OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 260205

The CIA announced yesterday that The World Factbook has been discontinued. The announcement described the publication's history, from a classified reference launched in 1962 to an unclassified edition, a public website, and a resource used by researchers, teachers, journalists, travelers, and government readers. It didn't give a reason for ending the publication.

That decision affects OSINT-6 because we'd already planned to use the Factbook as the starting source for our Country Factbooks. The attraction was straightforward. It collected country information under a stable set of headings, covered the operational subjects we needed, and was produced by the United States government. CIA's site policy places its information in the public domain unless a copyright notice says otherwise.

We never intended to reproduce an entry and call the research complete. A Factbook entry could establish a common baseline for geography, population, government, infrastructure, communications, transportation, military conditions, and transnational issues. Each volume would then verify and update the material through current sources before adding fictional agencies, game rules, and missions.

The shutdown changes access and maintenance. It doesn't invalidate the source material already published. Archived editions still preserve the text, but a vanished live site can no longer supply continuing corrections, revised figures, or stable links. Citation and version control now require more work.

Our immediate decision is to keep the Factbook in the research plan while changing its status. It will serve as a dated historical baseline, never as a current authority by default. Every Country Factbook will identify the archived edition used, record a research cutoff, and support time-sensitive claims through recoverable current sources.

That approach keeps the useful part of the original plan. It also makes the limit explicit: an archived reference can tell us where the research began. It can't tell readers when the work stopped.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251228

Foot pursuits and vehicle pursuits need the same dramatic decisions, but they don't operate at the same speed or over the same distances. Counting squares works for a short tactical movement. It becomes awkward across stairwells, traffic, alleys, highways, crowds, and changing routes.

We designed one Chase procedure around relative position. Contact, Close, Medium, and Far describe the useful relationship between pursuer and quarry. Escaped ends the active pursuit. A band doesn't claim that a foot chase and a motorway pursuit cover equal distances. It states what actions and escape opportunities the current position permits.

A chase round is likewise a meaningful pursuit interval rather than a fixed six seconds. In a building, the interval may cover moments. On an open road, it may cover much longer. Each round confirms position, presents an obstacle, selects one lead mover per side, resolves actions, compares progress, and applies consequences.

Limiting ordinary movement progress to one lead mover prevents a larger team from gaining speed merely because it has more participants. Everyone else can still affect the pursuit by assisting, attacking, creating an obstacle, intercepting, communicating, or taking another action supported by position. Team size creates options instead of automatic movement.

Progress then changes the range band. Meeting the route's Difficulty Class earns 1 progress, and exceeding it by 5 earns 2. The difference between the sides moves the range by no more than two bands in a round. Equal progress preserves the position. Speed and route capabilities still matter. A decisive mismatch can shift range automatically or make escape inevitable unless containment, interception, or an obstacle changes the problem.

The abstraction leaves tactical distances intact when an attack requires them. Range bands don't replace weapon ranges. They handle the pursuit-level question: who is gaining, what choices remain available, and what must happen before contact or escape?

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251221

The SRD's Influence action wasn't deep enough for a game centered on access, disclosure, authority, leverage, and human judgment. A single attitude and check can resolve a simple request. Espionage play regularly asks harder questions: Does this person know the answer? Can this person grant access? What would compliance risk? Which obligations or limits control the response?

We replaced the single action with a bounded Influence procedure. The agent states a specific request, and the Game Master establishes only the parts of the responding character's social profile that matter. Those parts can include attitude, interests, pressures, knowledge, access, authority, limits, and existing agreements.

Access and authority come before willingness. A friendly receptionist can't disclose information the receptionist doesn't know or grant permission held by a security director. A high check can't manufacture either capacity. Once the responding character can provide the result, willingness determines whether a check belongs. A willing character accepts through a reasonable method. An unwilling character refuses because the request crosses a controlling limit or remains unacceptable. A hesitant character can be influenced.

