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

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Before I start all that typing again, does anyone actually want me to play through the adventure again as James Bond making poor choices to see how it turns out? If not, I think it would be more interesting to start brand new "Let's Read" of another game before I revisit James Bond 007 and write about the supplements.
 
Yeah let's check another game out. Ghostbusters or The Price of Freedom would be cool.
 
I vote for tPoF.
Thanks for doing this :smile:
Every time I want to post about one of my 007 adventures, I'm either on my smart phone, or at work, but one of these days I'm gonna comment about the things you wrote in the past 200 posts with some real in-game examples of my own ;)
 
Before I start all that typing again, does anyone actually want me to play through the adventure again as James Bond making poor choices to see how it turns out? If not, I think it would be more interesting to start brand new "Let's Read" of another game before I revisit James Bond 007 and write about the supplements.


Price of Freedom, most def
 
Since there have been a few questions about Classified, the James Bond 007 "clone," I thought I'd post some examples of the artwork in the book. In my opinion it is across-the-board high quality, and I'm not a fan of most RPG art.
The artwork in the adventure module Operation Rogue Lion is scratchier and mostly just headshots, nothing very evocative.

Classified also deserves kudos for having the class to state clearly on its first page that Gerard Christopher Klug was the original designer of the rules they are using.


Bruh how you forgot dis one

claslas.png


Sorry 4 tha Necro, but I have been reading this great thread. Good work, Dumarest. I have Classified, and it seems fun. Played a little JB007 BITD. It's my favorite espionage system, hands down.

I read something I can't seem to find now, but game designer Gerard Christopher Klug said that he tried to model the game's mechanics off of the Bond books, and its presentation off of the movies, defaulting to the films wherever there was a conflict or contradiction. I think he pretty much nailed it.
 
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I read something I can't seem to find now, but game designer Gerard Christopher Klug said that he tried to model the game's mechanics off of the Bond books, and its presentation off of the movies, defaulting to the films wherever there was a conflict or contradiction. I think he pretty much nailed it.
It's in the introduction of the game:
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.
 
Does anyone know what the legal status of this game is? I'm assuming Avalon Hill owns this, since Victory Games is dead?
 
Bruh how you forgot dis one

d9cc09.jpeg
The lady looks like she forgot she's not wearing any high heel shoes.
 
Does anyone know what the legal status of this game is? I'm assuming Avalon Hill owns this, since Victory Games is dead?
It's long, long out of print and the reason, at the time, was due to licensing issues. Avalon Hill doesn't own the rights to James Bond. Nobody does. The system is still retrocloned, I think, and I would have loved to see someone like Cubicle 7 attempt to do something akin to what they did with Doctor Who with it. However, my understanding is that the license is tricky and/or expensive.
 
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It's long, long out of print and the reason, at the time, was due to licensing issues. Avalon Hill doesn't own the rights to James Bond. Nobody does. The system is still retrocloned, I think, and I would have loved to see someone like Cubicle 7 attempt to do something akin to what they did with Doctor Who with it. However, my understanding is that the license is tricky and/or expensive.
That's interesting.

I always wondered about the From Russia With Love "playtest" document that's floating around online. It's presented as a Victory Games "in development" module, but it's from the early 2000s, well after VG's demise. I always sort of assumed that it was a clever and very involved fan project. Does anyone else know anything about it?
 
Avalon Hill is owned by Hasbro.

jg
Yeah, Avalon Hill only exists in name as a subsidiary of a subsidiary. Hasbro just uses the imprimatur for its cachet as far as I can tell. They even retroactively make it appear games were by Avalon Hill now that were originally not by putting the AH name on the box: see Axis & Allies (originally a Milton Bradley game) and Risk (Parker Brothers, after acquisition from its French creator). A lot of their game rights were licensed or sold off to other publishers, and the rights to some others reverted to the creators. I don't think they've even produced any new games in the last 10 years or longer.
 
They even retroactively make it appear games were by Avalon Hill now that were originally not by putting the AH name on the box: see Axis & Allies (originally a Milton Bradley game) and Risk (Parker Brothers, after acquisition from its French creator). A lot of their game rights were licensed or sold off to other publishers, and the rights to some others reverted to the creators. I don't think they've even produced any new games in the last 10 years or longer.
Interesting, and bummer.
 
A lot of people criticize the art from JB007, but I think it's some of the best old-school art around. It's consistent, it's well-done, and the covers perfectly ape the style of cold-war era pulp novels (filtered through an early 80s lens). Thematically, it fits the genre as well as the rules do. A very nice touch.
 
Who? First I've heard. Lots better than most RPGs I've seen! It occurs to me James Bond 007 would work well as a PBP with 2 players.

After T&T wraps up, I will use my newfound PBP confidence to run something else. Maybe JB007/Classified will be it! I've always wanted to test the oft-asserted idea that you can't do "team" play with it, a la Mission: Impossible.
 
