Spycraft, anyone?

[Swedish Steel]

Hiya. Saw a pretty big interest in James Bond themed games, and it made me think I might just try to start a game using one of my favorite rules and settings, Spycraft and Shadowforce: Archer.

You don't need to be familiar with the setting, if you think spies and agents are sexy and exciting, and you think movies like James Bond and Mission: Impossible are cool, this might just be the game for you.

No, you don't need to learn the rules or roll any dice if you don't want to, I will handle all that. If you come up with a character, I will crunch the numbers for you.

I will go into specifics if there is enough of an interest.

[Ellyssa]

Yup, would definitely be interested, though I know nothing much about these particular settings, I think, and my repository of RPG stuff is at home anyhow. What do we need to play, or create a character, or what should we read beforehand?

[Swedish Steel]

You don't really need to read or prepare at all, at least not yet. Once we get going, I will paint the world in broad strokes, and after that you can come up with your character background, personality etc. Every member fills a certain role in each team, so you have to decide who does what. After that, I crunch some numbers and then we are set to go.

[Ellyssa]

Sounds like fun, keep me informed please. :)

[Swedish Steel]

Oh, and I should warn you, there are some overnatural stuff in Shadowforce: Archer, and the game also has a little "pulp" feel to it at times. But it's mainly a spy game. If the players decide they don't like the overntural stuff, I could try to downplay it.

[Ariabella]

Count me in, since your handling the numbers and all :)

[Swedish Steel]

Hehe, yeah, it's a nefarious plot to lure you freeformers in, you know. :)

[Ariabella]

LOL no doubt. Consider me lured.

[Hunter]

Ooo!!  OOoo!!!  Pick me!!!  Pick me!!  *wants to play*

[Swedish Steel]

I tried to put together a little text about the setting.

In 1950, 5 years after the end of the most destructive war in human history and just 2 months before communist North Korea invaded the south, 7 men and women met at the estate of one Raymond Archer to discuss the state of the world. They discussed the growing dangers to the world, with rampant technological advances and the tension of the Cold War threatening to wipe humanity from the face of the Earth. These 8 people, prominent members of the world’s Inteligence comunitys, started working on a solution. The result of their efforts was the Archer Pact, a private agreement wich clandestinely dedicated resources and people to policing and protecting the world from all potential threats, including its own governments. Having averted nuclear holocaust and equalliy deadly threats on several occasions since it’s founding over 50 years ago, without it ever becoming public knowledge, the Archer Conspiracy is all that stands between humanity and total chaos. The Conspiracy has spun it’s webb through all levels of society, and the members of the world’s goverments so far hasn’t noticed the arms of the puppet masters holding their strings from behind the scene. You are one of the Conspiracy’s many covert teams, charged with saving humanity from itself, and you have to do it without ever drawing attention to yourself. You are Shadowforce: Archer.

[Elvi]

well it looks like the famous three are off again.............and are crunchy numbers like crunchie bars all chocolate and honeycomb filling?

[Swedish Steel]

Quite. :)

[Elvi]

Oh good, because if they were like frozen mars bars, I wouldn't be interested.....too sweet....

[Swedish Steel]

We couldn't have that, now could we? :)
Pretty pleased with the response so far, almost got us a complete team. :)

[Hunter]

I was planning on doing a snoop with a level of soldier thrown in.  Combat deckerish.

[Swedish Steel]

Ok, so far we got 4 gals and one guy. We have a soldier, a snoop with some combat background, 2 fixers and a pointman. That leaves Wheelman/woman and Faceman/woman, if there are any more spies lurking around out there.

[Astalinnon]

Sign me up for wheelman... please =D

[Elvi]

YEAH!.....*cough*

[Swedish Steel]

From Elvi's reaction I take it she's quite fond of you, so how could I say no? Welcome. :)

[Elvi]

*laughs*
Ast has been away for a little while, but he is a very good player.....

[Swedish Steel]

Lovely, we can always use more of those. :)

[Swedish Steel]

Argh. I seem to have caught a net worm, and my ISP has shut me down untill I get it sorted. I am in the process of doing that now, but they tell me it can take as long as 24 hours for them to let me on again. So I might not be able to come on-line for awhile.

[Elvi]

EEEEK!
Swedish has worms!
Oh hell, it's not a new kink is it? *grins*

[Swedish Steel]

Ehm...that didn't sound very sexy at all. Better be carefull, or I'll spread them! :)

[Ellyssa]

Ew yuck. Get yourself fixed! Or the worm anyway. ;)

Elliquiy. We define new kinks!

