Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-22-2013, 09:52 AM   #11
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Creating a MOSSAD Agent in GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post

I didn't even mean abstracting all of it. But it's the sort of adventury profession where the whole skill set should be found in the 200 or so Basic Set skills.
Paperwork would fall under Administration, estimates under Intelligence Analysis, Smuggling for dead drops etc. It's just like having ElOps (Comms) means you can handle Morse Code without spending extra points on Morse.
All of that is quite true. Nothing that an intelligence officer does strictly calls for a new skill. However, there's a difference between a trainee and an experienced veteran. A Professional Skill that offers limited skill applications in the vein of Soldier is often a precursor to detailed training in more complex applications, and thus is a useful thing to teach new trainees.

For instance, if you had to teach every new officer full-on Acting, Administration, Filch, Holdout, Observation, Photography, Pickpocket, Research, Search, Shadowing, Smuggling, Stealth, and three kinds of Electronics Operation, the training would last forever. Instead, you start them off with Professional Skill (Tradecraft) and stipulate that it only works for the specific tasks relevant to being a spy, and only when those tasks would use the proper skill at +4 or better. Thus, where a fully trained person would roll, say, Administration+4 to fill out a report or EO (Surveillance)+4 to drop a prepared listening device on a table, a new operator would roll against the PS . . . but he wouldn't be able to run a company with Administration or install an inline wire tap with EO.

Of course, as with Soldier, once the newbie is fully trained, that skill will hang around on his character sheet unless the GM lets him roll the points over. And it would be fine to do that! However, the PS is still useful for the countless tiny tasks that don't rate a distinct skill. These amount to DX, IQ, HT, Will, or Per rolls often required on the job, and this skill makes it possible to get better at those things without raising an attribute. Thus, just as Soldier is a good estimate of average troop quality (meaning that it establishes the floor for basic military maneuvering), a PS like the one proposed would be a fair way to gauge an intelligence service's mean quality (that is, it evaulates the weakest link in a large-scale operation).
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2013, 01:58 PM   #12
Bandii
 
Bandii's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Creating a MOSSAD Agent in GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by Walrus View Post
Well, GURPS Action contains great suggestsions about nearly any High-Tech action or close genre and has explicit templates and lenses for sercet service employees.

Though, as any sercet service it consists nearly entirely of Investigators and Wire Rats, with only 3 groups of 12 people forming "black-ops" division.
So, you should decide which departement your agent goes from.

Pretty cinematic Investigator from Mossad might look like this:

[writeup snipped]

If you want more realistic one, decrease IQ and DX to 12 at least.
===================
Afters some accounting I see that template contains too many IQ skills, so IQ can be raised by 1 and those skills lowered. Just usual optimization which save many skills. Or replace some of IQ with some Talent, maybe Natural Copper or even Super-Spy (though the latter is more cinematic).
Wow. Thank you for this. Very thorough.

-Mike
__________________
Michael R. Smith (lastfreehuman@gmail.com)
GURPS Traveller: Shanghai Stars Twitter (twitter.com/Shanghai_Stars)
GURPS Traveller: Shanghai Stars Livejournal (lastfreehuman.livejournal.com/)
Bandii is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2013, 01:59 PM   #13
Bandii
 
Bandii's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Creating a MOSSAD Agent in GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Krav Maga is on Martial Arts page 183. I imagine their firearms training is fairly well modeled by Assaulter with Modern Pistol elements on Tactical Shooting page 47 and 48.
Thanks for the page numbers.

-Mike
__________________
Michael R. Smith (lastfreehuman@gmail.com)
GURPS Traveller: Shanghai Stars Twitter (twitter.com/Shanghai_Stars)
GURPS Traveller: Shanghai Stars Livejournal (lastfreehuman.livejournal.com/)
Bandii is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2013, 02:00 PM   #14
Bandii
 
Bandii's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Creating a MOSSAD Agent in GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
In the usual nomenaclature, a Mossad 'agent' is a foreign national who provides the Mossad with intelligence or otherwise acts on their behalf. An Israeli employee the Collection Department of the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations would be an 'intelligence officer'.

I assume that you wanted assistance in statting such an individual, rather than an Arab or other foreign national who reported to a Mossad handler?

While there are former and even current commandos under the auspices of the Mossad, most intelligence officers will be unarmed or armed with a pistol for self-defence, at most. Modern Pistol, from Tactical Shooting, would be much more common than Assaulter. Many officers would merely have enough skill in Pistol, Knife/Shortsword (whichever is used for the short stick), Brawling and Wrestling (likely 1 points in each) to pass a qualification test and hope that they never have to rely on any of them.

In my campaign, I use a Professional Skill: Intelligence Officer to reflect knowledge of tradecraft, operation of standard equipment and other necessary job-skills of a spy. Analoguous to Soldier or Law Enforcement skills. There are also a lot of other necessary skills; for the 'standard' image of an intelligence officer these include Observation, Shadowing, Body Language, Detect Lie, Fast Talk, Diplomacy and Area Knowledge. Many others will also be necessary, depending on speciality and assignment.
You are correct, I was using "agent" in the generic rather than the specific.

Thanks,

-Mike
__________________
Michael R. Smith (lastfreehuman@gmail.com)
GURPS Traveller: Shanghai Stars Twitter (twitter.com/Shanghai_Stars)
GURPS Traveller: Shanghai Stars Livejournal (lastfreehuman.livejournal.com/)
Bandii is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
covert ops

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:47 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.