So I love what I call my alphabet soup TV shows - CSI, CSI: NY, NCIS, NCIS: LA, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: CI, etc. Good viewing as far as I am concerned and possibly the best of American TV shows from what I have seen.
Now why haven't we got an RPG about them?
Not just the licence for the setting and title but for the whole genre?
The setting is good for role-play as we have an ensemble team with multiple roles and archetypes, a mystery to solve, action scenes as you chase after suspects, tense courtroom drama, personality clashes, bad guys, good guys, corrupt officials, dodgy bureaucracy, etc.
Is it just there are no fantasy or supernatural or sci-fi elements to the stories?
A bit too close to real life?
Are there some RPGs out there that I have missed? :?:
I believe there were a few PDF offerings about the subject.
I imagine the reason they aren't all that common is--lets face it---fantasy is predominant in RPG's. It's the big mover. It's easier to run, create owned properties for, and get people interested into the rules for such games.
Police Procedural lack the ease of use, the common grounding in concepts of (vanilla) fantasy, and is difficult for most people to GM, as normal mysteries within other games are hard for a number of people to run.
That's why you get games like Esoterrorists/Mutant City Blues, and that series of "Trail" games which have rules for clue gathering that stand out from the rules for other tasks--in order to help ease the PC's along the clue finding trail. Even then, I suspec the reason they have fantasy/sci fi/horror games using those rules is because out and out a police procedural won't sell without a hook.
I've my own desire for running such a game, although I like the fantastic hooks myself, because mundane crime solving has been done to death.
There was a French game named COPS, but it's not exactly the same as Law & Order.
You're right. A game like this would be awesome.
Dunno whether I agree with your analysis, Silverlion. If anything, more people are familiar with the conventions of cop shows than with D&D-style fantasy these days. And whilst investigative games might be tricky to GM, they're also enduringly popular - Call of Cthulhu is a classic game partially because it was the original horror game, and partially because it was the original investigation-themed game.
I think it's simply a matter of genre blindness. Geeks tend to like SF and fantasy and horror and tend to dislike crime - or at least, that's the common stereotype. I fully believe that there's a great print RPG to be made in the genre - and whichever firm cracks it first will make a mint out of it.
Regardless of your system preferences, for a US setting Gurps Cops is bloody good, Gurps SWAT's good too but less generally applicable.
Similarly, Gurps Mysteries is excellent.
But yeah, it is odd isn't it? There's a Spanish language rpg called sLAng, which is basically The Shield the rpg, but as a rule it's light on the ground out there.
It's the lack of magic and cool powers, games without those don't tend to get made and when they are made don't tend to sell. The lack of them being made may be linked to the lack of sales when they are of course...
There was a sourcebook for Cyperpunk 2020 called Protect and Serve that was basically about running futuristic police procedural campaigns in the mode of Hill Street Blues, Homicide: Life on the Streets, Ed McBain and Joseph Wambaugh novels, etc. Sort of a weird fit with the flashy gearhead ultraviolence that most of the rest of that game-line centered around.
There probably aren't any successful RPGs in the genre because the genre embodies all the worst possible qualities for an RPG to have: little to no character development, adventures are essentially unrelated to each other, and each adventure is basically a railroad.
Quote from: Darran;364398So I love what I call my alphabet soup TV shows - CSI, CSI: NY, NCIS, NCIS: LA, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: CI, etc. Good viewing as far as I am concerned and possibly the best of American TV shows from what I have seen.
Now why haven't we got an RPG about them?
Not just the licence for the setting and title but for the whole genre?
The setting is good for role-play as we have an ensemble team with multiple roles and archetypes, a mystery to solve, action scenes as you chase after suspects, tense courtroom drama, personality clashes, bad guys, good guys, corrupt officials, dodgy bureaucracy, etc.
Is it just there are no fantasy or supernatural or sci-fi elements to the stories?
A bit too close to real life?
Are there some RPGs out there that I have missed? :?:
???
Yet you can complain in another thread that the
Dresden Files rpg is not set in WWII, but in a
"series of cheap fantasy novels?
There's several licensed boardgames based on Law & Order and CSI.
Don't know how a CSI rpg would be made. For one thing, there would have to be many different routes to solving a murder. A railroady investigation with a player rolling too many failed dice rolls, would pretty much turn an adventure into a total failure. A diceless or a "free form" ruleset with a lot of DM discretion would probably be better than a crunch heavy ruleset.
