CIA Special Activities Division PMO Skill Set

[Kromm]

Special-ops units and highly trained field elements of intelligence services are remarkably capable. Nobody would doubt that! However, it's important to bear in mind that the "official word" about such a unit – its mission statement, the decree that authorizes its creation, what former members are allowed to talk about, etc. – always portrays a best-case scenario. If the world hears about a bunch of armed men who arrive and depart in the dark, accomplishing a mission that requires skills A, B, and C, and technical means X, Y, and Z, are you going to say (1) that teams have individual specialists in A, B, and C, and that there are some teams with X, others with Y, and a few with Z, or (2) that every man-jack can do A, B, and C, and that every team has X, Y, and Z on-deck 24/7? Since nobody can prove you wrong thanks to the inevitable secrecy surrounding such people and their operations, you're going to say (2) every time, because that conceals actual capabilities and intimidates would-be enemies of the state.

This kind of best-case-scenario skill set is propaganda, however. It isn't good for a single, realistic template. I have a lot of experience with template creation, and I would say that a template that offers a choice of packages that collectively give the whole team the officially claimed capabilities is a more realistic approach. Rather than create a 500-point template which consists of a 250-point core with 250 points of special skills, create a 200-point template with a range of six to eight 50-point skill sets, and require the players to pick one or two of those sets per character. If every PC will be a member of such a team, insist that they collectively cover the entire range . . . and perhaps even restrict some selections to just one person per team.