So I started a game of Spycraft 2.0 yesterday with my usual group of evil campaigners. There was an accident with our newly joined player in the evil campaign where he shattered his leg in a car accident just before Christmas. Therefor, my longest running campaign was put on hold and we had to find something else to do. I had just bought Spycraft 2.0 and so I decided we should at least give it a try.

When we got together yesterday, one had a nearly finished character and the other two were half-way finished. The first one arrived around half-past three, and the last one came around half-past four. We began play around eight. To say the least, creating a character in this system is far more troublesome that just saying it.

So we had our characters: Teya, a beautiful computer-hacker (Int 18, Cha 16, with the Gorgeous Feat); Bill Taylor, the group's soldier and driver (Dex 20, ranged attack bonus +10, Drive skill +13); and finally Camila, the group's intruder and faceman (Cha 16, multiclassed in Intruder and Faceman). This was a Freelance game, where the players didn't work with an agency but for some private supporters.

When the game started, I presented them with three missions, one from each major supporter. They chose a mission named "Tomes of Intelligence", a mission where they were hired to steal the three volumes of La Secret. Each volume was at a seperate location, with a seperate set of security. Information about these locations were given to them before they began their mission. They were allowed to steal the books in any order they wanted.

They began their mission with choosing their tools most fitting for the mission. Then they headed out to Washington D.C. to steal the book from the secure section of the National Library. I have no doubt I made it too easy for them, but this was their first Spycraft game and I wanted them to enjoy it.

They got access codes to get into the secure section, but the security system was linked to a security station. Even with the access codes, the security station would be alerted as soon as the codes were used without authorization. So Teya (the hacker) did what she does best and hacked herself into the National Library's security to both loop the security cameras and to hide the use of the codes. Thanks to these codes, she had an easier time doing that. While Camila snuck into the secure section, Bill created a diversion so that no guards would get in the way. Bill started "accidentally" pushing people and bookshelves.

The second volume of the La Secret was hidden in the secure section C, behing three secured doors. Camila had all the codes she needed to get through them and meanwhile Teya sat in her car to monitor the security system. But when Camila got to the third door, the code didn't work. Of course, the player wasn't really happy about that since getting these codes was not easy. However, they soon found out why the code didn't work. Teya had failed in hiding their unauthorized use of the codes, the security station had been alerted and armed security guards would arrive in only ten minutes.

Teya managed to deactivate the lock on the door and Camila began searching for the book. It took some time, but Camila managed to find the book and get out of there just before the security guards arrived.

They now had the second volume of La Secret. Now they went after the third volume. During the mission briefing, they had learned that the third volume was in the possession of a private collector named Robert Phiscer, who now lived in Montréal. They looked him up on the internet and found his private website where he had a list of his collected items. The list did indeed include the third volume of La Secret, which Phiscer claimed to be complete gibberish and unreadable. The players decided to read the volume they had previously stolen, and indeed they were unable to make out what it was about.

Soon they had arrived to Montréal. They found the house where the collector lived. The house looked almost abandoned; there were cracks in the walls, the garden looked like no one had touched it in years and so on. Camila decided to make use of one of her perfect disguises as a Jehova Witness and made her way up to house. She noticed excessive locks on the front door, as well as a security camera recording the entrance. As soon as Phiscer noticed a Jehova Witness, he slammed the door without a speech.

Teya attempted a more successful plan to have a look inside his home. She made up a website about Star Trek and e-mailed Phiscer about taking an interview about his Star Trek collectives. After some time he accepted and offered her to visit. When she got in, she saw what kind of mess his home was in. There was dust and trash everywhere, dishes needed washing and spiders had made a home in the house. The house would be beautiful if he would bother with cleaning it, but it was a mess. He greeted her with a shotgun in hand, and made sure she was alone. Teya learned very quickly that Phiscer was very paranoid, convinced that someone was always trying to steal his collection. She also learned that he had no interest in Star Trek, or anything really. He collected only to collect, to own things no one else owned. "Mine! And nobody else's!" was a common line. Every single room had a security camera, even the bathroom.

Teya got out intact, but at that time we were too tired to continue. They haven't yet decided on what to do and that will have to wait until next time.

