Play Framework
Mistaken's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| SUBSTANCE | #25 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Overall | #29 | 3.214 | 3.214 |
| STYLE | #30 | 2.857 | 2.857 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
A glimpse into how "the other side" works in the FIST universe. A great setup for some hard times for the PCs. The concept is great but it took me a good while to figure out what I was reading between the mood setting quotes from the actual new rules and agents :\ Once it became clear to me _how_ to read it I was able to dig in.
In "Mistaken" playing a Cyclops agent is a little bit like playing FIST on hard-core mode. PCs are a little darker and grittier and they have a lot more to balance than just saving the day without dying.
There are mechanical additions that you could compare with "sanity" from the Call of Chuthlu rpgs. Players can only commit so many war crimes before they either become NPCs or take their own life in despair.
This zine is full of prose that really gets you in the mind of an Cyclops agent which is fun to read. If you want to add some survival elements or alternate role play tools to FIST you should check this out.
Oh, CRO PCs can War Crime all day long as long as they're variations on the same moral compromise. Once you've killed a guy, the next one comes much easier. You've already deceived your kid, what's one more little white lie? The second pre-midday cocktail doesn't take nearly the same level of self-justification as the first. That's why every particular compromise only has one checkbox.
It's the steady expansion of compromise, facing new brinks and choosing CYCLOPS over basic humanity time and again, that breaks down a CRO. "I've killed, a hundred times, but can I really MURDER this guy who doesn't even know I'm in the room?" "Sure, I've assassinated a guy, but can I really ruin someone's life and leave them, broken, in the wreckage? That feels so much worse..." "Kill or be killed, I get it. I even basically killed that guy last week, convincing his family he ran away with the maid and leaving him with broken legs on that Tijuana beach, but can I leave Kerry behind? Where those cultists are going to get him? We're battle brothers, surely I can't.... but it's rescue him or complete the mission...." Being a monster in a specific way doesn't make the CRO (mechanically) irredeemable, it's the manifested willingness to be a monster in any way necessary that does.
The rules are ~kind of~ built on my understanding of cult indoctrination techniques. Force a small compromise, then repeat it until they'll make it without consideration. Leverage that guilt into compliance on a slightly larger thing. Repeat that type of self-debasement "for the cause" until it too is automatic. Rinse, wash, repeat. That's why saying "I've killed once and I'll never do it again!" and "I've eliminated whole battalions of my enemies and bathed in their blood, but I'll never take another life!" have the same mechanical cost - both are assertions that the PC is reclaiming a particular moral line in the sand.
That's a great clarification. The idea of a team full of villains with very different ethics is really fun.
"Yeah I've killed tons of people, but she is the one who records it all for her sick research."
Great role playing inspirations in this one.
Mistaken is a FIST hack where the PCs play as members of CYCLOPS.
The PDF is 16 pages with a wonderful, evocative cover and a generally clean layout. The text feels slightly cramped in a few places, but the overall structure is easy to read.
Contents-wise, this is a fairly comprehensive hack of FIST's rules. CROs are stronger but more limited than FIST agents, and have to worry about HUMANITY, DESPAIR, and other factors that FIST is relatively free from.
There's some sample missions included, as well as rules for collaboratively worldbuilding a mission zero that went poorly before the game began.
The writing is direct and evocative, and the overall game environment is interesting. The sample missions are super flavorful, and there's plenty of room for them to go wrong.
Overall, this is a solid examination of an under-examined faction in FIST, and potentially also a good system for running something like a Bad Batch game, or just a more bleak examination of spycraft. Pick it up if you like FIST but want something a bit darker in tone.
Le sigh. In my neck of the woods we pronounce despair 'diss-pair', and the 'double I' made it into this digest as a typo in a few places. Correction(eventually) inbound.
A good adventure, although the text is a bit overlarge and inconsistent.