[Elvi]

OH hell...I'm freaking myself out now just thinking on it.....
Ring worm fetish...icky....Tape worm.......OHHHHHHHHH YUKKKKKKKKKKK!

[Ellyssa]

Ewwww... *would hug, but offers soap and points Elvi to the showers first*

See, tentacles are good, but there's a fine line in the sand there!

[Elvi]

*shudders and wanders off to the shower, clutching soap*

Hell yes.....why on earth didn't he just get a virus?.......

[Swedish Steel]

Yeah, right, blame me for your nasty minds.   ;)

[Swedish Steel]

Seems like we almost got a full team, splendid. We just lack a faceman, but I might have someone to fill that role, she's thinking about it. How are your characters coming along?

[Ellyssa]

She's fixin' to snoop along.

Actually not sure yet. Depends for when your setting is laid out completely and all first.  ;D

[Hunter]

Done.  ^_^

[Swedish Steel]

Done.  ^_^

Well, it's a good start, but it was a bit short. Give me some more, like what he looks like and something about his personality.

[Hunter]

Well, it's a good start, but it was a bit short. Give me some more, like what he looks like and something about his personality.

I'll send it to you just as soon as I find it.  ^_^

[Swedish Steel]

Smashing.

[Swedish Steel]

Some more background to the world of Shadowforce: Archer.

The Archer Pact carved the world into eight shadow communities- pools of spies,soldiers, informants, specialists, political figures, criminals and others whom the Foundation periodically calls upon in times of need. Each shadow community is administered by a Chamber, or branch of Archer operations. One thing is important to notice: there are alot of redundancy in the Conspiracy. Each chamber is capable of handling the other chambers’s specialeties to a lesser degree.

The Archer Foundation is the Conspiracy’s central Chamber. It’s responsibilities are:  Global surveillance and analysis; supervision of all Chambers and direction for all missions; financing the Conspiracy. They are also supposed to be involved with some kind of super soldier/agent program, however, this is just a rumor. You are not sure if you should believe it or not, it sounds a bit unlikely.
The Foundation oversees Austrailia, New Zeeland and all surrounding water bodies.

The African Alliance oversees, just as their name implies, the African continent. This is the “youngest” Chamber, and it shows in the optemistical outlook of their agents. It’s in the AA you are most likely to find larger than life, tuxedo wearing and jetpack flying agents of James Bond’s caliber (not suggesting that the other chambers doesn’t have their fair share of those also). The AA focus their attention on special operations and agent training. Most agents of the Conspiracy has at one time or another trained at the AA’s headquarters at Comoro Islands.

The Company has one focus: enforcment. Be it military or paramilitary action, strategic reconnaissance, sabotage or propaganda, the Company get it done. The Company is deeply entrenched in the American intelligence agencies, that is it’s strength but also it’s weakness. The Company has suffered greatly from the many scandals involving the US agencies –especially the CIA- and the Chamber has come close to being discovered and destroyed on many occasions.
The Company watch over South and North America (including Canada, of course) and Greenland.

The Europen Commonwealth is almost a schizophrenic Chamber, it’s more or less two Chambers baked into one. You have the Gemeinschafft Consortium, run by a group of bankers, media moguls, commercial tsars and political analysts who is hidden behind a veil of industrial discretion and polite distance. Yes, there really are groups like the Illuminati out there.
The other part of the Chamber is the street level criminal empire run by the mysterious figure called Fade. Fade recruits his agents from the streets and prisons of Europe.
The EC is mostly involved in economic and industrial espionage and political levering and lobbying. It oversees all of Europe west of Russia, with the exception of the UK and Ireland.

The Guardians of the Whispering Knife is the Chamber that safeguards the middle east, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egypt. Not much is known about this mysterious group, or rather, you don’t know much of them, except that they excell at infiltration and wetworks.

The Pan-Asian Collective oversee the greater parts of Asia. They are responsible for the Conspiracy’s interrogation, psychological warfare, ultra hightech research and general espionage. They are famous for their deep cover sleeper agents, who can infiltrate the opposition for decades before making their move.

