13 replies to this topic

[Blofeld's Cat]

Before the electronic age of RPGs did anyone get into this game at all.

I'm not a games playing person at all, but when I saw a pack called "For Youy Information" I decided to buy it not realising at the time that it was only a "Gamesmaster Supplement" and not the actual game itself. Hey, it was there, it was Bond, I bought it, OK?

Anyway, according the the game's brouchure that was included in the box there was the "Basic Game Book," a "Gamesmaster Pack," "Q Manual," "Basic Set," and a "Goldfinger" and "Octopussy" adventure modules.

[Blofeld's Cat]

The cover of the box that this dummy bought....

[IndyB007]

I have never played the game myself, but I do own a number of the books and modules available. There is basicially a module for each of the films with a few original stories such as Goldfinger II and You Only Live Twice II. Those modules are quite impressive with game books that go in depth into the movies for game playing, they also included folders with maps and original artwork inspired by the films. Pretty fun stuff. They also made a few stand alone board games... The Assault, Goldfinger & Live and Let Die are the ones I remember.

[Genrewriter]

I remember the ads for these in Starlog Magazine. If I'm not mistaken, Raymond Benson wrote the A View to a Kill game.

[Bryce (003)]

Where does everyone think 004 & I came from?

These were great, but the system itself (as role playing goes) was lacking. The notion of bidding (betting to see if you could make a roll rather than just having the GM designate a number just turned it into poker) Hence, I ran the game much like D&D and it worked well.

For a time in the late 70's I was very much into D&D and then came Top Secret. The Victory games system came in '83 and it quickly became my only role playing system (albeit with a few modifications).

In college, I introduced my friends to it (004 among those) and many Bond adventures were created and played out. During the Bond hiatus (89-95), it was a great distraction.

When "True Lies" came out in '94, many among our gamers suspected James Cameron had bugged our house. For the record - 004 flew a Harrier around skyscrapers in 1991 - It was in Toronto, not Miami...But still....

I've got all the modules/missions and books and 004 painstakingly has put all the books in the computer.

We haven't played in nearly 9 years, maybe it's time.

Great stuff and fun times.

[Triton]

Originally posted by Genrewriter
I remember the ads for these in Starlog Magazine.  If I'm not mistaken, Raymond Benson wrote the A View to a Kill game.

Raymond Benson was designer/writer for a computer game based on A View to a Kill produced by Mindscape in 1985. He was not the author of the A View to a Kill module for the James Bond RPG published by Victory Games.

Benson was the author of the game module You Only Live Twice II: Back of Beyond for the James Bond RPG published by Victory Games. Some of the locations for this module include the Austalian outback and Ayers Rock, locations that he would come back to in the novel Zero Minus Ten.

Raymond Benson's CV can be found at his official website:

RaymondBenson.com

[zencat]

Originally posted by Genrewriter
I remember the ads for these in Starlog Magazine.  If I'm not mistaken, Raymond Benson wrote the A View to a Kill game.

Yes, he also wrote You Only Live Twice II: Back of Beyond. This is his first original Bond adventure.

I have some of these RPG games. I don't play them, I just have them for the box art and collectible appeal. I especially like the sequels. The above mentioned YOLT II (set in Australia) and there's also Goldfinger II: The Man With The Midas Touch (set in Mexico).

[Genrewriter]

Cool. Thanks, guys.

[zencat]

Whoops! Didn't see that you had just posted the info on Back of Beyond, Triton.

[Triton]

I haven't seen the game module Goldfinger II: The Man with the Midas Touch but I think that the modules locations are interesting from the description on 007Forever:

With Goldfinger 2, you`ll jump from Mexico City to the exotic canals of Xochimilco, to the Great Teothicuan Pyramids of ancient Mexico, to Pamplona, Spain, and all the way to Ankara, Turkey.

OUR GUIDE TO ROLE PLAYING WITH MR. BOND

I think these locations would make an interesting Bond film.

Are the plots and characters any good in these modules zencat?

[zencat]

The locations are great and I would like to see them used in a film. Those Mexican locales are so much better than what they used in LTK.

I haven't played the games so I can't tell you if the characters are any good. I've just sort of glanced at the descriptions. I know The Bond Files gives a good breakdown of these games, plots, and characters.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Geez, I wish I was able to at least collect the whole package if not to play them but just for the interesting details they include.

Those Mexico setting sure would make for great set pieces in a Bond movie.

[TheBritishEnd]

The Q Manual was the first thing I bought. I remember thinking it was the greatest book I had ever seen- so what if I didn't have the actual game that it went with? (The salesman actually tried to discourage me from buying it, once he learned I didn't own the Basic Set!!)

I later got the Basic Set and the Goldfinger module, although I never actually played them. My problem was that, not only did I not know anyone who would've taken time to read the rule book, I didn't even know anyone who liked Bond! To this day, I have never met anyone else who actually 'gets' the movies. Of course, this only makes them better, since they remain 'my' movies.

I did play the stand-alone module for TMWTGG, which was one of the smaller sets ala The Assault. The game was set in Scaramanga's Funhouse, although for the life of me, I can't recall what the point of it was.

[Johnson Galore]

Excellent RPG that I played in my teens. After playing AD&D, it was nice to do something a little more down to earth. :-) Over the years, I misplaced everything I had related to it. Then, fueled by nostalgia, I picked up all of the modules and books on ebay. (It took a lot of bidding.) I'm not so interested in role-playing anymore, but the books and modules are a lot of fun to look at. I highly recommend picking them up if you can get them cheaply. The early modules came in boxes and included top secret envelopes with dossiers and photos, etc. The modules were typically based on the films but changed in key ways so that players couldn't just imitate Roger Moore's moves. Interestingly, and I assume becasue of the McClory Thunderball issues, the game was not allowed to mention SPECTRE or Blofeld. So, they created a new crime organization called TAROT which was run by a Blofeld-esque character whose name escapes me at the moment.