This commented posted twice so I deleted one, FYI.
Thanks for the glowing review! Regarding playing as agents, when I initially conceived of this project, the PCs would be witting or unwitting participants in the experiments. I shied away from that for a couple of reasons:
- It's based on a real thing, and MKUltra was pretttty messed up. There was a lot of unethical/inhumane behavior (like dosing prisoners every day for 77 days straight, blackmailing participants, etc.), and some participants were really messed up from that. Roleplaying someone who didn't consent to the experiments could potentially be interesting but IMO would require a very delicate approach. I still pose the question "was joining the project your decision?" but asking that of a super-spy has a little bit of a different feel than asking a student or a prisoner IMO.
- I wanted the traits to have a "before experiments" and "after experiments," for a more well-rounded character. No one was just 100% LSD powers or spy powers. On a closer look, FIST's core traits assume a certain level of expertise, which I felt a random civilian participant wouldn't have going into the experiments.
- I really wanted to bring in the James Bond spy element, since I think it's an interesting contrast to the hippie acid trip scene. I haven't seen a lot of media that mixes these, so having the players be super-spies kind of helps balance out the two genre elements.
Hope that provides some insight into that design consideration. I was thinking about introducing an alternative background, like "another way to play" as an appendix that would propose civilian backgrounds. Maybe that'd be worth putting together.
Thanks again for your review!