Room 39 can trace it’s roots back to WWII, but now it’s firmly under the control of the Conspiracy. It has two branches. Ultracorps are in charge of the Conspiracy’s counterterrorism efforts. Alongside the commandos of Ultracorps works the other half of Room 39, the Broaken Seal. Almost entirely composed of hacker rebels from Generations X and Y, the Broken Seal’s mission is one of cryptography and electronical warfare.
The Room is responsible for the UK and Ireland.

The Russian Confederation provide counterespionage, military counsel and equipment and munitions supply for the Conspiracy. Well, they do on paper at least. Embarrassingly enough, when the Iron Curtain fell in 91, the Archer Conspiracy discovered that their Russian Chamber had been just as infiltrated as the rest of the world had been by the rest of the Conspiracy. The organization responsible, P.E.R.I.L (the Project for Expansion, Retribution, Iniquity and Lies), was well prepared for Archer when the Curtain fell, and it still has the Russian Chamber firmly in it’s claws. There are now three kinds of agents in the Russian chamber, those who know something is rotten in Russia and tries to pry the chamber from P.E.R.I.L’s grasp, those who knows about the shift in power but just don’t care, and those who still think they are working for the Archer Conspiracy. A shadow war now rages across Russia, and the country has become a hotbed for hidden conflict and intrigue.

But there are even worse things than the infiltration of the Russian Confederation. In 2001, without warning, a large portion of the Archer Conspiracy’s top scientists- all members of the Research and Development department known as the Shop- broke away, forming their own, rival agency.
Why they did this is not known. They don’t seem to intend to go public or they had done so already. The Shop has no compunction about fighting and even killing their former allies, and has even left behind some nasty suprises for Conspiracy agents- from sabotaged gadgets to disloyal agents and specialists.
The Conspiracy now scrambles to replace the data lost from the Shop’s defection, and several chambers, foremost Room 39, the Archer Foundation and the Pan-Asian Collective tries to take over the Shops role as R&D deprtment for the Conspiracy. After all, what would an agent be without all her wonderfull gadgets?

[Swedish Steel]

I believe we have a facewoman, everyone. :)
As soon as I get the background stories from all of you we can move on to the next step.

[NikitaFirestar]

Facewoman? *Tilts head curiously with an innocent smile* Who and what is that?

[Ellyssa]

This is from a PM he sent:

You have the Faceman, or woman I guess, the confidence man that seduce or trick the opposition, the guy and girl that puts on all those rubber masks in Mission: Impossible.
You have the Fixer, who is an "accusition expert", she can get his hands on stuff that the team need if the team find itself without some vital piece of equipment. She is also an expert at breaking and entering, and outsmarting security systems. She's pretty stealthy.
The Pointman is pretty wellrounded, and is a perfect leader, she can enhance the other team members skills.
The Snoop is often the most intelligent of the bunch, and the one who is best at handling high tech equipment, and are often expert hackers. She can piece together seemingly trivial clues and extract usefull information.
The Soldier is pretty straightforward, she gives the team an edge if they ever need to get rough.
Last, but not least, the Wheelman (or woman) is invaluable if you ever need to make a quick getaway. If it flies, floats or has wheels, chances are that the Wheelman can handle it. She is also the one who is best suited for combat, after the Soldier.
Those are the core classes. It is possible to specialize later in the game. A Soldier, for example, might pick up some levels in Combat Medic, making her better at patching up her team mates, at the cost of not being quite as good at shooting people as a pure Soldier.

Not sure what makeup he has exactly at present, but. :)

[Swedish Steel]

Facewoman doesn't sound very good, does it? Even Faceman sounds better.
Anyway, I believe it's the position in the team you have agreed to fill, my dear Nikita. :)

[Elvi]

Yeah!
You in on this as well Nikita?
Oh the joy!

*sighs*
Trudges back to word to try and sort out this bloody character that just won't go down on paper......*sighs*

[Swedish Steel]

Yes, it's quite the cast. Plus, you outnumber the guys 5 to 2. I'm almost tempted to call you Fox Force Five. :)

[LadyFox]

I miss all the good stuff.... damn... second shift sucks!  I can't stay awake long enough to see the neat things....

And I used to play in and run Spycraft.... :'(

[NikitaFirestar]

*Chuckles* Yes, I'm in it Elvi. I'm apparently the spy one that goes out and does all the crap. Nikita of La Femme Nikita, etc...

