So, I just got done with running my first two sessions and I have some feedback.
My players loved the tone and setting, but found the dice mechanics extremely frustrating. A flat 50% chance to fail without a bonus made them feel like the game does not reward skill or planning, but instead just blind luck, and it contributes to the fact that they feel like the intended method of play is too randomly roll up a character you aren't very invested in, then play them into they did very quickly and then roll a new character.
As the gm I feel like that probably isn't the intention, but I can understand why they feel that way. Most of the rolls last session were failures, even for the characters trying to do the things they had +1s or +2s in.
I adjusted the success numbers down a bit - 2-5 is a failure, 6-8 is a partial success, 9+ is a success - as a bandaid, but I… feel like maybe I want to suggest adding an Optional Rule to either grant a few freefloating attribute bonuses at character creation or slide the chance of outright failure closer to %25.
Either way, I hope this doesn’t come down as too negative, I’m just kind of frazzled and frustrated and looking for guidance.
Not at all negative, this kind of stuff is always appreciated! For what it's worth, the chance of rolling a 6 or lower on 2d6 is 41.66%, so the baseline odds are slightly in the PC's favor.
This game takes a lot of inspiration from older games where the risk of failure was pretty high - say, you have to roll a 15+ on a d20 to pass a difficulty check - so a lot of the time, the most successful missions are ones where characters avoid rolling the dice as much as they can. This might mean staying out of combat, talking their way out of things with pure RP, setting up several boons to give themselves advantage when they do have to roll, etc.
Having characters be disposable, constantly die for pointless reasons, and only become a person you're willing to get attached to when they've stuck around for a few missions is 100% intentional - you're disposable soldiers, and the ones who are either strong or lucky enough to stick around will be the characters you end up fleshing out. That isn't to say I haven't seen several characters who players really got into before deploying then and managed to keep alive—it just helps to play starting level characters as though you were really there, and getting shot once or leaving one thing to chance could really, actually kill you. Also, I'd see if your players are interested in the pamphlet adventure we put out called HAZARD FUNCTION—it's a sort of microcosm of this idea where you play three Very weak characters at once and whoever makes it out alive graduates to being your "real" character.
That said, adding a floating +1 is a somewhat common house rule I've seen for the game. Giving out some extra WAR DICE, using the Chopper Chatter rule, or just encouraging players to choose them as rewards can also help with this; we added the mechanic so people who are having a string of bad rolls can push a check result up when it really counts!
Oh, I should also add that character durability and competence increases dramatically around two or three level-ups—I'm running a game for some PCs who have levelled up two or three times and their attributes, loot, and player skill/cautiousness/cleverness make them sometimes untouchable
I used the Chopper Chatter optional rule, and also gave the players an extra War Die just for good measure, and they’ve just been bumbling through everything, barely able to succeed at anything, even the things they’re meant to be good at
I admittedly don’t fully understand where the ‘fun’ of having a ~25% chance of success comes in, but Claymore definitely seems a lot more generous than that.
I started playing TTRPGs with D&D 3/3.5 and I don’t think I fully understand the idea of getting through dangerous situations without rolling dice. Should I, like, not have my players roll to shoot if they have a clean sight line and are undetected? Or would that be, like, in the +2s territory?
Seems like you see only 10+ as success, that's a 'mistake'. 7+ are successes too. So, with a flat 2d6 roll you have 58,33% chance of success. A +1 makes that 72,22% and a +2 83,33%. Maybe, and I'm trying to guess here, you (or the GM) is being too harsh on 'partial success' results (7+).
The ~25% chance of success wasn’t in FIST, I was referencing to the OSR style games that Claymore referenced where you need to roll a 15+ on a D20.
But I admittedly do struggle with the partial successes. I’m not good at figuring out what a ‘complication’ should be necessarily. Sometimes I can’t think of a complication related to the roll that feels appropriate without making it an effective failure.
Like, one of my players was trying to sneak up a ladder while a person nearby it was distracted. Rolled a partial success. What do I do there? I had one of the rungs on the ladder snap underfoot when they reached the top of the ladder, alerting the guy at the top and bottom of it, but giving them time to react before being seen.