For hesitant characters, the request's complete cost sets the stakes. Low-stakes requests begin at DC 10, Moderate at 15, High at 20, and Severe at 25. Unacceptable requests receive no check until circumstances change. Attitude and leverage can modify the attempt, but neither turns a bounded concession into unrestricted control.

The request itself also needs a narrow definition. Permission to enter one controlled room doesn't include permission to search the building, copy records, detain staff, or return later. A successful result accomplishes what was asked within the agreement reached.

This procedure gives social action firmer limits while leaving room for many approaches. Persuasion, deception, intimidation, bargaining, and professional authority can all matter. The method selects the check. The profile and request determine what success can actually produce.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251216

• We spent a lot of time discussing attribution. The members of our group voted to not be credited. They’re mostly not gamers, they’re our friends who play D&D with us and agreed to help playtest this. A few have negative views of the online roleplaying community. They also don’t feel that they’ve contributed anything, although they very much have.

• Piper and I also talked about how we want to credit ourselves. I voted for co-writers, but she didn’t want to be listed as a writer feeling that I did most of the work. I suggested calling her the editor, because she’s read and corrected everything, but she didn’t feel qualified to take that title. Since we took things that already existed and remixed them, she suggested compiler or researcher. I thought we should bother be listed as compilers and researchers, acknowledging that we’re building on SRD 5.2.1, E6, the CIA World Factbook, and other influences.

• One of our friends thought that crediting it as “compiled and research by” would lead people to think it was AI generated. People are going to think what they want. This was one of the same people who wants distance from the RPG community and all forms of social media, so by nature he has very little faith in people. All we can do is say that we created this, and address any questions or concerns as they come up.

• Inspirational viewing: The Night Manager Season 1

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251214

Research, surveillance, technical work, and other sustained tasks create a recurring rules problem. One roll can make hours of work feel weightless. A string of identical rolls creates the opposite problem, since the group keeps rolling until enough successes appear or patience runs out.

The development register called for one common engine for extended tasks. We built Extended Procedures around progress, intervals, inputs, consequences, and termination conditions. The same framework can support different kinds of work without making each later subsystem invent its own clock.

Before an Extended Procedure begins, the Game Master defines its objective, required inputs, interval, Difficulty Class, permitted checks, consequence, progress requirement, and conditions that end the work. Short procedures require 2 progress, Standard procedures require 4, and Complex procedures require 6. One lead character rolls during each interval. Meeting the Difficulty Class earns 1 progress, while exceeding it by 5 earns 2. Failure earns none and applies the consequence established for that interval.

The interval matters as much as the roll. Four hours spent analyzing access records can advance an Operational Clock even when the check fails. A surveillance interval might increase the chance of detection. Technical work might consume a limited component. Earlier progress normally remains, so one failure complicates the work without erasing everything already accomplished.

We also required inputs and termination conditions because progress can't float free of circumstances. Losing the records, equipment, access, safe location, or remaining time can stop a procedure. Changed conditions may make the original objective impossible even after useful work has been completed.

The finished rule creates a middle scale between one Ability Check and an entire downtime activity. It measures sustained work without asking the table to simulate every minute. More important, it makes time, resources, and risk part of the procedure instead of leaving them as narration around repeated d20 rolls.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251207

The standard ability-and-skill format is compact, but fixed pairings can give the skill list more authority than the fictional method. Modern operations expose that weakness quickly. Intimidating someone, treating an injury, entering a building, or examining a security system can depend on very different aptitudes depending on what the agent actually does.

We treated a skill as a category of training instead of a permanent attachment to one ability. The Game Master selects the ability that represents the method, then applies the skill proficiency when that training remains relevant. The association changes only when the method makes another ability the main source of uncertainty.

