Any espionage game like this?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

Lessa

Legendary Pubber
Joined
Aug 13, 2018
Messages
1,891
Reaction score
3,039
Playing Phantom Doctrine on PS4 and it got me thinking that a tabletop version would be rad. So, overall requirements:

1 - Players create a spy cell together and manage it's projects, contacts, assets, safehouses, etc. like a Blades in the Dark "crew cell sheet". Preferentially with different cell types to choose from, based on Cold War Era agencies like CIA, Stasi, Mossad, etc. each with their respective strenghts & weaknesses;

2 - PCs with secret and conflicting agendas (some could even be moles for opposing agencies), preferentially with rules to make these conflicts cool to game. Make trust and the risk of betrayal an important aspect of play.

3 - Involving mechanics for stealth and Intel collecting, preferentially in line with we discussed in Voros Voros thread about stealth.

4 - Game emphasizes the "big game" between agencies (again, Blades in the Dark "faction game" comes to mind, with maneuvers like favors, truces, cooperation deals, assaults, etc. constantly changing the "board state").

Does a game like this exist?
 
Last edited:
Delta Green could be played like this, but I think the original Conspiracy X game is closer in terms of having involved, specific systems of play. The later editions were just converted to Unisystem and GURPS respectively, though and the original ruleset is hard to find.
 
Cold Shadows meets a lot of your requirements (all except #3) but when I checked it out I found it strangely crunchy and perhaps even fiddly for a Le Carre style game but perhaps I didn't dig into it enough, may be worth a second look.
 
Delta Green could be played like this, but I think the original Conspiracy X game is closer in terms of having involved, specific systems of play. The later editions were just converted to Unisystem and GURPS respectively, though and the original ruleset is hard to find.

You could likely do it with the Unisystem version as well, just not as easily. It would just require specific drawbacks and qualities for the characters to have to reflect that
 
Shit, I think I found (almost) exactly what I was looking for. :shock:


Finally got around to checking this out in full and it is awesome, seems very nicely designed and table ready to go in only 30 pages. It may be my long-looked for Le Carre/Sandbaggers espionage game. Hope Lari Assmuth gets around to a full release as this sometime soon. The Nordics are damn good game designers eh? His other mini-games up on his site and itch.io also look cool. Thanks Lessa silva!
 
Playing Phantom Doctrine on PS4 and it got me thinking that a tabletop version would be rad. So, overall requirements:

1 - Players create a spy cell together and manage it's projects, contacts, assets, safehouses, etc. like a Blades in the Dark "crew cell sheet". Preferentially with different cell types to choose from, based on Cold War Era agencies like CIA, Stasi, Mossad, etc. each with their respective strenghts & weaknesses;

2 - PCs with secret and conflicting agendas (some could even be moles for opposing agencies), preferentially with rules to make these conflicts cool to game. Make trust and the risk of betrayal an important aspect of play.

3 - Involving mechanics for stealth and Intel collecting, preferentially in line with we discussed in Voros Voros thread about stealth.

4 - Game emphasizes the "big game" between agencies (again, Blades in the Dark "faction game" comes to mind, with maneuvers like favors, truces, cooperation deals, assaults, etc. constantly changing the "board state").

Does a game like this exist?
Night's Black Agents.
 
Finally got around to checking this out in full and it is awesome, seems very nicely designed and table ready to go in only 30 pages. It may be my long-looked for Le Carre/Sandbaggers espionage game. Hope Lari Assmuth gets around to a full release as this sometime soon. The Nordics are damn good game designers eh? His other mini-games up on his site and itch.io also look cool. Thanks Lessa silva!
I agree with this. I'm not really a fan of PbA games. But this seems to tick all the right boxes for a Sandbagger/LeCarre style game. I may have to rethink my biases.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top