A stereotypical murder mystery game would probably be better, than an rpg rules heavy system with a lot of dice rolling.
Quote from: 837204563;364406There probably aren't any successful RPGs in the genre because the genre embodies all the worst possible qualities for an RPG to have: little to no character development, adventures are essentially unrelated to each other, and each adventure is basically a railroad.
Agreed.
Most murder mystery type games tend to be on the railroady side.
Even the Law & Order and CSI video games weren't much better.
Quote from: 837204563;364406There probably aren't any successful RPGs in the genre because the genre embodies all the worst possible qualities for an RPG to have: little to no character development, adventures are essentially unrelated to each other, and each adventure is basically a railroad.
Have you ever seen
The Wire or
The Shield?
Quote from: Warthur;364415Have you ever seen The Wire or The Shield?
I certainly wouldn't describe them as police procedurals. On the other hand, House probably belongs in this genre, despite having nothing to do with crime.
My first d20 Modern campaign was The Streets of Seattle, inspired by Seventies cop movies and teevee shows like The French Connection, Serpico, Dirty Harry, and pretty much anything labled, "A Quinn Martin Production."
My dad was a huge Joseph Wambaugh fan back in the day, so I picked it up by osmosis.
I tinkered with this after I finished Vice Squad: Miami's Nights but never could get the gameplay right. I think bigger than railroading is the lack of understanding of the law. One of the cooler elements to these shows is the loopholes that are used and finding creative charges to bring the bad guys up on. A GM might research the nuances of the law for an adventure but will a player?
Plus u have the gameplay factor. All my groups have been 4+ people. You never have that many investigators together which means a lot of hanging around waiting for your turn to play. Plus forensic specialists are essentially useless from a gaming perspective as they spend most of their time in a lab.
A police RPG geared toward the Wire or the Shields strike team (which I included in vsmn) would be perfect, but finding players for such ridiculously hard IME.
Pete
I suppose it is possible to make a parody type police game, with the "keystone cops" battling the "gang that couldn't shoot straight". :p
Criticals and fumbles would make it even more humorous.
Quote from: Warthur;364415Have you ever seen The Wire or The Shield?
I think
The Wire is procedural,
The Sheild not so much.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Balbinus;364402Regardless of your system preferences, for a US setting Gurps Cops is bloody good, Gurps SWAT's good too but less generally applicable.
I wasn't aware there was GURPS Cops; good to know there is one. I remember Steve Jackson posting on the SJG bbs long ago (when it was a dial-up) that he'd played around a bit with cops scenarios and felt they were an untapped vein (or something like that).
QuoteIt's the lack of magic and cool powers, games without those don't tend to get made and when they are made don't tend to sell. The lack of them being made may be linked to the lack of sales when they are of course...
I agree with you on this, I'm sorry to say.
Still, lately I've been watching
The Streets of San Francisco, and it's really a very enjoyable show, not to mention my wife, who's an immigrant and too young to have caught it the first time around, also got right into it without any prompting. I think I'll graduate her to Kojak next, since I never really watched it. Mannix, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, Ironside though were all good stuff in my rosy-tinted view. Columbo of course is great but I don't think he's easy to do as an RPG--requires too much deductive & proactive cleverness on the part of the PC.
I've suggested in the past that Clash ought to look into making a game of the genre.
The railroad aspect is a problem. Personally, depending on how you do the game, I don't think it has to be. One thing to note is that a procedural is not a mystery (again, this suggests why Columbo doesn't fit). The clues aren't very difficult to spot, and even if you miss them, there are other things happening that keep the case alive. E.g., the bad guy commits additional crimes, or people who are affected by the crimes or who know something about them do things in response, which demands the police's attention.
So it's not like you have to force the PCs along a trail of fudged investigation rolls. You do have to ask though what can make it interesting to solve often straightforward cases. And that is where Clash's perspective comes in, because what he's said about the promotion system he uses in a number of his games seems to fit right in. You're not only competing with the criminal, but also with other cops, even if they're not necessarily "bad cops" (though there may be personal animosity in some cases). Also, in "Streets" at least, there often is a wildcard that the police have to deal with: a vigilante, family tensions, etc. In short, there's a relationship map that they step into when they take on a case.
Finally, in a more realistic approach as found in early seasons of "Homicide: Life in the Streets", the PCs don't work on one case at a time and they don't necessarily solve every case. You've got a lot of cases to deal with, and your goal is to turn as many red names on the dry erase board into black ones as you can.