[Swedish Steel]

I almost said I plan to have enough crap for everyone, but that just didn't sound right. What I meant was that hopefully there will be plenty for everyone to do. Everyone have more or less given me their character descriptions. The next step is to get ourselves a board, and then we can pretty much get going. Tomorrow I will be gone the whole day though, we are celebrating the comming of the spring here in Sweden and it's customary to drink yourself stupid. Depending on the severity of the hangover, I will get started on the game on monday or tuesday.

[Ellyssa]

Hehe. Enjoy. No drinking and writing. :)

[Swedish Steel]

Hehe, that's probably for the best. I've read some of the stuff I've written when I were drunk, and it's out of this world. I better not suffer you all to read it.

[Swedish Steel]

Bah. This is taking a bit longer than I expected, but I haven't given up on the game, far from it. I could probably get it going today if I really got my act together, but then I fear my professor will make me his bitch tomorrow. So it's studiyng for me tonight. Damn school!  :)

[Elvi]

*lol* Swedish, I didn't think that the education system had got that bad in your country!

[Swedish Steel]

Yes, well, they tend to frown on people that waste their time, and I think they think I've been doing alot of that lately. So I need to get my act together. Reading 162 pages tonight shouldn't be impossible, right?  :) Damn those american student literature writers, I swear they get payed based on how many words they manage to cram into their books.

[RogueJedi]

In one night?

No problem.  It's when you have to read 400 pages in a night that it becomes the problem...

[Swedish Steel]

Yeah. But I just realised that I won't find all the stuff I need in one book, so I might have to branch out. I think I might be looking at least double my first estimate. Plus, just reading it doesn't do me any good, I gotta remember it too. They seem to be damned uptight about that. *cry*

[RogueJedi]

ahh... *hugs the swede*

[Swedish Steel]

Yay. At least I got a hug out of my scholastic ineptitude.  ;)

[Elvi]

*Hugs swedish, slaps him around the head, hugs him again then points to pc off button.*

Do work, get education, come here later.

*hugs him again*

Promise you a very raunchy game with me if you go get work done first........

[Astalinnon]

Damn educated swedish people getting all the fun *kicks the dirt*

[Elvi]

OI!
Ast.....you certainly know you have no reason not to ask!

[Swedish Steel]

*Hugs swedish, slaps him around the head, hugs him again then points to pc off button.*

Do work, get education, come here later.

*hugs him again*

Promise you a very raunchy game with me if you go get work done first........

Yay, hug! Owww. Yay, hug!  :)

I am reading my butt of, yes I am. Can't seem to find the answers to the questions I'm supposed to answer though, I'm starting to wondering if I should've picked a different book. Oh well, I have untill after lunch to get it sorted.

[Purple]

I'll do your work if you'll do mine.  :)

[Swedish Steel]

Sure. What is it about?

[Purple]

Fluency and Reading Comprehension.   :)  What's yours?

[Swedish Steel]

The physiology of the nervous system, memory and Alzheimers.

[Purple]

Oooooh...interesting, for what class?

[Elvi]

Oh I used to know all about that at one time, but I forgot......

[Swedish Steel]

Hehe, was that a pun, Elvi?
What class? The brain and the nervous system.

[Purple]

A class all on its own...what are you studying?

[Swedish Steel]

Well, this little monkey is hoping to become a doctor one day.

[Purple]

Ooooooh...a smart monkey...I like.   :)

So...a new fantasy I had not thought of...doctor AND teacher...I like.   :)

[Swedish Steel]

Hehe. I like the way you are thinking.

[Purple]

I always think this way...but thanks.   ;)

[Swedish Steel]

Always? Neat.  :)
So, what are you studying, Purple?

[Purple]

Yes.  Always.  Drives my husband up the wall.  He's not sure I think of anything else except music or my baseball team.   :)

I'm a teacher...well, I just quit teaching preschool (one last year with my son before he starts kindergarten).  I will graduate to be an elementary teacher next spring.

[Swedish Steel]

Oh, nice. I studied to be a treacher once. Found out it wasn't really my cup of tea, but I did get to work as a teacher for awhile at least.

[Purple]

I love it.  It allows me to play and read all day.  :)

Seriously, I just love watching a kid's face light up when the light bulb comes on.  I used to tutor little kids when I was in high school, and I've been hooked ever since.

[Swedish Steel]

Well, I survived today's meeting with the professor, but it was a close call. So I'm back trying to get this show on the road. I have to step out for a couple of hours soon, but after that it's all about you guys. :)