{"id":11926,"date":"2021-07-02T10:01:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T14:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=11926"},"modified":"2021-07-05T21:39:02","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T01:39:02","slug":"games-mercenaries-spies-private-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2021\/07\/02\/games-mercenaries-spies-private-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Games: Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my posting on pulp games<\/a>, one I mentioned is Flying Buffalo<\/a>‘s Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes<\/em> (or MSPE<\/em>), which is one of the more popular of the pulp-related games.<\/p>\n

\"Mercenaries,<\/a>It may not have the amount of associated materials that folks would want, but it does have a good amount. The game was recently revised thanks to a Kickstarter campaign<\/a>, so if you haven’t gotten this one, there is now a new edition and reprinted materials available.<\/p>\n

The game was launched in 1983, inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em>, with the intention of creating a game that would allow for play in such a pulp-inspired, action-adventure scenario. Written by Michael Stackpole<\/strong>, it is based on Flying Buffalo’s Tunnels & Trolls<\/em> game system. T&T<\/em> is their Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>-like role-playing game. With that game, some materials were created. There was even a time when materials for Hero Games<\/a>‘ Espionage<\/em> game was written that could be played with MSPE<\/em> as well.<\/p>\n

Due to reasons I don’t fully understand, Flying Buffalo allowed Sleuth Games, who published the excellent Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective<\/em> game to publish a second edition of MSPE<\/em> in 1986. This edition dropped some items from the manual and added some items. They created an add-on to the game, called Ident-a-Kit:1 Fingerprints<\/em>, which gave info on fingerprints. I’m not aware of a second kit being created.<\/p>\n

In 2019, through the aforementioned Kickstarted campaign, FB came out with with a third edition of MSPE<\/em>, which they call a “combined edition.” This is because they restored the items left out in the second edition, kept the new items in that edition, and<\/em> added some new materials as well. One that is a welcome edition is a two-page section on playing MSPE<\/em> in a pulp-hero world.<\/p>\n

They also brought back into print some other materials that had gone out of print. We now have a very nice game master screen. They brought back into print The Adventure of the Jade Jaguar<\/em>, which is a neat solo scenario I hope to play soon.<\/p>\n

Stormhaven<\/em> is still in print, and is a scenario book as well as information on an interesting modern location for games. An island owned by Allard Technologies, run by the son and grandson of a certain pulp hero.<\/p>\n

Mugshots<\/em> was a too-short series of scenario books that came out in the 1990s. The first, The Case of the Pacific Clipper<\/em>, was reprinted in a “deluxe” edition with color. The second, Taking Care of Business<\/em>, is still available.<\/p>\n

I am aware of some other scenario resources out there. Grenadier Models did Raid on Rajallapor<\/em>, which I think is still available from Flying Buffalo. And Hero Games did Border Crossing<\/em>, which ties to their Espionage<\/em> game but can be used with MSPE<\/em>. There are other materials that can be used by MSPE, such as the Daredevil<\/em>‘s scenarios, and Justice, Inc.<\/em> scenarios.<\/p>\n

So have you played MSPE<\/em>? How did you like it? As I note, I hope to play Jade Jaguar<\/em> and see how it is as I don’t have a gaming group. It would be nice if we saw more solo scenarios and more materials after the Kickstarter. Who knows?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my posting on pulp games, one I mentioned is Flying Buffalo‘s Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes (or MSPE), which is one of the more popular of the pulp-related games. It may not have the amount of associated materials that folks would want, but it does have a good amount. The game was recently revised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at the role-playing games \"Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes.\" #pulpmags #rpg #roleplayinggames","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[523,524,500],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-11926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","tag-flying-buffalo","tag-hero-games","tag-mercenaries-spies-private-eyes"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2021\/05\/mspe-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-36m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11926"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12269,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11926\/revisions\/12269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11926"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=11926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}