GUMSHOE is superb for this purpose; I'd get Mutant City Blues and chop off the superpowers. Which is easy. There may now be a slew of people who haven't played explaining how it's a game about railroading, but I am here to tell you that I have played GUMSHOE and I was worried about railroading and was pleasantly surprised.
Quote from: Thanlis;364430GUMSHOE is superb for this purpose; I'd get Mutant City Blues and chop off the superpowers. Which is easy. There may now be a slew of people who haven't played explaining how it's a game about railroading, but I am here to tell you that I have played GUMSHOE and I was worried about railroading and was pleasantly surprised.
I was going to mention GUMSHOE myself, though I've never played it. Care to elaborate?
Quote from: Warthur;364401I think it's simply a matter of genre blindness. Geeks tend to like SF and fantasy and horror and tend to dislike crime - or at least, that's the common stereotype. I fully believe that there's a great print RPG to be made in the genre - and whichever firm cracks it first will make a mint out of it.
Right, I'm talking about writing games to those likely to buy them. Your average fan of a police procedural are not nominally RPG players. Not that I'm saying those shows are bad, I've enjoyed a few of them myself, particularly early CSI, and now NCIS, and HOUSE which is somewhat the same but medical investigation.*
While you can write a game on any subject you still mostly have to sell it to those people who make D&D popular or near relatives along the line.
*Of course I watch less TV each year it seems.
Quote from: Silverlion;364443*Of course I watch less TV each year it seems.
Same here. The only police procedural show I still watch regularly, is Criminal Minds.
Otherwise, I don't really watch as much TV anymore. Occasionally I'll still watch science and history documentaries on various cable channels.
You Mean This?
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/awi1777/CrimeSceneForensics-mini.jpg)
Also happened to pickup this at this same time. One of my few overseas direct mail order buys. Totally worth it though...
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/awi1777/Mini-CrimeSceneInvestigation.jpg)
The books came pre-packaged in the following baggy:
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/awi1777/CrimeScene-mini.jpg)
This is out of print now. It complements my Spycraft 2.0 game stuff very well.
Published by Hogshead Publishing, in the U.K. This should have been in gaming stores near you!
You don´t need a fucking "game" for this. The problem is the lack of MODULES.
Quote from: David R;364425I think The Wire is procedural, The Sheild not so much.
Regards,
David R
You sure? The Shield, for most of its run, had the case-of-the-week structure of most procedurals in addition to the ongoing plot...
Quote from: Silverlion;364443Right, I'm talking about writing games to those likely to buy them. Your average fan of a police procedural are not nominally RPG players.
But does your average RPG player watch any police procedurals? I mean, I do. More or less everyone I know does, including gamers.
If gamers are really so fussy in their tastes that they won't give a police procedural RPG a second look then something is seriously wrong with gamer culture at the moment. But I honestly don't think they are that fussy.
Quote from: GameDaddy;364459You Mean This?
Weren't those D20 supplements rather than standalone games? Bit of a shame they never got much publicity either way.
Quote from: SettembriniYou don´t need a fucking "game" for this. The problem is the lack of MODULES.
By this argument we only ever need one game system and can get by with modules supporting differing genres...
Quote from: Warthur;364471You sure? The Shield, for most of its run, had the case-of-the-week structure of most procedurals in addition to the ongoing plot...
Well I think
The Sheild falls into the category of cop dramas like
NYPD Blue etc (which I suppose means the dramatic character aspects are center stage) . Procedurals are more like
The Wire,
Homicide etc.
Regards,
David R
Don´t be dense, Warthur. The specific case of crime investigation as an adventure game topic that obviously doesn´t fly is to be explained by the lack of modules and nothing else. That includes the hard task of consistently coming up with gameable material on your own.
Case closed.
Quote from: David R;364476Well I think The Sheild falls into the category of cop dramas like NYPD Blue etc (which I suppose means the dramatic character aspects are center stage) . Procedurals are more like The Wire, Homicide etc.
I think there's sufficient overlap between the genres that a game that covered one ought to be able to cover both.
Quote from: Settembrini;364478Don´t be dense, Warthur. The specific case of crime investigation as an adventure game topic that obviously doesn´t fly is to be explained by the lack of modules and nothing else. That includes the hard task of consistently coming up with gameable material on your own.
Case closed.
Except there are plenty of investigative modules centred around crimes. It's just that at the end of the day the crimes turn out to be perpetrated by occult horrors.
