agentsue-blog

[agentsue-blog]

Hey, can you tell me more about how Central works?

From Robert (don’t call him Bob), 33, Mission Organiser, Department 7

Welcome to Central. Being recruited by Central means you’re the best in the field and you’ve been rightfully acknowledged as such. Unless of course you’ve had the misfortune to be recruited into Department 7, like you lot. My name is Robert, I’m your superior and I will be your tour guide for today. Don’t bother telling me your names, unlike Bec I don’t care to learn them until you’ve defeated the law of averages and survived your first three field assignments.

Central has 8 departments. You are now in Department 7, Investigation. This is where rejects and misfits go to die. People more competent than you will be chasing rumours across the internet and scrounging tabloids and police reports for any clues of supernatural activity. Like myself you should aim to become one of those people as fast as possible, as what your job entails is following up on those clues in person to investigate whether something is actually going on there. When your luck runs out you will encounter supernatural activity. At this point your job is to survive as long as possible and report the situation. Unless your direct superior likes you, they will ask you to deal with the situation yourself.

Department 8 mainly does as the name implies, protecting the headquarters, safehouses, and Central VIPs, but they are also your lifeline out on the field. They do not however, go into danger blind. That is your job. Report the situation clearly and accurately, and they may save your ass if your superior thought it necessary to relay the information.

On this floor we have the offices of Department 6, Internal Affairs. Pray to whatever gods you follow that you need not ever come here again. Department 6 has ways of getting information I don’t and don’t want to understand. Whatever people offer you to sell out Central, it’s not worth it. If you think you’ve got some cunning way to run away from your work in Department 7, and it’d actually work, they’d have already seized you for dereliction of duty.

Alright, here’s Department 5, Public Relations. These guys will hate you. Their job is to clean up a supernatural event to hide Central’s involvement and the existence of supernatural activity from the general public by providing a rational explanation. Every one of you fuckups will no doubt add a mountain of work for them to deal with. Try not to piss them off too much or they just might report you to Department 6 for *intentionally* fucking things up.

Next we have Department 4, Support. Their job is to provide equipment and other services required for the other departments to function correctly. Generally you’ll come here before a field assignment to pick up weapons and whatever else you thought to apply for, and you’ll return to their medical wing in a stretcher, apologising for all the stuff you managed to break or lose.

Here we have Department 3, Archives. They keep record of all your shoddy mission reports, and handle the acquisition and storage of data from other government organisations such as the police, FBI and CIA. Unless you get good at your job you probably won’t spend much time here.

Finally we have Department 2, Research and Development. This is where scientists gather to attempt to explain the unexplained to mixed success. This is also where you will be ‘transferred’ to if you manage to piss off the guys in Internal Affairs. That said, Central values these guys highly, if you find anything that’s useful to them out in the field it’s a quick way to be recommended for promotions.

You think I’ve missed Department 1, Command. You’d be wrong, since information regarding the operation and purpose of Department 1 is on a need to know basis. Who needs to know is also on a need to know basis. Only thing I can tell you is looking into this further is a good way to get into Department 6’s shit list.

We will conclude our tour here, in the Department 7 break room. Feel free to admire the flamboyant costumes of those who have fully embraced the insanity of your new job. If you are currently drowning in regret for being too obvious in displaying your powers and therefore being coerced with the choice of working for Department 7 or indefinite detainment for the crime of having unauthorised superpowers; hold onto that feeling. It means there’s still hope for you yet.

[agentsue-blog]

What is Agent Sue?

I was making an RPG system with its core mechanics based around bad action movie tropes and plot armour, and I came up with a setting mainly based in Los Angeles, United States of America.

It's centred around Central; a vague yet menacing government agency that deals with supernatural incidents and keeps it clear from the public eye. The issue is that the organisation culture has a high level of professionalism while the reality rewards stupid action movie stunts with plot armour (aka survivability). As a result their skilled agents tend to die very quickly when investigating potential supernatural events. 

To deal with the personel shortage, Central made the decision to begin recruiting supernatural civilians that they need to keep under watch anyway into their investigation division, and send them as first responders to potential supernatural events. The end result is car chases, explosions, fighting supervillains, and many stern reprimands from superior officers about maintaining secrecy and "oh God, how did you manage to set the entire district on fire!?!" Ultimately, Central decided that this is a necessary sacrifice as they're both managing to get through the investigation backlogs and the number of people on that watchlist is rapidly shortening as the 'turnover rate' on investigative work continues to rise.

This idea kept growing and I've now done a bunch of unnecessary world building that will probably never make it into the game. I'll be posting that here, and welcome additions and suggestions in the Ask box or by tagging me in a post.