This felt like “Success with a complication” to me but “Failure” to them.
Been playing this with my brother, game is an absolute blast! Love how generally weird it is. The ultra edition is a great package, probably the most content rich rules-lite I've ever played.
Hi there! The Kickstarter is for a whole box set of adventures. We sadly can't do much to customize pledges for people, but if you do already own the digital book and still support the KS, you'll essentially be signing up for a heavily discounted bundle of all future FIST content!
It blows my mind that this game has received not one but two major updates since I bought it, both for free for existing buyers. Huge fan, my group does a one/ two shot of it every few months and I ran Mandlebrot Set for them to universal enjoyment.
this is amazing to hear!! also we're planning to Kickstart a box set and hopefully that'll include an ultrafied version of Mandelbrot Set, nothing set in stone but i'm picturing a rebalanced gameplay loop, more intricate map, more wyrd encounters, redone art... it'll be cool
FIST is a wild and amazing system to tell all levels of stories in. I love every part of the rules and cannot wait to design a few missions for it. 5/5
I am new to tabletop fun so I have some questions:
How many players does this game support? (min/max) Please clarify if your number includes or excludes a GM.
What is the average play time?
Is there a solo mode or not?
I get frustrated because it seems this information is not included on a lot of game page descriptions on itch.io. Maybe it’s obvious to people who are already into TTRPGs, but not to me as a noob!
not at all, these are great questions and I feel silly for not having the info on the page! to answer:
- you need one referee/GM to run the game. the book suggests 2-6 players for the mercenaries in addition to the ref but I've had plenty of fun doing 1 GM + 1 player and also am about to run a FIST mission with I think 18 players, so you can get funky with it
- average play time is 2-3 hours but some missions go longer if they're particularly large, difficult, or complex
- there is no solo mode but there are 80 pages of random tables for story beats, characters, items, locations, mission prompts etc. plus a table of "what happens next" results for partial success rolls. this stuff is provided to give the ref an easier time but could be very easily combined to play your own solo mode (also someone in the discord server is currently playtesting their own solo hack to be released soon)
hope this helps and thanks so much for checking out the game!!
Recently bought the original release through Exhalted Funeral (physical+pdf), was told by some people i know to reach out, that I might be able to get the ultra edition pdf without having to repurchase it, though if I need to I will, but thought it was worth a shot to see first
Hey! I made the FIST Operative Database for the first jam. Just wanted to let you know that it's been updated to be fully compatible with Ultra Edition. Let me know if anything should be corrected!
The game is great, but the way the PDF pages are numbered is difficult to work with. I understand that the letter before each page number is meant to mark what section each page is in, but it actually ends up meaning I can't input a page number and navigate to that page. If I want to go to Page 60, I either need to know/remember the section its in or else I end up on page S53. Is there any way this could be addressed?
Got the game out of a bundle, love the idea and been workshopping ideas all day, really hope to play it soon. Question, though - how exactly does the Choke mechanic work? I couldn't find where it was explained in any level of detail.
Hello, for some reason when viewing the Ultra Edition PDF in firefox it struggles to load and lags when initally loading the pages for CYCLOPS in the Intelligence Matrix. Specifically the Rumours table and the example CROs. Is this a known issue, or is it just firefox struggling?
It's possible it's the typewriter font, I noticed some periodic issues on my end as well when scrolling past those pages in InDesign but didn't realize it affected the PDF. Are you able to replicate the error, or was it a one off thing?
The error is consistent for me, occurring whenever I scroll past those pages for the first time, or whenever I scroll past after the pages have "unnloaded" due to me going to another page far enough away from them. The pdf seems to have particular trouble with the page just after the rumours table for CYCLOPS, the one where its written like an in universe note welcoming new recruits to CYCLOPS.
they should show up as downloads accessible from this page or your library! if that doesn't work email moonsofcerberus@gmail.com and I'll send em to you directly
I was just about to start running a FIST campaign with my friends and then the Ultra Edition was released and I couldn't be happier, so much content and rule expansions! Also, I have some inquiries and was curious if Claymore maybe had a business email or some other form of direct contact? Keep up the amazing work!
