Running a cold war ers spy campaign and I need some ideas for gadgets...

I don't want to overdo it on pen based items.

Shoes where the soles can be rotated around 180 degrees so it looks like you walked in the opposite direction

Call them Sneakies

216?

>those weren't pancakes, captcha...

A lot of the stuff is different kinds of surveillance equipment. Basically there's a bug for any occasion. There's audio and tracking, there's small and well concealed or large and made to last, there's passive, burst, and continuous transmission, some need their tapes changed, others need a receiver stationed nearby. The amount of thinking that went into intelligence and counter intelligence strategies and the limitations of the technical capabilities of the time meant that every bug was a compromise.

The way to think about gadgets at the time is that none was a perfect solution. They were tools to support complex humint scheming.

Watch The Americans, they do some great stuff. Check out Spycraft, The Laundry, probably some GURPS splat, World War Cthulhu Cold War, anything to inspire some detail. It's one thing to offer the players a catalog of gadgets, it is quite another to weave a complex story where such gadgets become crucial plot devices.

For roleplaying I have always found Mission Impossible (the TV show) a better blueprint than James Bond. It has a party of heroes and a twisting plot that can include tricks like the Leverage retcon.

Is this a poor attempt at reaching out or just a comically inept serial killer?

Superstrong climbing floss and hooks, hidden in the removable heels of your shoes. Unless you're using the shoes with tiny wiretapping tools hidden in the heels instead.

Cigarette case. The cigs are disguises for film tubes for your lighter/camera. Half of the cigs are real. One lights properly but has a cyanide pill in the filter. One is split down the middle, opening to reveal a tiny knockout syringe.

Going off of that, cigarette radio transmitters. Plant a butt in a nearby potted plant or ashtray and use a handheld radio to listen from afar.

Briefcase gun, too. Either a small rifle that can be put together in 1-2 turns or an actual briefcase that turns into a gun with a flick of a switch.

IKR, what will my spy's use to write?

...

Go read Viktor Suvorov's book Inside the Aquarium. (Some editions it's titled simple Aquarium). He was a GRU intelligence officer operating under legal cover, who defected to Britain at the height of the Cold War.

The book changed a few details to protect his identity at the time but is pretty much an autobiography. It's written like fiction: short and engrossing. And TOTALLY different from the "spy genre".

...

Fake hands that go over your real hands. When you're captured and cuffed, you can simply slip your hands free. And maybe the hands can also release a deadly nerve agent.

That is not how anatomy works!

Weighted briefcase club disguised as a self-righting briefcase that is hard to knock over. The curved bulges added to the sides can be secret compartments. A lead shielded compartment can make up part of the weighted bottom.

Going off the briefcase gun, a gun that's really a knife

...

A cigar that when lit fires off a single shot in the outward direction, maybe even the inward direction if you are particularly clever with your target.

Good for discreet killing outside of a loud bang.

Bubble gum that, after being chewed and spat out, becomes hard like concrete.
Explosive watches with in-built timer.
Wallet bomb

Shoes and gloves that have magnets inlaid, as well as slim kneepads made of magnets, so that the spy can hold on to metal things, like cars, trains and airplanes, should he need to.
Also, double-bottom hats for all your lockpicks and spare parts for your bombs.
That also reminds me of glasses with frames that you can take off and become lockpicks. Or the antenna to the hat-radio.

Thick ties that are secretly holsters for stiletto-like daggers or other tools.

Those people had too much time on their hands.

They didn't just poison a traitor. They found the most potent poison per dosage available, crafted that into a micro projectile, built a special umbrella with a concealed needle tip, and pricked the traitor in the street with him noticing he was hit.

-out

A handkerchief meant to be kept in one's pocket that has a hidden plastic pouch which can be squeezed and ruptured, causing it to soak chemicals into the handkerchief. The handkerchief can then be used to knock out a target a la chloroform rag.

A lockpicking kit (torsion wrench, pick) hidden inside a pen. Unscrew the top to get at them.

A watch that's actually a microfilm camera. The lens points out from the clock face. Pressing the time-setting knob in takes a picture, turning the knob moves to the next piece of film.

Caps in one's teeth that, when pressed down on, release chemicals. This can be used as a last resort for captured agents to commit suicide, or it can be used in tandem with another capsule containing an antidote to poison an enemy. Seduce your target, bite the capsule, swap some spit, then bite the antidote. Your target dies, you don't.

Or kiss her again to save you after you have surrendered the information.