Classified Update

As I said earlier, I'm again working on Classified (our retro-clone of the old James Bond 007 rpg). One of the things that's become quite apparant to me as I work on the equipment section is how the internet has change my perceptions (and I'm assuming others') about what is required in an equipment section.

The core rules of the the original game had 34 weapons & vehicles. Classified's upped that number quite a bit to to 177. One of the nice things about the core book was that each weapon/vehicle had an illustration next to in to help the reader visualize the item. In the pre-internet world, such was quite useful. Now, however, there is detailed information on every weapon/vehicle at the fingertips of just about every player. The *need* for an illustration (and the histories that often accompanied them in the text) has simply gone away.

In fact, it would be quite silly to include them, IMO. They would take a huge amount of space (consider that the Q Manual was a separate book and had 161 weapons/vehicles in roughly 80 pages) in a core book. Additionally, they would only be summations of what can be found on the internet anyway, for I am not an expert about weapons nor vehicles. If a GM desires more than just the game statistics for a weapon/vehicle, the internet's going to have the answer to that question.

So, the internet wins again: changing our gaming requirements (for the better, IMO), and although I haven't got to the Intriguing Cities section of Classified, I'm sure the internet is going to radically change what's required for that presentation as well.