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The Agency is a not-too serious spy/supernatural game set in 1960's London. Players make characters which work for the previously-mentioned agency, who hunt down and try to stop the sudden upsurge of supernatural entities that are threatening the peace of the Aquarian Age. And this introduction is nearly as long as the one included in the game!

The author mentions that the game is "designed to be a simple, light-hearted system with lots of opportunity for heroics," and while it may or may not allow lots of heroic moments, it certainly is simple. Here is a quick break-down of character creation and action resolution.

Character Creation: Think of a character concept (several examples, like rock star, cat burglar, and military specialist are included), choose 2 skills the character is good at and 1 in which he or she excels, and 1 skill that he or she is terrible at. Finally, choose one Heroic Bonus and one Heroic Flaw. Again, several examples of skills, flaws and bonuses are listed, but players are encouraged to make up their own.
Oh, and that's it. Character creation is finished. Simple, remember?
Action Resolution: Roll 3d6 against a difficulty of 9 or 13 (easy or difficult tasks). If you have a skill bonus or penalty, add that number.
If two characters are performing actions resisted by one another, simply compare their dice rolls for victory; high roll wins.
Again, very simple and fast.

An interesting idea from this game is Karma. Basically, whenever a hero or villain wants to take advantage of his or her Heroic Bonus, among a few other options, the player notes a point of bad Karma on the character sheet and uses the Bonus. Now, at any time the Director (The Agency's name for game master) can use that point of bad Karma to make the player use the character's Flaw. Depending on how trusting a group is, and how fair (and dramatic) the Director is, this could be very entertaining.

The game rounds out with a brief description of goons, minions, and bosses, some different types of supernatural beasties, and the Agency's most famous and most wanted.

This is a cool, very clean, but very short, simple game. If I had to name a single glaring problem, it would be lack of detail. I didn't mention the game's setting because, other than a single line stating that it takes place in 1960's London, there isn't any. I didn't mention any character advancement because, well, there isn't any. This is really more of a skeleton for a spy game than a complete game. While it could be fun for an afternoon, there's so little information here that any game master wanting to run it would be forced to add on whatever details are needed.

STYLE - 4 SUBSTANCE - 2

Oh, and here is a link to The Agency.

The Agency
The Agency Capsule Review by Steven Sweeney on 20/04/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 2 (Sparse) Create a character in under 12 seconds? Check. Create a plot in under 3? Check. Killing zombies in under 3 minutes? Depends how good at filling in the blanks your GM is... Product: The Agency Author: Matt Machell Category: RPG Company/Publisher: n/a? Line: n/a Cost: free Page count: n/a Year published: 2001 ISBN: n/a SKU: n/a Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Steven Sweeney on 20/04/02 Genre tags: Modern day Espionage	The Agency is a not-too serious spy/supernatural game set in 1960's London. Players make characters which work for the previously-mentioned agency, who hunt down and try to stop the sudden upsurge of supernatural entities that are threatening the peace of the Aquarian Age. And this introduction is nearly as long as the one included in the game! The author mentions that the game is "designed to be a simple, light-hearted system with lots of opportunity for heroics," and while it may or may not allow lots of heroic moments, it certainly is simple. Here is a quick break-down of character creation and action resolution. Character Creation: Think of a character concept (several examples, like rock star, cat burglar, and military specialist are included), choose 2 skills the character is good at and 1 in which he or she excels, and 1 skill that he or she is terrible at. Finally, choose one Heroic Bonus and one Heroic Flaw. Again, several examples of skills, flaws and bonuses are listed, but players are encouraged to make up their own. Oh, and that's it. Character creation is finished. Simple, remember? Action Resolution: Roll 3d6 against a difficulty of 9 or 13 (easy or difficult tasks). If you have a skill bonus or penalty, add that number. If two characters are performing actions resisted by one another, simply compare their dice rolls for victory; high roll wins. Again, very simple and fast. An interesting idea from this game is Karma. Basically, whenever a hero or villain wants to take advantage of his or her Heroic Bonus, among a few other options, the player notes a point of bad Karma on the character sheet and uses the Bonus. Now, at any time the Director (The Agency's name for game master) can use that point of bad Karma to make the player use the character's Flaw. Depending on how trusting a group is, and how fair (and dramatic) the Director is, this could be very entertaining. The game rounds out with a brief description of goons, minions, and bosses, some different types of supernatural beasties, and the Agency's most famous and most wanted. This is a cool, very clean, but very short, simple game. If I had to name a single glaring problem, it would be lack of detail. I didn't mention the game's setting because, other than a single line stating that it takes place in 1960's London, there isn't any. I didn't mention any character advancement because, well, there isn't any. This is really more of a skeleton for a spy game than a complete game. While it could be fun for an afternoon, there's so little information here that any game master wanting to run it would be forced to add on whatever details are needed. STYLE - 4 SUBSTANCE - 2 Oh, and here is a link to The Agency.