Agents of SWING

[greyarea]

Has anyone played Agents of SWING or used the FATE ruleset. I just saw this advertised and thought it looked interesting. Maybe like a Top Secret-style game.


http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=AOS001

From the description:

Agents of SWING is a FATE-powered Spy-Fi adventure game in which you take on the part of secret agents, working throughout the world in the 1960s and 70s to avert catastrophe, punish evildoers and stop the two superpowers from annihilating each other.

A slimmed down and sped up version of FATE, derived from Cubicle 7's Starblazer Adventures, SWING simplifies the system and lets you get right into the action.

There are rules for agents, villains, henchmen and goons. There are rules for coming up with nefarious organisations, hints and tips on how to run the game (including a 'plot stress' adventure structure) and a ton of starting level PCs so that you can pick up and play right out of the book.

A hit during playtesting at UK conventions, now you can finally get your hands on Agents of SWING and start laying into the enemies of humanity.

Just do it with STYLE.

Thoughts?

[Blood axe]

Groovy baby! Like Austin Powers??

[greyarea]

Seems that way. Could be fun.

[gentleman john]

Agents of Swing is more based on shows like "The Avengers", "The Champions" and "The Man From UNCLE". It is supposed to replicate the feel of the 1960s spy-fi tv series, with some diversions into the grittier world of 70s British TV ("The Professionals" and "Sapphire and Steel"). As Austin Powers is a parody of these, I'm sure you could do something similar with these rules. Mind you, you could do Austin Powers with Top Secret if you felt so inclined.

FATE is an interesting system, and happens to be one of my gaming group's "go to" sets of rules. There aren't any characteristics as such. Instead, characters are defined by their Skills (basic abilities), Stunts (cool things they can do) and Aspects (personality traits, background and plot hooks). Depending on whether you use the true FATE 3.0 or the C7 subset, the system is 4dF or d6-d6 in nature. Toll the dice, sum the result, add to appropriate Skill, engage Stunt, employ Aspect and compare to difficulty. The major currency of FATE is the Fate Point. Players use these to activate Aspects and Stunts. The referee pays out Fate Points to compel players' Aspects and to get them to do things that he wants them to do.

Nice and flexible, but it is a very story-driven set of rules. It hasn't stopped me buying Agents of SWING to go with my other FATE games.

[greyarea]

Wow, thanks for the detailed description, Gentleman John. Sounds interesting.

[greyarea]

Picked this up. Pretty groovy so far.

[gentleman john]

Wait until you get into the list of NPCs. We had fun working out who was meant to be who. Fun for British TV geeks.