Tinker Tailor Soldier Shan

[citybumpkin]

I am currently reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre. I have not seen the movie. It occurred to me that the mix of Cold War espionage and intra-agency intrigue might be an excellent model for a PISCES or Delta Green campaign setting. For those of you not at all familiar with the story, the premise is that a retired senior member of "the Circus" (implied to be MI6 without explicitly saying so) is brought out of retirement because a cabal within "the Circus" has information that leads them to believe a Soviet mole has risen to high rank within the agency. This is all interlaced through rivalry among different factions and personalities within the agency.

I thought this same model of paranoia might work well in a PISCES setting where the Shan are first getting their probosces into the agency. Some fragment of information leads a small cabal of agents to believe that someone at the top has been compromised. The campaign could be the story of how PISCES became corrupted. Although we know how that story ends, getting there can be a lot of fun. I foresee a game where the mythos element is much more hinted at than you usually see.

This flavor of campaign can also be brought to an American setting easily, although I think it is best set during the Cold War where the threat of a powerful shadow opponent like the KGB can help conceal the true shadow opponent that is the mythos.

[Skyman]

I saw the movie and it is a masterpiece. So much said without being spoken. I could see it working well with PISCES as you suggested. Go for it

[Gil_Trevizo]

One thing I'd take from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the obfuscation of the real actors involved: (SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL/FILM(S)!)

Spoiler:

Alleline is the one benefiting most from the Merlin intelligence, as he's the one who takes command of the Circus after Control falls. Yet it is Haydon is "Gerald" and is systematically working behind the scenes in indirect ways for Karla.

So rather than the Shan directly taking control of certain high-ranking members of PISCES and wielding power that way, they might instead choose the senior but not chief people like Haydon, and use office politics to get the most easily-duped (Alleline), ambitious (Bland) or corruptible (Esterhase) into positions of power where they can be more easily manipulated than those already there. And if those people fall from power, it can be misdirected on the KGB and won't come back on the Shan-controlled agents, who remain in place to put another crop of easily-manipulated personnel into senior positions.

And then there's the most evil thing to do: have Smiley being the one who was Shan-controlled all along.

I would concur with Skyman. The movie is really good, as is the 1979 BBC miniseries.

[Shrike]

It's hard to beat Alec Guinness in anything. The movie is excellent, but the miniseries is even better.

[Steff Worthington]

It's hard to beat Alec Guinness in anything. The movie is excellent, but the miniseries is even better.

Hopefully they will give 'Smileys People' the cinema treatment too.

[YunusWesley]

Hopefully they will give 'Smileys People' the cinema treatment too.

Good Lord and with some of this same cast!!

[Skyman]

It's hard to beat Alec Guinness in anything. The movie is excellent, but the miniseries is even better.

Yeah I personally would not compare because it was two different ways to handle the same source material. Each to its own lest I wish to diminish the experience of both by comparison

[magicwookie]

And on a purely "recommending books not suggesting CoC applications" level, the middle Smiley book "The Honourable Schoolboy" is even better.
IMO it's the best book Le Carre has ever written....by a country mile.

[citybumpkin]

Saw the movie this past weekend. I enjoyed it. From a RPG source material perspective, movies have the added benefit of adding a visual and audio element to help you some ideas on how to flesh out how your game world might look and sound.

[OvS]

On a tangent to this, I'm just reading Declare by Tim Powers and it features a certain mr. Philby as well and has terrific Lovecraftesque atmosphere. I've been thinking how to turn this into a DG campaign since about page 100.

[AlAzif]

Interesting you mention the PISCES/Shan/Army of the Third Eye setup - I've had some ideas for a set of scenarios/mini-campaign around this environment.

I'm atrophied at writing such things nowadays (a downside of living in the sticks - curiously, not far from Goatswood and the rest of the Severn Valley...), but if anyone would like to pop me an IM, I'd be happy to discuss further.

Cheers
Al

PS: @OvS - indeed, Tim Powers is a great inspiration for this kind of stuff!