Let's Read James Bond 007: Role Playing in Her Majesty's Secret Service

[Dumarest]

It may or may not be common knowledge, but Victory Games, the publisher of James Bond 007: Role Playing in Her Majesty's Secret Service (© 1983), evolved out of Avalon Hill hiring design staff from SPI after TSR bought out (and proceeded to dismember) SPI. The rulebook is divided into a Player Section of about 90 pages and a Gamesmaster Section of about 60 pages (including a short adventure entitled The Island of Dr. No).

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The Player Section leads off with Chapter 1: Introduction, which opens with a short, one-paragraph explanation of what roleplaying is, and then continues with Role Playing in the World of James Bond. The world wherein the game takes place is "certainly close to our own world, but a bit more fantastical. The men are always handsome, the women always beautiful, and the villains always evil. It is a world of luxurious cars and breathtaking locations in which the good guys always win (or at least break even)."

​

With regard to those assertions, if the novels of Ian Fleming and movies produced by Albert Broccoli aren't your cup of tea but you still want to play secret agents, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from modeling your game after a grittier and more realistic secret agent world along the lines of Edward S. Aarons' Assignment series instead.

​

Then there are the usual explanations of terms like Player Characters and Gamesmaster and Non-Player Characters and what their roles are within the game, which nobody reading this forum will need to have explained.

Fans of James Bond are duly advised that (1) where there is a conflict between the books and the movies, the game will lean toward the movies, and (2) "due to certain contractual agreements" they couldn't use SPECTRE or Ernst Stavro Blofeld or, indeed, even mention them by name.

The Note for Experienced Role Players informs us that, unlike most RPGs, in which the GM is all-powerful and the PCs may have little influence in their world, in James Bond 007 the rules are supposedly designed to favor the players and their characters will generally be more competent than NPCs. Personally I don't think that's the case as there is nothing to tie a GM's hands. However, the author notes that there is no guarantee that the players will be successful and that much depends on their abilities to play well. The main thing the PCs will have in their favor is Hero Points, which can be used to affect outcomes, while the bad guys only get Survival Points, which cannot be used offensively. You can eliminate both if you want a grittier game where the PCs are more likely to fail in a sticky wicket and the villains stand or fall based solely on the actions of the players and the luck of the dice. But we don't discuss either of those until Chapter 9: Hero Points. Additionally, it is noted that although the characters are agents of M.I.6, they will largely be on their own and should be discouraged from trying to get assistance or instructions from M or headquarters once they are out in the field, and that it will sometimes be necessary for the PCs to make independent decisions when their original orders no longer apply due to changing circumstances.

Materials of Role Playing is merely a catalogue of what is necessary, and what might be nice to have, the play the game. I love it when the author feels the need to tell you that you need a copy of the rules. Assuming you didn't forget to acquire the rulebook, you'll also need two six-sided and two ten-sided dice so you can make the d6, d10, d100, and Xd6 rolls necessary to play the game. You'll also want some pencils so you can write things down. It's also suggested that you can use graph paper and figures or markers to keep track of where everyone is during chases or gun fights, but none of that is necessary. At the back of the book there's a nice character sheet you can photocopy; it includes a multiplication table for fast lookup of your Success Chance (i.e., what you need to roll ≤ to succeed) with various combinations of Primary Chance and Ease Factor. What are Primary Chance and Ease Factor? We'll come to that.

I'm going to skip over the Glossary of Terms because I'll be explaining them as they come up.

(Next: Game Concepts, or "What are Success Chance, Primary Chance, Ease Factor, and Quality Rating?")

 

[Ronin]

It may or may not be common knowledge, but Victory Games, the publisher of James Bond 007: Role Playing in Her Majesty's Secret Service (© 1983), evolved out of Avalon Hill hiring design staff from SPI after TSR bought out (and proceeded to dismember) SPI. The rulebook is divided into a Player Section of about 90 pages and a Gamesmaster Section of about 60 pages (including a short adventure entitled The Island of Dr. No).

View attachment 3511​

The Player Section leads off with Chapter 1: Introduction, which opens with a short, one-paragraph explanation of what roleplaying is, and then continues with Role Playing in the World of James Bond. The world wherein the game takes place is "certainly close to our own world, but a bit more fantastical. The men are always handsome, the women always beautiful, and the villains always evil. It is a world of luxurious cars and breathtaking locations in which the good guys always win (or at least break even)."

View attachment 3506 View attachment 3507 View attachment 3508 View attachment 3509 View attachment 3510​

With regard to those assertions, if the novels of Ian Fleming and movies produced by Albert Broccoli aren't your cup of tea but you still want to play secret agents, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from modeling your game after a grittier and more realistic secret agent world along the lines of Edward S. Aarons' Assignment series instead.

View attachment 3505​

Then there are the usual explanations of terms like Player Characters and Gamesmaster and Non-Player Characters and what their roles are within the game, which nobody reading this forum will need to have explained.

