Dice Goblin

So, yeah, my original plan for the AdventUre Calendar got derailed, because I’m in a FIST mood. FIST is an amazing RPG that you should go check out:

FIST: Ultra Edition is a tabletop roleplaying game about paranormal mercenaries doing the tough jobs no one else can. In the game, you belong to a legendary rogue mercenary unit called FIST. You are a soldier of fortune who doesn’t fit into modern society. You are a disposable gun for hire, caught up in the death and destruction of pointless proxy wars and oppressive establishments. You may also be someone who can turn into a ghost or control bees with your mind. 

https://claymorerpgs.itch.io/fist

I think what happened was, with me generally writing fantasy things, suddenly jumping into Cold-War-tactical-espionage-action kinda opened the floodgates on ideas and scenarios that don’t really work in other types of settings.

DEAD ZONE

I wrote DEAD ZONE as a toolkit for infiltration-exfiltration type missions, based on my experiences of playing Helldivers 2. When I was done with that, I figured it’d be fun to take the system for a spin, and create an example adventure based on its rules.

FALSE SELF

FALSE SELF takes the players to jungles of (then) Zaire, to retrieve remnants of a crashed UFO for their handler in (probably?) the US government. It ‘fills in’ all the optional blanks and tables from DEAD ZONE to show how easy it is to run a mission like this.

That idea kinda took root, though, and I realized the mission could have 2 possible endings:

• One where the players simply hand over the UFO debris to their handler (and thus continue working for him in the future)
• One where the players look just a little bit closer and discover that the debris is marked with (very human-looking) text: PROPERTY OF PROJECT OBSCURA

CHEAP TRICK

Oooh, so now we suddenly have a branching outcome; one where the main lead is just that phrase, “PROJECT OBSCURA”, and one where FIST is none the wiser (yet).

So, for that second branch, a betrayal would be pretty “clean” – a mission in which FIST is sent on a seemingly similar job as the first time, but this time with a clear conflict with their handler, AND with more obvious clues leading to PROJECT OBSCURA. What if… it’s a lot clearer this time that the debris from this crash is terrestrial, and FIST just gets sent in as disposable witnesses, to verify the target?

This resulted in CHEAP TRICK, set in the jungles of Colombia. This time, the crashed UFO has been obtained by a local drug lord, who quickly surmised that this device is human-made. He figures it’ll be a matter of time until the US government comes knocking to get their toy back, and he’s hoping to strike a good deal.

FIST is sent to his manor to verify the presence of the artifact, not knowing that their verification will trigger a devastating bombing run. With multiple ways of entry (through the jungle, down the river, or through the front door, posing as negotiators) and a fleshed-out mansion map, I kinda wanted to emulate the feeling of a HITMAN mission with this one.

KUNDUZ GAMBIT

With only the name PROJECT OBSCURA as a lead (either directly following FALSE SELF or through CHEAP TRICK), FIST is left in the dark… until a benefactor somewhere high up in the military apparatus by the name of BLUEBIRD informs them of a hot lead. So now, there’s KUNDUZ GAMBIT:

Afghanistan, 1978: A Delta Force operator, held captive by local insurgents, makes a single transmission mentioning PROJECT OBSCURA. Now a KGB “ghost squad” has extracted him, racing towards the Soviet border. Your mission: Intercept the convoy in a 50km dead zone. But when mysterious lights appear in the mountain mist, the cold war gets even colder…

This particular mission takes the OSR concept of “Here’s a big ol’ problem, go fix it”, by giving FIST a limited time to prepare an ambush of a military convoy.

Unbeknownst to them, the previous captors of the Delta Force operator are in hot pursuit, and are likely to show up at whatever ambush FIST has planned.

Oh, and unbeknownst to all previous parties, the forces behind PROJECT OBSCURA are also waiting in the wings, ready to eliminate a loose end.

Next Up: BIG BANG

I’m not done yet, I think – I mean, inspiration can always just ebb away or shift towards another focus, but I do feel pretty determined to deliver the final chapter in this saga, current codename BIG BANG.

With the clues from KUNDUZ GAMBIT, FIST now knows where PROJECT OBSCURA is located, and might be the only ones able to stop it…

Yeah, as I said earlier today:

Making dungeons and such for Block, Dodge, Parry makes me feel like a wizard. Writing modules and scenarios for FIST makes me feel like an airport-paperback-novelist, in the best way possible.

— Dice Goblin Games (@dicegoblin.blog) December 22, 2024 at 6:06 PM