Thoughts on Top Secret

Scene from a bar in Sprechenhaltestelle, 1953

We only got about four or five sessions of Top Secret in before I got a new job at the Post Office and all my gaming time got tanked. I was enjoying running the Sprechenhaltestelle mini-sandbox, but I think my players were having problems switching from the D&D "mug & loot" mindset to a more nuanced way of executing a mission. You know, like spies. Things generally devolved into slug-fests and shoot-outs rather quickly, which is fun and all, but not conducive to a subtle investigative adventure. Plus, there was the problem of the clunky old combat rules which did have a tendency to slow down momentum with fiddly bits. Some quick thoughts:

• The gun combat seems simple on paper, but really takes up too much game time to execute. I think I could re-work it with just a little effort though. Interesting that the type of gun has nothing to do with how much damage it deals. Wounds are dealt with in different, also clunky, rules. Gun combat is dangerous, though, and that is important. It also really plays up the real-life non-accuracy of pistols.
• The hand-to-hand combat is pretty fun in execution for the first few times when things are not literally life-and-death but its unwieldiness and unpredictability becomes a liability for an agent in the field. I think the players felt a lack of control over the outcomes, which is ironic, because the rules are written in a way trying to granulize HTH with specific moves and stuff, but really it feels more random than gun combat. (Maybe that is actually how real life HTH fighting is... I wouldn't know.)
• Basically, combat is the most rules intensive part of the entire game—everything else is extremely simple and generally left up to the GM to adjudicate. Which is cool. They game went pretty smoothly outside of combat.
• There is an actual rule for aliens about paragraph long... which is basically, "they have 1–20 hit points." It makes you wonder why its there at all, but I guess I am glad it is.
• My plan was to run a late '50s spy adventure like Ian Fleming's original Bond novels and I discovered that Top Secret is pretty much geared for that straight out of the gate. The whole flavor of the game seems to come from that era already, down to the weapon choices.
• Having access to the internet really opened up possibilities for the game. The simple thing of being able to Google a picture of available weapons increased my flavor by an order of magnitude. I actually think that might have hampered my enjoyment of the game back in the day. A list of guns with no pictures really means nothing to me (especially as a kid).
• More coming...

Top Secret Index

I picked up a used copy of Top Secret (2nd edition) a little while ago and have been slowly preparing to run a short spy campaign set in the late 1950s... a la the original Ian Fleming Bond novels. One of the first problems I ran into re-reading the ruleset was the lack of an index (a pretty classic problem of these early TSR games). So, I whipped one up as I went along and offer it now for anyone else who may have had the same problem. Later on I will post some more detailed observations of this clunky, but flavorful, old game.

Artifact Use Chart

In Dragon #25 Gary Jaquet updated the Artifact Use charts from the first edition Gamma World rules. My photo-copy of the chart looked pretty natty so I went ahead and made a new version (above). When we were playing GW1e a couple years back my whole agenda then was to use the rules as written, just to get a feel for what the authors intended, before making any house-rule changes. That meant using those old artifact use charts that were so fascinating to me as a kid. Of course it doesn't take long before you realize that all you are doing is rolling dice over a certain number for effects and the flow chart is just for looks. So I started using the GW2e rules after a while to see if there were any subtle flavor differences between the two (GW2e rules are just straight dice rolls, but the system is a bit more complex). Not only did the GW2e rules seem oddly "safer" (less catastrophic results), but I found myself missing the visual interaction of the old charts. So when I found this updated version somebody posted on the internet form Dragon #25 I vowed to give it a spin, but we ended up putting the GW campaign on hiatus before I got to try it. I have no idea how well tuned it is, but it is kind of pretty.

Huh, perhaps I should post how to actually use the chart.

Thinking Out Loud

I think one of the best ways a DM can learn how to become better is to actually play the game as a player with some frequency. It helps to open up the lines of empathy to the player's situation as well as gives the DM a bit of a vacation... it is so much more relaxing to only have to be concerned about a single character rather than the whole milieu! One of the things I have learned as a player that I believe helps the game to move along is to think out loud. Let me try to explain.

