Spycraft 3 - What Classes? [Was 'Scientist?']

[Regularguy]

I don't get you.

When you get down to it, what you're objecting to here is the potential the system has for great difficulty. Why are you objecting to the mere possibility of a serious challenge to the players?

I hope there's a constant drumbeat to the opposite effect in my posts: I was perfectly happy with a specialty getting owned by an NPC who is as "as good as a PC who specializes in it," later emphasized the idea of whipping up an enemy agent by thinking "he'd be great at that specialty if I built him with a PC class" -- and, when told that such an opponent still wouldn't have the edge versus a team of PCs with action dice of their own and special status, suggested a way to challenge such a team: "If you want an equal match-up, then pit 'em against three or four NPCs who get some action dice of their own and qualify for special status".

I'm fine with the possibility of a serious challenge; it's the other side that objects to the mere possibility of PCs ever getting as good as top NPCs.

[Agent 333]

Perhaps it's the context that's fuzzing with you Regularguy. Would you object to a Dragon being able to own significantly challenge a whole party of the same level? Or perhaps a demon lord or some such? Now, instead of a monsterous shape, lets pretend this is just a really really well trained guy, borderline super soldier. Why doesn't the Agency just recruit guys like him? Because they tried, and failed. People of his caliber have just too big of an ego to want to save the world. They want to rule and/or destroy it. That's why they're bad guys.

Now, if you're the GM, do you have to build NPCs this awesome? No. If you prefer a more 'realistic' fight, you can have a team of enemy NPCs, each one about as good as a single player. Or you can go the hordes of Hydra approach and have each NPC be way worse than the players, but outnumber them 5 to one. Or you can mix it up (which, I suspect, most GMs do).

Giving GMs the tools they need to challenge players anyway they like is certainly a
good thing, yes?

[Doublebond]

I don't get you.

When you get down to it, what you're objecting to here is the potential the system has for great difficulty. Why are you objecting to the mere possibility of a serious challenge to the players?

I hope there's a constant drumbeat to the opposite effect in my posts: I was perfectly happy with a specialty getting owned by an NPC who is as "as good as a PC who specializes in it," later emphasized the idea of whipping up an enemy agent by thinking "he'd be great at that specialty if I built him with a PC class" -- and, when told that such an opponent still wouldn't have the edge versus a team of PCs with action dice of their own and special status, suggested a way to challenge such a team: "If you want an equal match-up, then pit 'em against three or four NPCs who get some action dice of their own and qualify for special status".

I'm fine with the possibility of a serious challenge; it's the other side that objects to the mere possibility of PCs ever getting as good as top NPCs.

So, what? Would you have Sauron, Saruman, or The Witch King reduced to the same rough power level as any of the Fellowship? The enemies are Big Bad Evil Guys for a reason. They're threatening for a reason.

Certainly, it wouldn't make sense for the enemies of a intimate in scale campaign to have earth shattering powers that completely overpower the PCs, but if the BBEG's threatening to destroy the entire world through some means or another, it's perfectly reasonable that they're going to be better than any one PC.

Seriously. Do you think the Crafty Folks should nerf the terrasque just because it outdoes any single PC in combat?

[Regularguy]

Perhaps it's the context that's fuzzing with you Regularguy. Would you object to a Dragon being able to own significantly challenge a whole party of the same level?

No, though I'd note that good dragons typically exist as well.  Also...

Would you have Sauron, Saruman, or The Witch King reduced to the same rough power level as any of the Fellowship?

...I'd note that, er, Gandalf exists.  So even in a fantasy setting, I'm not especially seeing the argument about how "People of his caliber have just too big of an ego to want to save the world"; NPCs who'd challenge a whole party of PCs often have rough counterparts on the other side.  That said, I'd argue that it's harder to plausibly explain such a two-tier split in a Spycrafty setting, because the whole point of using "dragon" or "witch-king" as one's go-to analogy emphasizes why the PCs in those settings can't aspire to be first-string individuals -- which comes across if you're a well-trained guy facing a dragon, but loses something vital if the opponent you're squaring off against is supposed to be "just a really really well trained guy".

(After all, why does the Terrasque make for such a great counter-example?  Because you don't get to become a Terrasque by just eating right and exercising, no matter how much combat experience you've racked up in between diligently practicing your marksmanship and sparring with expert grapplers.)