An agent usually makes a Charisma (Intimidation) check when using threats or force of presence. Bending a steel bracket as a demonstration can call for Strength (Intimidation). The agent's knowledge of intimidation still matters, but physical power now determines whether the demonstration works. Medicine produces another distinction. Intelligence (Medicine) covers diagnosis and treatment selection, while Dexterity (Medicine) can cover a delicate field procedure after the diagnosis is known.

This choice preserves the six familiar abilities without forcing every modern task into one predetermined pairing. It also makes the player's declared method mechanically relevant. Two agents can pursue the same objective with different checks because they're creating different uncertainties and accepting different consequences.

The rule has a limit. Flexible association isn't permission to choose an agent's best ability after the task is described. The Game Master follows the method, and the alternative ability must carry the attempt. That restriction keeps flexibility from turning into routine ability substitution.

Once we made that decision, several other Core Rules followed it. Help requires applicable proficiency. Chase actions can use Athletics, Acrobatics, Vehicles, Technology, Perception, or Analysis according to the route and tactic. Social checks likewise follow the approach used. The skill records training; the ability records how that training is being applied now.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251202

• The equipment section is mostly done at this point. the decision to not go for specific weapons (Beretta 92, Glock 19, etc.) but stick to categories (pocket pistol, service pistol, heavy pistol, etc.) helped. In game terms is make very little difference, although there will certainly be people who not only dislike out chosen categories but the statistics assigned. Which is fine. The game will be open source, so they can write their own alternative statistics.

• We have decided to name specific weapons in the Factbooks. The standard service pistol make and model for the US Military, what FBI agents tend to carry, things like that. This makes sense as the Factbook are meant to be more specific, where the core rulebook is intended to be generic and adaptable.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251128

The familiar d20 mechanic gave us a useful starting point for OSINT-6 CORE RULEBOOK. Familiarity reduces the amount of basic procedure a group has to learn. It also creates a problem: a familiar roll can become automatic. Someone names a skill, rolls, and waits for the Game Master to decide what the result means.

We wanted an Ability Check to begin with the agent's objective and method. Those two facts determine whether the attempt can work, which ability applies, what proficiency matters, and what failure can change. A high roll can't supply missing authority, equipment, access, or physical capability. If the method can't reach the objective, the agent has to change the method before dice become relevant.

That led to a nine-step check procedure. The group clarifies the objective and method, confirms access, identifies the uncertainty, selects the ability and proficiency, sets the Difficulty Class, states the apparent consequence, rolls, and applies the result. The arithmetic remains d20 plus modifiers against a Difficulty Class. The added procedure controls when that arithmetic belongs at the table.

Consequences were the other half of the decision. Failure can consume time or equipment, close an opportunity, worsen a position, increase Exposure, reveal information, cause harm, or end that approach. The Game Master applies the consequence that follows from the method. Failure doesn't need to become damage, and it shouldn't become a bundle of every penalty that might fit.

This also explains why the rules discourage unchanged repeat attempts. Another identical roll would replace a consequence with extra chances. A new attempt needs a changed method, more time, new information, different equipment, new access, or some other meaningful advantage. The die still resolves uncertainty. The surrounding procedure makes the result matter.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251119

E6 gave us three durable ideas: six levels can sustain a full campaign, capable characters can remain mortal, and planning can matter more than continued numerical escalation. It didn't provide a ready-made advancement chapter for OSINT-6.

The original E6 framework belongs to an earlier d20 fantasy environment and was published with the Open Game License. Its post-cap procedure awards another feat for each 5,000 Experience Points, then uses additional assumptions for feats, challenge ratings, spells, and high-level threats. Those details weren't part of the SRD 5.2.1 Creative Commons workflow used by this project.

We therefore treated E6 as independent design inspiration. OSINT-6 doesn't copy its prose, feat text, XP award, challenge calculations, spell assumptions, or broader 3.5-era economy. The OSINT-6 Core Rulebook states its own six-level classes and its own advancement procedure.