As far as the art goes, it's just something I've seen people carp about in forums. But, you know... forum people.
 
Forum person here!

I sort of kick myself now. See, I had long wanted the James Bond 007 RPG because... it was a James Bond RPG. That was about it. But all through the time it was available in the 80s, it simply wasn't something I ever had the money for. Then, early in my ebaying around 2000, I snagged myself a great set of James Bond RPG stuff. It was the core box, Thrilling Locations, Q Manual, the Gamemaster screen, For Your Information, and probably about 6 modules including A View to a Kill and Octopussy (the two I really wanted). I got all that for $35 shipped, and it was all new and still in the shrink. And... It never clicked with me. I tried selling it and had no interested buyers, so I dumped it at Goodwill (I've since been told they toss any RPG stuff they receive in the dumpster). And now I kick myself because I wish I had kept it all.

Anyway, I had to skim a PDF of the corebook to make sure I was remembering the art correctly, because it just doesn't stand out in my mind. The covers of the game materials were great. The interior art... It just never did anything for me.

It's not bad. I think it's definitely of its era. It just never seemed evocative to me. It never seemed to emphasize or even relate to the text as I read it. And it felt extremely sparse. Maybe that last bit was because the images tended to be small.

It sort of emphasized how clinical the book felt. The text didn't resonate with me and there were also these bits of lineart which felt a bit sterile to me. That was my feeling of the time, anyway.


You shouldn't take a picture of me in the bath.
 
I have 5 or 6 of the modules plus a couple basic sets. I'd love to get a copy of the On Her Majesty's Secret Service solo campaign but it always sells used for about a buck and a quarter, so I haven't pulled the trigger on one yet. Given their rarity, I probably should.
 
I always liked the changes in the various modules as they make things so much more interesting, like the fact FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE has Kerem Bey as the villain.
 
I always liked the changes in the various modules as they make things so much more interesting, like the fact FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE has Kerem Bey as the villain.

Chris Klug had to convince the owners of the literary & cinematic Bond IP that making the modules just like the movies was not going to work.

From Russia With Love is a pretty clever fan-made module that has been designed to look like a playtest module, but it isn't.
 
Great thread! I used to love this game back in the day. I've even run Classified a couple of times in recent years.

I think this is one of my favorite RPG systems. My only complaint is that it's best for a single player (00 equivalent), two Agents, or four 'Rookies' (novices). But most RPG groups, at least that I've been involved with, are at least 4-5 players, and when you're doing Bond hijinks who wants to be barely competent secret agents.

I always enjoyed all the artwork for this game.
 
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.
It is easy enough to discern the rule that generates the table, and once that is done the table look-ups are replaced by simple mental arithmetic. In fact, it was this resolution system that did what my primary-school teachers despaired of — made me learn to do simple mental arithmetic.

The obscure SF RPG ForeSight borrowed the ease-factor:quality-rating resolution system (and the damage system, chase rules, and a few other things) from James Bond 007 (along with other bits from Universe, Commando, etc.), but it stated the arithmetical rule as the definition of the rule, giving the division table only as a paratextual aid.

The rule is as follows. The result is a QR1 if the die roll is less than or equal to SC/10 (rounded up). QR2 is if the die roll is less than or equal to SC/5 but too high to be a QR1. QR3 is if the die roll is less than or equal to SC/2 but too high to be QR2. QR4 is if the die roll is less than or equal to SC but too high to be QR3. Exceptions: 99 is never better than QR4; 00 is never better than a fail.
 
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What is the reason for having a separate term for these and making them always 20? Seems somewhat peculiar?
The designers felt that player characters ought to have these abilities (Connoisseurship, First Aid, Photography) to support genre conventions, but play-testers felt that as skills they were a waste of generation points, and never bought them. This was the solution. They ought to have done the same to Cryptography. Or made them all into free Fields of Experience and associated a PCS like this with Fields of Experience.
 
Does Classified still have Ease Factor (which I'm starting to like more and more as an idea), and the same close combat system? How similar are the interaction rules?
That's what would determine how similar the systems are, at least to me.
Classified re-termed the ease factor to "difficulty factor", which is just wrong, but the mechanics are the same. The interaction rules and chase rules work the same. The only substantive change in the combat rules that I noticed was that the d6 in the "Draw" rules was replaced by a d10, which reduces the significance of the characters' Speed and the Draw rating of their weapons, thus reducing the advantage of fast characters with small weapons (which is to say, generally of PCs).
 
Classified re-termed the ease factor to "difficulty factor", which is just wrong, but the mechanics are the same. The interaction rules and chase rules work the same. The only substantive change in the combat rules that I noticed was that the d6 in the "Draw" rules was replaced by a d10, which reduces the significance of the characters' Speed and the Draw rating of their weapons, thus reducing the advantage of fast characters with small weapons (which is to say, generally of PCs).
Interestingly, I was talking to Gerry Klug, and he said that's the way he'd do the Draw rules if he were designing the game today.
 
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