Top Secret RPG: 1st and 2nd editions – The evolution of the black box

TSR released the Top Secret espionage roleplaying game in 1980. I don’t see too many of those 1st edition sets come through the shop.

By 1981, they’d re-worked the set into a 2nd edition. Visually quite similar at first glance, the rules underwent some changes, particularly combat from what I can see. If anybody knows of a good blog post or forum thread outlining the rules changes between 1st and 2nd edition Top Secret, let me know and I’ll link to it.

I’ve got 1st and 2nd edition sets to contrast together in photos today.

Top Secret sets available in the shop

Top Secret product line detailed at the reference site

Exterior

Top Secret black box printings top lids — Left: 1st edition, 2nd printing (April 1980). Right: 2nd edition (February 1981).

Externally, there is little to distinguish the sets apart. There is a size difference however.

Interior

Top Secret black box printings — 1981 red rules book has some graphical changes on the cover, plus the updated TSR face logo.

(Here’s a later 1983 set that came through the shop in 2014. Note the box now has the angled TSR logo… but not the book. OK, now back to the earlier sets…)

A noticeable change is the box itself on the inside. Most commonly seen in the Holmes Basic D&D set, early TSR boxes used a box blank with the graphics as a glued-on sheet, both top and bottom. This “glued sheet” box format was retained for a brief time, before being replaced with a box with the graphics printed directly on the paperboard.

Top Secret changed box formats between editions.

This was something TSR did at the time, across their game lines:

Dungeons & Dragons: The Shift in Early Box Formats

Boot Hill early print box set