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James Bond, Burn Notice, Ocean's Eleven … warum kann man diese Filme so schlecht als Rollenspiel darstellen? Wahrscheinlich, weil die meisten sogenannten Agenten-Rollenspiele gar nicht auf die essentiellen Elemente eingehen, sondern nur einen Dungeon-Crawl in Bürogebäuden simulieren können.

Nicht so Wilderness of Mirrors von John Wick, welches besonders auf folgende drei Elemente eingeht:

• Können — Die Hauptcahraktere sind Profis und überlebensgroß
• Planung — Die Hälfte eines Agentenstreifens sind Planung. Hier trägt sie zur Spannung bei.
• Vertrauen — Hauptcharaktere können verraten werden; von Teammitgliedern oder direkt von Operations.

Nach der Planung (in der die Spieler die Hindernisse für den Auftrag erschaffen und dafür belohnt werden), geht es in den Einsatz, in dem alles ein kleines bisschen anders läuft als erwartet. Werden sie das Attentat trotzdem vertuschen können? Können sie trotz Verrat ihre eigene Haut und vielleicht sogar ihren Ruf retten?

Wenn Ihr das erfahren wollt, solltet Ihr Euch für Wilderness of Mirrors melden!

Hier noch, was John Wick dazu sagt:

As far as I'm concerned, there are three important elements to spy literature: Expertise, Planning, and Trust.

Expertise
Every agent in the game can do everything. Your agent can drive like a pro, sneak like a pro, kill like a pro, get the girl (or boy if you prefer) like a pro, etc. Everybody is great at everything.

But one guy on the team is the BEST at something. One guy is the hitman, one guy is the faceman, one guy is the techno, one guy is the leader, and one guy is the shade. When it comes to doing that one thing, that guy is the best. There's a mechanic for that.

Planning
The GM says, "Terrorists have stolen the President's daughter." And that's all he says. The players then go through the motions of "investigating" the situation and formulating a plan. (I invoke the old Mission: Impossible and La Femme Nikita TV shows for this.)

The players use satellite photographs, databases, and other plot devices (literal and otherwise) to "find information" about the situation. For every bit of information they find out, Operations (the GM) rewards them with a Mission Die. Mission Dice can be used by any player during the mission as bonus dice to add to their rolls. If players add a detail to the mission that makes the mission more difficult, Operations gives them more dice. The harder the players make it on themselves, the more dice they get.

And because no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, we have to invoke Complications. For every 15 minutes of game play (including planning), Operations gets a Complication Point. He can use Complication Points to change the details of the plan. In other words, he can use Complication Points to say, "Your map is wrong" or "The guy you thought was responsible is actually someone else." He can also use Complication Points to sabotage the players' rolls.

One every 15 minutes.

Trust
Finally, the last element is Trust. Whenever a player takes an action (secret or otherwise) that sabotages the team or their agency, Operations gives them Trust Dice. The bigger the betrayal, the more Trust Dice the player gets.

Give Operations a note, he reads it quietly, then gives you Trust Dice. And all the other players start looking at you funny.