Torn Victor [Recruitment]

[TheOneRonin]

Greetings all.

I'm looking at starting a Modern Espionage/Action game set in our current time/TL (circa 2016).

The characters will be a team of Paramilitary Officers from the US CIA Special Activities Division with diverse cultural and technical backgrounds.

They will be tasked will hunting down and dismantling terrorist organizations across the globe, and will have the training, capabilities, equipment, and support to do so.

I'm shooting for a fairly realistic game, but I will be using several cinematic switches, especially for melee combat.

The actual characters will be very high point value agents with 15+ years of military and/or intelligence work with varied backgrounds, language skills, and cultural familiarities.

Here are the links to posts with the templates and lenses for the game:

Base Template

Advantages and Disadvantages

Career Lenses

Optional Specialties

Languages and Cultural Familiarities

If you are familiar with Kromm's Secret Agent campaign, you'll have an idea of how I'm going to approach character creation.

My primary focus is going to be action, stealth, and espionage. I hope to make this a fast moving and exciting game with lots of challenges, but also a lot of opportunities for the characters to really flex their muscles.

My plan is to limit it to 4 - 5 active players at any given time. If there is more interest than that, I will pick the players by whomever brings the most interesting and genre-fitting character description to the table. If you submit a character idea and don't make it into the game, I'll make sure you are on the back-up list in the event that someone drops.

I'll be making extensive use of High Tech, Martial Arts, Tactical Shooting, and Technical Grappling, so make sure you are familiar with the rules in those books.

My plan is to run this as a complete single mission. If we all have fun and are interested in more, this can easily turn into a full campaign.

Also, feel free to use this as a Q&A thread for questions about the game. I'll post more detailed character creation rules once I get more interest.

[crretin]

What if we're not familiar with Kromm's campaign?

[ladyarcana55]

I'm not familiar with the GURPS rules, but this sounds awesome!

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by ladyarcana55

I'm not familiar with the GURPS rules, but this sounds awesome!

Are you interested in learning? I highly suggest you get the GURPS Lite PDF to get yourself familiar with the rules.

While PBP games are more forgiving than table top games when it comes to player knowledge of the system, you'll run into some significant challenges if you aren't at all familiar with GURPS rules.

Also, the character generation portion of this game is going to require access to the GURPS Basic Set, and will greatly benefit from Martial Arts, Tactical Shooting, and Technical Grappling.

Having said all that, I am 100% okay with hosting people who are brand new to GURPS, and don't mind coaching/helping out new players one bit. But you still need to start with getting at least a passing familiarity with the rules. The rest we can do as OJT.

[ladyarcana55]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Are you interested in learning? I highly suggest you get the GURPS Lite PDF to get yourself familiar with the rules.

While PBP games are more forgiving than table top games when it comes to player knowledge of the system, you'll run into some significant challenges if you aren't at all familiar with GURPS rules.

Also, the character generation portion of this game is going to require access to the GURPS Basic Set, and will greatly benefit from Martial Arts, Tactical Shooting, and Technical Grappling.

Having said all that, I am 100% okay with hosting people who are brand new to GURPS, and don't mind coaching/helping out new players one bit. But you still need to start with getting at least a passing familiarity with the rules. The rest we can do as OJT.

I'm not brand new, I'm just not as familiar as I'd like to be. Put it this way, I'm not in first grade, but I'm definitely not in eight grade. I'd consider myself in fourth grade. I have the Basic Set, so that should help.

I am thinking of playing a gadgeteer who specializes in intelligence and support. She builds things and she fixes things. She can shoot and defend herself, but her forte is support.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by ladyarcana55

I'm not brand new, I'm just not as familiar as I'd like to be. Put it this way, I'm not in first grade, but I'm definitely not in eight grade. I'd consider myself in fourth grade. I have the Basic Set, so that should help.

Oh, that should be plenty good enough! Still, the other books I mentioned are good supplements, and are worth picking up. You should be able to manage with the Basic Set, though.

