PLANET FIST

Hey

we lived (briefly). we died (hilariously). we respawned to fight again. 10/10 would fist again

PLANET FIST is the best online shooter you've ever played with paper and pencil. The high-octane action, the teamwork, both the extreme silliness and extreme tension - all of it is in this game.

I love this game. I played a two-year 3.5e D&D campaign with my high school buddies way back and i never found the game to be really fun, just hanging out with friends was. Planet FIST is my first TTRPG where I was genuinely excited for my next turn. Death becomes such a creative restriction that removing it lets me just run head-first into the first enemy i see and do something fun. i'm encouraged to be reckless, which i'm grateful for because i have the tactical grace of a clown in a bank robbery. if you played D&D and wished it was just kinda more than that, this game is perfect for you.

It feels so much like Planetside! As someone who has spent thousands of hours playing the MMO FPS, my brain has such a fun time constructing and playing out scenarios in a TTRPG setting. A compelling crossover that feels like it was meant to be created. I can feel the passion that the creators put into this game.

I also had the opportunity to playtest Planet FIST very recently. Character creation as a group was a breeze; intentionally linking the characters together set us up for a couple of good organic roleplaying moments in the gameplay. I rolled the Goofball trait and picked the Loved trait, becoming a lowest-of-the-low-ranks Private with a sense of humour he probably isn't cleared to have, took Jet Trooper as my first class and immediately rocketed off into the battlefield to crack jokes and drop blocks of C4, and get blown up by my character creation-established rival, to much enjoyment.

The setting is -- well, it's (legally distinct) Planetside! An eternal war that is as much satire of the military-industrial complex as it is a chance for tabletop players to intentionally participate in an unending science fiction murderfest (as opposed to many tabletop groups that become that accidentally or against the GM's wishes).

And the Planetside vibe has been nailed 100% in the gameplay mechanics - death is a temporary setback, or even an intentional choice, before you're pushed right back into the field, maybe closer to the objective if somebody managed to park the APC up close. So there isn't even time spent rerolling a new character for insertion; you just re-enter on the next combat round, maybe with a different class and equipment if you want.

The traits are toned down from FIST's supernatural content towards normal soldier specialisations, so combat turns are a flash affair of speed - movement, safe action and/or risky action, consequences, move on. A breath of fresh air in clunky wargaming.

All in all I think Planet FIST is a unique and well-designed entry into the indie tabletop industry. Could very well be my best experience in wargame-focused tabletop for sure.

I recently had the opportunity to playtest Planet FIST, and while the session hasn't been finished (yet), I have a lot of good things to say about the game. First off, it strongly embodies the player freedom afforded to players in the base FIST game, and with a highly similar free-form combat system, it's a simple matter to pull off any number of daring trickshots or complicated maneuvers. Unlike FIST, though, the playing field itself is much more grounded, which makes it much easier to understand what's going on at any given moment- I would even say it's reminiscent of games like LANCER, even moreso given the sci-fi aspects. As for the aspects outside of combat, character creation was incredibly fun and I loved working with my teammates to create our squad members. It was so engaging, in fact, that I practically forgot about the mission part! All the traits add huge amounts of depth to each character, especially bonds that connect all the members of a squad together. I'd be hard pressed to find any real grievances I had with any aspect of the game. 

I got to playtest Planet FIST just recently, and I came away quite impressed! Planet FIST is a hack of FIST: ULTRA edition that takes place in a combat-heavy Planetside 2 inspired sci-fi setting of endless warfare. Players act as endlessly respawning nanobot-infused soldiers for one of three monolithic factions with different theming and bonuses they can apply to their characters on creation. Character building was fun and more collaborative than the base game, with players creating a squad with unique roles and bonds as well as military ranks. This system quickly made for entertaining relationships between characters, like my ultra-beefy damage sponge HARDWARE not being anywhere near as effective as he (or his enemies!) thought he was, and needing to be constantly (and begrudgingly!) revived and healed by the team’s medic. 

When it comes to the gameplay, Planet FIST shows its strengths quickly. Unlike base FIST, this game makes use of maps and measurement to determine things like movement and weapon range. This leads to interesting tactical decision making that feels very grounded, as players are charged with positional objectives straight out of an FPS like capturing a Sync Plate to take over a facility and cut its respawn points off from enemies. Player characters usually die faster than they would in base game FIST, so clever thinking and resource management are essential in making sure you’ll get your job done without being sent back to your team’s APC for reassembly. But, should that happen, reassembling is comfortably videogamey as it lets you freely swap between five available character classes and several pieces of unlockable class equipment you earn by advancing. This means there’s always a good opportunity to take a breather and re-evaluate your strategy. With all these details in mind, I strongly recommend Planet FIST as an entertaining self-contained strategy game that’ll feel familiar to FIST fans, but distinct enough to tell new and interesting stories. 