Fans of James Bond are duly advised that (1) where there is a conflict between the books and the movies, the game will lean toward the movies, and (2) "due to certain contractual agreements" they couldn't use SPECTRE or Ernst Stavro Blofeld or, indeed, even mention them by name.

The Note for Experienced Role Players informs us that, unlike most RPGs, in which the GM is all-powerful and the PCs may have little influence in their world, in James Bond 007 the rules are supposedly designed to favor the players and their characters will generally be more competent than NPCs. Personally I don't think that's the case as there is nothing to tie a GM's hands. However, the author notes that there is no guarantee that the players will be successful and that much depends on their abilities to play well. The main thing the PCs will have in their favor is Hero Points, which can be used to affect outcomes, while the bad guys only get Survival Points, which cannot be used offensively. You can eliminate both if you want a grittier game where the PCs are more likely to fail in a sticky wicket and the villains stand or fall based solely on the actions of the players and the luck of the dice. But we don't discuss either of those until Chapter 9: Hero Points. Additionally, it is noted that although the characters are agents of M.I.6, they will largely be on their own and should be discouraged from trying to get assistance or instructions from M or headquarters once they are out in the field, and that it will sometimes be necessary for the PCs to make independent decisions when their original orders no longer apply due to changing circumstances.

Materials of Role Playing is merely a catalogue of what is necessary, and what might be nice to have, the play the game. I love it when the author feels the need to tell you that you need a copy of the rules. Assuming you didn't forget to acquire the rulebook, you'll also need two six-sided and two ten-sided dice so you can make the d6, d10, d100, and Xd6 rolls necessary to play the game. You'll also want some pencils so you can write things down. It's also suggested that you can use graph paper and figures or markers to keep track of where everyone is during chases or gun fights, but none of that is necessary. At the back of the book there's a nice character sheet you can photocopy; it includes a multiplication table for fast lookup of your Success Chance (i.e., what you need to roll ≤ to succeed) with various combinations of Primary Chance and Ease Factor. What are Primary Chance and Ease Factor? We'll come to that.

I'm going to skip over the Glossary of Terms because I'll be explaining them as they come up.

(Next: Game Concepts, or "What are Success Chance, Primary Chance, Ease Factor, and Quality Rating?")

I wish I could like this twice

 

[Dumarest]

I wish I could like this twice

Two words: SOCK PUPPETS.

 

[Voros]

I got my copy of this a while ago thanks to Dumarest pimpin' for it all the time and I'll be reading along.

 

[Dumarest]

Before I start my next post, I wanted to make anyone interested aware that there is a plethora of gaming resources available for James Bond 007 as well as many other espionage-type RPGs at the British web site https://www.modus-operandi.co.uk/ and the fan community for James Bond 007 appears to be alive and well.

 

[Dumarest]

Let's learn some Game Concepts, shall we? This section starts off explaining what makes up a character, though it does not yet guide the reader through the process of creating one, as it first explains the basic terms and mechanics you'll need to know to play the game. Personally I think there's an argument to be made that this approach makes more sense than games that start you off rolling up a character, but I can see the merits of both ways.

A character in James Bond 007 has 5 basic characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Willpower, Perception, and Intelligence. The character will also have skills which are based on these characteristics. Finally, all characters automatically get three abilities: Connoisseur, First Aid, and Photography. That first one, of course, is vital if you intend to emulate the glamorous, high-rolling world of James Bond novels and films. Like I mentioned earlier, though, if you want to emulate a grittier style of espionage, you can simply make Connoisseur an optional skill to be paid for during character creation, compensating the player with however many points it's worth, or swap it out with a different freebie.

When a player announces what his character is trying to do, the GM decides whether this task falls under the heading of a skill, ability, or characteristic. "Typical tasks include firing a gun, driving a car, seducing an enemy agent, playing a game of chemin de fer, and so forth." (Very flavorful examples.)

The player or the GM will then roll d100 to determine 2 things: (1) did you succeed? and (2) to what extent did you succeed? The GM uses this simple formula to find the Success Chance for the task at hand:

Success Chance = Primary Chance × Ease Factor

This sounds more complicated than it really is. A central concept of James Bond 007 is the Ease Factor, which is a number, ranging from 1/2 to 10, which reflects how difficult a given task may be under given circumstances. The lower the Ease Factor, the harder the task; the way I explain it so players remember it easily is just to think in terms of "high ease" and "low ease." If something is "high ease," it must be pretty easy, right? And conversely, "low ease" would be pretty hard. All tasks start with an Ease Factor of 5. The GM can then apply any positive or negative modifiers or circumstances to arrive at the final Ease Factor. For example, 007 is going to take a shot at a guard with his Walther PPK.

