Pinnacle Entertainment Group has done it again with The Agency: Men in Black Dusters. Written by the inestimable John Goff, this book explores the ins and outs of the Deadlands universe’s equivalent of the Men in Black. Granted, they don’t have neuralizers (a.k.a. “the flashy thing”), but they do have some neat gadgets at their disposal, which I will elaborate on later.
This book is a must-have for any Marshal planning on making even minimal use of The Agency in his campaign. It’s also good for players of an operative of the United States Special Services Agency. What is the Agency, you ask? Well, here goes, but you didn’t hear it from us. The USSSA was created by Executive Order 347 (the existence of which is classified) to take over the duties formerly handled by operatives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. President Grant believed that these duties could be better handled by a government agency than a private contractor, so he terminated the PDA’s contract, but grandfathered several top Pinkertons into the upper echelons of the Agency. These veterans were to become many of the trainers and administrators of the Agency, including Allan Pinkerton himself, who was appointed to head up the position of the Director of the Eastern Bureau. Andrew Lane, a.k.a. “The Ghost”, former head of the Pinkertons’ Western Bureau, was selected to head up the equivalent division of the new USSSA.
The Agency: MiBD covers the organization of the Agency and their procedures, as well as tips for conducting an investigation, including performing an autopsy! The book is very well-written, with its only shortcomings being in proofreading. The errors, however, are few.
As stated before, The Agency: MiBD contains several new gadgets, many of which are the spawn of Mad Scientists, for your spook’s use. These contain things from Agency versions of the Gatling rifles and shotguns listed in Smith & Robards to explosive putty to a fear detector, which is used the gauge the Fear Level in a given area. It also contains things that aren’t products of mad science, such as a sleeve-spring dagger, and objects used for “dead drops” (leaving something somewhere for someone to pick up later while making sure nobody else knows it’s there). The various gadgets are too numerous to list here, but trust me the book is worth buying almost for these alone!
There is, of course, Marshal-only information in this book as well. It lists some of the secrets of the Agency, as well as some tips for running a game with an Agent or even a game with an entire posse of Agents. It also retools the Grim Servant o’ Death Hindrance so that it’s not quite the munchkin bait that it was before. How does it work now? Well, you’re just going to have to buy the book to find out!
