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genius

This zine rules! A fantastic story full of different prompts and circumstances, detailed but malleable scenarios, tons of NPC stats and resources, as well as interesting player mechanics to keep them engaged in a pretty wild setting.

A Washington quite literally out of time, shattered across multiple timelines and scenarios in a shrouded hex-grid. Players search for stability with a Stability Detector, a really useful way to keep them pushing the narrative without feeling like aimless. Upon death, dead players can return as an alternate version of themselves, swapping out traits and bringing possible danger with them. I'm a big fan of mechanics that allow players to stay in play and offer risk to their resurrection, it's a really solid way to let players explore more of the game and their character concepts.

The game and it's timeline a lot of interesting conflicts and scenarios for the players to navigate, ranging from a thrill-seeking time-travelers, roaming dinosaurs, godlike-entities, apocalyptic futures, endless bloodbath, all-out nuclear war, and the literal night of The Watergate Scandal. Concepts that dance between capital-W Weird Fiction, pulp classic concepts, and actual political conflict rolled into one!

The design of this book is very classic FIST,  mechanical diagrams and narrative excerpts alongside some some handmade art for the cover page. It's formatted well while still being relatively convenient for black&white printing. I think some of the formatting on certain paragraphs can get a bit crowded and bunch up in a way that was a bit hard to parse at first glance.

Overall it's a fantastic zine and mission module for FIST, really highlighting its versatility as a game and as a setting.

Castles & Creatures is very straight forward and streamlined mission. Stylishly striking, its white vector elements invoking wire-frame graphics associated with the era. Similarly, it invokes the genre conceits of Stranger Things or Monster Squad style stories and the figures of such a setting and era, without leaning too heavily on inspirations, still creating an experience of its own.

Despite its immediate attention grabbing colors, there is a part of me that wonders if the slight sacrifice in printing convenience is worth it (that is a lot of red and it will be DAMP) but ultimately it leaves an impression that makes me excited to run it.

So first things first, I love Fisty McCuffs and anything ever happens to them I will rain ENDLESS INDIGNITIES UPON THIS WRETCHED-

Anyway, BBRT's a really clever toolkit. It's a very useful and well-laid out series of tips and tables, with a cute sense of humor that doesn't get distracting. It's welcoming, flexible, and friendly in how it explains what FIST is, the type of games you can run with it, and how to navigate those little moment of indecision likely to arise no matter HOW long you've been GM-ing.

I can sort of see the seams on where this was a bit of a later entry and maybe design wise there could have been a further push on the early GUI interface vibes, but overall the actual content of the toolkit is what matters and the simpler look overall makes it easier to print without losing that vibe.

Just a really great tool kit I plan to use immediately!

Okay, so as a referee, GM, etc, introductions are not my strong suit at all. Got a chance to try this out in a game or two the other day and it immediately cutout a lot of my stress as well as provided the players with some immediate situational hooks to get started on.

This is immediately useful and functional, no issues, appreciating the formatting and I especially love the simple Metal Gear style naming scheme. 5/5, you are apprecieated!

Most appreciated! I like to think if anything it LEANS INTO the high fatality nature of the game

Hello, hope you don't mind another reply. I still appreciate the feedback, just kind of realized I might have been a bit too harsh on myself in the OG message and didn't like the vibe it gave off.  There's some aspects that may be tweaked  down the line, I'm still really happy with the overall like...structure and concept, there's just a lot that could be touched up editing wise and of course in play-testing. Plus, I didn't really answer your questions super well and wanted to fix that. 

SO:
For the three deaths mechanic and whether it kicks in with respect to the squad or individual players' deaths, it sorta bounced back and forth before I settled on "three separate player deaths occur in the game". I edited it a few times to try and make that clearer but I think there's some more editing to be done that better gets the idea across (and I'm not even sure the sentence I just typed is clear-wait no I just figured out how to make it clearer [use the word 'separate']...this is why the professionals have editors). Plus, some of these costs are clearly more enticing if they trigger once every member of the squad has experienced a death, so I might reframe things to be more in line with that, at least for some of the three-player-deaths triggered mechanics. 

As for the game-ending nature/vibe of some procedures, I think it's an unintentional remnant from a unfinished mechanic I called "Gutting the Snake" where it was sort of mission prompts/methods to sort of break the cycle and end the loop in such a way where either A.) Your team or members of your team die their final deaths and stay dead on THEIR terms, if that's what players want. OR B.) The players escape the cycle and overcome the consequences, returning to life as mortal beings with no strings attached...aside from whatever weirdness they started with OR whatever weirdness stuck around. (a final re-design of your character and such.) 

Decided to skip that as I was sort of feeling a bit swamped between my job, university coming up, and didn't want to try and work out each "GUTTING" mechanic. I figured out the "Pre-" and "Post-" mission prompts, so maybe I can frame it as ENDING, prompts so players can get back to mortal play and such. 

Anyway, once again thank you for the feedback and for letting me answer your questions!

Glad you like it, the traits, especially Abductee were sort of a last minute whim but overall I'm really happy with them. 

Oh this is super useful, thanks for laying it out like this!

These additions are easy to understand, as well as simple and quick to get going in a game. Ran a one-shot with some folks who are a bit more into hard limits and mechanical minutiae than say your usual 2D6 narrative-adjacent games. We had a real good time! 