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The Ease Factor is 5. But the guard has cover due to a door he is partly behind, so the GM lowers the Ease Factor to 4. However, the guard is also being caught unawares, so the GM adds 2 for a final Ease Factor of 6.​

Your Primary Chance is essentially your basic skill, ability, or characteristic rating. If you possess a skill or ability appropriate to a task, you use that score; if not, you can still try it with a skill level of 0 and -3 to your Ease Factor. To continue the prior example, James Bond has the Fire Combat skill with a Primary Chance of 25. (He is a very good marksman as we well know from The Man with the Golden Gun and A View to a Kill--the novel and short story, anyway.) With an Ease Factor of 6 and a Primary Chance of 25, 007's Success Chance is 150. (Remember, Success Chance = Primary Chance × Ease Factor.)

If you recall, we're going to roll d100 one time to determine 2 things: (1) did you succeed? and (2) to what extent did you succeed?

007's players rolls d100 and the GM checks the results on the Quality Results Table. A lower roll is always better.

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The Quality Results Table is another aspect that sets the game apart; when you succeed, there are varying degrees of success: Acceptable (4), Good (3), Very Good (2), and Excellent (1). To keep those straight just remember 1st class is better than 2nd class, etc. The Quality Results Table lists ranges of Success Chance grouped by tens. The higher your Success Chance, the more likely you are to achieve an Excellent (1) result. The abbrevation "SC" on the table means any number up to your Success Chance succeeds, with the exception that 100 is always failure. With guns there is also the chance of a jam, the odds of which depend on which gun you are using; a jam result always supersedes an Acceptable (4) result--essentially, you would have succeeded had your weapon not jammed. It adds a bit of unpredictability to combat even if you're playing a highly skilled double-0 agent.

To continue our shooting example, with 007's Success Chance it's almost impossible that he will miss with an Ease Factor of 6. He'd have to roll 100 to fail. But his Walther PPK will jam on a roll of 98 or 99. Rolling d100 for him, I got 05, which is an Excellent (1) Quality Rating. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, but just to complete the example let's consult the Wound Level Chart from the combat chapter. A Walther PPK does class E damage (we'll get to that later; it only sounds complicated), which means with a Quality Rating of 1 I've inflicted a Heavy Wound (HW) on the unsuspecting guard. I'll skip what that means to the guard as we'll cover combat and wounds in Chapter 4: Combat .

Anyway, that is the chief mechanic and the heart of the system: Primary Chance × Ease Factor = Success Chance, then roll d100 to determine Quality Rating. Once you have that down, the rest is simple.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

Two words: SOCK PUPPETS.

You Only Like Twice

 

[Edgewise]

It's all coming back to me now. It's funny seeing this system again after so many years (the last time I looked at this game was probably around 1988). I managed to play it a couple of times, and I remember being a little annoyed with all the multiplication and table references. My impression looking at it now is that the core resolution mechanic provides a very nice level of simulation, although it still looks a little slower than it needs to be.

I'm not sure how to speed it up without losing something, though. If there was multiplication without a table look-up, or a table look-up without multiplication, I'd be a lot happier with it.

 

[Dumarest]

There follows a five-page Example of Play with the right column being a one-on-one session of James Bond 007 with a player and GM playing out part of the Goldfinger film as a game and the left column being essentially a prose story of the session. The example is used to illustrate how the mechanics of the game relate to what you see happening on the screen, with game terms and dice-rolling sprinkled throughout. I can't do it justice by describing it here, but it's probably the best example of play I've ever read in an RPG. One interesting feature, given the date of publication, is that the example has a female GM running the session.

After the example, they stat out six characters from Bond movies to show the three ranks of characters you can play: "00" Rank Characters (James Bond and Anya Amasova from The Spy Who Loved Me), Agent Rank Characters (Felix Leiter from various films and Holly Goodhead from Moonraker), and Rookie Rank Characters (Mary Goodnight and Lieutenant Chong Sun Hip, both from The Man with the Golden Gun). Not necessarily my favorite characters, but keep in mind this game came out near the tail-end of the Roger Moore era.

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The rules suggest that you choose one of these six characters and play out the introductory adventure The Island of Doctor No, found in Chapter 20 at the end of the rulebook, so as to familiarize yourself with the rules. The adventure is set out in story paragraphs after the fashion of Choose Your Own Adventure books and you'll be called upon to use various characteristics, skills, and abilities to chuck some dice and look at the results on the Quality Results Table. (Note that even though this adventure involves Doctor No, it is unrelated to the plot of the Doctor No book or film, so knowledge of either of those will not give you any special advantage. This is the case for all of the Victory Games adventure modules that share the names of James Bond films/books.) Alternatively, you could also play it with a GM running it for you. Either way, or if you are considering being a James Bond 007 GM, after reading the Example of Play, it's a good way to get the rules and mechanics down. It's also useful for a prospective GM as it gives you the template for creating your own adventures in the 007 style.

(Next: Chapter 2: Creating a Character!)

 

[Skarg]

Thanks for doing this, Dumarest!

I finally picked up these books a few years ago after some folks recommended the chase rule system in it. I've looked the books over a few times since then, but tend to get daunted by not knowing the system's terms and not really investing enough attention to learn them. This thread will help a lot (already has!).