Definitely my group's newest obsession! Ultra's random tables are SO good! Is there any site where you're selling print-on-demand copies? Gotta start thinking about xmas...
if Im not mistaken they've done a softcore copy of the original fist. I would very much like a hardcover copy with the mandlebore art on it, I really like the mandlebore art. Gonna buy me this version when I get home so maybe my wish comes true.
This stuff looks great. All the Ultra Edition work looks good. The only thing id say really needs work is D666 tables need to be converted into actually die values not the total count because converting it is a bit of a headache. But otherwise stunning.
This is planned for the final release, the numbers just have to be done manually, so we're doing it absolutely last in case of any last minute trait name changes that screw up the alphabetization! (also thank you very much!)
hey there, I'm not sure of a way to do that but I'm adding more copies now! also we may release a solo play supplement in the future and the new book itself should have enough tools to hack together a solo-play mode i think!
Super flexible mechanics with tons of campaign ideas, I have found it to be extremely compatible with all of the currently popular genres. i.e. Liminal-Fist, Mother-Fist, Primal Fist, 9 Fists to Valhalla, Apocalypse Fist, Fist of the Week, just to name a few...
FIST lives in a very difficult to manage sweet spot between what makes OSR style games appealing and what makes narrative-heavy indie games fun, accessible, and freeing. With an easy to pick-up and hyper-lean ruleset, it gives you a treasure-trove of gameplay and storytelling that laser focuses on its genre.
Creating new characters is always a blast because there are so many options that mix and entwine in strange and delightful ways. FIST does that thing I love with its character generation where you get pieces of story to fit together - but also some clear mechanical things that your agent DOES.
You will read FIST and think "Oh, this is pretty good." You will play FIST and think "Oh wait oh my God why did I sleep on this it is FANTASTIC!"
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So, I just got done with running my first two sessions and I have some feedback.
My players loved the tone and setting, but found the dice mechanics extremely frustrating. A flat 50% chance to fail without a bonus made them feel like the game does not reward skill or planning, but instead just blind luck, and it contributes to the fact that they feel like the intended method of play is too randomly roll up a character you aren't very invested in, then play them into they did very quickly and then roll a new character.
As the gm I feel like that probably isn't the intention, but I can understand why they feel that way. Most of the rolls last session were failures, even for the characters trying to do the things they had +1s or +2s in.
I adjusted the success numbers down a bit - 2-5 is a failure, 6-8 is a partial success, 9+ is a success - as a bandaid, but I… feel like maybe I want to suggest adding an Optional Rule to either grant a few freefloating attribute bonuses at character creation or slide the chance of outright failure closer to %25.
Either way, I hope this doesn’t come down as too negative, I’m just kind of frazzled and frustrated and looking for guidance.
Not at all negative, this kind of stuff is always appreciated! For what it's worth, the chance of rolling a 6 or lower on 2d6 is 41.66%, so the baseline odds are slightly in the PC's favor.
This game takes a lot of inspiration from older games where the risk of failure was pretty high - say, you have to roll a 15+ on a d20 to pass a difficulty check - so a lot of the time, the most successful missions are ones where characters avoid rolling the dice as much as they can. This might mean staying out of combat, talking their way out of things with pure RP, setting up several boons to give themselves advantage when they do have to roll, etc.
Having characters be disposable, constantly die for pointless reasons, and only become a person you're willing to get attached to when they've stuck around for a few missions is 100% intentional - you're disposable soldiers, and the ones who are either strong or lucky enough to stick around will be the characters you end up fleshing out. That isn't to say I haven't seen several characters who players really got into before deploying then and managed to keep alive—it just helps to play starting level characters as though you were really there, and getting shot once or leaving one thing to chance could really, actually kill you. Also, I'd see if your players are interested in the pamphlet adventure we put out called HAZARD FUNCTION—it's a sort of microcosm of this idea where you play three Very weak characters at once and whoever makes it out alive graduates to being your "real" character.