I mean, what are we really out to model, here?  If the game were geared to a single adventurer doing his thing, the goal would presumably reflect how James Bond (a) is often severely challenged by a single opponent, but (b) isn't crazily out of his league in a one-on-one match-up -- and ditto for any of the other solo operatives from the fiction.  But put that aside to instead reflect all those stories where it takes a whole team of secret agents to handle one guy, and -- well, again, AFAICT it's not that a single PC would fail in a one-on-one fight; it's that the mission can't be accomplished by winning a one-on-one fight.  They did a ton of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE episodes around that idea: often it's because the Big Bad is backed up by an organized-crime syndicate or an entire country or whatever, but often it's just that beating him up and killing him won't accomplish anything since he needs to be duped as a means to an end.  Neither challenge requires a foe who can easily wipe the floor with even one IMF'er in single combat; the guy in question is, at best, a scary match for a lone top operative.

if the BBEG's threatening to destroy the entire world through some means or another, it's perfectly reasonable that they're going to be better than any one PC.

Well, no, it's not.  What kind of destroy-the-entire-world thing do folks have going for them in real life, or in the action movies and spy thrillers we're out to simulate?  It's not about having bulletproof skin and telescopic-range heat vision by dint of getting rocketed here from the doomed planet Krypton; it's about having entirely human skills and toughness plus a really impressive arsenal of nuclear weapons, or possibly just a league of assassins but probably some cool stuff involving biological warfare, or whatever.  It's about being a head of state or running a terrorist organization or something while maybe being able to personally go a few rounds with a heroic kickboxer, if you ever did, which you don't.

[mathey]

Scaling and parity in gaming terms doesn't always map to sources from a given genre you're looking to emulate.

There's nothing particularly fair or balanced about Sauron relative to the rest of the characters in his particular story. There's also no indication that Blofeld can hold his own in a fist fight or shoot out with Bond; he's management, not security. And then there's the whole Batman/Superman divide, where two iconic characters are clearly treated as equals despite the fact one can be shot and killed by a street thug and the other can withstand a nuke.

If we want to stick to SpyCraft genre territory, though, the distinctions may be finer. Oddjob probably couldn't take multiple sniper rounds to the face, for example, but then again not a damn thing Bond does with his hands stops him - not until 007 improvises with an electrical cable, anyways. And what is that ability in tiered, stratified game terms? How does one scale "resourcefulness" or "luck"? Action Die pools? GM leverage? Player ingenuity? Critical Hit? Did Oddjob just run out of Vitality? And if so, would another punch done the job just as well?

The other important distinction worth considering, which has been mentioned a few times; tabletop gaming groups tend to feature more than one protagonist. This team of PCs may face numerous or singular foes, but the GM is typically expected to provide a situation that does more than just annoy them or, in the other extreme, kill them outright. Do you make your Mastermind a physical threat in addition to him having access to wealth, brains, and henchmen? How much is that stuff worth? What skills cover them? Was Oddjob a fair antagonist for Bond's "player"?

Consider this; 007 is your PC, and every time you hit this NPC in combat, he just smiles blandly at you. You throw his deadly razor-edged bowler back at him - and the fucker DUCKS! Nothing you do is working. What do you think of your GM for concocting this monster and having him try to kill you? Is he being "fair"? And, to flip it around, if you're the GM and the Bond PC(s) decide they're tired of hearing Ernst Stavros Blofeld explain his master plan and just gun him down with a half dozen assault rifles - where does that leave your game? Are they going to be satisfied? Did you do something WRONG by not making him bulletproof?

[Agent 333]

And if you want to run your games that way, that's fine (actually, I'm assuming that's the default option). The thing is, some of us want the toolkit to be able to do those other things. Is that a bad thing?

[Sletchman]

Regularguy - Keep in mind it's a tool kit.  If the NPC rules don't have the ability to seriously challenge players how can someone run a scenario with legitimate chemical monsters like the Hulk or Mr Hyde?  We aren't talking about every single minion being able to out-everything the PCs.  We're talking about the ability to scale enemies to be incredible, not having them at default.  Not to mention that if you look at the NPC skill section of FC a focused, carefully built PC will be able to outdo an NPC with grade X anyway, so it's not like NPCs become unapproachable, in terms of skill.

I think you are worried about something that isn't actually a problem.  The game will not force you to have NPCs that are better then your players are, or can become.

I'm fine with the possibility of a serious challenge; it's the other side that objects to the mere possibility of PCs ever getting as good as top NPCs.