 

[James Gillen]

This actually sounds like an easy system to learn and play, whereas in my experience with percentile-skill games (namely Palladium) they get a bit "fiddly" and you have to be pretty high-level for a decent chance of success with skills.

jg

 

[Dumarest]

Thanks for doing this, Dumarest!

I finally picked up these books a few years ago after some folks recommended the chase rule system in it. I've looked the books over a few times since then, but tend to get daunted by not knowing the system's terms and not really investing enough attention to learn them. This thread will help a lot (already has!).

My ulterior motive is to get more people playing the old games that I enjoy.

 

[Dumarest]

This actually sounds like an easy system to learn and play, whereas in my experience with percentile-skill games (namely Palladium) they get a bit "fiddly" and you have to be pretty high-level for a decent chance of success with skills.

jg

The game's approach is that secret agents are good at what they do, so PCs should have a good chance at success. Of course, if you attempt nigh-impossible tasks, your Ease Factor diminishes. There are only 24* broadly-defined skills to choose from when rolling up your character and 3 abilities (Connoisseur, First Aid, and Photography) that all PCs get for free. There are also optional Fields of Experience to represent what your PC did before becoming a secret agent, and they involve no dice rolls; instead, the GM determines whether or not your character would know information or be able to do something based on his background. I'll cover all of this in more detail when we get to Chapter 3: Skills.

* one of which (Torture) is restricted to the bad guys only.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

Not necessarily my favorite characters, but keep in mind this game came out near the tail-end of the Roger Moore era.

I'm curious, how about a sampler of six characters you do like from various points in the franchise? And just to make it fun, let's exclude Q, M, the main bad guys and "gimmick"henchmen from the selection. I'll do it too if you want.​

 

[Dumarest]

I'm curious, how about a sampler of six characters you do like from various points in the franchise? And just to make it fun, let's exclude Q, M, the main bad guys and "gimmick"henchmen from the selection. I'll do it too if you want.​

​

Leaving out main villains...sorry, Dr. Kananga and Messrs. Goldfinger and Blofeld:

Kerim Bey, Quarrel, Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, Solitaire, Rosa Klebb, and Kara Milovy.

May Day is a bonus 7th. ​

 

[Shemek hiTankolel]

This was a game back in the day that I really wanted to play/buy, but could never find it in my LGS. As a result we had to play Top Secret, a game I liked but never really got into. 007 looks like a much better rule set.

 

[Ronin]

You Only Like Twice

"From Russia with Like"

 

[Shipyard Locked]

"From Russia with Like"

The Living Daylikes

 

[Dumarest]

Chapter 2: Creating a Character

While you could play James Bond himself, you can also create your own secret agent character. "You can also watch such a character grow in skills and experience over a number of adventures." What constitutes a character in the game? There are 3 major description groupings: characteristics, skills (includes abilities), and physical aspects.

Characteristics measure your physical and psychological being with values from 1 to 15, where 1 is terrible and 15 is exceptional. These values will be used either in combination with Skill Levels or by themselves to determine your Primary Chance to perform any task. The 5 characteristics are Strength, Dexterity, Willpower, Perception, and Intelligence. All of these are pretty much what you would expect; just to be clear, though, Willpower covers your mental ability to control your bodily reactions to pain, abuse, verbal or physical attacks, and stress, as well as a general measure of discipline. It plays a role in whether you are stunned in combat as well.

Skills are measured by Skill Levels, also rated from 1 to 15. New skills can be bought and Skill Levels can be raised by expending Experience Points. There are 24 skills altogether, although the Torture skill is off-limits to the PCs in the rules as written; they're emulating the genre by making it available to nasty guys like Goldfinger.

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Physical aspects: "A character's overall appearance greatly influences the reactions of other characters to him and thus will often influence his chances of success in certain tasks." You choose your character's Appearance, Height, and Weight in whatever combination makes sense to you. Something to keep in mind is that it costs far fewer Generation Points to create an incredibly handsome or beautiful character than an ordinary-looking one. Why? Because the ordinary one can blend in and will be remembered less, which are valuable qualities for a secret agent. However, this being James Bond 007 I haven't experienced a lot of nondescript secret agents sneaking about; most players prefer to play an attractive character with more Generation Points to spend on skills.

The number of Generation Points you get to create your secret agent depends upon what rank your character will be: "00," Agent, or Rookie. Obviously "00" gets more points than Agent and Agent gets more points than Rookie. The game recommends that you start out creating a Rookie and wait until you have more experience before playing a "00" character. I say that the ranks of the characters should be determined more by the number of players you have: if you have several players, Rookies can get by all right by working together; however, if you are playing one-on-one I believe it works better to have a "00" PC who can handle more on his own. My personal opinion is that the game works best with no more than 3 PCs, and usually I have them start at Agent rank. More than 3 PCs and you're not really playing secret agents so much as a fireteam. Besides, in the genre you usually have just the solo secret agent or a duo like Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin or John Steed and Emma Peel.

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Speaking of Mrs. Peel, the rules point out that the game is designed so there is no intrinsic advantage to having a male or a female character.

