A few days ago I tried PLANET FIST, a game inspired by science fiction movies and video games, specifically Planetside 2. In this game designed by Jess Levine, players take on the role of a squad on a suicide mission owned by a giant megacorporation/faction, each with a distinct feel. The plot twist is that these slain soldiers are resurrected with all their memories and thrown into battle again, in an eternal war.
Briefly introduce what “PLANET FIST” is
In PLANET FIST, you control your character like a stolen car, driving at full speed and throwing yourself into danger while trying to avoid damage without being detected (optional). The fact that your character is always resurrected allows you to do whatever you want, either with great success or exploding like a firework into thousands of tiny pieces of flesh and bone. You can try again if needed. Just know that your enemies will come back too.
PLANET FIST is an apocalypse-driven narrative war game with a narrative that satirizes sci-fi skirmishes, a stand-alone complete conversion of CLAYMORE’s Riot and the Material Award-winning sequel to Riot: Ultra Jam.
Layout
The layout of the rules feels very much like a science fiction instruction manual, with scraps of metal and blueprints everywhere. Many sci-fi RPGs decide on a similar atmosphere, but this rulebook builds on that by adding Admiral’s Notes throughout. Again, these random notes left by people from all over the world are nothing new, but I believe these notes in particular can place you in the universe you’re about to find yourself in. By making the book feel like an instruction manual, with the Admiral’s notes, it very much feels as though you’re training to be a soldier through character creation, with the Admiral yelling at you to pay attention certain parts.
Factions
You can choose a squad among three huge factions, each terrifying in their own way:
- The new council are super capitalists who are worried about having lots of money and workers. Their soldiers may not have the best weapons technology, but they are certainly the most expensive on the market!
- Tyrants can only survive through constant war, and their motto is that if you want everything to work, you should sacrifice everything for the cause and have a home to return to when it’s all over. Just don’t focus too much on the fact that everything surrounding factions only works if the war exists.
- The Villian Advantage convinced their soldiers that the body was useless without implants. So we’re going to add some for you. These will make you the perfect killing machine. Owning blades as weapons is an absolutely life-changing experience, and if you can’t do anything but kill people with them, that’s okay, right?
Customization and compression
While the game offers a ton of customization options for your character, they don’t feel intimidating and instead give each game a completely different feel. By choosing your faction, you gain access to customization options that only apply to that specific faction, tying your character to that faction’s usual behavior or the story of the equipped soldiers. If you like not knowing what you’re going to get, or want to play quickly, you can roll one at random, or take your time and choose the one you find most interesting.
Also, all characters will choose career traits similar to your usual archetype or character class. The fun part is that you can change your class characteristics each time, allowing you to prepare for your mission in the best possible way.
PLANET FIST uses the FIST system powered by Apocalypse, which means the game is story-heavy and not as critical as Dragon City, Pathfinder, or Gurps. moment or mechanism. The game is 60 pages long (at least so far) and has decided to add more elements to the FIST system like health and shield meters to give it a futuristic feel and show players how easily you can die in the game . After all, your character is disposable.
Task
The game engages you in missions, which usually end automatically. This game is perfect for you when you want to run a one-off or short-term campaign with a series of independent missions. By the same token, although I can imagine some long-term campaigns, I don’t think this system is likely to be the best.
From what I’ve seen of the rules, the game gives you everything to perform missions where you have to infiltrate or raid enemy bases and obtain “synchronization points”. You can think of them as points in a video game that you have to catch in order to control and win the match in a game like Overwatch. The thing is, just like in video games, even if you die, your character will come back to life, and so will the enemies!
Here’s what you can expect from the game
I was lucky enough to be able to try out PLANET FIST with a game designer who was the GM. Jess did a great job guiding us through the character creation process, which is done in collaboration with other players, as you can choose things like relationships with other players. This allows you to create excellent satire for an otherwise frustrating game, and that’s exactly what you’re designed to do! Our squad consists of 1st Lt. Honey “Sugar Butt” Bi, Cayp “Cowboy” Bara from the Velian Ascendancy faction and Nutella “Dumpsterfire” Raccoon. Sugar Butt is Cowboy’s ex and Dumpsterfire’s rival, and at the same time Cowboy and Dumpsterfire both like to challenge each other to do dangerous things, so you can imagine how they developed.
Our group was led by the “Sunshine Spark Commander” who assigned tasks to our characters and constantly called the group to give positive comments and encouragement. We managed to get sync points from the enemy base, blow up walls and of course blow up enemy bodies in the most ridiculous way. Our rolling is excellent and characters never die, which is a regular occurrence, so I can’t say much about how rezzing works other than what I’ve read in the rules. Finally, after all the shooting, the careful planning that we did not follow, and the explosions, we managed to escape in our armed vehicle “Leopard”. I can imagine that if we had more time we could do a chase in a vehicle while shooting at each other, because that’s what that type of game is.
I’m lucky enough to play with Dusty and Aki. They (along with 14 other players) will take part in the West Marches event run by Jess, which is tentatively scheduled to be released as a podcast in January 2024. Among the cast, you can find award-winning, hands-on podcasters like Party of One’s Jeff Stormer, Dillin Apelyan (aka Superdillin) and the Atomless’s Noordin Ali Kadir, Tales Yet Told’s Kendo, and more. Click here to learn more.
Conclusion
“Planet Fist” is an action-themed satire about a terrifying world where people have no other life than to be soldiers forever. If you like sci-fi, dystopian futures, and the feel of a video game that can do anything to you if you push yourself into danger and die gloriously, then be sure to support this game!
Game offers:2-
- 60 page 8.5″x11″ B&W rulebook
- A unique death and regrouping system that allows you to throw your characters into the grinder and catapult them back into the battlefield on the next turn
- A narratively flexible combat system that retains room for storytelling without the need for a ruler or grid
- 18 faction traits, 12 character traits, 12 characters and 12 bonds all have a unique flavor, equipment and other perks to choose from or roll randomly
- A pre-written example mission and an original BATTLEMAP
- 12 threats, each with their own stat block and unique skills
- Procedurally generated tasks and task reward tables
Jess’ game is currently crowdfunding through Itch, and you can buy it for $8 until the end of November. There are still some stretch goals to achieve, so be sure to give it a look and help it become the best game possible with your support, click here! Tell them Nutella the Raccoon sent you!