Consider - the guy the PCs are fighting has more experience then they do (Veteran quality), and has had longer to hone his skills.  The PCs will eventually be better then he is (level up, take some skill feats), but they aren't right now.

[pawsplay]

This is apples and oranges, folks. The PC and NPC systems are constructed on different foundations for a reason. The reality is that while one GM might find throwing several NPCs at the team a reasonable solution, another GM might not desire that solution, or it might not serve the needs of his world or story.

We have to make sure that both options are viable, which means that the highest end of the NPC system MUST be able to produce a single NPC that's challenging to an entire party of PCs.

If that sort of NPC is -- and, indeed, MUST be -- a viable option, then why isn't my agency doing their best with agents like that?  The other side is apparently fielding NPC operatives who can each match an entire party of PCs; why is our side wasting time with guys who can't even aspire to be the best of the best?

That's not really how it works. An NPC has a Threat Level, but we don't really know what "character level" he is. The PCs may have the capability to equal and even exceed an exceptional NPC; however, in a scenario where the NPC is given grade X, only a specialized PC is going to match them. Also, a higher bonus does not mean the NPC is necessarily "better," only that they are more likely to succeed.

Consider: Spider-Man must have a higher Intelligence than most scientists. They are probably often "smarter," but since he pretty much has to make some longshot checks, whereas real scientists are quite fallible, he needs a higher score. Considering how abstract the concept of "level" is, it is only a similar shift in reference to consider NPC skill bonuses equally abstract. Only traits with observable measures, like Speed and lifting ability, are strongly beholden to realism. Consider: who has the higher karate skill, Daniel or the star student of the Cobra Dojo? -- What was the likelihood Daniel would actually lose that one?

[Regularguy]

If we want to stick to SpyCraft genre territory, though, the distinctions may be finer. Oddjob probably couldn't take multiple sniper rounds to the face, for example, but then again not a damn thing Bond does with his hands stops him

Well, yeah.  Oddjob is specialized to be a combat monster (he presumably can't match Bond if you need crazy stuff on skis or in a speedboat, could never play for time by bluffing the mastermind holding him captive for to then seduce the woman holding him captive, and probably doesn't excel at playing baccarat or being a mountain-climber or whatever).  Also, he's specialized as a combat monster (he presumably can't match Bond at, say, pistol marksmanship).  He's put everything he's got into his exceedingly limited specialty -- and I'd think you could build a heroic PC who'd be just as specialized, if you wanted to, which you probably don't.

not until 007 improvises with an electrical cable, anyways. And what is that ability in tiered, stratified game terms? How does one scale "resourcefulness" or "luck"? Action Die pools? GM leverage? Player ingenuity? Critical Hit?

If we're being brutally honest, I'd imagine the GM intended it as a puzzle to reward perceptiveness, and did likewise when Bond faced Jaws in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME: "Okay, you're once again facing a big scary guy who'd mangle you in a straight fistfight; this one can even catch a bullet in his metal teeth."  "I, uh, look around for some electrical equipment I can operate for the win."  (See also LIVE AND LET DIE: "Well, the big guy you're grappling with apparently has a bionic arm, which is probably why he's manhandling you."  "So it's a piece of equipment, eh?  I have a skill that lets me disable equipment!")  Here, it was maybe: "This guy is shrugging off your best attacks so casually that he's now unconcernedly turned his back and is leisurely walking over to the metal hat stuck in the linked metal bars."  "I, uh, look around for some electrical equipment I can use for the win."  "Just like you did in the previous adventure, when you'd knocked that guy into the bathtub and he started going for a gun?"  "Yes.  YES!  Is there anything like that?"

Bond probably works the hell out of a specialized feat or class ability in that regard.  MacGyver, too.

The other important distinction worth considering, which has been mentioned a few times; tabletop gaming groups tend to feature more than one protagonist. This team of PCs may face numerous or singular foes, but the GM is typically expected to provide a situation that does more than just annoy them or, in the other extreme, kill them outright. Do you make your Mastermind a physical threat in addition to him having access to wealth, brains, and henchmen? How much is that stuff worth? What skills cover them? Was Oddjob a fair antagonist for Bond's "player"?

Oddjob probably was a fair antagonist for Bond; Goldfinger, who has wealth and brains and henchmen, was probably a fair antagonist for M.