That said, adding a floating +1 is a somewhat common house rule I've seen for the game. Giving out some extra WAR DICE, using the Chopper Chatter rule, or just encouraging players to choose them as rewards can also help with this; we added the mechanic so people who are having a string of bad rolls can push a check result up when it really counts!
Oh, I should also add that character durability and competence increases dramatically around two or three level-ups—I'm running a game for some PCs who have levelled up two or three times and their attributes, loot, and player skill/cautiousness/cleverness make them sometimes untouchable
I used the Chopper Chatter optional rule, and also gave the players an extra War Die just for good measure, and they’ve just been bumbling through everything, barely able to succeed at anything, even the things they’re meant to be good at
I admittedly don’t fully understand where the ‘fun’ of having a ~25% chance of success comes in, but Claymore definitely seems a lot more generous than that.
I started playing TTRPGs with D&D 3/3.5 and I don’t think I fully understand the idea of getting through dangerous situations without rolling dice. Should I, like, not have my players roll to shoot if they have a clean sight line and are undetected? Or would that be, like, in the +2s territory?
Seems like you see only 10+ as success, that's a 'mistake'.
7+ are successes too.
So, with a flat 2d6 roll you have 58,33% chance of success. A +1 makes that 72,22% and a +2 83,33%.
Maybe, and I'm trying to guess here, you (or the GM) is being too harsh on 'partial success' results (7+).
The ~25% chance of success wasn’t in FIST, I was referencing to the OSR style games that Claymore referenced where you need to roll a 15+ on a D20.
But I admittedly do struggle with the partial successes. I’m not good at figuring out what a ‘complication’ should be necessarily. Sometimes I can’t think of a complication related to the roll that feels appropriate without making it an effective failure.
Like, one of my players was trying to sneak up a ladder while a person nearby it was distracted. Rolled a partial success. What do I do there? I had one of the rungs on the ladder snap underfoot when they reached the top of the ladder, alerting the guy at the top and bottom of it, but giving them time to react before being seen.
This felt like “Success with a complication” to me but “Failure” to them.
I like the world you created. Would it be ok if I wrote a short story based on FIST and post it on ith.io?
Absolutely!! Would love to see it - thank you!
Another video review by Spencer Campbell!
A video review by the Weekly Scroll!
Been playing this with my brother, game is an absolute blast! Love how generally weird it is. The ultra edition is a great package, probably the most content rich rules-lite I've ever played.
is this possible to play solo? Perhaps with a supplement?
you can definitely play solo using the tables in the book alone, we're also working on a solo mode in an upcoming supplement called SUPPLY DROP!
hell yeah! Thanks for the reply. When do you expect to make the Supply Drop?!
hopefully before the end of the year! there are tons of authors involved so we don't have a hard release date yet
its possible to have a community copies?
we'll definitely add more soon, but in the meantime, the game will be free to claim to your account during our kickstarter, 8/30/23 to 9/30/23!
Hello,
I had already bought a digital version. Will it be credited pro-rata to the Kickstarter project?
Hi there! The Kickstarter is for a whole box set of adventures. We sadly can't do much to customize pledges for people, but if you do already own the digital book and still support the KS, you'll essentially be signing up for a heavily discounted bundle of all future FIST content!
a new AP from Exquisite Corpse Presents!
Just recently discovered this and it sounds really interesting. Looking forward to picking it up when I can!
We just added 100 community copies!
oh wow! Thanks so much. Ill support when I can!!
There are two questions I would like to ask to you Claymore :
- Which soundtrack do you think I should use to run your game?
- Which movie/video game/show do you think I should use as video sources to craft a video montage to serve as an opening for F.I.S.T?
tough call but i offer these two vids and hopefully they help!!