Agents advance together through team milestones earned for completed operations, objectives, and substantial campaign developments. The game has no Experience Points. After level 6, every 3 additional team milestones grant each agent one qualifying General, Combat, Technical, or Social feat. The agent remains level 6 and gains no class level, Hit Points, proficiency bonus, or class talent.

That procedure preserves some mechanical growth without reopening the vertical progression the cap was meant to close. Later campaign awards can also expand options through qualifications, contacts, sponsor resources, safe locations, cover assets, or source relationships. These benefits improve preparation and access while leaving the agent's basic numerical scale intact.

This is where incorporation differs from imitation. E6 identified a useful campaign shape. OSINT-6 rebuilt that shape for a different rules edition, license, genre, and reward structure. The result acknowledges the influence while allowing the final procedure to answer the needs of modern espionage.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251113

The six-level limit in the OSINT-6 Core Rulebook draws on E6, a form of d20 fantasy that uses levels 1 through 6 for the full campaign. The useful idea wasn't that every E6 rule belonged in a modern game. It was that a short level range could support capable characters without turning continued advancement into a change of scale.

That suited espionage. An experienced agent should be more capable than a new recruit, but expertise shouldn't make bullets, falls, exposure, arrest, or institutional power irrelevant. A veteran still needs intelligence, access, timing, equipment, allies, and an exit plan. The level cap protects those pressures.

Six levels also force each class to establish its identity quickly. Strong, Agile, Tough, Smart, Intuitive, and Charismatic Agents receive complete progressions rather than waiting through a long campaign for defining features. Proficiency remains bounded, and Hit Point growth ends before physical risk becomes background noise.

The cap changes scenario design as much as character design. A stronger adversary can't always be overcome through direct confrontation. Planning, special resources, verified information, leverage, permissions, deception, and cooperation become ways to change the situation before the decisive scene. That principle closely matches E6's emphasis on preparation over vertical power growth, even though OSINT-6 applies it to surveillance, access, influence, and modern conflict.

There are costs. Players who enjoy constant numerical escalation may find the ceiling restrictive. Six levels provide less room for long class progressions, repeated proficiency increases, or campaigns built around ever-larger combat threats. Every feature has to justify limited design space.

Those limits were acceptable because they reinforce the intended genre. Level 6 marks full professional development, not the end of meaningful play. The campaign can continue through consequences, relationships, resources, specialized options, and increasingly difficult operations without requiring level 7.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251107

Mophidius has launched a Kickstarter for The Spy Game, a 5e-based espionage roleplaying game. Initially our hearts sank, but to be honest, it’s surprising it hasn’t already been done. And the existence of one d20-based espionage game doesn’t mean we can’t continue developing ours. There are, after all, how many 5e fantasy games when D&D has and will always have the majority market share?

What matters is that we fill a different need. The Spy Game looks like it’s trying to fill the void left by Spycraft (which is still available, and the 2nd edition is available via print on demand, but it’s no longer an active line). It’s action-adventure focused, while we’re striving to be more grounded, using E6-inspired caps on character advancement and power creepy. There will inevitably be bad-faith actor who try to make comparisons, or say we’re copying them. We can’t concern ourselves with that. We just want to make our game, and make it the best that we can.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251104

SRD 5.2.1 is a fantasy roleplaying document. Its rules assume heroic classes, species, spells, magic items, monsters, treasure, and advancement through 20 levels. Those assumptions aren't confined to isolated chapters. They shape healing, travel, equipment, combat, social interaction, character growth, and the kinds of problems the rules expect players to solve.

That made adaptation more demanding than changing names. OSINT-6 omitted spells, magic, fantasy species, alignment, monsters, treasure, and the SRD classes. Aptitude classes had to be written as complete six-level progressions. Professions replaced fantasy backgrounds with prior occupations, training, access, contacts, qualifications, languages, and origin feats.