In a whole, they enjoyed the game. They found it excited and enjoyable. Not a single shot was fired in the first session, and not a single person was killed. The only person who had almost nothing to do was Bill's player, whose only task was to create a diversion in the National Library. But overall, they can't wait for the next session

Damn you for making all these variant systems look so good.

I’m looking forward to hearing more as the game continues.

Unfortunately, due to time consuming activities such as work, school and birthday-parties, we probably won't continue this game for another week (half a week at best).

I will update this story of a game as soon as I have something to say about it, but don't hold your breath (which I'm sure Grugg will do since I told him not to)

We had our second session of the game last night. It started out pretty much the same way the last session was, but the latter half became complicated, frustrating and tiring on some of us.

Apparently, I also got the name of one of the PCs wrong. Her name was Tamila and not Camila. This session's writeup will have the correct name.

The team still hadn't gotten the second volume of La Secret from ol' mister Phiscer. After some serious thinking, the team came up with a plan: Teya used her contact to get a hold of cheap chloraphorm after hours. While waiting for Bill to pick up the chloraphorm, Tamila dressed up as her Jehova witness persona and had a look at Phiscer's back door. She found out there was at least one lock there. Now came the waiting, and when all lights were out (around 3am) Teya hacked her way into the powerstation and shut off the electricity for the whole street.

(I wanted to use the advanced hacking rules, but after several minutes of trying to explain it to our hacker I backed out of that plan and we use a more simple rule instead.)

With the electricity off, Tamila and Bill made their way into the house through the back door (at around 3:40am). Tamila was there to get in, get the book and get out while Bill was there for backup. It took few minutes to open three locks, but after few mistakes and some noisemaking, Tamila finally got in. She then snuck up to the next floor and followed Teya's description of where Phiscer had told her the book was (he used the words "private showroom"). She picked the door's lock and got into a small room where there was nothing but a single podium with a book ontop enclosed in a glass box. Tamila looked for any security traps, but found none. She used her glass cutter to cut through the glass and snatched the book. It was only then when she noticed that this was not the second volume of La Secret, but a book called Das Kugelscheiber mit Kese. Gosh darn it!

So she tried another door which lead her into Phiscers office. In the office was his computer, a safe and another door. That door was locked, and behind it was the security room with tv-screens, video recorders and a blast door with a retinal scan lock. Of course, with the power off, the lock didn't work and the door wouldn't open. Tamila called Teya, who was still hacked into the powerstation's computer system, and asked her what they should do. Teya had the brilliant idea of putting the power back on, knock Phiscer out with the chloraphorm, drag him into the room and hold him up against the scan.

While Bill did the dragging, Tamila let her curiousity get a hold on her and opened up the safe. Inside she miracilously found some personal files on Victor Temple, the owner of the last volume they had to get.
After getting in through the blast door, the team got into another showroom with another podium and another book enclosed in glass. This time, Tamila noticed the book was on a pressure plate that was linked to an electrical field. If they would remove the book, the electicity would be connected to the metal podium and the metal floor, shocking anyone near it considerably.
The team decided to get the German book from the other room, as well as the rubber mattreses from the car (as backup). Tamila was chosen to stand on all four mattresses and make the switch. She failed the switch and activated the electrical field. Thankfully, she wasn't harmed and made her safe way out of the room.

This was the better half.

While trying to analize the two volumes in the car, Bill noticed they were being followed. A woman leaned out from the passanger seat of the other car and started shooting. A chase began. I decided to use the more complicated rules for the Chase. Bill was driving, and was in fact the only one to enjoy this.

After some shooting and some great maneauvering on Bill's part, the chase ended in our team's favor with the other car lost behind them (I'm not going to bore you with details). Again, no one was killed or even injured, but they got some action this time.

The chase was the most boring part for two of the players. Their characters weren't made for this action, but I still wanted Bill to have something to do. In fact, Bill's player enjoyed doing something other than waiting and standing on the sideline. However, all players agreed the rules were too rigid and complicating. They made jokes about how this game was made by someone who thought D&D was too simple. I somehow doubt we will continue with this system after this mission is over.

Because of the lack of interest that our last gaming night generated, and a growing interest in playing Burning Wheel, we decided not to spend more time on Spycraft and begin creating characters for Burning Wheel.

So, unless we someday decide to finish the Spycraft game, this gaming log has pretty much ended. I'll start a new log for our Burning Wheel game, though, so stay tuned.