[thrash]

Tales of the Gold Monkey is a pulp version, and there are modern counterparts as well. I'm fond of Jack of All Trades as a not-at-all serious early 19th century espionage-themed version of the same, but I realize most people will not have heard of it.

Consider how boring these shows would be, however, if the only crime they ever did was bank robbery. It's the variety of missions and situations that keeps the model interesting.

It just occurs to me that we haven't mentioned the best live action TV depictions of a more general (than just delving) fantasy RPG campaign: Hercules and Xena. Would that work, Q?


Edit to add: Speaking from experience (I wrote a chapter of the original Serenity RPG), Firefly is a textbook example of why "show, don't tell" is great for visual media, but extremely difficult to translate into a gameable setting.