I am thinking of playing a gadgeteer who specializes in intelligence and support. She builds things and she fixes things. She can shoot and defend herself, but her forte is support.

That sounds like a good concept. Keep in mind, there is a template that everyone will use, and the entire team is going to be VERY capable in combat.

Right now the base template has DX 13, Combat Reflexes, Guns (Rifle) DX+3, Karate&Judo at DX+1, and some combat techniques and perks as part of the base build.

These are capabilities that people completing the CIA SAD training pipeline will have, regardless of their specialty.

Take a look at the Wiki page for the CIA Special Activities Division. That should help you get a good idea of the backgrounds and capabilities you can expect from the members of SAD.

To add to that, this particular team is going to be specially selected agents for their skills and backgrounds, so they will be above and beyond the average SAD Officers. So even your tech expert should be able to clear a room and Mozambique Drill a tango.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by crretin

What if we're not familiar with Kromm's campaign?

No worries. Once I get a bit more interest, I'll post the templates and character creation guidelines in this thread.

What I'm looking for now is more concepts and ideas, rather than builds.

A majority of the points budget is going to go into the base template, like DF, and then there will be a pool of additional points to purchase new abilities/skills or improve current ones.

If you have 4e SEALs in Vietnam or 3e Special Ops, the templates in there should give you a good idea of where you'll be starting.

[fifiste]

So hpw much time we rpobably see in planning phases(attending social events, gathering intel, surveillance, shadowing, smooth talking, interrogation etc. ) and how much time in action. (shooting people, blowing stuff up.)

:D
I bet that anybody there will have some good combat skills but thinking on niches - will there be room for people from lets say more Action terms like wheelman, faceman, hacker etc.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by fifiste

So hpw much time we rpobably see in planning phases(attending social events, gathering intel, surveillance, shadowing, smooth talking, interrogation etc. ) and how much time in action. (shooting people, blowing stuff up.)

Speaking as a LOOOOOONG time Shadowrun GM (20+ years), I am all too familiar with how easy it is to bog down a game with excessive planning. Having said that, I'm planning on having all of the events you listed above be on the table. In most cases, the characters will be working under short timelines (in order to keep things flowing), but intel gathering will always be part of each mission.

All of the characters will be qualified CIA Core Collectors, so intel gathering is their bread and butter.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Paramilitary Operations Officers possess all the clandestine skills to collect human intelligence—and most importantly—to recruit assets from among the indigenous troops receiving their training. These officers often operate in remote locations behind enemy lines to carry out direct action (including raids and sabotage), counter-intelligence, guerrilla/ unconventional warfare, counter-terrorism, and hostage rescue missions, in addition to being able to conduct espionage via HUMINT assets.

I'm going to avoid the long-term stuff like most of the recruiting/turning assets and long-term surveillance. I'm looking to deliberately avoid anything that slows the pace of the game down.

Also, one of the bright spots of the PBP format is that it's easy to split up the team and have them do separate but concurrent things without having to spotlight one character while everyone else gets bored.

I bet that anybody there will have some good combat skills but thinking on niches - will there be room for people from lets say more Action terms like wheelman, faceman, hacker etc.

Absolutely! As much as it might be realistic, if all the characters are statistically identical, it would likely decrease significantly from everyone's enjoyment, and not be good for the narrative.

Right now, the base template contains 63 skills, but there is still plenty of room for specialization.

For example, every SAD agent gets tactical driving training, and I'm representing that with 4 points in Driving (Automobile). But a real "Wheelman" will have not only more points in Driving, but also more complementary skills like some Mechanic skills, Connoisseur (Cars), and maybe some Advantages that help out.

Likewise, everyone has First Aid, but the team medic will also have Diagnosis, Electronic Operations (Medical), some Physician, probably a few points in Veterinary (depending on background), etc.

Heck, there is no reason why the team medic can't also be the team wheelman!

There should be enough points in the budget to cover more than one specialty.

Once I start getting people posting concepts, I'll help out with character generation to make sure there aren't any gaps and that all of the real necessary specialties are covered.

[MatthewVilter]

Is it too late for me to get in on this?