It's just a hop, skip, and a jump to go from "Cthulhoid cult is killing people to summon their god" to "serial killer is killing people because he
thinks that will summon his god".
Really, the biggest change isn't the premise of the investigation, it's the status of the investigators. They're not a bunch of 1920s university professors (to use Call of Cthulhu as an example, since it's the most popular investigative-themed RPG out there), they're officers of the law. This gives them certain powers civilians don't have, but also certain constraints. On the other hand, within the context of CoC at least, there's been plenty of consideration of how that would work - especially in
Delta Green and its supplements. But I honestly don't think that having PCs be police officers is a hurdle that is impossible to overcome.
Quote from: The Butcher;364432I was going to mention GUMSHOE myself, though I've never played it. Care to elaborate?
Sure!
GUMSHOE takes all the tension out of finding the clues, which means the challenge is all in what you do with them -- and there's no railroading in that.
The last time I played GUMSHOE we discovered that the backers of a Shakespeare festival in New Hampshire were planning to summon the Greek gods back into the world in order to destroy technology. But it's not like we showed up and got all the information on index cards; we decided where to go, who to question, what to look at, and so on. And we had to figure out what we could do in order to stop it, or even if we wanted to.
You might want to check out Serial Homicide Unit:
http://www.ipressgames.com/serial.html
Might not exactly be what you're looking for, though.
I have some experience in the field becuase I run a murder mystery company that hosts them for hotels.
I have also tried to run some cop games based round the oWoD rules. I opted for those because of the flexibility and the degrees of success you could garner from the dice pool mechanic. You coudl easily used a d20 system with effect numbers to measure degree of sucess.
The games I have tried were moderately sucessful (the MM hotle nights are exceptionally successful but that is off topic).
Clue wise I let the Pcs find them or not but behind the PCs is a Soco (CSI to you Us types) team that will find all the other clues eventually. So teh PCs walk the scene but role crap and miss the key clues in a couple of days the Soco guys give the PCs a report that includes all the stuff they missed this will be all the clues the PCs still need to put them together to come up with the answer.
The problem for my group I think was a lack of combat/fear/the unknown. To counter this I made the team a crack FBI group of Serial Killer hunters. Having said that there is still a lack of action. You investigate you identify the perp there is a final conflict. The Bad Boys style cop game where you have a series of running battles against a drugs cartel, street gang etc have a lot more action and thereofre I htink are more appealing.
In addition there is an isuse with the law. If you want to keep the game real then the PCs need to stay inside the law. This limits their activities and though you can roll into the bad cop game it doesn't provide a very strong resolution.
Modern System: Police Procedural
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=28008&it=1 (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=28008&it=1)
FBI: d20
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1345&it=1 (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1345&it=1)
Modus Operandi (XPG)
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=18241&it=1 (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=18241&it=1)
Quote from: jibbajibba;364493The problem for my group I think was a lack of combat/fear/the unknown. To counter this I made the team a crack FBI group of Serial Killer hunters. Having said that there is still a lack of action. You investigate you identify the perp there is a final conflict. The Bad Boys style cop game where you have a series of running battles against a drugs cartel, street gang etc have a lot more action and thereofre I htink are more appealing.
In addition there is an isuse with the law. If you want to keep the game real then the PCs need to stay inside the law. This limits their activities and though you can roll into the bad cop game it doesn't provide a very strong resolution.
Berlin XVIII worked very well for us because it wasn't just all about the investigation. First each team had several cases to deal with at a given time. And on top of that we could be called for reinforcement randomly, for whatever emergency (riot, hold up, suicidal guy etc...) The game tried to emulate the different aspects of law enforcement and could let us fail one investigation every now and then, and still be a fun game. Since the settings takes place in the future we didn't have issues with modeling real legal systems either. Berlin XVIII gave us a lot of fun. I don't think it was ever translated in English alas.
I agree that the big thing standing in the way of pure police-procedural games getting popular is the lack of wish-fulfillment potential... no magic powers, no uber-weaponry, no big monsters to conquer... and the flavor of such shows is usually pretty gritty and fatalistic.
But actually, our CoC games have had a number of scenarios that were pretty much straight up crime investigation... no overt occult elements at all... they played well but they were not the norm.
The same goes for fantasy campaigns I've played in, and our current Deadlands games... lots of mundane crime-fighting adventures scattered amongst all the monster bashing and fireball slinging.