Planet FIST is a feature length ttrpg love letter to the MMO Planetside.

The PDF is 67 pages, with a clean, well organized layout and a selection of interior art that mirrors the core book. There's plenty of helpful graphics and maps as well, and a link to an online version is provided.

Content-wise, Planetside is a weird thing to convert into a narrative rpg. It's built around an endless cycle of getting fragged and respawning in a tech-assisted foreverwar, and this fits its MMO shooter gameplay. Going to a tabletop storygame without leaving this game loop creates an odd internal tension, and I feel like it might be stronger as a wargame, or if it sat in a narrative spot outside of Planetside's core gameplay.

Frankly, playing as a group of players playing Planetside could be really neat---you'd just need to add some light mechanics for doing stuff in your lives outside of your shared Planetside guild.

Still, the elements that Planet FIST pulls from Planetside *are* interesting. PCs can respawn rapidly after death. PCs can swap class Traits on respawning. Because everyone respawns constantly, taking and holding territory is more important than surviving engagements, and there are clocks that measure and track this.

Most rules are the same as in FIST Ultra, but Planet FIST makes a distinction between risky actions and safe actions in combat, and this is a great way of reframing 'attack actions' and 'move actions' in a game. If movement would be dangerous, it's a risky action. If an attack would be safe, it's a safe action. I'd love to see other games adopt this framing.

For players, there's a lot of customization options, and it's easy to respec or deploy different gear to adapt to changing battlefield conditions. There are also bonuses for supporting specific factions---and for having enough people in the party that one of them has to be an officer, There's even class advancement---although you're mostly expected to be rotating your class throughout play, so it's not excessively deep.

For GMs, there's a mission generator, maps, a bestiary, plenty of advice on how to run the game, and a few suggestions on ways to customize the experience. Some pre-game prep can be useful (you may want to use a battlemap or wargame table), but premade missions are also provided. Quick references are included at the back of the book for players and GMs alike.

Overall, this is definitely a strange game, but I think it's on to something. If you have nostalgia for Planetside, *definitely* check it out. And if you want a framework for playing an FPS MMO on tabletop, I think this is doubly worth your time. You might need to do some fussing with it if your goal with Planet FIST is to tell a particular story, but if you just want to sweat through some tactical engagements on a world of endless war, it 100% has you covered.

Minor Issues:

-Page 3, "many playtesters have never touched the it" no the

-Page 7, "when doing taking a risky action" no doing

-Page 35, "and that ever officer" every

Why you should check this out: a high-quality, loving translation of the feeling of online FPS video games (especially Planetside) into a streamlined TTRPG.

Style:

•  2-column landscape A4 makes the text easy to read while occasionally allowing for a full-page diagram to use the extra space.
• The spartan black and white with patent-style spot art fits the vibe of FIST, while the headers and sub-headers give it its own clean identity

Structure: 

• There is a lot here - over 60 A4 pages, but it is structured in a really smart way. Planet FIST is consistently explicit about it’s inspiration, politics and intent. From the first few pages you get a very clear idea about the vibe that the game is trying to create, which helps keeps you grounded through the mechanics that follow.
• I love the inclusion of the warning triangle to highlight any specific differences from the base FIST ultra rules. It’s such a simple idea, but so effective at drawing attention to things that might otherwise be missed
• Throughout, the ‘Admiral’s notes’ clearly indicate the why behind some of the mechanics and ways that tables could adjust them to suit their tastes
• The flowcharts and reference pages at the end really help to bring all the mechanics together after a more detailed read-through

Content:

• The game is thoroughly playtested - so even without playing it myself it’s clear that the mechanics will work well at a table. A lot of thought has gone into balancing the flow of more tactical / skirmish style elements and narrative moments.
• The mixture of health and regenerating shields is a really clever use of a video game mechanic that I’ve not really seen before, but could see leading to interesting decisions. Death allowing you to adjust your class is also a really neat translation of a video game idea.
• Little touches like giving the 3 factions colours, architectural styles and emphasising the absurdity of some of their motivations really brings the feeling of endless corporate warfare to life.
• The writing is clear and strikes a good balance of flavour and concise mechanics. I really enjoyed reading the pdf.
• I specifically loved how the character creation was presented - for a relatively complex process, the overview made it really clear to understand what each step would involve. It also cleverly allows them to be tackled one at a time as a group. I’m always a sucker for collaborative elements to characters - so the bonds and ranks are a great addition to the process, and well worth the extra time spent on them.