Top Secret/S.I.

Character Generation Background: player characters are to be agents of AEGIS (Agency Encompassing General Intelligence Service), a covert Canadian organization that pools physical and legal assets from various existing Canadian agencies into one joint group that is able to act universally: domestically/abroad, gathering/wet-work, etc. AEGIS agents are drawn from the following organizations: CSIS: The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is Canada's domestic intelligence gathering organization. Their mandate is to collect information within Canada, usually via HUMINT (interpersonal interaction). RCMP: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police operates in a similar fashion to the American FBI. The RCMP has investigative, tactical, and policing branches. The RCMP has a mandate to operate on Canadian soil in the national interest but does have international law enforcement ties. CSE: A branch of the Department of National Defence, the Communications Security Establishment is Canada's electronic intelligence gathering organization, similar to the American NSA. Their mandate is to collect information abroad, usually via SIGINT (electronic data collection). JTF-2: Also a branch of the DND, Joint Task Force 2 is an elite special forces unit within the structure of the Canadian Armed Forces. JTF-2 has a mandate to operate on foreign soil in the national interest. Resources: Players are provided access to the Top Secret/S.I. Player's Guide, a collection of useful articles, the revised combat house rules, and character sheets for either female or male characters. The Commando sourcebook will be used but players will not need it for character generation - all required Commando information is provided either in this document or within the other provided supplements. Step 1: Players must generate their characters' core attributes using the point distribution system from page 6 of the Player's Guide. As described, players get 275 points to split between Strength, Reflexes, Intelligence, Willpower, and Constitution. There are also two derived attributes, Movement and Dexterity, which do not require direct point allocation but are calculated from core attributes - Movement is the average of Strength and Reflexes, Dexterity is the average of Reflexes and Intelligence. Core attributes may not be allocated more than 70 points. Depending on character background, there are also minimums: STR REF INT 20 20 50 40 30 40 50 50 30 WIL 50 30 40 CON 20 40 50 Leftover 115 95 55

CSIS/CSE RCMP JTF-2

Step 2: Choose Psychological Profile levels and Tags as per pages 10-11 of the Player's Guide. These attributes effectively form the alignment of the character. Note that certain psych profiles and tags will be flagged as undesirable by AEGIS and its feeder organizations. Step 3: Choose Advantages and Disadvantages (p12, PG). Players are not required to take Advantages/Disadvantages. A character may not have more than 6 points in each of Advantages and Disadvantages. Allocation must be equal - if your character has 4 points worth of Advantages, she/he must also have 4 points worth of Disadvantages. Step 4: Players must select skills for their characters. "Selected Articles" file will prove to be invaluable. The first four pages of the

First, each character gets 30 points to spend on skills. Skills are grouped into six categories. The following chart shows the minimum number of points that must be spent in certain skill categories for each character background: CSIS 6 6 6 4 RCMP 6 8 8 CSE 8 6 8 JTF-2 10 6 6

Mechanical Combat Specialty General Education Language

This leaves 8 skill points to be put into whichever category the player wishes. Skill costs are not strictly linear. The PG shows skills costs as #/#/# where the first value is to get the skill (at level 0), the second value is the cost for each of the next three skill levels (1 through 3), and the last value is the cost for the last two skill levels (4 & 5). The skill chart in "Selected Articles" shows the complete cost to get to a specific skill level - all of the math is accomplished for the player. Each skill has a related attribute. Skills effectively modify the related attribute. Not having a skill at all will cause skill checks to be made at a fraction of the related attribute. Some skills are marked with an asterisk (" ! ") - this denotes "no unskilled use". These are skills that you either have or your don't. For example, you cannot take an unskilled, proverbial stab-in-the-dark at disarming a nuclear device without the Nuclear Technician skill. Some skills also have a prerequisite. A prerequisite is a skill from the same category that the character must have before taking the noted skill. Each skill has a reference # (left side of chart) which is used for noting prerequisites. For example, before a character can take the Computer Technician skill, she/he must take the Electronics skill first. There is no requirement for a prerequisite skill to have a higher skill level than its dependent skill(s).

Languages are special case skills. First, all characters have a level of 5 in their native language without a cost in skill points. Some Advantages also provide "free" language skills. The cost to learn new languages is entirely dependent on the relationship between the languages. Languages are listed after the skill list. The languages are categorized so that they are organized by Family and Group. Each language falls into a group; several languages may form a language group; several groups may form a family of languages. Viewed from the top down, a language family may contain several language groups; each language group may contain several languages. To acquire a language skill from the same group as a language the character already knows, use the "same group" costs; to learn a language from a different group, but same family, use the "same family" costs; to learn a language completely unrelated to anything the character already knows, use the "new family" costs. Example: Let's start with a Canadian character who has the Bilingualism advantage and was raised in a primarily English environment. The character has the skills English-5 and French-0. To learn Spanish, which is in the same group as French (West Romance group), we use the "same group" costs. To learn German, which is not in the same group as English, but is in the same family, we use the "same family" costs to acquire the skill and subsequent levels. To learn Russian, which is not in the same group or family as either English or French, we use the "new family" costs. Essentially, once you have two or more languages from the same group, we can use the "same group" costs for both - learning multiple similar languages helps in learning each related language. This also applies to "same family" costs. Once this character learns German, Dutch could be learned at "same group" costs and both German & Dutch would subsequently progress at "same group" costs. The Player's Guide puts rather draconian limits on the number of languages that a character can learn (p59). Rather than using Intelligence to limit the number of languages, it is now used to limit the number of language families - this greatly opens up the number of languages that a character could potentially learn. Step 5: Round out the character's details (height, weight, gender, etc) and elaborate on the character's background. Be as vague or as detailed as you want to be. Try to have a plausible reason for your character's recruitment from her/his feeder organization into AEGIS - what the character brings to the table (which doesn't have to be specific skills). Step 6: Purchase equipment for the character. It is recommended to not use published game material for purchasing equipment since it is outdated. Catalogs, web sites, and the like can be used as a guideline for item availability and costs (ie, if you can't legally purchase an item in Canada, then your character has no excuse for owning such an item... yet). Also keep in mind that due to the differing nature of Top Secret/S.I., characters will be supplied with equipment once the game commences. This is especially true of firearms, high end electronics, and other extra-legal items.