's this unified, consistent look that has always drawn me I just love that when it looks at the same person, the same. The same style is used throughout. So I love the art. The layout's really interesting. You have the physical right. So you're seeing it. It's not just a black and white book. It's a black and white book with big splashes of blue. For whatever reason, they chose this kind of. Not quite royal blue, but pretty medium blue. And they use it in a lot of chapter headers and those sorts of things. There were splashes of it throughout. [01:02:41] Speaker A: I don't think it pertains to this game necessarily, but in the. Back in the days, I think some of the maps that they made were done in blue copiers couldn't pick it up is what. Is what I heard. I don't know if that is an actual truth, but back in the day when D and D did blue maps, they did that photo Photostat machines. Yeah. They wouldn't be able to like see the blue blue on it, I guess, but I don't know if that's true. [01:03:09] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So. [01:03:11] Speaker B: So finishing up my. My 10,000 foot view of this. The example of play is really cool because it includes both a narrative. So they have, you know, Bond walked into the casino, da da, da, da, da. Right. And on the, on the right hand side. Remember how I mentioned they use the margins really well? Well, this margin is huge. They're. They essentially divide the page in two. They had the table talk of the players and the GM and the mechanics going alongside the narrative, which I think is really neat. I like that a lot. Yeah, I mean it's. It's cool stuff, man. There are no real PDFs of this game, unfortunately. I'll say that there are unofficial ones. Just like there are top secrets where someone's taking a book, they've probably taken it apart and they've scanned each page because the. I do have a scan of it as well as the. The real deal here next to me. And the scan is actually really, really high, high quality. It's good flowing out. Sean. I'm just going to cover a couple of notes, if you don't mind, on sort of not just the 10,000 foot view, but like, you know, there's some. There's some quirky things that I just noticed. So this game has two different retro clones for it. One was called Double Zero, which appears to have faded from the public lexicon. It's no longer a thing. I think it was an SRD more than it was a product. But the big one that's out there Now Sean and I have mentioned it and we will be covering it is classified. And classified is basically the same game system cleaned up slightly. Couple of questionable design decisions they made. They changed the name Ease Factor to something else which I don't like. But really what they're doing is removing the Bond IP from the game. There's an interesting thing on the bottom of page two. Let me flick back there for a second. And this shows you back in 1983 how these companies were interacting with their fan base. So they didn't have a discord, they didn't have a website. So at the bottom of the, you know, this is the beneath where he, you know, to Eric a dot for having enough faith in the designer to let him do the things the way he knew they had to be, the way they, he knew they had to be done and you know, yada yada yada, right where he dedicates the book. Below that there's a little section that says if you have any questions about the James Bond 007 game, send them to the address below which is in New York City by the way. Please phrase your questions so they can be answered with a yes or no response. Also be sure to include a self addressed stamped envelope. Send your questions to Victory Games etc. Just. It's kind of more like a comic book, right? Where in the back of a comic book there was letters to the editor, that kind of thing. So I don't know, I just. There's, it's, it's so of its time that that just sort of jumped out at me. It's really, really pretty cool. What else have I got? I think that's it. Oh, you know what? Yeah, I did have a question and we already talked a lot about Smersh Inspector and I think we had someone in the chat a minute ago when we were offline mention that that Smurf shows up in Casino Royale which is of course the first book. And this is, you know, not only that but they. SMERSH is the villain in all those Fleming like you know those early Fleming works because it's this. They're against the Russians basically and this is the Russian anti spy agency. I don't know why SMERSH is not in the James Bond 007 game. Like there's this big thing around not including Spectre because they ran into the, into the rights issues we talked about. But why is this Martian there? And I think I have to get a hold of it. I actually don't own this book. I don't own the Villains book. I think Villains might include both Spectre and sm. So I'm gonna try to get a hold of it here in the next little while and we'll, we'll revisit that. That's a mouthful. Is there anything we want to revisit now that we've kind of covered the game? Sean, on your own experiences, like, now that you've read it, anything you want to reflect on? [01:06:45] Speaker A: Nothing off the top of my head, no. [01:06:48] Speaker B: So I had a couple of little things that. Remember I mentioned that I tried to run, like, I ran two sessions for my group. They wouldn't have it for whatever reason. Then we dropped it. Same way, same thing, by the way, for Star wars, for Gamma World, for Judge Dread, for Marvel Superheroes, all those games, like, I could just couldn't get them to stick. So I shelved the game and I shelved it for years, right? And then like, I kept it. But I haven't, I haven't read it until, I think a couple years ago. I rolled it out when another friend of mine and I mentioned him before Alfred. This, this sort