How would you run an espionage campaign? Is there any official RPGs or ones you would recommend?

>>95939393 (OP)
probably controversial but I would require players to use pregenerated characters, ones I made and they choose from. their task would likely come from either shady individual or an organization that seem to lack empathy and want some scrupulous deeds done. there wouldn't just be potential for screwing up a mission, but also an air of mistrust in carrying out the orders.

>>95939393 (OP)
I ran a spy campaign using Call of Cthulhu (without any supernatural stuff). The investigation stuff and dangerous combat works well.

>>95939393 (OP)
I've run a bunch, it's my autistic preference genre. Things I do:
* Steal the ICA from the Hitman games as an employer. They're an amoral-ish intelligence outfit for hire, they have no national jurisdiction boundaries, they have only unofficial influence on the authorities, they'll do as deep or as shallow shit as needed, and if the players have morals/politics I can give them a handler who matches up to smooth over issues.
* System matters, but I usually want a generic system that gets the fuck out of the way. I've used Unisystem to good effect, as well as Mini Six.
* Unless your players are coocoo for codenames like me, keep shit really simple. Tradecraft should take the form of very focused questions "Is your cover a civilian one, or a fake government one? Are you pretending to be the musicians for the party, or cops?" and you basically have to give benefit of the doubt that the characters do a lot of shit the players don't mention or know about.
* Hackers are still the death of such systems. The only thing I've found that works is to assure them that "stay in the van" hacking doesn't work on anywhere interesting, and that they will have to go on site and do stealth shit. Alexandrian has a good tactical hacking system to steal from.
* You will need a good handle on stealth attacks. I've never found a good rule that works, so basically it's the case that mooks die to takedowns and named characters always jump a bit out of the way (even from shotguns at 0 metres).
Useful games to read:
* Night's Black Agents
* Spycraft 1e (DO NOT run this, but do read it)

Most player familiar with D&D or Pathfinder can understand and port over to the mechanics easily and their gear up system is pretty good. As a controversial point liable to bring up the F*ck D&D crowd out the reason I like D20 is very simple...there's a shit-ton (technical term) of material out for it in all genres. As I mentioned for an Espionage game Spycraft is the best D20 option for the genre. There is also Big Eyes Small Mouth D20 which isn't bad if you want an Anime feel and options. I love options. I DO NOT recomend D20 Modern for anything other than source Material. Spycraft use D20 Mechanic but their classes are better. Even if you don't intend to run the games as your Core System these games are great for source material and you can find them shared online. James Bond 007 by Columbia Games. Top Secret (all versions) by TSR. Spycraft by AEG, not tht they also did a Stagate game sing the same rule set.. Millenium's Edge by Chamelion Eclectic. Phoenix Command by Leading Edge Games (Really crunchy Combat system but nice if that's what you want) Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green. For something left of center for the genre Stalking the Night Fantastic (aka Bureau 13) or Fringeworthy by Tri Tac Games. BESM by Guardian of Order, though a new 4th edition (non D20) has been released by a different company. Like I said all of these can be found online.

>>95940524
>F*ck
For why censor? You're on 4chan. Your mom's not gonna find out you cussed.

>>95940543
Google is going to track his IP and he'll get demonetized.

>>95939393 (OP)
What level of espionage, spy media has a plethora of options. Which ones are you looking to emulate? What subgenres? What tone? What time period?
Regardless you'll get a lot of use out of the conspyramid from Night's Black Agents.

>>95940665
Second Night's Black Agents. You could very easily take out vampires and run a straight spy game, and vampires are loose enough that you could really make any kind of occult conspiracy.

Secret Files of Section D for Savage Worlds. Great WW2 espionage.

>>95939393 (OP)
a friend of mine ran an alpha protocol game, similar in tone to the game, using smallville/cortex+ drama. Worked pretty well, but that was specifically aimed at the kind of spy thriller tone where everyone makes the kind of dumb mistakes that let other people live, does ideologically motivated stuff that disadvantages them, etc.

>>95939393 (OP)
Ended up grabbing Reign: Leviathan from the Vola recently and was pleasantly surprised. Pretty low-key SF (all the strangeness ties back to a single unnatural conceit) and the game focuses on a sort of "administrative backgrounder" PoV which you don't see as much of in spy media outside Sandbaggers.

The campaign's well set out and Reign's faction system is robust, the main barrier to me running it would likely be the strange headspace of penpusher protagonists at a remove from the action. Don't think I have the GM skills to do it justice (yet).

I'll probably recycle it into the campier "Jagged Alliance meet Phantom Doctrine" game I'd like to run someday. Definitely hives with the ICA-aping recommendation >>95940179

>>95940524
The meat of espionage plots is in the scheming, not novel monster stat blocks so the reasons you describe for sticking to the d20 compatible ecosystem are valid but barely apply in this case. As >>95940179 says you can read stuff like Spycraft and strip everything of value with barely a glance of theechanics. Also if you're dealing with mouth breathers afraid of learning new systems then any espionage plots are pretty much doomed by their idiocy from the get-go.