The RPG Character Library: Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes

Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes is a game that bills itself on being an adventure game in which you can play the three eponymous things from the title, as well as pretty much any other "modern day" type of character. Happily, it also dips its toes into the pulp pool, giving rules on making characters with psychic powers and providing a whole section on running a Lost World campaign. Including stats for dinosaurs! Pretty spiffy!

MSPE, as the game is more acronymically known, is based on the rules for Tunnels & Trolls. It eschews T&T's 5-gallon-bucket-of-d6s rolling mechanic in favor of a much easier, more straightforward one based off of it's primogenitor's saving roll mechanic. Briefly: Roll 2d6, if you get doubles, roll again and add, add the total to one of your stats, meet or beat that number on a chart to succeed. MSPE, unlike T&T, also has an extensive skills system, it's entirely possible this is where T&T got its Specialties rules for future incarnations of itself.

The mechanics of this game are also going to be super familiar to anyone who is old enough or retro enough to have played the old Wasteland computer game, as the skill mechanics are pretty much a direct port.

Character creation starts off nice and familiar. You get a list of attributes. You roll 3d6 for each. You place them in order. MSPE uses T&T's TARO rule (Triples Add and Roll Over) with a modification. If you get a triple on an attribute (three fours, for instance), you get to roll two additional dice and add that to the base total. Thus, the possible maximum for attributes is 30--big enough that truly exceptional characters are possible, but with a much lower ceiling than T&T or Power Trip.

Once again, no idea what I'm going to make. I'm just going to roll. Let's see now...Strength 8...Luck 6...Uh...Intelligence 14, that's good...Dexterity 11...Constitution 10...Charisma 18!

Wait! 18 is three sixes! I rolled a triple! I get to roll two more dice. Holy meatballs! My character's Charisma is 27! I don't think I've ever played anyone as drop-dead sexy as this person before in my life.

Oh, and Speed 9.

I calculate my derived attributes and discover that I am not going to be doing very much in the way of fighting. You get +1 to your adds for every point of St, Lk, and Dex over 12...and -1 for every point below 9. This gives me a total of -4 adds. My missile combat adds are based solely off my Luck, so I get a -3 there. Definitely lover material, this person!

I get 3d6x100 starting cash. The problem in this game isn't that I don't have enough money to buy things, it's that I don't have enough things to buy. There are extensive (like, Palladium-level extensive) lists of various types of weapons, but not much in the way of general equipment. I do get to purchase a sword cane, though! And I also buy a leather jacket to give myself a nominal amount of protection.

When it comes to the game, it seems like Intelligence (IQ) is the most important attribute. You get a number of skill points equal to your IQ and all skills are rated based on IQ. Thus, if I had an IQ of 8, I couldn't buy any skills that had a prerequisite of IQ 9 or higher. This means that you won't have any dullards that are PhD candidates or doctors, but it can also be severely limiting as far as making characters goes. There also doesn't seem to be any real way to improve your IQ during the game to get more skills, though there's a lengthy paragraph about how you can lose IQ (and skills) from brain damage.

You can buy multiple ranks in a skill. According to the book, the cost doubles each time. The book then lists this cost as 1,3,7, which I don't think quite maths right, but I get what they're saying. When you make a save roll where a skill comes into play, you get to add your skill rank to your total. Interestingly, this game explicitly states that skills are not tied to attributes. What this means is that you could use your knowledge of guns to be better at firing guns, to do forensic analysis of ballistics, to build your own gun, or similar.

That's just the sort of thing I like in my spy adventure games!

I whipped through the skills section and bought all of the Charisma-heavy skills first. Then I went back and grabbed a few other skills to round out the character and make him more interesting. I think he's a brilliant, very handsome, persuasive, Italian gentleman who was recruited to some agency or another for his interpersonal skills. I bought no fighting skills and am hoping on his glib tongue and quick wits to save him.

What a shock, it's another Geoff Bottone character...