The game revolves around the DM and the players sharing an imaginary landscape between them, wherein all the action takes place. The majority of the burden of description is with the DM, but the players are also responsible for a great deal of setting creation of their own. The key point is the fact that the world only exists in everybody's imagination and the only way a functional game can happen is if everybody is on the same page as to what is happening and what possibly could happen. Even a slight breakdown in that consensus reality can cause than whole game to grind to a screeching halt.

I've been a player in a game where the DM set up a complex trick room that required a lot of thought and experimentation. It was fun for a while until hours started to pass with no success on the horizon. (The situation was such that the characters retreating was not an option.) Things ended up breaking down into player hopelessness and DM frustration. Later, when everybody talked about what had happened and the DM explained the simplicity of the trigger, the players were convinced that they had already done that very thing trying to work out the trick room and had become dejected when nothing else would work either. The consensus reality between the DM and the players had broken down and left everybody feeling shitty about it. And it was on a very minor detail.

I am convinced that such a situation may have been avoided if the players had engaged in the simple activity of thinking out loud. If, from time to time, they reassessed the different ways they had attempted to trigger the trick room... out loud so that the DM could hear their line of reasoning... then the DM could decide if the players were on the same page as to what has actually happened in the situation, and amend the details if necessary. ("Oh wait... you guys think you dropped a gold coin into the left slot? I thought you said right slot... ") It is a simple way to occasionally reaffirm the consensus reality between the DM and the players.

I find myself doing this a lot when I am a player, because I have a tendency to hatch some pretty crazy plans in my head, plans that may not actually have a basis in the reality the DM is weaving. So, thinking out loud is also a way for the players to "test the waters" of some outlandish ideas. It gives the DM an opportunity to see into the heads of the players to a small degree and, if necessary, gives him a little advance warning about some wild-ass caper the players are hatching. If this gives the DM enough heads up to keep the game from getting derailed by a surprise course of action that he didn't plan on, then so much the better!

(Now, if you are playing in a game that you don't want the DM to know what you are planning to do, because you are worried that the DM will make sure your plan doesn't work if he gets advanced warning, then I am sorry for you.)

GM Questionnaire

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

Hard to say. I like ad-libbing random encounters together into some kind of coherent concept that actually adds a cool layer of interest to the overall "story" of the adventure. It's fun when something random turns into a persistent, important feature of the campaign.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

Last weekend.

3. When was the last time you played?

About a month or two ago.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

Running the original Top Secret module Sprechenhaltestelle episodically, set in the late '50s, with the flavor of an Ian Fleming novel. 

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Figure out what the next random encounter may be, and how it ties into what is currently happening in the game.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

Usually something salty, like chips or nuts, to balance the beer.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

No. It can be mentally exhausting if I run a game two days in a row, though.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

I got to play a old NPC cleric from my game as a PC in a friend's game... and disintegrated the side of a ship, sinking it, changing the whole flavor of the planned encounter. (The bad guys on the ship who survived ended up using magic to breathe water and marched across the lake bed to the shore, where the climatic battle then took place.)   

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

Kind of both, really. Everybody plays to stay alive and they take that seriously, but it doesn't keep people from being silly and cracking up all the time.

10. What do you do with goblins?

Try to give different tribes a bit of flavor, but mostly just low-level mooks with a faerie slant that are sometimes good for a laugh.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

I used some ideas from Neal Stephenson's Anathem to add some unique flavor into my Gamma World game. (It had to do with the language of the Ancients being a kind of continuously morphing cypher.)

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

Geez, I am cracking up every session. I don't know... I guess I will have to think about some classic moment.

