I''ve been laying down a system for spying in mym game, but I am having quite a difficult time working it out on paper. Basically, you are a guy and you want to spy on other people, RPGish. This is in a medieval setting. It is pretty tough to get information on medieval espionage. So I am asking everyone else, what sort of stuff would you want to be able to do in realtion to spying? Basically, right now, you have a spymaster in your employ, and you can allocate resources to different things like general spying (blech! gotta change that), and you allocate a number of spies to miscellanious, which you use primary for spying on specific people and as plants in other peoples'' groups. These plants are then basically full time spies and can set up stuff to frame a given person (eg, plant wolf tracks around house to frame a person for lycanthropy). Actually the plants are working fairly well, but what I am having trouble on is the spying in general. What else is there for spying beside placing plants? actually, I dont even know what I am having trouble on, just that I dont like what I have so far, so any comments at all or thoughts or links would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

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Actually the plants are working fairly well, but what I am having trouble on is the spying in general. What else is there for spying beside placing plants? actually, I dont even know what I am having trouble on, just that I dont like what I have so far, so any comments at all or thoughts or links would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Well spying is more typically done to gather information that isn''t readily available otherwise - the spys you plant can be used to learn about the strength and morale of enemy forces, when and where they move, etc. I don''t know much about the specifics of your game but I''m sure you can think of some places to apply this.

Sabotage is another area to look at. Your spies can try to cause damage to your opponents'' resources, or lower morale or something.

Perhaps my favourite aspect of spying is counter-espionage/misinformation. What if your opponent discovers one of your spies in his midst? Instead of simply killing your spy and ending the information flow wouldn''t it be smarter if the spy was used to send you false or misleading information?

Another use for spies is to deflate the enemy''s morale. They can spread false stories or stir them up to do something before they are ready, etc...

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Make it work.
Make it fast.

"Commmmpuuuuterrrr.." --Scotty Star Trek IV:The Voyage Home

Doesnt the counterintel deal go against the general rule of not throwing red herrings at the player? I read that somewhere-dont mislead the player.

some rules have exceptions. normally red herrings are bad since they cause the player needless wandering. yet in a game where information gathering is the actual gameplay. deciding whether information is valid is good for gameplay.

spies could be introduced to your own group as well. so its imperitive that not all information be true.

instead some system of reliablity and loyalty must be implemented. allowing players to be able to decide how trusting someone is. spies agents can also have sort of simple ai that would have them use probablity to determine if the information they hear is truthful or not.

visual cues on faces when reading the text could be helpful, or a description so the player can see if the person seems stressed or not (ie talks fast, seems nervous, sweating, etc).

spies place plants, they can watch ppl, they can sneak into areas (ie break into a warrom for plans), etc. basically anything to do with getting hard to get infromation that spies/general public should not know.

Along with probability, you could add range. Certain spies have a range they could cover, based on what level / position they''ve infiltrated in the enemy''s organization. A chef, for instance, would only have a small locale. A general, on the other hand, or scout might have a greater range.

Range would become important to the player when trying to assess the probability that any one intelligence source was compromised. If multiple sources verified something like troop buildup, then the player could be more comfortable with the information than if only one spy of questionably loyalty reported it.

You could break down range, as well, and enclose the idea of duty and function. All spies might have a range of duties and functions they could perform, and a range which would be appropriate for their station. If you wanted, for example, to get information on an enemy empire''s treasury, it would be better to have someone working in the teasury as a spy than it would having a town crier. If you requested that the town crier still attempt to infiltrate and get the information, he might demand more money and have a higher chance of getting caught.

I''d also recommend giving spies a bit of detail on skills and stats. You might also add something regarding personality (greedy, or disaffected, or conflicted) if you want more of a human sense out of your spies.

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Just waiting for the mothership...

all good ideas! I was thinking, basically making the main NPCs as multidimensional as possible(personality type, drive, motive, ambition, top 3 loyalties), and making all the little guys sort of flat, just a personality:
hedonist, idealist, tradtionalist, and rationalist.
I guess the toughest part would be in figuring out how to give the player clues onto what is real and what is not (although multiple spies could solve that, as well as observation), and the AI deciding weather to keep or dispose of a spy, although that could be a determinate of the personality as well.