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Reflections on Mastermind and Spycraft
The Mastermind book is not a standalone product. In order to use utilize it to it’s full potential, you need to also have the Spycraft Espionage Handbook (Core Rulebook of the Spycraft RPG) as well as the Fixer/Pointman Guidebook; both of which are published by AEG. As with all D20 books, it states that it also requires the third edition Player’s Handbook as published by Wizards of the Coast, but you can make your own decisions about that.
As it is part and parcel of the Spycraft system, it is difficult to really review the material presented without also reviewing the Spycraft system itself. The Spycraft system is an adaptation of the D20 system for use in the espionage genre. The Espionage Handbook (which I am just going to call the Core Rulebook) is excellent both in its style and in its content. The most noticable changes between Spycraft and, say, D20 Modern, are that the base classes are all espionage focused and as such are much more powerful than just your average joe. Much like the D&D product on which it is based, one of the more challenging aspects of the game is to try to come up with stats for an ordinary PC when a single level of any of the base classes presented is much more specialized and much more powerful than your average guy. One of the other differences of note between Spycraft and D20 Modern is that Spycraft does not have a wealth system as it assumes all players are agents of a larger organization from which they requisition gear; consequentally, they do not own their guns but instead purchase them using their “buget points” at the start of every new adventure. Another key difference is the Spycraft uses the Vitality/Wound system as opposed to the hit point system of the base games. The last point I want to mention is that Spycraft actually rewrites certain feats from the base system: for instance, the Spycraft version of Dodge is called Sidestep and gives a +2 bonus against a single opponent as opposed to the D&D +1.
That Mastermind is a Spycraft problem brings both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that Spycraft is a dynamic system of espionage roleplaying that is a lot of fun; the curse is that the Spycraft product line has continued to grow so far away from the core D20 rulebooks with it’s own feats, classes, abilities, and concepts that its D20 content is of extremely limited utility to a non-Spycraft D20 player. The other element of the curse is that the writers of Spycraft seem to feel that rules suppliments sell far better than scenarios or even settings. As a result, every book they produce, including even their one scenario, contains new rules to further define the system. Furthermore, Spycraft products seem to assume that you have all the other Spycraft rules related sections from other “optional” Spycraft books as they will frequentally just cite a feat, ability, or an entire section in another book without any further explanation.
Now, one might expect additional rules suppliments put out to out to enchance sales might suffer from being poorly conceived of playtested, but that’s not the case here. AEG’s Spycraft rules seem almost universally excellent in quality at describing situations that might come up in a role playing scenario and creating an innovative system for dealing with it. The problem is not the the quality of AEG’s rules but simply in terms of the volume.Yes, it’s nice that there added rules to simualte aerial chases in their Soilder/Wheelman guide for instance, but each additional suppliment that you try to digest only makes your job as a GM more tedious. Furthermore, D20 has already rigidly delineated the most common areas of interest, such as combat, to RPG players. To delineate other areas smacks of overkill. This annoyance factor is further ampliefied by the fact that AEG intentionally seems to be parcelling out their rules suppliments in such a way that you have to own most of the previous suppliments to really get full value out of the latest ones, and, while I can forgive them for trying to boost sales, what I can not forgive them for is not assembeling a central index of rules, feats, and classes so that when you see one referenced in one work you have at least some idea of what book you have to go and buy in order to understand the reference. This last point should seem to obvious to AEG itself as a way to up sales that I am left scratching my head as to why they have not been more proactive on the matter. I would think that parenthetically annotating each feat, rules, or class that they reference from another book that is not the core book or the one in which it appears would be the least they could do.
Once one understands the state of AEG’s Spycraft system, the lastest release, Mastermind, becomes much more understandable. It is in every way a product that it typical of its line: it is perfectly bound in a classly silver cover and contains 128 pages of fairly dense and terse pages largely devoted to expanding the rules the GM has available to run the game. The book starts with 8 pages devoted to minon types. Minions, for those of you who don’t play the game, are the generic underlings of the evil organization bent on world domination that the the main characters are out to twart. This section contains good material on how to role play the minion, as well as how to give them characterisic hooks and stlyes so that they stand out in the minds of your players. Then the section closes by expanding the rules of the base Spycraft rulebook so that your generic minions can be of three different classes now as opposed to just one. Also included in this section are rules of minion snitches which relateds the skills necessary to get a captured minion to talk as well as how this relates back how you created the mastermind’s organization creation rules.
Next is a 15 page section adding rules for animal NPC that includes not only their stats, but also their cost in terms of buget and gadget ponts, Spycraft’s agency based version of the wealth system. Now, I don’t particularly see a problem with having rules and costs for animals, but I don’t see how this related to the supposed theme of this book, Masterminds. This is a case-in-point of how AEG is distributing its Spycraft rules: they are released chronilogically with each suppliment released at a given time containing the rules AEG feels it needs to add to the system at that time as opposed to logically with each suppliment being a self-contained rules suppliment devoted to just a single topic.
The next 6 pages are dedicated to an expanded list of NPC classes; much the same as the Commoner and Aristocraft classes from the DM’s guide, these classes are for delineating the exact rules mechanics of NPCs. If one was looking to make the Spycraft rules system entirely self-contained, this was a nice addition as trying to describe every NPC from your mailman to the local bartender is a set of classes specifically designed for high espionage was a bit silly. Even if you one was already making due with using D20 Modern classes or D&D NPC classes for the NPCs, there were some nice additions such as the Andrioid, Mad Bomber, and Sleeper agent that should make for some more interesting villians. In a move that left me scratching my head, these NPC classes have a stat called “half skills” which are not explained in this book; upon futher investigation it would seem that the errata document to the Spycraft core rulebook defines a half-skill as a skill that the NPC class could be expected to have one skill rank if for every two class levels he had acheived in that class; this is as opposed to a full skill which is one where the NPC class could be expected to have a number of skill ranks equal to his level in the skill. I don’t really have much of an opinion as to whether this convention is a good idea or not, but that they would reference something without explanation hat is only addressed in their errata is indicative of the chaotic state of their increasingly far-flung rules system.