Consider this; 007 is your PC, and every time you hit this NPC in combat, he just smiles blandly at you. You throw his deadly razor-edged bowler back at him - and the fucker DUCKS! Nothing you do is working. What do you think of your GM for concocting this monster and having him try to kill you?

I dunno.  Am I a top-level specialized combat monster, or have I spread my aptitudes around?

Is he being "fair"? And, to flip it around, if you're the GM and the Bond PC(s) decide they're tired of hearing Ernst Stavros Blofeld explain his master plan and just gun him down with a half dozen assault rifles - where does that leave your game? Are they going to be satisfied? Did you do something WRONG by not making him bulletproof?

I don't think Blofeld should be bulletproof as a matter of personal attributes.  I think -- if you're trying to simulate the movies -- that he should be bulletproof as a matter of hiding behind layers of security, with a legion of folks on hand to disarm the Bond PCs before they ever get close to (a) him, or (b) one of his lookalike Blofelds; the ideal for Blofeld is that Bond never even sees his face, but just mixes it up with combat-monster intermediaries like Red Grant.

Regularguy - Keep in mind it's a tool kit.  If the NPC rules don't have the ability to seriously challenge players how can someone run a scenario with legitimate chemical monsters like the Hulk or Mr Hyde

See, I'd rather have combat monsters top out at Red Grant -- or Oddjob, or Jaws, or Tee-Hee (or 006, or the Man With The Golden Gun, or whatever) so long as that's where the PCs top out.  But, yeah, if you want the Hulk, then, sure, we're back to "Terrasque", I guess.

[Nepenthe]

The problem with your reasoning is that most movies carry a single protagonist, while an RPG should (ideally, I know some people do it mano-a-mano) have several. The matching should be even, but I think it's better design to sometimes have a single foe able to challenge the party than to force them into facing teams every time.

Maybe you've factored this into your argument, but in the end, it IS a toolkit, and the more options it allows, in this case, for NPCs to actually be more powerful than individual PCs, it won't be robbing you of anything.

[Number Three]

As an outside observer of this conversation, I can't tell whether both sides are even arguing about the same subject anymore.

[mathey]

He's put everything he's got into his exceedingly limited specialty -- and I'd think you could build a heroic PC who'd be just as specialized, if you wanted to, which you probably don't.

I think this is where I find a distinction between what we would need to know, statistically and gameplay wise, about Oddjob, and what we know in a similar fashion about Bond - again, assuming there's a direct translation of the movie to SpyCraft 3.0.

Oddjob is a great Henchman. He's got a unique look, a signature killing move, and that specialty of being Really Tough. If we're the GM concocting this character, I personally don't know that we'd want or need to know much more than that. He doesn't have any other purpose than being a physical threat to our solo PC on behalf of his boss, the Mastermind Goldfinger. He isn't going to challenge Bond to that jet ski chase or try and assassinate M or seduce Moneypenny; he's just gonna try and kill Bond with his hands (or hat) to keep him from foiling Goldfinger's plot. As such, he's probably going to need the basic defensive stats we use to determine if PCs hit or not and if they kill him, and we'll need to give him some offensive options to determine the same against them. We might also mock up a basic writeup for how that nifty bowler works. In structuring him to be Really Tough, we may try to give him a whole lotta Vitality, Wound Points, or some special quality that simply replicates him being very resistant to physical assault. Since he's just ONE of the NPC antagonists we've got to tinker with, I think we also want this process to be fairly quick and simple so we can knock out more of them without a lot of work.

On the flip side, Bond is our Player Character. He's our protagonist and serves an entirely different purpose than Oddjob; he drives the story by his player making decisions. We're going to complicate things and create drama by providing him with challenges, some of which are physical, some mental, and some social; as such he's got to be fairly versatile and well defined. We'd also like it if he survives, but we don't want him to breeze through every challenge we've prepared. We provide the Player with what we feel are balanced Origin options and Classes, and the Player selects assorted abilities that match his vision of what James Bond is about. From the Player's standpoint, since 007 is his only character and the one he intends to play in multiple adventures of our theoretical SpyCraft campaign, he's going to want this guy to have more personality than Oddjob, something that can be aided by roleplaying hooks like Interests and Subplots. We also scale the game to this PC, not the other way around - even though we're titling our adventure "Goldfinger", Auric isn't our feature attraction...this oversexed British secret agent the Player concocted is.