Other material required conversion instead of deletion. Armor needed protection, coverage, concealment, qualifications, and legal access. Equipment needed cost bands, availability, readiness, carriage, setup, and deployment. Recovery couldn't depend on magical healing. Travel had to account for cities, roads, borders, aircraft, vehicles, timetables, and operational delays.

The largest gaps concerned intelligence work itself. An isolated ability check can't replace an intelligence cycle. Surveillance needs detection states and counter-surveillance. Sources need motivations, access, reliability, risk, and continuing relationships. Cover identities, exposure, research records, communications security, infiltration, and mission planning all require consequences that persist beyond one roll.

Using 5E also creates expectations. Players may assume rising Hit Points, expanding supernatural capability, combat-centered rewards, and eventual access to high-level solutions. OSINT-6 had to state where those expectations ended. Mission and objective milestones replaced rewards for defeating opponents or taking property. Intelligence and preparation had to matter without guaranteeing success.

The SRD saved work where its procedures fit. It also made the points of incompatibility easier to see. Adaptation succeeded only when we treated those conflicts as design problems instead of cosmetic differences.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251029

The strongest argument for using SRD 5.2.1 wasn't popularity by itself. A familiar chassis is useful when its parts continue to solve the new game's problems. Several parts did.

The six abilities provide a broad vocabulary for physical capability, reasoning, awareness, and influence. Proficiency distinguishes trained agents from untrained people without requiring a separate percentage scale for every task. Difficulty Classes let the Game Master express uncertainty through one numerical range. Advantage and disadvantage absorb many situational factors without producing long modifier stacks.

The action structure also transferred well. Actions, movement, reactions, attacks, damage, and conditions remain useful when an operation turns immediate and contested. Players can move from surveillance or negotiation into a pursuit or armed confrontation without changing resolution engines. A single core procedure keeps the game coherent across mission phases.

Compatibility also gave us a useful editorial test. When an established rule worked, we could retain and restate it. When it worked only after translation, we could convert its terminology and examples. When its assumptions fought the genre, we could replace or omit it. The SRD became a baseline for comparison instead of a requirement to preserve every subsystem.

This approach shortened some explanations, but it didn't make the design automatic. A modern skill list still needed to separate ability, profession, skill, and equipment qualification. Firearms needed traits and profiles. Vehicles, communications, surveillance, research, sources, operational security, and mission planning required procedures the fantasy rules didn't supply.

The chassis gave OSINT-6 a common mechanical language. Its value came from selective reuse. A familiar rule stayed only when it supported the intended decision at the table.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251021

The first major rules decision for the OSINT-6 Core Rulebook was whether to build a new engine or adapt an established one. We chose the System Reference Document 5.2.1 as the foundation because it offered a familiar resolution language, a complete body of usable procedures, and clear publication under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

That choice established the basic grammar of the game. A d20 test adds an ability modifier, proficiency when relevant, and other modifiers against a target number. Advantage and disadvantage handle favorable and unfavorable circumstances. Armor Class, attack rolls, saving throws, actions, reactions, damage, and conditions give players recognizable points of entry.

Familiarity reduced the number of concepts the book had to introduce at once. A player who already knows 5E can understand the core roll before learning how OSINT-6 handles intelligence records, sources, surveillance, exposure, cover identities, mission planning, or modern equipment. New players still receive the complete rules because the book doesn't require another rulebook at the table.

The license mattered too. SRD 5.2.1 provides a specific attribution statement and permits use under CC BY 4.0. We could identify which text and procedures came from that source, adapt them, and publish the resulting rulebook under a compatible framework. That created a cleaner boundary than relying on informal compatibility or scattered legacy material.