Maybe Settembrini has something of a point... I don't think I need or want a whole game centered on such things... but running occasional sessions like that is fun and keeps the weirder stuff in perspective.
I love the old Dragnet shows... very procedural... but I don't know that I'd want to play it that often.
I highly recommend PIG's Vice Squad: Miami Nights (http://www.pigames.net/store/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=253). Pete included a section called "No Dead Ends: Handling Investigations" that I can say helped me immensely in dealing with investigations. I especially like the idea that even failed rolls point the PCs towards the right info, just perhaps not as easily or as directly. It worked really well in-game.
Quote from: Simlasa;364650I agree that the big thing standing in the way of pure police-procedural games getting popular is the lack of wish-fulfillment potential... no magic powers, no uber-weaponry, no big monsters to conquer... and the flavor of such shows is usually pretty gritty and fatalistic.
I think this is a major point. Most gamers seem to like having 'cool powers' - or at least games that offer these seem to sell the most. Sometimes even the fact that your character might be competent and bad ass from the get go doesn't seem enough for some people.
And then there is the low level of combat. If you think of even the most violent cop shows (and currently games seem to be referencing TV and films more than books) the action scenes are far fewer than 'talky' scenes. Players like a rumble - especially if they have cool powers.
And have you notied how difficult it is in most game systems to knock seven bells of shit out of someone? The default combat is assumed to be to the death, and it's all too easy to kill NPCs. And because that's the way games are built, that's how players approach combat - opponents are there to be killed.
So cop games are a different flavour than what the majority of gamers regularly imbibe.
Now don't get me wrong. I like a bloody slaughterfest as much as any other bookish, overweight gamer who spends too much time indoors. But variety is the spice of life after all.
Quote from: Gruntfuttock;364855I think this is a major point. Most gamers seem to like having 'cool powers' - or at least games that offer these seem to sell the most. Sometimes even the fact that your character might be competent and bad ass from the get go doesn't seem enough for some people.
And then there is the low level of combat. If you think of even the most violent cop shows (and currently games seem to be referencing TV and films more than books) the action scenes are far fewer than 'talky' scenes. Players like a rumble - especially if they have cool powers.
And have you notied how difficult it is in most game systems to knock seven bells of shit out of someone? The default combat is assumed to be to the death, and it's all too easy to kill NPCs. And because that's the way games are built, that's how players approach combat - opponents are there to be killed.
So cop games are a different flavour than what the majority of gamers regularly imbibe.
Now don't get me wrong. I like a bloody slaughterfest as much as any other bookish, overweight gamer who spends too much time indoors. But variety is the spice of life after all.
I agree to an extent, but this doesn't fully explain why games like Top Secret and Spycraft are at least a little popular and yet Police games apparently not. I definitely agree about variety though. I would love to get another group together for Miami Nights, some 80s cop/PI action is fun as hell, but it doesn't seem to go over with folks as much. I like the pre-cell phone, pre-internet eras though, gives the PCs more motivation to pound the pavement.
Quote from: Sigmund;364874I agree to an extent, but this doesn't fully explain why games like Top Secret and Spycraft are at least a little popular and yet Police games apparently not. I definitely agree about variety though. I would love to get another group together for Miami Nights, some 80s cop/PI action is fun as hell, but it doesn't seem to go over with folks as much. I like the pre-cell phone, pre-internet eras though, gives the PCs more motivation to pound the pavement.
Modern and Mundane can be a hard sell for some players. But I have found the combo increasingly common around here. I think fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi, will always be the most popular. Personally I like the idea of a campaign based around something like Miami Vice or Lethal Weapon. I also like the idea of a cop drama RPG. Just not sure how many players I can wrangle up for either.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;364875Modern and Mundane can be a hard sell for some players. But I have found the combo increasingly common around here. I think fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi, will always be the most popular. Personally I like the idea of a campaign based around something like Miami Vice or Lethal Weapon. I also like the idea of a cop drama RPG. Just not sure how many players I can wrangle up for either.
I'm with ya, plus I suppose the spy bit has some cool factor to boost it's interest. I think players are surprised how much fun some cop action can be once they try it though, so to me it's worth the effort :)
Quote from: Sigmund;364879I'm with ya, plus I suppose the spy bit has some cool factor to boost it's interest. I think players are surprised how much fun some cop action can be once they try it though, so to me it's worth the effort :)
I think you are right. Once people give it a try, it can be lots of fun.
Fun - you bet!
