>would like to run an espionage/assassination game
>all media dealing with the subject are about a single superindividual infiltrating, ghosting through shit and performing impossible objectives
How would you run that? Teams of assassins? An assassin and his handlers / clean-up crew? (but then one of the players is indubitably star of the show)
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Try watching heist movies? They are a different, but similar genre which is usually focused on a team of criminals with different specialities.
I've been thinking about running one such game. I have several ideas:
>PCs are all assassins and they need to do a Hitman style job with improvising on the scene and a lot of clothesswapping
>MGS3 style game where they need to crawl through a jungle/mountain/dessert and some facilities to stop the evil whatever
>Splinter Cell game where the PCs actions may stop one bad thing, but may also cause international incidents
I've always pictured it as a split team of operatives, acting together in close proximity, trying to do the job like clockwork. If any of them wants to be a handler or whatnot, I'd also be glad, but let's be honest, the real action's on the field.
The thing about vidya assassins is that they always conveniently find their targets vulnerable and isolated or near some kind of item or system that can easily be made to backfire, as if they're asking to be killed. Nobody who fears being killed has such lax security. You usually need a team for that kind of stuff, and a lot of planning. Let's say the team wants to poison someone, then they need to arrange the poison, they need to arrange someone who has access to the kitchen (if it's a large event the kitchen is almost never empty so they probably need a mole already on location), they need a way for the mole to sneak in the poison, and they probably need one of their own to act as a waiter to make sure the single poisoned plate or glass arrives in the hands of the intended target. They probably need to feign ignorance when the target dies and then find a plausible way to remove themselves from not only the crime scene but also employment, false IDs too.
So how I'd run such a game is:
>Announce target
>Have them spy on the target, gather information from him, find reliable informants on the inside etc.
>Based on this information, have them decide on a preferred method
>Gathering everything needed for the hit
>Execution of the hit itself
>Aftermath
An example I really like from one of the Hitman games is one where the target needs to undergo a heart transplant. An option in that scenario is to simply sabotage the heart rather than directly confront the target, killing him in a way that's not only incredibly subtle but could easily be made to look like an accident. But hospitals have really tight security so getting inside in the first place should be a challenge unto itself.
That's very social and (ideally) there's no violence other than against the target (if you need to use more violence than that, it's probably because you failed and you're desperately trying to get out). I have no idea what system would suit that kind of play.
Much like what said, but also make sure skillsets are split and there are things demanding attention at multiple places at once. Yes, split the party, as it doesn't really make sense otherwise.
47 has a practically all-knowing mission support specialist; he always knows what a target looks like, he (or rather, the player) has a precise map he can bring up or can see them through walls after seeing a glimpse of them. As that'll be absent that you have *much* more room for a game.
Agent 47 is also very good with guns, very stealthy, can scale a building (handholds permitting), can very quickly pick locks and use all sorts of computers and electronics without any hint of an issue. He's also a master of both disguise and social engineering. Shave some of those abilities off into two, three, four people, and you have your party.
>>would like to run an espionage/assassination game
>>all media dealing with the subject are about a single superindividual infiltrating, ghosting through shit and performing impossible objectives
The PCs are the handlers for the Agent. They plan the missions, the routes, they get the maps, they put moles on the staff. The Agent himself is a fucking cybernetic beast, the only penalty for failure is the Agent murdering everyone there on camera and making the Agency look bad.
The Agency is a globalized/illuminati organization, and each PC is from a different nation. Each mission, the home nations of each PC give them an extra, secret objective. Drop the intel at this dead drop (so we can steal it), make the Agent kill this specific guy along the way, etc.
PCs who accomplish their goals get personal XP and (I suggest) harder/dickbagier secret objectives.
PCs who put the mission first get XP toward better control of the agent instead.
PCs who try and fail get sweet fuck all.
Not to shill, but Blades in the Dark is pretty neat take on what you're looking for.
It's base setting is industrial low-fantasy like Thief or Dishonored, but I dare say you could adapt it without too much bother.
It's also PbTA, so take that into consideration. It is one of the better hacks by the look of it though.
Oceans 11 but with Killing
So the agent is a NPC? Could work as long as it don't go into GMPC territories. Maybe leave them nameless and have them never interact with the PCs, at least not directly.
Pretty much this.
The Killer.
The Radio Voice.
The Cleaner.
The Distraction.
There you go, you got a team.
Something like Leverage or Hustle or Ocean's Eleven but with killing.
think of the agent less as a character and more an event
you prepare the situation and then the agent happens
no personality, no motivations, nothing to relate to
One possibility would be to run a looser setting. Look at Far Cry 4 with Kyrat, or MGSV with Afghanistan and Africa.
If the PCs can be modern murder hoboes and still maybe get it done, and there's an expected level of violence, the group makes sense.
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Oper8ing is a team sport.
Have a team with various specialties, like a heist movie, but also have multiple targets that must be killed concurrently. You'll have plenty of build-up manipulating events to get them into favorable positions for the team, spearheaded by the technical/face members of the group, and then have the assassins go to work (garroting, sniping, etc) at the same time to make sure the other targets don't have time to be alerted.
for a target like that you find a map of thee roads near their main home. Plant a massive IED under the road , keep eyes on the house and blow it when they drive over. Mafia used this against judges back in the 80s. Alternatively mortars at 4am as you can target the bedrooms. Even roll a VBIED through the gates follwed by anoother couple to blast the house, big enough one might make it collapse/burn. Snipe survivors from from veryfaraway.
>espionage/assassination
Frame it as "special reconnaissance" and "direct action".
>leverage
I second this as well. It should work really well as inspiration for the kind of actions your players could take.
