My mission, which I chose to accept, was to back the KickStarter for Agents of AGEIS [Redacted] Edition from GeoffQuest. I received several bonuses for backing this espionage RPG which I’ve been given permission to reveal now. Be wary, TALON agents are around every corner trying to steal your secrets.
Agents of AGEIS [Redacted] Edition was released by the same small publisher that released Boldly Go! that I used in a previous Character Creation Challenge and uses a similar system. It was written by Geoff Bottone with the graphic design by Alia Hyman. Most of the art is black and white royalty free photos. Another proof that you don’t need AI slop to illustrate your books. For those of you purchasing the PDF, it’s only 8.26MB in size with an ISBN number of 978-1-7371457-9-7. The deadtree version (ISBN 2-370022-616684) of this softbound book has 96 pages with a color cover and black and white photos throughout. The format is like looking in a series of manila envelopes. An interesting inside joke is the handwritten notes by an infiltrator from TALON popping up in different locations of the book.
The book has nine chapters, an introduction, appendix and index. The chapters include The Setting and the Meta, Core Rules, Vehicles, Base Creation, Character Creation, Assets, NPCs, TALON and The Play’s the Thing (GMs section). In the appendix is a random mission generator, base creation summary, character creation summary and some example sheets. This copy is a PoD from DriveThruRPG. I reviewed their PoD products here.
The basis of this game universe is the espionage adventures set in the 1960s similar to James Bond, Matt Helm, Derek Flint, Modesty Blaise, Cate Archer or Austin Powers. The players set up a base and build an espionage team for AGEIS (Allied Egalitarian Global Intelligence Service) which is a independent agency that was dedicated to fighting fascism, terrorism and tyranny across the globe. It kind of reminds me of the espionage comedy series Archer. Working with different governments, but not reporting directly to them. The default bad guys are TALON. A series of arms dealers that later switched to the goal of world domination.
Agents of AGEIS, like Boldly Go!, uses a dice pool system of D6s that they call the Traits System. A trait can come from the character, equipment, environment, etc. and can be positive or negative. When a player character attempts a task, they start with one D6. For each trait that they can justify to the Secretary (GM) they gain an additional die, up to six dice. Each roll of a 5 or 6 counts as a success. Depending upon the difficulty of the task, the number of needed successes can range from 2 (average) to 6 (almost impossible). The players also have Drama Points which can add additional dice or allow the player to manipulate the dice in the pool.
While going through the book I originally though that the term used for the GM was both Secretary and Director. But it turns out, the Director is an NPC used by the GM as the PCs handler. On page 59 the sentence ends on the page indicating that it would be continued on the next page, but I could not find where it was finished off at. From my first run through the book, this appeared to be the only editorial mistake. The mission generator looked really interesting. It gives you a series of prompts and lets the GM fill in the blanks.
Overall I’m very happy with backing Agents of AGEIS [Redacted] Edition and the physical book I received. While looking through this book I started wondering if I could run a one-shot at SaltCON. I could definitely use this for a future series of homebrew posts that I’m planning to release (more on that soon). I will be using this game in the 2027 Character Creation Challenge coming up in January.
Oh, before I let you guys go. A reader recently reached out to me in response to my Star Trek: Sky’s the Limit comic review. He was hoping that this special one-shot issue was finally available on digital format. I searched both Amazon and the IDW website with no success. But I was grateful to know that my past reviews are still being read.
Do you have any questions about the Agents of AGEIS [Redacted] Edition? Have you backed any Kickstarters lately? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.