One game I'm running occasionally is set in late 1920's New Orleans. The PCs are an ex-USN, ex-NOPD detective, private eye; and his niece who acts as his secretary - who is an ex-librarian, and reads every detective novel going.
His attitude is "If it moves, punch it." She is very smart but naive. And as the saying goes: 'They fight crime'.
Perhaps a PI set up would be more popular than a cop story?
However, one advantage of investigative games (cop story, PI story, or even occult investigation) is that they are a good fit for smaller groups. Currently I'm down to two players < cue KA saying "Recruit, you lazy fucker!"> and we play mostly investigative games. But we don't just do that because of the small group - it has sort of become our preference.
And by the way, just because you play episodic games rather than an ongoing campaign, it doesn't mean that you can't have themes that carry over from episode to episode - just like a good TV series.
Quote from: Gruntfuttock;364898Fun - you bet!
One game I'm running occasionally is set in late 1920's New Orleans. The PCs are an ex-USN, ex-NOPD detective, private eye; and his niece who acts as his secretary - who is an ex-librarian, and reads every detective novel going.
His attitude is "If it moves, punch it." She is very smart but naive. And as the saying goes: 'They fight crime'.
Perhaps a PI set up would be more popular than a cop story?
However, one advantage of investigative games (cop story, PI story, or even occult investigation) is that they are a good fit for smaller groups. Currently I'm down to two players < cue KA saying "Recruit, you lazy fucker!"> and we play mostly investigative games. But we don't just do that because of the small group - it has sort of become our preference.
And by the way, just because you play episodic games rather than an ongoing campaign, it doesn't mean that you can't have themes that carry over from episode to episode - just like a good TV series.
The 20s is a great period for campaigns. It works really well for investigation. Another thing people often overlook about modern/near-modern games is, in many ways, they are easier to run. After all, we all live in the present, so we know how long it takes, to travel from point a to point b, and what is like. If you set the game locally, it can be even easier, because you know the layout of the region. Also, there are tons of movies and books to rip from.
Spy games are decent for small groups too, but I like Cop/PI games even more... smaller sandbox (usually), great opportunity for developing contacts and other fleshed-out npcs, and the players seem to like having some "turf". I've been thinking of putting together an Interpol level game though, where the cops operate on more of a "James Bond" level. I've also been thinking a "Burn Notice" style spy game would be cool too. My Miami Nights game turned out good playing it like Miami Vice, where the characters were given loads of leeway in how they did things. The players really played up being under cover, and did really well at keeping the violence and collateral damage to a minimum. These are folks who in Star Wars d20 immediately went rogue (including the Jedi) and ended up getting thrown (or chased) off several planets before dieing in an elaborate and hair-brained scheme, so I thought it went really well.
It's true that spy games are also a good fit for a smaller group. Operatives often have to use low-key approaches to working an assignment, which off-sets somewhat the fact that they have resources and pull because they work for a large government organisation.
Mind you, set a spy game as I do in Victorian times and travel and communication times do throw agents pretty much onto their own resources.
Spy games also have a nice balance of investigation and combat, which might appeal more to players who find cop/PI games too combat light. In my experience the combat is often unexpected and close-up and personal (knife, garrote, small pistols) which keeps PCs on their toes. And you can always finish with a big rumble at the end if that's what your players expect from a game.
And why not? Sometimes it's great to send the ninja teams into the secret volcano lair of teh bald bloke with the white pussy cat.
Quote from: Gruntfuttock;364984It's true that spy games are also a good fit for a smaller group. Operatives often have to use low-key approaches to working an assignment, which off-sets somewhat the fact that they have resources and pull because they work for a large government organisation.
Mind you, set a spy game as I do in Victorian times and travel and communication times do throw agents pretty much onto their own resources.
Spy games also have a nice balance of investigation and combat, which might appeal more to players who find cop/PI games too combat light. In my experience the combat is often unexpected and close-up and personal (knife, garrote, small pistols) which keeps PCs on their toes. And you can always finish with a big rumble at the end if that's what your players expect from a game.
And why not? Sometimes it's great to send the ninja teams into the secret volcano lair of teh bald bloke with the white pussy cat.
I agree. I've been hankering to play a cop game though, cuz of the investigation and procedure. RPing out interrogating a street punk and maybe a fight in a biker bar and stuff. Ransacking someone's apartment looking for clues, commandeering a car... the fun stuff :D Probably not even real procedure, just cheesy TV stuff.