If we're being brutally honest, I'd imagine the GM intended it as a puzzle to reward perceptiveness...

Bond probably works the hell out of a specialized feat or class ability in that regard.  MacGyver, too.

I'd say most action movie heroes could theoretically have something like this. Being able to find just the right prop at just the right moment is really, really common in the ranks of adventure protagonist lore. Obviously, how they go about it could vary; MacGyver probably wouldn't kill Oddjob, and his contraption would likely be more involved, but the end result might be similar - Oddjob outmatches him physically, but quick thinking lets Mac slap together a...er...improvised taser from a staple gun, cables, and gum and incapacitate the Korean bruiser.

As a GM, I can see myself letting a player use a Skill check or some variant of a combat Action to try and do this, but I also might suggest that a bit of hinting or narrative editing from Action Dice wouldn't be inappropriate. Those Action Dice are there to let the PC "cheat" a bit, after all, and the fact I award them to him for being creative means that this sort of thing is encouraged. Then again, maybe my Player is Just That Awesome and concocts this whole thing off the top of his head on the fly.

Oddjob probably was a fair antagonist for Bond; Goldfinger, who has wealth and brains and henchmen, was probably a fair antagonist for M.

I like the way you put this, but while Bond is obviously M's literal agent, M isn't in the field and joining Bond in this particular adventure. I probably wouldn't have stats for M, either, but that's just my bias speaking. If we really wanted to make him a character, however, I feel he'd be similar to Oddjob in that we only really need to know how he functions relative to our PC; if Bond gets up halfway through our opening briefing and starts jump kicking his boss in the face, we've got bigger issues than balance.  

I dunno.  Am I a top-level specialized combat monster, or have I spread my aptitudes around?

I'd argue that even if the case was the former, we'd want Oddjob to be a Hella Tough. If we substitute James Bond with, say, John Rambo or Bruce Lee's character from Enter the Dragon, I think there's a much higher chance Oddjob would go down due to bullets, kicks, or improvised weapon, but it'd still be best if it was just as dramatic and stunty. If Bond is being joined by John Rambo and Bruce Lee, then Oddjob's going to either need yet further stat amping or some other edge in the scene to keep it from not living up to its dramatic potential.  

I don't think Blofeld should be bulletproof as a matter of personal attributes.  I think -- if you're trying to simulate the movies -- that he should be bulletproof as a matter of hiding behind layers of security, with a legion of folks on hand to disarm the Bond PCs before they ever get close to (a) him, or (b) one of his lookalike Blofelds; the ideal for Blofeld is that Bond never even sees his face, but just mixes it up with combat-monster intermediaries like Red Grant.

Yeah, I liked Blofeld best when he was an enigma pulling the strings.

But as far as him being bulletproof in terms of "Blofeld has Immunity to Bullets" as opposed to "Blofeld is really well supported and hard to get to", I agree that the latter is preferable. Thing is, though, that stuff isn't necessarily covered by statistics in ANY character option, PC or NPC. Its mostly down to the GM and the confines of his adventure.

I suppose you might be able to really slather on some Organization and Resources/Wealth jazz, but I honestly don't know that it serves anybody's purposes. I would want to know Blofeld's basic SpyCraft stats provided there's a chance the PCs could confront him eye-to-eye - Players are always finding ways to surprise us GMs after all - but I think I'd only concern myself with one or two Feats and some specified Skill bonuses outside of Competence. His Mastermind quality should help me take care of improbable escapes with Action Dice, provided I even feel like being fair with my players about that.

I should note here that I think NPCs with more than two Feats and a couple of NPC Qualities are a royal pain to run, at least in past versions of SpyCraft; they get a bit page-flippy for my taste, but that's just me. If GMs could get all their NPC abilities summarized in one stat block in 3.0 so we didn't have to consult or copy other sections of the rulebook, I'd be quite happy.

EDIT: I also think we could take this discussion to a new thread if people feel this is really far afield of the Classes in SpyCraft 3.0 (which is probably is at this point).

[Nepenthe]

As an outside observer of this conversation, I can't tell whether both sides are even arguing about the same subject anymore.

That generally stops when I become involved, so probably no.

[Desertpuma]

I forgot who said it but Blofeld started out being able to handle Bond on his own. Check out On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Bond and Blofeld get tangled up quite a bit. It is in subsequent films that Blofeld is in the wheelchair and he eventually dies while in a wheelchair at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only.