(Next: sample Rookie character Alyson Steele!)

 

[Ronin]

The Living Daylikes

The Spy Who Liked Me

 

[Shipyard Locked]

The Spy Who Liked Me

Like and Let (this joke) Die

 

[Endless Flight]

For Your Likes Only
Like-a-Pussy
The Likes Are Not Enough
Like Another Day
Likefinger

 

[Ronin]

On Her Majesty's Secret Like

 

[Dumarest]

Speaking of Choose Your Own Adventure, who else didn't know there were some James Bond Find Your Fate books? I must track these down.

​

 

[Edgewise]

Speaking of Choose Your Own Adventure, who else didn't know there were some James Bond Find Your Fate books? I must track these down.

All written by different authors, but I note that #11 was written by famous kid's author R.L. Stine. You know, the Goosebumps guy.

I like how they all referencing A View to a Kill.

 

[Mankcam]

On a whim I picked up a game called 'Classified' thru Drivethru RPG. I think it may be a retroclone of this James Bond rpg (with all Bond references removed).

It looks like it will play pretty good

 

[Dumarest]

On a whim I picked up a game called 'Classified' thru Drivethru RPG. I think it may be a retroclone of this James Bond rpg (with all Bond references removed).

It looks like it will play pretty good

Classified is a "clone" of James Bond 007. They've changed the names of game terms, changed the skills, eliminated the Photography ability, eliminated d6 rolls, and a few other things. It's supposed to be almost entirely compatible. There's at least one adventure module, Operation Rogue Lion, that I have. I haven't had a chance to play the module to date and I'm not sure how much work it would be to convert a character from one to the other. One thing to keep in mind is that the original game can usually be found in excellent condition for under $10.00 in my experience, so there is not a lot of reason to buy the clone unless you want to play in contemporary times and want the updates to the 2010s done for you.

 

[Skarg]

I think it's hilariously Bond-movie-appropriate that they made beauty be a choice that gives you more skill points! (Seems to me that outside the Bond-film expectations, it could (should logically) be detached from skill, and simply have its natural consequences - i.e. you can get more attention and some more positive reactions, but you stand out and our memorable / recognizable, which is a natural disadvantage for a spy compared to being nondescript.) Of course, being distinctly ugly seems like it would be the worst of both worlds (though also not making sense to directly link to skill, for PCs it could be a trade-off for a varied choice of other perks, and/or maybe it helps with intimidation and/or causing fear & dread).

 

[Edgewise]

Of course, being distinctly ugly seems like it would be the worst of both worlds (though also not making sense to directly link to skill, for PCs it could be a trade-off for a varied choice of other perks, and/or maybe it helps with intimidation and/or causing fear & dread).

Yeah, you'd think Jaws would not be the most discrete henchman. On the other hand, he can apparently survive a fall from orbit, so that's a plus on his resume.

 

[Dumarest]

Alongside the character creation rules there is a sidebar example of the creation of Rookie-rank character Alyson Steele. Presumably this is Remington Steele's younger sister, but the rulebook does not confirm this. Then again, she's a secret agent so it's doubtful they would confirm anything about her, including her existence. Characters are created in a point-buy system using Generation Points. The author recommends that for your first time playing, rather than spend half your evening creating characters before you even get a chance to play, which may discourage new players and make things seem overly complicated, you instead choose one of the characters already provided in the game. In addition to the 6 characters I already mentioned, there are another 11 additional allies of James Bond, from Kerim Bey to Sheriff J.W. Pepper to Honeychile Ryder, provided in Chapter 18: Allies and Enemies of James Bond. One flaw there is that they don't state how many Generation Points they cost or what rank they are, so you'll either have to make a guess or sit and do the math yourself. I recommend making a guess if you want to use any of them as PCs.

A Rookie starts with 3,000 Generation Points. (That sounds like a lot, but it's just an arbitrary figure; they could just as easily made things cost fewer points and given you fewer to spend.) An Agent gets 6,000 Generation Points and a "00" gets 9,000 Generation Points. It doesn't specifically state so, but I you are going to write up an NPC, you can use the number of Generation Points you're spending as a pretty accurate gauge of her effectiveness and level of experience. Three 3,000-point NPCs ought to be a decent challenge for a "00" character.

Anyway...back to Alyson Steele. First off, her imaginary player decides to spend 120 Generation Points to make her 5'10" and a further 120 to set her weight at 150 lbs. Each of these is out of the ordinary for a woman so she gains 20 total Fame Points* as a result. Her player then decides Alyson is Good Looking, costing 160 Generation Points and adding another 10 Fame Points. She's determined to be "the studious type, having spent more time in the library than in the gym," so her player buys characteristics to reflect this: STR 6 (cost = 100 points), DEX 6 (100), WIL 11 (650), PER 10 (500), and INT 9 (400). The player now has 850 Generation Points left to spend on skills.