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

Gary Gygax's Living Fantasy. It is in the restroom for casual browsing.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

Depends on the game in question, but for simplicity sake, David Trampier. (Erol Otus being a close second.) I like a lot of the modern "old-school" type artists as well.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

Afraid for their PCs lives? Yes, all the time. Afraid in a creeped out way? Maybe a little back in our Call of Cthulhu days. (I remember a friend being so shocked once he yelled "Gah!" and kicked the table, knocking over everybody's drinks.)

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever.)

Since I liberally use adventures I didn't write, this happens all the time... usually being whatever it is we are currently playing. But, I usually change quite a bit of the module, so if I only consider (recent) adventures that I changed almost nothing, I would say Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. It was pretty fun when the summoning of the apocalyptic dark god came down to a single dice roll.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

Comfy, warm basement room with all the amenities. Big oak table with velvet surface, perhaps, for dice rolling. Good stereo system. No windows, though. I am too easily distracted by the world at large.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

I am not sure how to answer this one. I have different RPGs of various genres, but they don't feel all that disparate to me. I guess I don't hang onto anything that is not really my style.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

Most of my ideas some from just looking around me at the world at thinking about how I could add that level of detail into my games interestingly. As to "disparate" influence, I don't know, maybe details from outsider literature (Burroughs, Ballard, etc.) or stuff from Hermetic Qabbalism and the occult. 

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

Someone open-minded to all the different aspects of the game. Mostly with a sense of exploration and adventure.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?

I do think the game needs a sense of mundane detail in order for the heroics to have contrast and meaning. So, I keep tabs on things like encumbrance and provisions and what-not.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

A book like the original AD&D Rogue's Gallery, but for 3.5e. Basically, all the classes statted and geared out for levels 1–20, and then maybe an appendix of unique NPCs for quick and easy use. 

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?

My girlfriend. She gets a kick out of the weird stories.

Old School

I consider myself an old-school gamer, even though the version of D&D my group currently plays is relatively recent (3.5e). Why? Because I am old. I've been playing RPGs for roughly 33 years and, I have to admit, my style preferences were probably set a long time ago. Those preferences were largely informed by the writings of one man, Gary Gygax. Those original first edition rule-books and modules written by Gygax had a tone and style that felt mysterious, cryptic, and adult to me. It was a style I wanted to emulate, and to a degree, still do. When TSR kicked Gygax out of his own company and started pumping out second edition D&D I quit buying their products. I only picked up D&D again with the third edition because enough time had passed and I wanted to see how Wizards of the Coast had overhauled the system. Sure, a lot had changed in the rules between 1e AD&D and 3e D&D, and a case can be made that a game's rules set the overall tone of the game, but I actually found a lot in 3e that was reminiscent of the old, original game I enjoyed, just with updated game rules theory.

And then there is the fact I actually don't buy any new games. It is true that I bought 3e D&D when it came out, but I haven't bought any new RPGs since. (My set of 3.5e books was a gift from a player who wanted our group to have the "refined" rules. Cool by me... for free!) Since the time we first bought the 1e AD&D books as kids I had no intention of buying any more. Why should I? I had everything there I needed for a lifetime of gaming. And anything that felt broken could always be fixed with house-rules. My blood boils at the concept of game companies pumping out new editions of their game simply because they want to feel a renewed flush of profits. Fuck that.

The games I have sitting on my shelf waiting for the right mood to strike have been sitting there for decades. Call of Cthulhu, Villains & Vigilantes, Top Secret, Stormbringer, and the mighty Traveller. I even have a set of Dangerous Journeys that I am dying to play at least once in my life. All these games rate differently on the scale of complexity, but they all share a couple of things in common... they are all old, and they all have an awesome atmosphere and style to them. For me, that is "old-school".

