Spycraft 2.0 (Or 1.0)
I am going start by saying Spycraft isn’t a game I have dusted off in a very long while. Most of my memories of it are almost 2 decades gone but I wanted to bring light to what really was a great RPG for its era. That era being the OGL days of D&D 3.0/3.5. While most of the groups I play with now prefer the more modern 5E style rulesets this is still one that I fondly remember and would definitely like to play again in the future. If you are a fan of Bond flicks, Mission impossible flicks or covert ops types of movies this one is definitely worth looking at.
What you need to play:
- Core Rules
- A small group of friends
- Some dice
- A pen or pencil and some scratch paper or printed character sheets (these are included in the book, the PDFS from DrivethruRPG even includes some additional files for print/device…not the writing instruments though, you need to figure out those.)
- A healthy dose of imagination and desire to recreate cool scenes from the spy movies you love for better or worse
- (optional)A map or tabletop if you want visual representation.
The Rule system as mentioned above was created during the OGL/3rd edition D&D era and sticks to those pretty solidly. Primary Physical and mental/social attributes with modifiers to skills and combat for higher stats. Feat systems for unique and interesting (and to be fair sometimes not super interesting) special abilities to build your character as well as a class/job structure that lays out hit points, skill specialties and additional combat proficiencies.
This stands out for me because at the time I played it was a system that departed from generic high fantasy and let me explore character ideas and options in a modern setting. If you are looking for something different (I won’t say new because it’s not. Most of the content is only readily available through DriveThruRPG at this point without paying collector/out of print prices) Spycraft is definitely something I would encourage you to give a shot!
Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope my fellow gamers and role-players find this review helpful!
Relevant links:
OGL (For those unfamiliar) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License
OGL on YouTube for more recent OGL – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31G2POP0_oo
DriveThruRPG for Spycraft 2.0 – https://apenaquillandadatapad.com/Spycraft2.0/DriveThruRPG