Monday, December 21, 2015

More Sprechenhaltestelle





Groups in Sprechenhaltestelle
  • A: Amontillado Alley personnel and assistants (mostly)
  • C: No recognizable pattern?
  • D: Detention (mostly)
  • G: Guards at warehouses
  • S: Surface personnel (some associated with AA)
  • W: Waitresses (mostly)
Individuals in Sprechenhaltestelle
  • L1: Launderer
  • R1: Waiter (?)
  • WS1: Wine steward
  • HC: Hotel cook
  • HD: Hotel dishwasher
  • HSO: Hotel switchboard operator
  • NSO: Nighttime switchboard operator




  1. Thanks for this! It helped me make some sense out of some of the networks I was trying to analyze - the Stolen Goods Network, for instance, makes more sense when it is observed that the Gypsy Palm Reader also sells surveillance gear.

    Also, apropos of nothing, I, too, had been working on nationality assignments for the various personnel listed (though for people who had high English, German, AND French scores, I often assumed they were Swiss or Belgian).

    Finally, I'm still trying to puzzle out a pattern for "C" designated personnel, but maybe it stands for "Contact" - that is, someone whose role is primarily to act as a contact in a network of some kind?

    1. I'm glad you're also looking at this! Your inference about nationality sounds more sophisticated than mine. The "C" code is a real stumper because there's so many of them (it's actually the largest category). My initial guess is they might be mostly "clerks" but I don't think that pans out.

    2. On further looking, "C" has me totally stumped. It's not "criminal," it's not "contact," it's not... well, hell, I don't know.

      As for language assumptions, here are mine:

      Highest French, Russian, or German, with nothing else particularly close: French, Russian, or West German, respectively.

      Highest German with Russian quite close: East German.

      At least two of German, French, and English all quite close: Belgian or Swiss.

      Highest English with a strong score in another language: English.

      Highest English with no other strong scores: American.


    3. That's great! LOL at the last one, insightful. :-)

  2. This is interesting stuff, thanks for writing it. I won't lie, this module was opaque to the point of uselessness when I started playing Top Secret in Elementary School. Operation: Rapidstrike and Lady in Distress were a lot easier for us to get into.

    1. I think it was to ALL of us (and to date I haven't heard anyone say they did anything but run it as a D&D B1 style dungeon crawl massacre). It's interesting to here that the separate publications were different; I never had those, maybe I should pick them up.

    2. They're more mission than sandbox, and more assault than spying. But they felt pretty James Bond, which is what we wanted anyway.

  3. Merle Rasmussen is alive and still writing Top Secret material. You should track down his email.

    1. Yeah, if you read the prior post this started with me pinging him on Facebook, and he very politely replied with some tidbits, but couldn't remember comprehensively over the amount of time that's passed.

  4. Could C be for 'Crime' or something similar? e.g. 'Crime district', 'Criminal gang' or 'Criminal'.

  5. To throw gasoline on the embers, has anyone considered: A = Administrators, O = Operators, S = Spies or Agents, and C = Cut-outs. I am finding it amazing and amusing were are having this discussion 35 years after publication. Perhaps what we all need is a 21st Century Espionage RPG (title currently classified) by Rasmussen and edited by Allen Hammack. Then we can discuss a whole other team's development process! Merry Chirstmas, one and all!

    1. Sprechenhaltestelle is definitely one of those my-cup-runeth-over settings that's bursting with ideas past what the page count normally supports; and I think it's mature in a way that many of us had to become grown-ups before properly understanding it.

      Great idea for a new RPG, I'm sure there are many of us who would be happy to pitch in, make suggestions, or just playtest! :-)

  6. Merle, you sneaky so-and-so! Merry Christmas!

  7. I was going through all the synonyms for "waiter" that I could think of or find, and nothing started with an R. Then I (maybe) had an epiphany - could R just be Restaurant?

    1. That's great! Only thing is that technically the place he works is called the "Cafe" -- but other than that, excellent notion.