OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 260818

The first design problem for the OSINT-6 CIA Fact Sheet was deciding how to make a real intelligence agency playable when much of its work remains classified. Filling the gaps with dramatic invention would produce a recognizable spy story, but it wouldn’t produce a reliable agency reference.

We divided the problem into public institution and fictional operation. The Agency chapter uses documented information for the CIA’s mandate, legal limits, leadership, organization, careers, oversight, public facilities, and stated priorities. Those facts establish what the institution is and the kinds of work it publicly acknowledges.

The Game Master creates the mission, targets, personnel, sources, facilities, and classified details needed for play. Fiction stays inside the documented framework. A fictional field office can support a campaign, but its existence doesn’t alter the CIA’s statutory role. An invented operation can involve secret collection or covert action, but the characters still need the authorization, reporting chain, access, and resources required by the campaign.

This separation also prevents secrecy from becoming a universal explanation. “Classified” means the relevant information isn’t publicly available. It doesn’t establish that a rumored capability exists, that every officer knows about it, or that ordinary institutional limits disappear. Where the public record ends, the book says so.

The method gives the Game Master room to create without presenting fiction as research. Players can work for the real CIA, use its public career language, and operate within a plausible institutional environment. The campaign’s invented secrets remain campaign material.

That boundary matters throughout the OSINT-6 line. A real organization supplies constraints as well as possibilities. Accuracy comes from respecting both, then placing fictional operations in the space the public record can’t and shouldn’t fill.