Paulo Navino, Handsome Gentleman

Attributes

Strength	8	Level	1
Luck	6	Gender	Male
Intelligence	14	Nationality	Spanish
Dexterity	11	Race	Iberian/N African
Constitution	10	Age	35
Charisma	27(!)	Height/Weight	5’10”/190 lb
Speed	9	Money	$610

Skills

Combat	Melee Adds -4
	Ranged Adds -3
IQ 4	Horsemanship 1
IQ 8	Chic 1
	Fast Driving 1
IQ 10	Bureaucracy Mastery 1
	Confidence 1
	Diplomacy 1
	Elocution 1
	Gambling 1
	Seduction 1
IQ 12	Disguise 1
	Master’s Degree 1
	Observation 1
IQ 13	English (Free)
	Castilian Spanish 1
IQ 14	Psychiatrist

Equipment

Sword Cane $90, 3 dice

Leather Jacket $100, absorbs 1 die of damage from each attack.

The RPG Character Library: Gangbusters

Gangbusters is a game from TSR that is set in the Roaring Twenties in Chicago Lakefront City, USA! You can play cops, private investigators, gangsters, and intrepid reporters. Will you be on the side of law and order, or will you be a bootlegger or a cop on the take? You decide.

This is a game that I have always wanted to play, in part because the time period fascinates me, and in part because I have big old nostalgia goggles for this game thanks to my friend Kevin. He and his brother used to play the game when they were kids and Kevin kept careful notes about their adventures. He would regale me with tales of bank shootouts, smokey gin joints, and of the one time his gangster died in a 40 mph car chase on the mean streets of the city.

ME:  It feels like you'd have to create a really good city map in order to play this game.
KEVIN:  Or you could just use a map of Chicago?
ME:  Oh yeah!

I have the first and third edition rule books of this game, but wound up using the third edition rules to create my character. The system is similar to the one used in Top Secret. Well, let me take that back--the dice mechanics are identical, but the names of the stats and how you configure your secondary stats are totally different. 

Gangbusters has an interesting method of skill selection which is vaguely reminiscent of, but not identical to, Top Secret. You get all general skills at 20%. At first level, you get to pick a low-cost skill and roll to see how good it is (I lucked out with Fingerprinting at 92%). As you go up in level, you gain points that you can use to improve skills that you already have or buy new skills. Quick and simple!

I was ready to roll up a gangster character, but decided at the last minute that I wanted to be a private investigator, instead. Something-something Geoff always winds up playing mostly good guys so he can sleep better at night.

Characters start off with $50 in pocket money, an upkeep cost (which must be paid weekly) that covers food and housing and similar, and some clothes. Private investigators must spend money to buy their license, and that license costs exactly $50, so I start the game with no money. Thematically appropriate!

As with most of the games of this period, all stats and skills must be randomly rolled. In a way, I kind of hate this, because if I don't roll well, I can't make the character that I want to make. On the other hand, I kind of like this, because my writer brain tries to make logical sense of the rolls that I've made. As a result, I have an idea that my character was a lab guy who worked for the Lakefront City PD, until he got wind of just how corrupt the force was. He then quit his job to become a PI and clean up the streets.

Yeah, that's the ticket. 

Name	Haroldo Navidad	Alias/Nickname	Harry Christmas
Profession	Private Investigator	Salary	Highly Variable
Level/XP	1/0	HP	18
Muscle	67	Luck	23
Agility	56	Driving	66
Observation	76	Punching	4
Presence	9

Skills

Fingerprinting: 92%

General Skills: 20%

Vital Statistics

Height: 5’9”

Weight: 180 lbs

Age: 25

Features, Marks, and Scars:  Handsome, heterochromia (green eye, blue eye), badly set nose

Ethnicity: Spanish

Equipment

Cash: $0

Two suits of clothes

Any items normally obtained from employer

Investigator license ($50)

Basic expenses: $20 per week.