Starting with an SRD didn't mean accepting its entire design. It meant choosing a tested mechanical vocabulary, then deciding which parts supported modern espionage. Every retained element still had to survive a genre audit. Familiarity was useful only when it reduced learning cost without distorting the missions OSINT-6 was built to run.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 251011

• We text fixed hit point in the last session. Instead of rolling, each character gets (3 + CON bonus)*level. For example, a 2nd level character with a +1 con bonus has 8 hit points. The players all replace the current rolled hit points with the fixed amount. There was very little different. In a grounded, E6-inspirated game, if you get shot you’re messed up and might die, and if you get shot a lot you will almost definitely die. It suits the genre and removes a step from both character creation and levelling up that doesn’t really add anything. We also text fixed amounts for recovery and healing, but we’ll need to play with that so injured characters don’t either walk off a gunshot wound after a long rest or linger with an injury for an amount of time that effectively takes the character out of play.

• Inspirational reading: The Persian by David McCloskey

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 250922

The first thing the playtest group agreed on was no James Bond. As we flesh out the rules, particularly the equipment list, we won’t be including any imaginary gadgets, card enhancements, or fantastic versions of real-world devices. Keep it grounded. If we do release this as fully open source and someone wants that, they can create it themselves. Maybe someday we’ll do a supplement with over-the-top rules, but I think that’s as likely as releasing a sourcebook for levels 7-20.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 250813

We’re dropped the idea of using hero points. I think we were thinking of the James Bond RPG, which was arguably the first RPG to use them, and unconsciously trying to emulate it. They’re an optional rule in the 5e DMG but I don’t think they’re in the SRD, so we’d have to create our own mechanics for it.

But it doesn’t fit with what we’re doing. It would erase some of the point of capping advancement at 6th level to prevent power creep. And Alec Leamas couldn’t spend a point to keep Liz (or Nan) from getting shot while going over the wall.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 250708

Playtesting with the rough draft will begin when everyone is available again in the Autumn. Until then we’re writing and researching. The general consensus is that if we’re capping advancement at level 6, we should go with milestone-based advancement instead of awarding experience points. It makes completing missions successfully feel like the point, instead of doing individual things along the way like killing every minor bad guy or stealing everything that’s not nailed down in order to gain XP. This is definitely the right focus. We’ll figure out something like how many missions it takes to advance for each level, and how many missions you need to complete after level 6 to gain a new feat.

OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 250707

Power creep came up early in the development process. We’d played a Pathfinder 1e campaign back when that came off the rails as the characters got too powerful for anything to be fun anymore. Piper and I would both rather have a George Smiley/Sandbaggers type of spy game than James Bond or Jason Bourne, even though the hobby in general probably favors action and combat.

I’d remembered hearing about something called E6, which I though was an old 2e supplement, something officially publish. I thought it was the module number. The idea was that it capped advancement at 3rd level or something like that. I recall someone on a forum or social media writing that Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings doesn’t use any spells that go above what D&D classifies as 3rd level, so that might be what I was thinking.

In doing research, it turned out to be a long thread on ENWorld. It caps advancement at 6th level to keep things a bit more grounded. After that, a character earns new feats instead of gaining more hit points and more abilities. That sounds right.

We’ve amended the working title to OSINT-6 because it sounds like MI6 and feels cool, and reflects the idea that we’re taking inspiration from E6. I’m sure this will alleviate the fears of some people when they heard 5e spy game, and infuriate the people who like the power creep.

OSINT CHANGELOG 250613

I don’t think I’ve written down that we’ve given this project the working title of OSINT RPG PROJECT. Because 5.2.1 is open source, and many of the places we will be drawing on for history and how intelligence agencies works are open source. It’s also a thing in the intelligence community, looking through traditional media and social media for clues about things unspoken that are happening. It’s how a lot of role playing games get adventure ideas, so that fits together nicely.

Because it’s summer and not everyone can get together to play, we went to see The Phoenician Scheme. Afterward we all had a long discussion about whether it qualified as a spy movie, and if our game would allow for things like that. I think it would, given the emphasis on Backgrounds. I think i might work for anything modern, although I don’t know that anyone would want to try to run romance with it.