RPG Review: Top Secret: New World Order

One of my favorite fiction genres is psy fiction. I grew up watching reruns of the Mission: Impossible TV show, and once spent a whole week binging every single James Bond film. I’ve even got my own Spy RPG, Pointman Hacker Thief, available at DriveThruRPG.  I’ve gotta say though, I’m really, really impressed with Top Secret: New World Order. Top Secret: NWO is an espionage RPG from TSR by Merle M. Rasmussen. Set in the dangerous and chaotic world of espionage, players will act as agents of ICON, the International Clandestine Operations Network.

The mechanics of the game are simple and straightforward, allowing you to quickly dive right into the game.

Pretty much anyone familiar with RPGs will understand attributes. Here, you have Nerve, Suave, Pulse, Intellect and Reflex. These will each be a die type, from a d4 to a d12. If your character’s background comes into play for a roll, you will roll your attribute twice and choose the better number.

Your tradecraft is how you’ve trained in different aspects of the work of espionage. Here you have HUMINT (Human Intelligence), SIGINT (Signals Intelligence), TECH, and COMBAT. Each of these also has a die type.

Any skills you have are related to these tradecrafts. If you are have a specialized skill that applies, you will increase your tradecraft by one die size for the roll.

Assets are equipment, and assistance from other characters. These will provide additional dice when they apply.

When you make a roll, adding your attribute die, tradecraft die, as well as any assets they have. You will need to meet or beat a 13 to succeed. Pretty straightforward. When a player rolls the max number on their attribute die, the die explodes, allowing them to roll again. A roll of 1 on the attribute leads to a blowback, which can cause a setback in the game. It doesn’t mean that they fail, but it does mean that things get complicated. Whenever a blowback happens, the GM, or Administrator, puts a mark on the tension track. For every three marks, the dificulty rises. The players will now have to roll a 14 to succeed. That number will continue to go higher, making the tasks harder and harder as the agents to progress.

In combat, players will have a number of action points equal to your Reflex die. Every action costs a number of action dice, from firing a gun, to melee, to running. If an action costs more than the character has AP for, they complete the task, just at the very end of the turn. Spending time to aim your gun may keep you from moving, so you may decide instad to fire off a snap shot in order to make it into cover in time.

The game has multiple subrules for all the different types of things your characters will do, including interrogation, hacking, surveillance, and most importantly, car chases.

The Administrator will determine the distance between the cars in the chase, and characters will make opposed rolls in order to close the gap. Hazards may spring up, characters will perform high speed maneuvers, and the agents will struggle to keep a handle on their vehicles while pursuing or fleeing.

The boxed set contains a bunch of other great items. The Administrator screen contains a bunch of useful information you’ll need in play, as well as the Tension Track so that both the Administrator and Agents can watch it rise. A stack of character sheets will cover you for a long time. There are tokens to represent your agents, car and motorcycles so that you can track chases, and various hazards for you to avoid. There are character cheat sheets that give you some important rules to remember, as well as your attributes and tradecraft dice.

In addition, there is an adventure, The White Queen. I don’t want to spoil it, but will take the players to Latvia where they have to recover a scientist before an opposing team gets to them. The adventure is very well laid out and straightforward, with nice detailed maps on the inside covers of the booklet.

This is a really fantastic boxed set. It has everything you need to play for a one-shot or a whole campaign. I look forward to getting this out onto the table. I’ve got all kinds of cool missions rolling around in my head right now, imagining the possibilities.

You can download TS: NWO for free at DriveThruRPG, as well as The White Queen mission. The boxed set can be purchased at a wide variety of locations, but I really like Noble Knight Games.

The boxed set was sent to Dice Monkey by TSR for review. 

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