(How I picture her)​

All characters automatically have default skill in Charisma and Driving. Alyson's player selects Fire Combat (which covers any projectile weapon), Hand-to-Hand Combat (which includes thrown weapons), Sixth Sense (a sort of paranoid awareness of your surroundings that may allow you to notice something without realizing it just as a habit of your training--it can save your life), and Seduction. "These skills will help her survive through her first few missions while she builds up her intellectual skills." She spends 100 points on each skill, leaving 450. She then elects to increase her default Charisma and Driving skills and improve all her elective skills, spending 440 more points. She now has 10 Generation Points left.

The GM in her case is using the optional Fields of Experience rules, which we'll cover in more detail in a bit; suffice to say Fields of Experience explain what your character's professional background was prior to being recruited by M.I.6, You can choose to have up to 6 years of prior experience in a profession in exchange for increasing your PC's age to 27 plus that number. In addition, you receive 20 Generation Points per year of prior experience, with the caveat that you can only spend those points in skills listed under that particular profession. Next, you can choose one Field of Experience from the list for that profession or from the General Fields list. Finally, each year of prior experience adds 6 Fame Points to your character. In the Alyson Steele example, it's decided that she worked in Journalism** for 3 years. She gains 60 Generation Points and 18 Fame Points. She spends 60 Generation Points to improve her Charisma and Sixth Sense skills. The leftover 10 points are not enough to buy anything with. I'm sure a min-max sort of player would have figured out some way to use those points as well, sacrificing character concept to character optimization. Alyson's player is not one of those. Her Fields of Experience are Computers, Political Science, and Snow Skiing. Fields of Experience fall into 2 categories of use: information or performance. The player must indicate to GM when she wishes to use her Field of Experience to determine whether her character would know something (even if the player doesn't) or can perform something (even if the player can't) in that field. There are no dice rolls; the GM will either rule that you do or don't and can or can't.

There are a number of Weaknesses you can select for your PC if you are using the optional rules. Each weakness gives you additional Generation Points, but they also subject you to fear or distraction whenever they are called into play. Some examples of Weaknesses are Agoraphobia, Dependence on Liquor, Fear of Snakes, and Greed. If your character has Fear of Spiders, for instance, and someone places a tarantula in your bed that you discover upon pulling back the sheets, you'll need to make a WIL roll to avoid making an involuntary sudden movement that could make the spider bite you. James Bond's weakness is Attraction to Members of the Opposite Sex. An example of that causing distraction would be in Goldfinger: when Tilly Masterson is killed by Oddjob, Bond runs to where Tilly lies dead when he should be trying to escape.

​

Alyson Steele's player chose no Weaknesses.

Oh, remember when I said the rules state there is no intrinsic advantage to playing a male vs. a female character? That's not actually true. Because the game reflects the real world, secret agents are mostly men, which means that a woman is less likely to be suspected, which means a female PC gets to subtract 40 Fame Points from her starting total. So our Alyson, rather than starting play with 48 Fame Points instead has a mere 8 Fame Points to her credit. IF Alyson were an Agent she would add an additional 40 Fame Points; if she were a "00" she would add 80.

As a Rookie, Alyson doesn't have any scars; were she an Agent or a "00," she would roll to see if she has an notable scar, which comes with another 20 Fame Points as it would make her easier to identify.

New characters have zero Hero Points to start.

A character's Speed is determined by adding her Perception to her Dexterity for a total of 2 to 30 to determine what your Speed is in a range from 0 to 3. Every 8 points = 1 Speed, so Alyson's PER + DEX = 16 = Speed 2. Everyone is a mere mortal in this game, so even James Bond only has a Speed of 3.

How many consecutive hours a character can stay awake before feeling exhausted is determined by your WIL. How many consecutive minutes a character keep running or swimming is also based on WIL. How much a character can carry is based on STR, as is her Hand-to-Hand Combat Damage Class.

Finally, you get to choose your preferred handgun from the list provided in Chapter 11: Equipment, as well as where in London you'd like your residence to be and what your mode of transportation is. Alyson's player selects an H&K VP-70 for her handgun and rides a Kawasaki GPz-70 from her apartment in Soho to M.I.6 headquarters. "Your character will never have to worry about money. It is presumed that in his private life he will be paid enough by M.I.6 to assume the same lifestyle enjoyed by James Bond."

​

* You don't want too many Fame Points, as Chapter 7: Fame spells out in detail. The more Fame Points you accumulate during your career, the better known your secret agent is and the easier it will be for NPCs to spot her and see through her disguises. I tell players to think of it as a dossier on a KGB desk that keeps getting thicker and thicker with more information about your character, her habits, her known aliases, and so on, and each Fame Point is perhaps one page in the dossier; I find this makes Fame Points feel more concrete. (There are also ways to reduce Fame Points, but that can wait until Chapter 7.)

** For another journalist turned secret agent, see Ian Fleming.

(Next: Chapter 3: Skills!)

 

[Endless Flight]

Do you get more generation points if your female character has a name that is a double entendre?

 

[Edgewise]

Do you get more generation points if your female character has a name that is a double entendre?