The next 26 pages deal with Henchmen and Masterminds. In my opinion, this is the best part of the book: an excellent combination of fluffy descriptions about the role the the henchman and mastermind in traditional espionage stories, a list of hooks, quirks, motivations, and flaws that can be randomly assigned to your villians, and 6 villanous Prestige Classes that feature abilties that help deal with some of the game breaking abilities that the PCs can possess at high levels.
It is the next 42 pages that I have the strongest feelings about. In it are all the rules necessary for systematically or randomly designing your own threat organization- right down to how many sites your PCs will encounter and what the classes the henchman possess: or so I thought. While the section does appear to have a wealth of information about how to randomly generate a threat organization so as to save lots of time and spark creativity, all 42 pages are simply worthless unless you also happen to own the Fixer/Pointman rules supplement of which these pages are but an expansion of the rules first explained in that book. You can imagine my dismay. “Why,” I thought, “should I need a the Fixer/Pointman book to understand the Mastermind book? Shouldn’t they both be self contained and only expect you to own the core rulebook?”
Of course, my expectations were reasonable of some other RPG products, but, if one understood the state of the Spycraft system as explained at the start of my review, then it should come as no surprise. Spycraft rules suppliments seem to be published assuming that you own all other Spycraft related products released to that date, and the company seems to intentionally be putting various rules segments in various books to ensure that, should you want to have the complete rules system for any one segment of the game, you will need to own multiple supliments.
I used to play an extremely technical and rules laden game called, Star Fleet Battles; in that system, the sold rules expansions and you were expected to cut the spine off of them and collate them together in a large binder. As I am becoming more familar with Spycraft, that seems like sound advice to take here as well. That way one could correct for the haphazard distribution of rules by putting the rules on using animals in the gear section and put the rules on threat organizations, which have nothing to do with either Fixers or Pointment, in the Mastermind section. More disconcerting is that there are other comparisions between Spycraft and ridiculously complicated war games: both seem to be under the impression that the more situations the rules capture, the better the game. While initiallty plausable, this premise is used to justify an ever increasing volume of rules suppliments with the implied promise that, “Boy, once you learn all these rules, the times you can have.” For me, that premise is unpalletable for war gaming, and simply inexcuseable for a role playing game. In a war game, the players are playing against each other in a contest for supremacy. In a role playing game, the players are all cooperating to tell an enjoyable story.
While an interesting exercise, I really don’t understand the utility of having a complex rules system to define a “threat organization” down to it’s last agenda threat level and the hiearchy ranking of it’s head quarters. Now I can understand that different Game Masters go into a game session with different levels of notes prepared: some will go into a session with an exhausive list of NPC stats for every concievable NPC that the players might want, while others simply have a general idea of what situations they want to throw their players into that would be cinematically cool and wait for the right time to introduce this to their players in response to their stated actions. What I can’t understand is the need to entirely define something like the Mastermind’s threat organization. By doing so, you are almost reducing the GM to the role of a book keeper who presents NPCs according to pre-determined (and laborious) formulas. Why make the stategic type of resource allocation decisions usually regarded for war games to decide whether the Mastermind’s organization should have a tougher minion squad or should instead invest its resources in having an more secure headquarters that features both an armory and a torture chamber. In a war game, if you beat your opponent, then you have won the game fair and square and your strategy is to be emulated. In a role playing game, if you have a total party kill, you are going to have a hard time picking your game up again next week. Consequentally, the GM is expected to be more reactive and flexable to the player’s situations and to actualyl fudge certain rolls when necessary to move the story along. Given that, what’s the use of rigidly defining the bad guys if you are going to be doing ad hoc adjustments to the situation anyway so as to move the story along?
Of course, having a detailed NPC bad guy organization and then being flexibly in response to the players needs might be the ideal formula for a GM to follow, but the model of NPC generation advanced by AEG is certainly not a time efficient way to put together an adventure. Perhaps if there were a computer program that you plugged some time parameters into that would then spit out your threat organization right down to the stats and quirks of the bad guys, it would be a great place to start. But investing a large amount of time in a system that has you doing things like picking which resource feats your threat organization has seems to serve little purpose above mental masturbation as your players are not likely to ever directly benefit from these choices. Unfortunately, I can’t say this from experience as I don’t own the Fixer/Pointman guide.
The last 27 pages detail running a villanous campaign. The equivalent to running an evil game in D&D where the players are playing the stereotypical bad guys. It includes new Prestige classes, feats, and the like, and seems to be an excellent resource for people looking to run an SD-6 game.
All in all, Mastermind is in very much a Spycraft product and, as it is largely rules focused, it not have much to offer GMs who are not running that rules system. On a more reflective note, I remember the promise of D20 when it was first released: learn this one rules system, and you can play it in any setting. Be releasing an ever expanding catalog of rules suppliments, Spycraft threats to ruin the benefits of whatever level of D20 rules mastery the players would bring to the game by making everyone equally unfamilar with exactly how the rules have defined a certain interaction to work. While, I can understand the desire of a company to make money, I really feel AEG is in danger of overloading its core customers with a level of rules production that is out stripping the ability of its customers to digest. If one had only $100 to spend on an espionage RPG library for a Game Master, my personnel recommendation would be to buy the Spycraft Base Rulebook, the Gentleman’s Agreement scenario for Spycraft, and lots of old Top Secret scenarios off of Ebay to convert over.
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