Very Fiddly and Chart Based
We ignored the melee combat system in this game for a straight "blow for blow" one because the system was just too fiddly and left or right side attack-based - almost like a boxing simulation better suited to a "king of the ring" RPG than a secret agent game. A lot of the weapons too had miniscule range modifier differences that made each one special and unique, but in practice didn't really impact your overall chance to hit - you either had an okay chance or you were hoping for a critical hit. There was lots of percentile math in this game for very little good reason other than to give our pocket calculators a workout.
High Ability Score Breakage
We have characters with strength scores of 120% and more, there wasn't a cap on how high your score could go, so beside heavy negative modifiers we had characters who were broken and could do it all in most tasks. Ranged combat though took everyone down to size quickly, recoil, situational, and range penalties were very high, from -100 to -300% just for long range alone, so no matter how good you got that 5% hit chance was all you were getting.
Strong Theming
One of the strongest points of the system were the very strong theming. You felt like you were supposed to be playing a spy when you opened the book. On any page you flipped to, you felt like this was "spy stuff" and it got you excited to be roaming around a foreign port, sneaking into an enemy factory, lockpicking, disarming sensors and traps, avoiding guards, stealing the mission target or rescuing the hostage, and speeding out in your rubber raft to the waiting submarine while your combat guy fired his Uzi SMG at perusing enemy agents in speedboats.
Few other games give me this feeling. Weapon choice mattered, from draw speed to concealability, or raw firepower. Shotguns were viable choices, just as much as SMGs or assault rifles. You could get away with bringing a pistol too. Grenades were powerful. Combat was deadly.
You needed specialists too, from your technical specialist, to your medic, to your gun person, to perhaps your martial artist. They needed other skills too, such as fine arts, piloting, bookkeeping, and other skills to decipher items found along the way or at the mission site. Gadgets mattered too, like safecracking devices, night vision, and other cool gadgets.
The enemies could employ hostile animals too, like killer guard parrots - which is why you brought the shotgun to turn Polly into a cloud of feathers. Or had the martial artist strike the parrot in the beak when it lunges and kill the parrot in one swift and silent blow.
The 007 Game
For many, the licensed 007 RPG replaced Top Secret and took over the genre until Top Secret SI came out and both games sort of faded into history. We never really switched to the 007 RPG, since Aftermath still did everything we needed it to. That game is very iconic, strongly themed, and I may talk about it here soon.
The 007 Game was heavier, with way more skills and percentages thrown around, and a task resolution system that required you to compare a roll against divided percentages. This sort of "level of success" worked its way into the color-coded charts of Gamma World and Marvel Super Heroes in a more easy-to-use, but still cumbersome form.
Sandbox Dungeon Crawls
One of the modules we loved for this game was the old Rapidstrike module, which was basically a huge dungeon crawl with spy gear, modern guns, and plenty of room to wreck havoc on a enemy island. A lot of people liked the modules that followed this that had the really in-depth plot lines and detailed NPCs, but being kids, we loved the spy gun-play and two-fisted action more than the drama and careful talkie parts. You could do a fun dungeon crawl with Top Secret more than 007, and you could play this to walk in the front door and deceive, sneak around at night with stealth, or go in blasting with guns - or any mixture of the three.
OSR B/X Spy Game?
Like the recently discussed B/X Gangbusters, I would love to find a B/X spy game that gave me the same feeling. I have a hunch it is out there waiting to be found, and me not looking for it is why I haven't discussed it yet.
Back when this came out, we wondered why it didn't use the D&D rules. This was the first game that solidified "percentile is modern gaming" in our heads, and that continued on to this day. It would have been cool to have this compatible, as around this time Dragon Magazine released a "modern guns" article for D&D that was fascinating and horribly unbalanced.
The TSR Percentile System
This game was also one of the first that used the TSR d100 percentile system, which was similar to games like Gangbusters (which simplified the system greatly, and added a fun Luck score), and finally Star Frontiers. We kept using Star Frontiers for quite a while and liked the d100 system, despite its flaws and difficulty to play at higher ability score levels. The d100 system played better at lower "levels" and eventually broke itself as you got experience and raised scores.
Style Matters
For us, Aftermath did a lot more. These days, there are better options for modern role playing, but back then we didn't know much (we were kids), and having a system that did melee combat to vehicle combat was a very cool thing, and that game replaced Top Secret for us as our home system.
That said, Top Secret always had style. When you opened the book, you felt like a secret agent. Your imagination was fired up in ways a generic game could not even touch. I can't see being as excited to play secret agents with GURPS or even Savage Worlds as I would be with the Top Secret book and a pair of crayoned-in percentile dice.
More on this game soon, and it is fun reminiscing about one of our old friends.
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