Unfortunately, I don't recall that. No reason the GM can't rule it, of course. And this being 2018, it should go both ways. It's only fair that Agent Richard Longtower gets some extra points to put into underwater demolitions.

 

[Endless Flight]

Absolutely! I was just thinking of all the famous ladies in Bond lore when I asked that.

 

[James Gillen]

Do you get more generation points if your female character has a name that is a double entendre?

It should.

jg

 

[Simon Hogwood]

Alyson's player is not one of those. Her Fields of Experience are Computers, Political Science, and Snow Skiing.

I sense an action sequence involving an Alpine computer lab coming up soon.

All written by different authors, but I note that #11 was written by famous kid's author R.L. Stine. You know, the Goosebumps guy.

I still have trouble believing that he's a real person, and not a house name.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

... underwater demolitions.

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

 

[Dumarest]

Due to familial duties, I'm not likely to get a chance to post more about the game until this afternoon at the earliest, so in the meantime here's a look at my homemade GM screen from way back when:

​

Don't let all the charts and tables scare you; many of them I never needed to refer to; I made it when I wasn't sure what I really needed so I used a color copier/printer at work to make copies of everything in the GM pack.

I.C.I.C.L.E. and T.O.R.C.H. were the good guys and bad guys in a campaign inspired by a combination of James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, and some other fun spy fiction.

 

[Dumarest]

Chapter 3: Skills

Whenever your PC attempts a task that falls under the domain of one of the 24 skills in James Bond 007, either you or your GM will make a d100 roll to determine whether you've succeeded and, if so, how well. All skills have a Primary Chance based on a characteristic or combination of characteristics. (The maximum Skill Level you can have is 2 higher than its associated characteristic.) The player tells the GM what she wants her character to do, and the GM will determine whether that falls under or a skill, ability, or characteristic. If it seems to fall under more than one, use the skill. I'll give an example in a couple of paragraphs. And this is as good a place as any to explain that abilities (Connoisseur, First Aid, and Photography) function exactly as skills do; the only difference is that all PCs and NPC members of their organization get them for free with a Primary Chance of 20 and they cannot be improved. If you don't possess the applicable skill for a task, you can still throw a Hail Mary, as it were, and try anyway using the associated characteristic but with a -3 penalty to the Ease Factor. If no skill or ability logically applies, the GM decides which characteristic makes the most sense and the characteristic score becomes the Primary Chance. Note that situational modifiers to the Ease Factor may still be applied by the GM.

If a task involves more than one action, such as climbing a mountain while simultaneously firing your Walther PPK at a KGB agent, each action is resolved as a separate task. In this instance, you'd resolve Mountaineering first and then Fire Combat if Mountaineering was successful.

A task may be interrupted by unexpected circumstances; for instance, that KGB agent may take a shot at you while you're trying to climb that mountain. If this occurs and your Mountaineering attempt was successful, the GM will determine at what point your climb was interrupted to resolve Fire Combat, and then if you are wounded you'll need to make another Mountaineering roll to continue your ascent.

If you action combines a skill and a characteristic, such as Mountaineering while carrying your wounded ally, the task is resolved under the skill, not the characteristic, but you'd receive a negative modifier to your Ease Factor to account for the extra difficulty of your situation.

Generally you will chuck the dice yourself, but there will be occasions when the GM needs to make the roll in secret. The exampled provided is when a PC is attempting to use her Disguise skill; obviously the player should not know whether she has failed or how good her disguise is.

Each task can be attempted only once, with the exception of encoding a message with Cryptography. If you fail at a task, you can't try again until circumstances have changed; for instance, you get proper or better equipment, additional information, or increase your Skill Level.

Each skill has its own formula for determining your Primary Chance, and the logic appears to be based on what the skill does and what characteristics could reasonably be expected to influence your chance at it.

​

The rules recommend, and I agree, that you should write down the formula on your character sheet in the space provided. Don't ask me why they didn't just print all the skills and formulae on the sheet for you so you could save yourself some work. There are only 24 skills, after all, and the character sheet has 25 lines for skills if I didn't miscount. Anyway, you'll want the formulae there so that when you spend Experience Points to increase your Skill Level, you can quickly erase the old Primary Chance and scribble down the new one.

So, if I've succeeded at a task, why does the Quality Rating matter? Because (1) many of the skills have a "base time" that it takes to attempt a task, and (2) the information you receive with some skills will be better or worse depending on how well you've done. For an example, I'll use a skill for which both (1) and (2) apply. The base time for Cryptography is 1 hour. Let's say you've intercepted a coded message sent by an enemy agent and you want to decode it.

​

As you can see from the Skill Use Chart above, the better your roll the less time it will take you to complete decoding the message; additionally the better your roll the more likely you are to have correctly interpreted the information. The same would be true with the use of the Interrogation skill, except the base time for that is 18 hours (and the information is what you were able to drag out of someone--I'd probably give an Ease Factor bonus if the player roleplayed it well). Obviously the higher your Skill Level, the better your Primary Chance, and therefore the higher the probability that you can perform a task quickly and accurately. It's one of the best skill systems I've ever seen: if you're highly skilled you can expect better outcomes, you can still try things you're not skilled at, and if you're naturally gifted (high INT or DEX, for instance) you may still have a decent chance of success despite no formal training.