It blows my mind that this game has received not one but two major updates since I bought it, both for free for existing buyers. Huge fan, my group does a one/ two shot of it every few months and I ran Mandlebrot Set for them to universal enjoyment.
this is amazing to hear!! also we're planning to Kickstart a box set and hopefully that'll include an ultrafied version of Mandelbrot Set, nothing set in stone but i'm picturing a rebalanced gameplay loop, more intricate map, more wyrd encounters, redone art... it'll be cool
FIST is a wild and amazing system to tell all levels of stories in. I love every part of the rules and cannot wait to design a few missions for it.
5/5
very excited for any missions you may design!!
a new long form review from the esteemed Brandoff!
I am new to tabletop fun so I have some questions:
I get frustrated because it seems this information is not included on a lot of game page descriptions on itch.io. Maybe it’s obvious to people who are already into TTRPGs, but not to me as a noob!
not at all, these are great questions and I feel silly for not having the info on the page! to answer:
- you need one referee/GM to run the game. the book suggests 2-6 players for the mercenaries in addition to the ref but I've had plenty of fun doing 1 GM + 1 player and also am about to run a FIST mission with I think 18 players, so you can get funky with it
- average play time is 2-3 hours but some missions go longer if they're particularly large, difficult, or complex
- there is no solo mode but there are 80 pages of random tables for story beats, characters, items, locations, mission prompts etc. plus a table of "what happens next" results for partial success rolls. this stuff is provided to give the ref an easier time but could be very easily combined to play your own solo mode (also someone in the discord server is currently playtesting their own solo hack to be released soon)
hope this helps and thanks so much for checking out the game!!
I CANT WAIT FOR MORE COMMUNITY COPIES
THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FO
added some!!!!!
THANKYOUUU!!!
now me and my friends can be sussy flipped wolve
Recently bought the original release through Exhalted Funeral (physical+pdf), was told by some people i know to reach out, that I might be able to get the ultra edition pdf without having to repurchase it, though if I need to I will, but thought it was worth a shot to see first
Got you covered! Please email moonsofcerberus@gmail.com and I'll send a key
thank you, email sent!
Hey! I made the FIST Operative Database for the first jam. Just wanted to let you know that it's been updated to be fully compatible with Ultra Edition. Let me know if anything should be corrected!
Looks great!! There will likely be a few more small revisions before we go to print, I'll make sure to post them!!
The game is great, but the way the PDF pages are numbered is difficult to work with. I understand that the letter before each page number is meant to mark what section each page is in, but it actually ends up meaning I can't input a page number and navigate to that page. If I want to go to Page 60, I either need to know/remember the section its in or else I end up on page S53. Is there any way this could be addressed?
Had no idea this page numbering carried over from development, it's supposed to be normal. Thanks for the heads up!!
Got the game out of a bundle, love the idea and been workshopping ideas all day, really hope to play it soon. Question, though - how exactly does the Choke mechanic work? I couldn't find where it was explained in any level of detail.
Page 90! Thanks for mentioning, although the game is done there will likely be small revisions to the Choke score rules for clarity/correctness soon
New video about Ultra Edition from Dragonkid11!
Hello, for some reason when viewing the Ultra Edition PDF in firefox it struggles to load and lags when initally loading the pages for CYCLOPS in the Intelligence Matrix. Specifically the Rumours table and the example CROs. Is this a known issue, or is it just firefox struggling?
It's possible it's the typewriter font, I noticed some periodic issues on my end as well when scrolling past those pages in InDesign but didn't realize it affected the PDF. Are you able to replicate the error, or was it a one off thing?
The error is consistent for me, occurring whenever I scroll past those pages for the first time, or whenever I scroll past after the pages have "unnloaded" due to me going to another page far enough away from them. The pdf seems to have particular trouble with the page just after the rumours table for CYCLOPS, the one where its written like an in universe note welcoming new recruits to CYCLOPS.
Got it, thank you!! I'll investigate this and see if there's anything I can do to get the pdf to run a little more smoothly, maybe a different font
Hello I bought the Ultra edition but before the added files, how do I get these files? Thanks.
they should show up as downloads accessible from this page or your library! if that doesn't work email moonsofcerberus@gmail.com and I'll send em to you directly
Thanks! I just figured this out, I appreciate that reply and the game is awesome!
