With the Beta (v0.0.5) release of Wallaby Task Force, I figured I’d share some of my design goals for this silly standalone hack of FIST: Ultra Edition.

Party Game Roleplaying

I’ve been playing a lot of one-page one-offs lately – think Sexy Battle Wizards and Cosmic Ray Kids. It’s been a rough year, making it hard to focus on larger projects. These micro-RPG experiences have been a real lifesaver.

Eventually, it got me thinking about ways to turn one of my very favorite RPGs, FIST: Ultra Edition, into that sort of party game roleplaying experience. FIST is already rules lite, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to make it more immediately accessible, especially in games played without the help of digital tools like Sonder.

First Thing I Did Was Ruin Everything

Now, I’ve said for years, Traits are the heart and soul of FIST. They’re one of my favorite parts of the game, and they’re definitely my favorite thing to write as a game designer. Writing a FIST Trait is stress-free and rewarding experience.

So of course, I went and removed Traits from the game. Not because I thought breaking Traits into Weapon, Tactics, and Fauna is better, but because I thought it might be fun for this particular project. Also I wanted to get into the WTF Jam. Busted.

Weapons, Tactics, and Fauna are like mini-Traits. Tactics also adjust your Attribute Scores and Fauna determines your HP.

Two Sentence Horror

I’m fascinated by games where spells are one or two sentences. I find it an interesting design challenge, to convey enough meaning while leaving room for creative interpreation.

As much as I adore mechanically complex Traits like MONSTERS or TRUTH (SLEEPER, my beloved), I wanted to test out abilities new players could grok at a glance. By placing the text on standard playing cards, I gave myself a limited amount of space to work with.

Note: The playing cards featured in this post are as optional as a GM screen. They’re helpful points of reference, but the game is fully playable online or off.

A More Grounded Experience

I also wanted slightly more grounded experience, which is something you’d expect to hear from a man telling you about his Australian animal mercenary game. While the supernatural is normally my bread and butter, I wanted to avoid overtly supernatural abilities in order to draw more from cheesy 80s action movies. Players might be able survive for as long as they can scream and fire a hail of bullets, but that’s only because, hey, it worked for Rambo.

Credit

Art courtesy of Game-Icons under CC BY 3.0: Boomerang by Delapouite, Hound by Lorc, Medical pack by sbed, Spannerby Lorc