Review - Top Secret New World Order

It seems like over the past year or two I've gotten more than a little nostalgic about gaming and started going down the "retro" path with more than a few systems.

From crowdfunded projects last year I got two new updated versions of classic games.  Villains and Vigilantes was the first, and now Top Secret New World Order.

The original Top Secret was TSR's foray into espionage role-playing.  While with the original pre-Wizards Of The Coast TSR the game also saw a substantially updated version released called Top Secret S.I.  One of the big appeals of this newest edition is that on the front cover and all over the Kickstarter promotional messaging was that Merle Rasmussen (the author of the original game) was the author of this game as well.  That appears to be mostly true.

First up the box game contents themselves.  I have to say this was a bit of a mixed bag for me.  The game comes will a pad of full-colour character sheets (great idea!  why doesn't every RPG do this?), and a nice sturdy GM screen.  In addition there are plastic markers for tension (one of the game mechanics) that can be moved along the GM screen and an almost complete set of dice.  Those are the definite "pros".  The con side from a physical contents point of view is definitely the main rule book itself.  Excepting the cover the entire book is black and white, it is very sparsely illustrated, the layout is dry to look at and read and it has the flimsiest cover of any gaming product I've handled in years.  That last one might sound minor and petty but it's jarring, the cover is thinner than any game magazine I've gotten in years and is no where near as sturdy as the free giveaways Osprey provides.

The rules themselves seem really interesting (I haven't actually played yet) but are based largely on a pre-existing system written by one of the games other credited authors so I'm curious how much of the game content Mr Rasmussen actually wrote or if he might just be a figurehead for this project.  That question aside the core rules are that mix I really like of a simple core mechanic coupled with a lot of depth for the player's to affect and impact outcomes.  It reminds me a bit of Savage World but in fairness I think I'm oversimplifying that, it's just my personal RPG experience likens this to Savage Worlds.

I really enjoy the 'exploding dice' mechanic where a critical success roll on any one die vastly increases your potential for a positive outcome.  However as a criticism for systems like this that assign higher/larger dice to a player's best attributes it actually seems a bit counter-intuitive in that the larger die you have the lower chance you have of a critical success (on 1d4 I get a critical success 25% of the time, on 1d10 I get a critical success 10% of the time).  My other personal reservation with the rule book contents is that there is virtually no background or flavour provided.  Its not unreasonable to assume that the authors thought most players would simply set their games in the current real-world and therefore they wouldn't need any additional background material but it does create a bit of a dry feel to the rule book by not breaking up blocks of rules with some fiction or background factoids.

Overall I think the game is a worthwhile purchase for any fans of the genre or of previous iterations of the system.  For an experienced role-player the game is ready to play right out of the box (it includes an adventure as well) and seems like a fun time.  For someone looking for a first RPG you might want to look for something more visually stimulating as well as something that has a bit more flavour and setting to get you started.

-Jay