Now, as I mentioned previously, a roll of 100 is always a failure. If you're attempting a task that involves the use of equipment, this means your equipment was damaged and requires repair. Every skill where this might apply also lists a repair time.

Next I'll go over each of the 24 skills and 3 abilities and what they cover and anything especially interesting about them.

 

[Dumarest]

Let's see how many of the 24 skills and 3 abilities I can discuss before I get too tired to continue. Most likely this will have to be broken up into 2 or 3 posts.

Boating is just what you'd expect, and includes submersibles. Used mainly for chases or if you're attempt a sufficiently complex task that there's a risk of failure.

​

Charisma, again, is fairly obvious as it's used to determine an NPC's reaction to and impressions of your character. Reactions and impressions may be modified depending on your appearance, how you're dressed, and how you interact with an NPC. You can also use this skill to try to Persuade an NPC, which is covered in detail in Chapter 6: How to Interact with Non-Player Characters.

​

Cryptography covers the art of writing and reading encoded messages. When you create an encoded message, the player chooses the Ease Factor (2 being the most secure and 8 being the least secure) and then needs to achieve a Quality Result of 1, 2, or 3 to successfully encode the message. If you fail, you can try again immediately and choose a different Ease Factor if it pleases you. Any messages you send to M.I.6 will automatically be successfully decoded by their experts. You can only attempt to decode a message once written by M.I.6 or anyone else; however any Quality Result other than failure means you get all the information from M.I.6 whereas the percentage of anyone else's message you manage to decode depends upon the specific Quality Rating you've achieved.

​

Demolitions applies to all tasks involving explosives. Here's where a bit of realism kicks in: "There is no 'taking a few sticks of dynamite along just in case.'" When you procure your explosives from Q Branch, you need to precisely explain to the GM what you are attempting as it is almost impossible to use explosives in any manner other than that for which they were prepared. The amount and type of explosives you have will depend upon the task you are attempting. You can improve yoir Ease Factor if you're able to take extra time and/or conduct a close personal inspection of your target prior to setting the charge. There are a number of examples provided for different types of demolitions jobs, from opening a locked door to demolishing a large house, and how much space you'll need to transport sufficient explosive materials. You can also use your skill to try to concoct your own explosives using available chemicals and equipment. Your Ease Factor will go down if you rush it or have to improvise materials.

​

Disguise is altering your appearance to fool an observer into thinking you are someone or something other than yourself. It can be used in 2 ways: (1) to pass as a specific person or (2) to be a generic type. An example of (1) would be On Her Majesty's Secret Service (both novel and film), in which James Bond impersonates Sir Hilary Bray; an example of (2) would be Octopussy (the film), in which Bond dresses up as a clown. A specific person is obviously more time-consuming than a generic type. The GM will secretly roll the Quality Rating of your disguise. Note that if you disguise yourself as a particular person, anyone you interact with who is acquainted with that person will make a PER roll to determine whether they notice any irregularities. If you are disguised as a general type, a PER roll is only made for an NPC who would be in a position to notice: for instance, if you're disguised as a janitor at the lab another janitor might notice that you're in the wrong area or at the wrong time or performing incorrect duties. If the initial roll for the PC's disguise was a failure, the Ease Factor to penetrate the disguise is 10 for such observers as mentioned earlier.

​

Diving is used for underwater activites, including combat. So not only does it determine how deep your PC can dive and how long she can stay undee while snorkeling, you also use it in lieu of the Hand-to-Hand Combat and Fire Combat skills. (Normal combat modifiers, as discussed in Chapter 4: Combat still apply as determined by the GM.) You'll also use it for chases while swimming.

​

 

[Skarg]

And this is as good a place as any to explain that abilities (Connoisseur, First Aid, and Photography) function exactly as skills do; the only difference is that all PCs and NPC members of their organization get them for free with a Primary Chance of 20 and they cannot be improved.

What is the reason for having a separate term for these and making them always 20? Seems somewhat peculiar?

As you can see from the Skill Use Chart above, the better your roll the less time it will take you to complete decoding the message; additionally the better your roll the more likely you are to have correctly interpreted the information.

It seems peculiar that the time taken AND the amount of true information would be linked to the SAME die-roll, which also reveals what Quality Rating of success was achieved, no? Seems like as GM I might have players roll for general success that determines time (which they're know the result of) and then use that result as a modifier to a second roll that determines how much information gathered is true or not (which I would think in most/many cases they shouldn't know for sure).

Now, as I mentioned previously, a roll of 100 is always a failure. If you're attempting a task that involves the use of equipment, this means your equipment was damaged and requires repair. Every skill where this might apply also lists a repair time.

Isn't it that the equipment might be damaged? Doesn't there still need to also be a chance of human error even when using equipment with a high skill?