"PLANET FIST" is a fascinating sci-fi romp about comradery, exploitation, and warfare
Work together with your squad to do the bidding of your Commanding Officers while you try your best not to die too often
PLANET FIST by Jess Levine is, as the book puts it, a “narrative wargame,” inspired by Planetside 2 (a game I personally always adored, though never got deep into)1 and is a hack of FIST: Ultra Edition by CLAYMORE. Death is cheap, as the players are infused with nanotechnology that allows them to be “reassembled,” retaining their memories and allowing them to return to the fray. This is a game about the relationships between comrades and the exploitation of soldiers in war, about fighting a war you don’t believe in because it’s the only thing you can do.
Reading through the book over the past few days, a lot of parts of it stood out to me, and I knew I had to write a review on it. Below is an in-depth discussion of what I think is an interesting and unique addition to the sci-fi TTRPG canon.
What is PLANET FIST?
As mentioned above, PLANET FIST is a self-described “Powered by the Apocalypse narrative wargame.” It takes place on a dystopian sci-fi world called Sixaura, a far-off lonely planet consumed by a three-way war. The belligerents consist of the libertarian capitalistic New Committee, the fascist Tyrat Council, and the “techno-supremacist”2 Velian Ascendancy. The nanocloning technology developed on Sixaura has been infused with everyone on the planet, allowing you to be “reassembled” should you ever die. This means that homes, families, children, medical care, almost everything has been abandoned. As the book puts it, “there is only work. There is only war.”
The purported focus of the game is on the narrative that can emerge from warfare and the relationships forged between the characters. It combines this through a semi-tactical combat system that merges the strengths of PbtA’s conversational style with map-based combat. It is not as tactical as a game like Dungeons and Dragons, but you do need to care about positioning, health, and other strategic considerations.
Overall, the concept is very appealing to me. The world seems ripe for the picking, and I can already imagine the types of stories and campaigns that can emerge through play. I am curious how long the concept can last for through a campaign though; the world excises pretty much everything that does not serve the war effort, and as such I could fear that a longer campaign would result in repetition. Only time will tell on that, but overall, a compelling starting point.
The Squad & Character Creation
During the first session, the player characters will come together and create the members of their Squad. There’s a few steps for this, including choosing the faction you are conscripted with, your character’s traits, rank assignments, and class traits. Through many of these aspects, you can create a really unique set of characters that meld together to try and tell the story you’re looking for. The Character Traits create a lot of interesting combinations, and with rules for random rolling, an interesting character concept seems almost inescapable to result.
Something I appreciate is that, in the section where you choose which faction your squad is in service to, it reiterates that none of the factions are good. To say they view the PCs as pawns would be generous; they all plan to use you to further their own goals, and you’re just the cannon fodder. The book says that if you plan to unironically embody and enjoy the beliefs of your chosen faction, you shouldn’t play. This helps color exactly what type of story is meant to be used for this system.
The thing that I really love about character creation and draws me in to the game is the Bonds, connections generated between the PCs to tie them all together. These are not unique to PLANET FIST in a general sense, but the way they are utilized here feels a bit more unique and interesting. In other games, they tend to just be backstory pieces, something that connects two characters to give them an immediate reason to care about each other; here, while they do play that role, your bonds can change. For example, if two players start the campaign with the “Lovers” bond, but fail to act in accordance by spurning an opportunity to express it, then they will lose that bond, needing to be replaced with another (perhaps the “Exes” bond). These dynamics can possibly always be in flux, and I think that can create a really interesting set of relationships within a campaign, drawing the focus of the story to these bonds and the comradery they create.
I Die, I Live, I Die Again
Part of this game’s focus is it’s combat, a unique approach that rarely is taken by those claiming to be PbtA; many people say tactical combat cannot be done within the system. This book challenges that notion, believing that it’s toolset allows it to take tactics into account without disrupting the narrative that arrives within and from combat.
Probably the largest contributor to this goal is the fact that, as mentioned above, characters cannot really die. This means that, at the end of the day, you cannot ensure permanent victory for long, which is why the setting is stuck in a perpetual state of warfare. While a boon for players who grow fond attachments to their characters, this lack of death also applies to enemies; the narrative potential of this has strong possibilities. In theory, you could fight against the same enemy squad of soldiers across 3 missions in a row, burning each other into one-another’s memories.
This lack of death also means players are encouraged to take risks; yes, causing a massive explosion could cause you to die as well, but you can simply derezz and reassemble, returning to the fray. Combat becomes less about “get all the enemies to 0 HP” and much more about the actual objectives, usually capturing facilities. Really, the combat breaks down into a bloody, violent, over-the-top game of Domination from Call of Duty or, more aptly, a Planetside 2 session.
Overall, I think a lot of the inclusions for the combat mechanics will be pretty good at achieving it’s aims of a sort-of “tactics-lite” system; the risk-taking and power plays will become effective, but there is a lot more narrative possibility found to allow for flexibility within the rules of the system. This probably isn’t a system for your most hardened of wargamers seeking juicy tactical crunch, but it is certainly a cut above the standard PbtA game in the official combat department.
Refereeing a War
The Referee section occupies about the last third of the book and contains information about how to run the campaign, set up missions for the squad, and overall general advice for the system. Probably the two most important sections of this book are the sample mission Positronix Weapons Lab and the Command Console.
Positronix Weapons Lab does a good job of conveying what the intended design for the system is in regards to mission structure. There is a clear objective with a smattering of interesting locations to explore, and a couple of baddies to shoot down. Overall seems like a fine mission to start with and introduces the core concepts of the game quickly.
Second, the Command Console consists of a series of random tables meant to help guide the process of combat, complications while healing, mission objectives, etc. It also includes the “threat blocks” for a pretty decent variety of enemy types. These all feel pretty intuitive here, and the tables seem well thought out to ensure ease of use and functionality in play. My only criticism is that all the enemies are meant to work across all factions, and thus the work is on you to determine the difference between a Tyrat brevet captain fire team and a Velian one. Not a necessary component, as there’s enough elsewhere in the book to assist in that process, but I would have liked it here as well.
Conclusion
PLANET FIST is working with a couple of really interesting ideas. It’s focus on comradery and narrative works within the setting it portrays, with the tools necessary to back it up. Having yet to play/run a session, I wonder if the combat holds up to the promise of narrative-first tactical play; the mechanisms seems to be in place, but I wonder how it actually feels. I have a lot of thoughts in this game, but decided to show some restraint, and talk about a broad overview of what I found most compelling. Overall, I’m glad to have picked this up, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a unique twist on the sci-fi TTRPGs.
PLANET FIST is currently itchfunding on itch.io until Nov. 30. If you like the game, I’d recommend supporting the funding! Seems like a lot of interesting things will come as it progresses. If you liked this review, please share it & subscribe for more! I love sharing my thoughts on games, game design, and all things TTRPG, so the support would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Planetside-like? Same as Rogue-like? Is this anything?
No, not the good kind of techno