>Several hours before each assassination, each target's family received flowers with a condolence card reading: "A reminder we do not forget we do not forgive."
Wow, that's pretty fucking dope right there.
I've been DMing a spy/espionage type game and the consensus from my players is that it's been really fucking cool.
I based my setting on the game Alpha Protocol and use locations as a way to make things seem interesting.
Assassinating some rouge general? Boring.
Assassinating a rouge general by infiltrating his house, planting a bomb in his car, then waiting for it to be loaded onto a cargo plane, where you detonate it as it takes off, causing debris to rain down on the military airfield allowing a distraction for the PCs to run in and seize it, killing two birds with one stone? Fucking awesome.
Making a good game is all about building a scenario and letting your PCs have all the fun in it.
>Shortly afterward, three Mossad operatives travelled to London to meet with a source who offered information on Salameh. When the source failed to show up, the team members began suspecting they were under surveillance. A female assassin-for-hire seduced one of the agents in a hotel, then shot him dead in his hotel room. The Mossad team members located the woman in Amsterdam three months later, and she was killed near her home on August 21 after she instinctively reached for a weapon as the team approached her. Local sources revealed that she was a freelance assassin, and it was never learned who exactly contracted her to kill the agent. The kidon team leader was later reprimanded for acting outside the assigned scope of the mission.[5] One of the team members said, "most of our victims plead for their lives before being killed but not this woman. She was different. She didn't plead. She looked us all directly in the eye with cold detached hatred. Her face reflected nothing but disdain and defiance before we killed her."
holy shit dude, that's some Mission Impossible shit right there
Reminds me of when I was in an evil game. We, the party, were basically four guys working out of our brothel looking to become the next big thing in criminal enterprise. I don't remember the specifics of why, but we had to kill the royal family.
Now, the DM was just expecting us to sneak into the castle and just murder them. That was thinking too small. We're PCs. Nothing is ever that simple. First we snuck in as part of a catering crew, tore up a seat cushion and stuffed it with bottles of alchemist fire. Next, our face began a rumor about some sibling incest by the king's kids while the wizard did some illusory mind fuckery to the townsfolk. I, an actual assassin, had invisibility cast on me, snuck into the queen's chamber's, knocked her out, invisibilitied myself again, and manipulated her body to throw their infant son from the tower wall. The king sentences his family to death, and then I stealthed our face up to him to tell him what he'd done and drive his sword through his heart in front of the people.
I guess that's kind of a way to do a group Hitman type thing.
I always wanted to play a game as pic related. Playing a shadow team running around killing select targets and then making a getaway in a warzone sounds really interesting. There's a lot more freedom and leeway when you're trying to assassinate select targets like commandos and officers, and the main problem after that is finding a way out.
There's also the benefit of having a bunch of specialized gadgets like gliders, zip lines, and whatever else you can think of.
Few months ago someone posted the same idea and I vaguely remember that something like that already existed. Anybody know the name?
Leverage is also a PnP system:
I think an assassination game gets boring if you meaninglessly jump from target to target, so I think there should be an overarching story. Allow me to post one that I like for all the wrong reasons, inspired by both the second Hitman game and Assassin's Creed (there will be no explicit spoilers, but if you're really afraid about being spoiled you'd best stop reading here anyway).
You guys work for some kind of secret service (henceforth called: The Agency) which is mostly concerned with securing American safety and independence from outside manipulating forces
>Your team (consisting of newbies) are first sent out on an entirely unimportant and relatively guilt-free mission: you have to assassinate a third world dictator so he can be replaced by one that's more pro-Western (and more pro-Human Rights so you don't have to feel bad about him)
>After that you assassinate two other targets. First you start out with some random guy in France and then some random lady in Russia
>At first the two appear unconnected, but when you assassinate your third target (a man in China), you somehow come across evidence that the three are connected
>Concerned, you present this evidence to the head of The Agency
>She reveals that she knew this all along and tried to keep it hidden from you, but now she feels obligated to tell you the true story: you're taking out a very large and elaborate network of counterspies that tries to destroy The Agency by whatever means possible
>You're not more or less put on a new assignment: you're not only to assassinate the members of the network, but also through espionage learn who's part of the network and how big it is precisely
Sounds like a solid campaign, right? But it gets better (I hope, at least, don't want to toot my own horn).
cont.
>After some time you take out the final target, the head of the whole operation
>He calmly confronts his death, saying he prepared for this day and hopes you'll do the right thing
>After getting rid of him, you discover some neatly placed documents that were prepared in advance
>The documents detail shocking information: every single target you've had until now (other than the "opening kill" third world dictator) were former agents of The Agency
>Not only that, but all of them had worked with the current head earlier and have quite a lot of dirt on her, exposing that her loyalty to the state is questionable at best
>Not much later, the PCs become the target of a hit by the "B team" of the Agency
>The intention of the head becomes clear: she wanted you to take out anyone with dirt on her, then take you out to plug any possible leaks, and take over The Agency (and subvert the US government to her own will)
>You now have to cooperate with some enemies of The Agency (perhaps the FSB and such), but with a caveat: they want to utterly destroy The Agency and make the US government vulnerable to subversion, you merely want to 'purge' it
I like this because powerful, ruthless women in office wear are my fetish
TSR once had a 007-style RPG called Top Secret. Might give some ideas, if you can find it?
Hitman's sorta alright at this, pretty much all the targets have bodyguards around, and the only time they leave is when the target feels safe (like taking out the girl in the paris mission) or is doing something they're not supposed to (like the girl in spaienza mission meeting the lover she's having an affair with.)