This perfectly slots into FIST existing level of encouraged risk and reward, especially post-second revision, and I found that using it with Project BRKN-Shackle by Ken Petti really made both modules pop! Turning the game into a VERY direct send-up of works like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., James Bond (of course), The Avengers (the British spies) and your Mission Impossibles. 

Just a smart, slickly designed addition that adds a mechanical set of tools that in many ways enhances the feelings and scenarios the game has been aiming to invoke in its players. 

Okay so, this just rules. The overall framework itself is pretty captivating, psychedelia-laced spy adventures with plenty of interesting prompts for locations, missions, enemies!

This is the EXACT format I prefer for these sort of things, as they're a bit more open ended and make mixing and matching a bit easier, a basic concept you can spiral into and modify for you own game. The clean design of it similar to the main FIST book, with the dashes of color, doesn't hurt either 

The core mechanical addition of the Dosage meter and burn-out is a really simple and clever mechanic. Was a bit concerned about at extra die added to the game, but overall working primarily for the doses was a good call. 

If I have any concerns, I'm not rally a fan of framing players as a CIA agents in all this (tis a tad bit bland as a starting point in my mind, aside from the political inferences that can be made)...but given the nature of this genre and the base setting of the game already, it feels hypocritical to meaningfully critique this aspect of the supplement as opposed to rolling with the rest of these fictionalized depictions of Cold War Mercenaries. 

Anyway, overall really neat little thing for a different genre of adventures than what's advertised on the box. Great work!

Everyday with you. Everyday it is something I can't even begin to process. And yet here I am, once again, drawn to your creations and enraptured with your mind.

This is going to be used in some kind of superhero game at some point, malignant math ruled by COUNT INNUUM A.K.A MATHOMAGIC DRACULA.

Well let's see, I've got a few game jam ttrpgs that sort of came w/o me finishing in time that I want to complete (probably put them in some sort of After Party pack or something) a One-scene RPG inspired by the Fantastic Fours origin and an "Attack and Dethrone God" game called Four-Color Resistance about sharing power with ppl, a sorta Witch-based Dogfighting game, another Amoung the Stars style game about aliens, etc. 

So I'm working on stuff, it's just taking a minute lol

Glad to have helped, making TTRPG regardless of how straightforward a system is takes quite a bit of work. (I have like 5 RPGs I've been working on since June :'/ )

Beautiful, gonna snag these and give them my love!

I've played this with a friend of mine and we had a great time! Also recommended it to a friend who runs a youth group and was just told they loved it! Really happy I found this game, you've put together something very pleasant and I look forward to seeing what you work on next!

I've had it in my "to-play" list for awhile and this game jam has kind of gotten me off my butt to finally dive into it. Best of luck to your future game making endeavors!

Hey! Really enjoy the game you put together, was wondering if someone was going to do something like this. (And am weirdly relieved that person won't be me lol.) Seriously love the mechanical design and overall emphasis on "fun through kindness!

Thank you so much, I'm glad you've had a fun time playing!

And I love that encounter! I had a big concern about giving people enough to work with in terms of locations etc, but I kinda hoped letting people describe the overall city, region, etc they're in would balance that out.

Anyway, thank you again for checking it out!

Thanks! Have mercy, it's my literal first attempt and I've had to revise a few things a few times (I made this in like 4 days and it was harder than it had any right to be lol) but also, I'd appreciate any feedback. Primarily anything that confuses you when you try to play, opinions on some syntax things, etc. 
But anyway, thanks again and I wish you a lovely day!

Thank you for getting back to me! I'll definitely roll with the coin flip method. And hey, the only reason I noticed is because decided to use the "Alone" system for the Beyond the Super Game Jam, after I realized I wouldn't have enough time for my original idea, and ended up making the same exact mistake MYSELF lol.

Hey so, am I mistaken or do Playing Card ranks not have a "1"? Cause page two has a "1" in the options, but me and some others seem pretty sure that doesn't exist. 

Having only very recently gotten into solo journaling tabletop games, this is probably one of my favorites in the in the submissions. I really dig the questions for sort of adjusting the tones of villains and the period to better sorta build an identity around your super when they're not being super

Hey, I really enjoyed this! It's a very straightforward but really introspective journey, it's very seeped in the beat-by-beat superhero trappings but it paints a very clear experience. 

So this is my first time doing anything like this, I made it in like 4 days and maybe a sign that game design might not be for me, given how much it genuinely kicked my butt making it. 

But anyway, I hope you enjoy it! And if please check out my game page for other folks you who;s games you should check out. 

I really dig what this game does with the "Alone Among the Stars" style of tabletop RPG. It adds a layer of suspense and risk with each encounter, that can be rewarding and creates a greater sense of progression!

It captures my imagination in a really specific ways and sorta got me started on solo-rpgs, so thanks!

I really dig this game! Bought it earlier this month on DriveThruRPG came over here to give it a positive rating! Keep doing what you're doing, I'm going to share this with everyone I can!

Really enjoyed this! For a simple game there's a bit more mental planning I had to do for it than expected! Plus, I dig the intersection between the mechanics and direct narrative. When you mess up, you don't get a game over, you're just...stuck there. Which is fitting!