A brief history of gaming

I first got into RPGs in the 5th grade, sometime around 1979, with the Basic D&D set, but it didn't take me and my friends very long to get pulled into the AD&D books. We wanted to play the "adult" version of the game, naturally. We would pool our money together to buy the books and then they would get handed over to me in order to learn the rules. Thus, I sort of became the de facto DM for our group for a very long time. (Some bloggers wax nostalgic about those early games of their youth, how much they miss that excitement and wonder... but, honestly, I don't. Those games were messy, clunky, and often uninspired to my recollection. I like to think my understanding of RPGs has grown better and more nuanced over the years, and the games more mysterious and fun. But, to each their own.)

We bought pretty much everything TSR released in those heady days, but really only played AD&D with regularity. I reached a burn-out point sometime right out of high-school, living in my first apartment, DMing for five or six of my friends. I was running the Temple of Elemental Evil and sort of fizzled out my brain trying to manage everybody. Thankfully, a buddy of mine stepped in and took over, saving the campaign for everybody else. I took a little breather. It wasn't until I was deep into reading H. P. Lovecraft, and discovered Call of Cthulhu, that I felt ready to get back into RPGs. Call of Cthulhu was a great change of pace and I think it helped to mature my GMing technique. It also opened our gaming group's eyes to RPGs outside of the insular TSR world.

I ended up going to college and moving out of the state for a while and left all my games behind with my friends. Life took over, as they say, and it was a number of years before I got back into games. When I moved back to Washington, me and a couple old high-school buddies started playing Villains & Vigilantes. There were a number of old games I still had kicking around that I had always wanted to play, but never had the chance. Since I was still feeling somewhat disenchanted with AD&D, I made it my mission to try out those games whenever the opportunity presented itself. (That list continues to this day.)

As it happens, that list got interrupted by the release of 3rd edition D&D. At the time it looked to me like they addressed all the problems I was having with the game and I discovered I was missing the low-fantasy action and magic romps of those early games. So, I started running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil as a sort of bookend to the way I left the game those many years ago. That long campaign started with just myself and one friend, but over the course of three years found some fellow gamers who joined in, bringing the regular group up to five of us. Finishing that campaign was a goal for myself to prove I could keep my focus and interest up for that long on a single game. By all accounts it was a success, but I did find that I needed another change of pace afterwards to cleanse my palate.

I discovered that while I liked the new rules of 3e D&D overall, I was becoming dismayed at the complexity of NPC generation, especially at higher levels. More and more I was leaning back toward the older games with simpler rule sets. So, we started playing 1e Gamma World, using the Legion of Gold module as a campaign setting. I had always really enjoyed the flavor of that old game and it was a real joy to finally take it out for a drive. That skinny little module kept us busy for two years (granted, I was generating quite a lot of original content as well) before I begin feeling the urge for a flavor change again.

So, that pretty much brings us up to date. My original intension was to go back to the high-level characters from our old Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign and see what they are up to... perhaps take them through Rob Kuntz's Maure Castle dungeons. I sort of got distracted when our group gained a couple new players and I decided to run a low-level "sand-box" style adventure around a frontier township for a short while, just to give the new players a feel for the game. As it turns out, we are all having a fine time of it as is, and so I am not sure when will will go back to those high-level characters after all. I discovered during the Legion of Gold sessions that, as a DM, I get a lot more enjoyment out of sand-box style adventures than storyline adventures. I guess my current goal is to figure out how to run a high level 3e D&D game as a sandbox, without getting bogged down by the fugly details of NPC generation.

Beginnings

This blog will exist simply as a place for me to write about games, with an emphasis on role-playing games. I don't really see it being of much interest to anybody beyond my own friends, but who knows? I am not that prolific a writer, so there is a fair chance that this project will simply die on the vine as my interest wanes.


The title, Neptune Rising, is sort of a poetic re-interpretation of astrological symbols. Don't take it too seriously. I am only passingly educated in astrology and a believer in a very "loosely-held" kind of way. I took to the notion of the planet Neptune's influence over the imagination and fantasy life and ran with it. I am aware that Neptune's influence is more far-ranging, just as I am aware that the planets can't be "rising" in the same sense that an astrological sign can. I simply like how it sounds and what it infers.