Produktbeschreibung
Contents
The book introduces several new classes ranging from government sanctioned to highly dodgy and outright criminal classes. There are also plenty new rules like the Departments, which are highly detailed. Along with these rules come some new feats especially designed for covert operations, and some new gear and style feats.
Of course a book like this would not be complete without its fair share of gadgets. It's high tech and above all still believable gear.
The next chapter covers rules on brainwashing, harassment, interrogation, how to conduct "Police Actions", and how to make street deals. There are also some notes on Blackmail and Coercion, and some sample NPCs.
The mission guide has advice for the GM on how to create suitable "Threats" for the players to handle. It expands on the mastermind system in the Spycraft Espionage Handbook, and gives you new ways to spend mastermind points. There are guidelines for creating localized threats, to global scale threats. There are lots of options for the GM to customize the "Threat" as he wants. Of course there are some sample villain organizations presented, just to give you a few good examples.
There are also other rules like that "Action Sites" added to the mastermind system, some new security options.
Organization
The product looks very good, and is well organized. The table of contents will point you quickly to what you need, and the information is readily accessible for the most part. Printing quality is excellent and although there isn't very much interior artwork, it's very good. Text density is nice with lots of air. The tables and charts are pretty numerous, and aren't compiled at the end of the product, as often is the case. This leaves you with a lot of page flipping to find the tables you need. This is a slight drawback as it slows down the flow of the game.
General impression
The setting for this game is incredibly interesting and very familiar for all you who have seen and loved spy movies. You go behind enemy lines and use stealth and misdirection as the tools of your trade. The book tries to give you the tools to play such characters and manage stories revolving around such "Threats". It is mostly successful, but the book is not without its faults.
The classes themselves are well fleshed out with their own special abilities. Sometimes I feel they aren't very user friendly. I'm especially pointing to the Courier, whose primary ability is to get their package to the receiver. While it could be a really fun story once in a while to play a courier, I see problems on a more lengthy campaign. It's just too specialized. This said, the classes are mostly well balanced and above all pretty cool. I mean, who wouldn't want to play a Cleaner after seeing Pulp Fiction.
The various departments have a short description giving you insight into their activities as well as the bonuses associated with them. They range from organized crime to special operations departments. Examples are the Japanese Yakuza, and the American SEALs.
There are lots of tables and rules concerning typical spy activities like interrogation and brainwashing. While these rules are cool and involving for the players they can be a bit burdensome to the GM. You need to be very familiar with the material or you'll end up having to do a lot of book referencing. The rules on creating "Threats" are also overly burdensome and complex. You have lots of tools for creating these threats, but they are in my opinion not necessary except as inspiration. The new "Action Sites" rules are cool though, and allows for objective oriented playing. Go to one place, deal with threat, head to the next objective. Fast, efficient and with its own rewards in XP and otherwise. |
