I just had to pick this up. I’ve stopped by here enough, you know that I like FATE. One thing I haven’t really mentioned is that I’m big fan of spy genre for RPG’s.
The longest campaign that I have ever ran was my I.S.I.S. (International Secret Intelligence Service) campaign. It started out with the original Top Secret (Not Top Secret/SI). We played it a little bit with Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes then a short stint with the James Bond RPG. We finally settled on the very ancient Hero Games’ Espionage and then stepped up to Danger International. So when I heard about this from little game from Postmortem Studios, I just had to get it.
First of the very basics. It’s a FATE game. Plain and simple, and goes with the normal FATE engine. Agents of S.W.I.N.G. uses the +1d6-1d6 system for rolling. And is leads to the only major divergence from the core FATE mechanics. If make a roll by +3 or more, you get a Swing Die. You can only ever have one Swing Die at time. And what do you do with it? Well, when things go bad, you can roll your Swing Die and take that roll and replace it with either one of the dice you rolled. Characters are generated in the usual FATE manner. Choose your Aspects, buy your skills and stunts then figure out your Refresh. The game has all the good bits to run a spy-fi game; gadgets, goons, chases, organizations and the all the nifty bits you need. There’s a nice little setting organization for the PC’s to work for S.W.I.N.G. and a good array of NPC’s. I personally made a little mini-game of reading the rule book and figuring out which NPC was based loosely on which fictional spy.
Here’s what Agents of S.W.I.N.G. Is NOT. It is not a gritty realistic Bourne Identity type game. This game is based on the classic quirky spy stories of the 60′s and early 70′s. Great series like the Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, Our Man Flint or I Spy just to name my favorites. For you youngsters out there, think of Austin Powers just not as corny. This is a great genre for RPG’s. It was time of political, cultural and scientific change. I really view as the last bastion of the great stories of the pulps. These are cinematic stories of larger than life heroes facing off against equally larger than life villains. Throw into that mix just a little bit of over the top gadgetry and a just a wee bit of quirky weirdness. It’s a great place to adventure.
If you like FATE. Pick it up. If you like the fun loving Spy Genre. Pick it up. If you just don’t aren’t sure then screw it. Pick it up any way. It’s available at Drive Thru RPG.
4 Responses to “Agents of S.W.I.N.G. Groovy!”
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Chuck on 
Philo Pharynx on 
I wonder if you could also play in a more modern setting with a lighter bent, ie, Chuck, Burn Notice? How about earlier-era spies such as Wild Wild West?
Since it’s FATE based, it would no problem to adjust the era where your game takes place. I’v rumors of folks who have run a Dresden Files game in the Victorian Era.
You could very easily update it for more modern series like Chuck and Burn Notice which are, likely, the successors to that genre.
Like the game designer man said, it’d be easy to translate to just about any era. Heck, for something really different you could do a light hearted cyberpunkish game. Hmm.