of. He's like a RPG prodigy kind of like, I don't know how, I don't know where he gets his information, but he's got a lot of it. He's like, hey, I heard that the James Bond RPG has the most innovative chase rules of all time and people really like the, you know, so he, he kind of like was like, tell me more about this game. And at the. And I remember my response. I'm like, man, that game's got these crazy tables where you have to look them up. I had soured on, on heavier weight mechanics so badly that it sort of colored my view of like, I never want to go back to that James Bond game. It has that, it has that ridiculous percentile lookup table where you have to cross reference and find out what level of, of success that you have, right? And when I have looked at this game more recently, I'm like, I'm wrong. Like, this game actually, you know, it does have these charts. There is, it is of its time. But wow, is this stuff ever knit together in a way that top secret just like aspired to or the top secret tables all felt like they're all neat in and of themselves and they're. But they're all kind of random and like, when do I use them and how do they fit together? And why is this one so different from that one? The Bond system has this backbone running through it of this skill system and this percentile role and the four levels of success and everything is wired to that. It is a genius design. It's genius. So while you run top secret and we do our vignettes, I'll run James. [01:08:40] Speaker A: Bond guy's getting off late. I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. [01:08:46] Speaker B: Yep. Yep. That's all I have to say about that, man. It's a. Is. This is a watershed game. It's a landmark game. [01:08:53] Speaker A: Signing off. Who is your favorite Bond? [01:08:59] Speaker B: Definitely Connery. Should we put them in order? [01:09:03] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. Sure. [01:09:05] Speaker B: Okay. I'll just say. I'll just say Con. You know, I'll just say this. I'll just say Connery. But I. Yeah, you. You go ahead. I'll think about it for a minute. [01:09:15] Speaker A: Mines. Connery is the far as favorite goes. I'm part. I'm biased. I've got. My name comes from a particular. [01:09:23] Speaker B: Oh, really? [01:09:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:24] Speaker B: Were you named after Sean Connery? [01:09:27] Speaker A: My. The spelling of my name for sure. But yeah. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:09:31] Speaker A: That's my. My mother tends to bring that up in strange situations quite often, actually. [01:09:39] Speaker B: No kidding? Yeah, no kidding. I mean, you and I are similar in age. I'm a little older. Right. But I will tell you, growing up, I loved Roger Moore. Like, loved him. I now know and have, you know, having watched the movies with a little bit of a colder eye and a little more critical eye, I'm like, oh, man, Connery is the man. Like that. That is James Bond, Roger Boris. Movies are goofy. I mean, I still like those movies, and I have a lot of. A lot of adoration for them because of when I saw them in my childhood. But the Connery movies are where it's at. What do you think about the new. What about Brosnan? What about Dalton? [01:10:19] Speaker A: I mean, I've seen them. I've watched them. I think they're okay. But it was, I think, Daniel Craig in the modern era. Like, if you rank them, I would put them. I would put Daniel Craig above Dalton, then Remington Steele. [01:10:34] Speaker B: I have. I think Craig is firmly number two for me. Like, I. I like him a lot. [01:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:39] Speaker B: In the. In those movies. And I. I think I may maybe. I already told you this. I realized recently I have not seen the whole run of Craig movies. I think I got halfway through the second last one, Specter, and. What's the last one? No Time to Die is the last one, and I haven't seen a lick of that. I just realized usually I see them in the theater, and for whatever reason, I didn't see that One. And I need to. I need to change that. I need to rectify that. [01:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't seen it either. The main reason is they just. They don't release it for free on any streaming. It's always like, you got to pay for these things or rent them. Yeah, yeah. [01:11:17] Speaker B: So I'm gonna go through those Craig ones, you know, bam, bam, bam, bam. I thought about doing the Remington steel ones as well, and I've got some other friends. I talk about this stuff that, you know, I was out with having lunch with the guy, and he's like, do you really. Do you really want to do that? Do you really want to sit down and watch the Brosnan fun films? Because I don't think you do. [01:11:35] Speaker A: You know, driving the tank out of Korea. [01:11:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And I remember kind of liking the first Timothy Dalton one and hating the second Timothy Dalton one. So I don't know. They all. They all deserve a revisit at some point. [01:11:48] Speaker A: They do. They do. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I think that wraps this up, eh? [01:11:55] Speaker B: Yeah. We heading. Heading for the hills here? [01:11:56] Speaker A: I think so. All right, so go dark, agents. The next briefing will arrive when you least expect it. Signing off from Go Bag, I'm Sean. Want more of Sean and Harrigan? You can find Sean at YouTube.com PGShawn where he streams every Saturday at 8am Central Time. You can find more of Harrigan's RPG musings at harriganshearth.substack.com Links in the show notes this episode of Go Bag, brought to you with help from the following agents, assets and directors. 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