I was just about to start running a FIST campaign with my friends and then the Ultra Edition was released and I couldn't be happier, so much content and rule expansions! Also, I have some inquiries and was curious if Claymore maybe had a business email or some other form of direct contact? Keep up the amazing work!
hey there!! moonsofcerberus@gmail.com should work for now!
Definitely my group's newest obsession! Ultra's random tables are SO good! Is there any site where you're selling print-on-demand copies? Gotta start thinking about xmas...
it's in the works, TBA!
Big congrats on the ULTRA Edition release, CLAYMORE team! Thanks a lot for actually upgrading the game too rather than publish separate edition.
ty and of course!! hate having to buy the new version of something
Do bases have any mechanics attached to them? There's a bit where it says "Base Upgrades"
There are simple rules for using a given structure as a base on page 88!
Felicitaciones por el trabajo chicos, se pasaron :D
gracias!
Ultra Edition full release is absolutely perfect! Can't wait to put it to good use!
hell yeah glad it's hitting!!
If you guys ever do a hardcover, please let me know.
Seriously! Or a physical copy in general, softcover is fine.
if Im not mistaken they've done a softcore copy of the original fist. I would very much like a hardcover copy with the mandlebore art on it, I really like the mandlebore art. Gonna buy me this version when I get home so maybe my wish comes true.
Mandlebrot has a zine-style softcover at Exalted Funeral, at least. https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/products/mandelbrot-set
Woohoo! Congratulations on the release of FIST: Ultra Edition! :D
thank you!! couldn't have done it without all your awesome videos and supplements!!
Thanks so much and glad you enjoyed! Please reach out to moonsofcerberus@gmail.com for licensing stuff
This stuff looks great. All the Ultra Edition work looks good. The only thing id say really needs work is D666 tables need to be converted into actually die values not the total count because converting it is a bit of a headache. But otherwise stunning.
This is planned for the final release, the numbers just have to be done manually, so we're doing it absolutely last in case of any last minute trait name changes that screw up the alphabetization! (also thank you very much!)
is FIST playable solo? And is there any way to get a notification when a community copy is available? <3
hey there, I'm not sure of a way to do that but I'm adding more copies now! also we may release a solo play supplement in the future and the new book itself should have enough tools to hack together a solo-play mode i think!
Thank you so much! I will introduce the game to my party but I'm super interested in trying some solo mods.
np!! Might be the reverse of what you're looking for but the PET (player emulator with tags) is very cool: https://katamoiran.itch.io/pettish
this game is absolutely AMAZING. i can't even explain how good it is!
The second that theres a community copy avaliable im grabbing it and playing it
added some!
THANK YOU SO MUCH OMG
SAAAAME
adding some more!
You are my new god.
Super flexible mechanics with tons of campaign ideas, I have found it to be extremely compatible with all of the currently popular genres. i.e. Liminal-Fist, Mother-Fist, Primal Fist, 9 Fists to Valhalla, Apocalypse Fist, Fist of the Week, just to name a few...
had no idea it was that cross-compatible!! I would seriously love to hear more about some of these
FIST WITH LIMINAL HORROR??? OMG pls Tell me More about this if you can!!!!!
FIST lives in a very difficult to manage sweet spot between what makes OSR style games appealing and what makes narrative-heavy indie games fun, accessible, and freeing. With an easy to pick-up and hyper-lean ruleset, it gives you a treasure-trove of gameplay and storytelling that laser focuses on its genre.
Creating new characters is always a blast because there are so many options that mix and entwine in strange and delightful ways. FIST does that thing I love with its character generation where you get pieces of story to fit together - but also some clear mechanical things that your agent DOES.
You will read FIST and think "Oh, this is pretty good."
You will play FIST and think "Oh wait oh my God why did I sleep on this it is FANTASTIC!"
just wanted to say thank you so much for this review, it made my month and threw fuel on my Ultra Editon-development fire !!
Brandoff covers some of the action in the Discord's ongoing FIST Ultra playtest!