You get one Palladium SDC game out, you get them all out. I like Ninjas and Superspies. No game does as many martial arts types as this one. This is all the same Palladium system, so you don't need to learn much new to play.
The fact that this game is stuck in the mid-1980s with its weapons, gear, and vehicles list is good with me, and it has its own charm. This game is stuck in 1980s action movies like Rambo and Commando, and every Chuck Norris movie ever made. Also, the game draws on 1980s supercars, spy shows like Airwolf and Knight Rider, and TV shows. The James Bond spy movies also influence gadget-based agents, while cyber-enhanced agents perform missions similar to those of computer-enhanced agents in Terminator, 80s anime, or other action shows.
Everything feels like a comic-book reality, which is a massive appeal of Palladium games. You play these games because you want to have fun and do cool stuff. This is just like TNMT or Heroes Unlimited, but with spies and ninjas.
This game would make a great GI JOE role-playing game, especially if set in the 1980s. This is probably what I will do with the system, and it pulls off that heroic, cinematic action with the SDC system, making the first few bullets and blows miss and deplete that invisible stamina pool before the real wounds begin. We played GI JOE with the Aftermath system, but Ninjas and Superspies is also a great choice, especially if you lean into the ninja side of the lore.
Each character gets pretty detailed as well, so the team size should be smaller, like a three-person team handling problems and going undercover in hot spots of the 1980s, such as Central America, Libya, Beirut, and exotic locations such as Italy and France. Fewer sci-fi toys and lasers, and more realistic spy and commando actions are needed.
And if this is set in the 1980s, a good reference book on timelines and history is needed, at least to get into the vibe. There are a few of them on Amazon. Nothing is stopping me from setting this in the modern era. I need more references on modern weapons and vehicles, and all of that is available online. I grew up in the 1980s, so I am familiar and fond of the era, and this is when the cartoons first came on TV.
There are some heavy political and military overtones in the 1980s as well, along with lots of terrorism in the world's hot spots. We have the farm crisis, the multiple savings and loan collapses, inner city gang violence, the Drug Wars, Iran-Contra, Central American wars, Chernobyl, cruise ship hijackings, the strikes on Libya, the wars in Beirut, the Iran-Iraq war, the mining of the Straight of Hormuz, airline hijackings and bombings, embassy takeovers, hostage rescues, SDI, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the echoes of the Vietnam War, hostage takings, and plenty of material to use in a commando-style game. Things will get dark and gritty at times if you cut a swath through 1980s history and draw inspiration from it.
Truth be told, setting a game in the retro-modern 1980s will insulate your game from current-day politics, and it may be the only way to play a modern game these days with other people and not have fights break out at your table. Since I play solo, I can get along with myself pretty well, but I can see this being a problem with other groups and online play.
There is a genre I will call 80s-Punk (Neonpunk, Reaganpunk), and these transformative years of neon-opiate flash and a very dark undertone of societal change into a technological era and new world order, which we live with today. Clearly, this is a throwback 80s-Punk game with bright neon colors and some of the best music ever made, set against a dark, sinister, twisted undertone of a nation's loss of innocence and the coming tide of crushing global and technological change.
Terrorism is a symptom of a massive realignment in the social order, as violence is often the last resort of a dying way of life. We also see that, in war, as nations get boxed in a corner, war becomes the only way out. That is happening today, and the process is irreversible.
The synth-pop decade ended with hair metal and gave way to the hangover of grunge music and the tech-corporate 1990s, the budding Internet age. By the 1990s, the corporations and big data had won. By the 2030s, we will see the same shift again, but with AI winning and taking over every facet of human life, determining who lives and who dies. With AI denying insurance claims for lifesaving treatments, we are already there.
No drones, no public Internet, no AI, no search engines, no PCs, and no smartphones are a plus in my book, and make the action and communication a lot easier. Computers are all text-based terminals, and there are no home PCs. The closest thing to a cell phone is a vehicular radio phone, and those only work in major cities, are the size of a loaf of bread, are voice-only, and have a limited range. They had them in Miami Vice, and that is another good show for reference, plus a fun time on the DVD collection.
Nothing is stopping Ninjas and Superspies from being used in a Miami Vice game, either. GURPS has better police supplements, though. Miami Vice also had far fewer ninjas than GI JOE did. GURPS is still the better fit for this type of game, thanks to the excellent supplements on police procedure. The 1980s books are still just as valuable as the DVDs for both campaigns.
If I were doing any other historical game, I would use GURPS. But Ninjas and Superspies have the advantage of being written in that era and accurately reflecting its gear and technology. Even the weapons book comes from around that time, and it is a good sampling of guns and military gear for the era, making my job a lot easier.
While I would love to see a modernized Ninjas and Superspies game, it is easy enough for me to do, and having all this information on the 1980s in the existing books makes it perfect for throwback, action movie, nostalgia games. The game is slightly dated, but that makes it ideal for me. Still, updating the weapons and vehicles is a trivial exercise; just buy a modern gun book, the ammunition has not changed all that much (and the new calibers are mostly around 9mm and 0.45, with a handful of rifle calibers between 5.56mm and 7.62mm), and most vehicles have not changed all that much.
The stats for all these things have not changed much at all from the 1980s, from a game perspective. A car is still a car, and a jet is still a jet. Multiply all the 1985 in-book costs by three, and you will have 2025 costs. That is actually shocking, in a way, now that I look back.
Why not use GURPS? For one, the SDC system in Ninjas and Superspies gives characters a buffer of soft hit points, lessening the lethality just a touch to a more action-movie level. Also, the martial arts rules are great, and put a massive spotlight on that part of the lore. This feels like 1980s James Bond movies, mixed with Commando and Invasion: USA. The system is fast and straightforward. GURPS is a slightly heavier game that leans more towards realism.
If I want that guns-blazing, martial-arts action, then Ninjas and Superspies is perfect.
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