A downloadable zine

[BEEP] Hello. You don’t know me yet, but you’re in danger. Don’t worry, I can help. Time may be broken here, but space is somewhat consistent. Look in the trunk of the grey sedan across the street from you, it’s unlocked. Follow its direction and you’ve got a good chance of getting out. It leads you to safety. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. [BEEP]


19XX. The continuum of time in the Washington D.C. has been shattered. FIST must escape or die. A hexcrawl mission for FIST through numerous time periods, future and past.

Made for FIST by CLAYMORE, for FIST JAM OPS III

TW: Fear, death, violence (not explicitly described)

Ideas & Inspiration:

  • Tons of inspiration and encouragement from the FIST Discord (Thank you!)
  • Mandelbrot Set by CLAYMORE (a huge inspiration)
  • The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer
  • Borne by Jeff Vandermeer
  • Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer
  • Half-Life 2 by Valve
  • Blindsight by Peter Watts
  • How to Leave Town by Car Seat Headrest

Fonts:

  • Florian Karsten Typefaces (Space Grotesk)
  • OSP-foundry (Fluxisch Else)
  • URW type foundry (Microgramma)

Art:

  • XavierCK (FIST and CYCLOPS symbols)
  • U.S. Patent Office (patent drawings)
  • NASA (satellite photo of DC)

Tools:

  • Libre Office
  • GIMP
  • HexTML
StatusReleased
CategoryPhysical game
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(2 total ratings)
AuthorYootScute
GenreRole Playing
Tagsfist, Hexcrawl, paranormal, Sci-fi, Tabletop, Tabletop role-playing game, zine
Average sessionA few hours

Download

Download
MetaZineClean.pdf 2 MB
Download
MetaZinePrintClean.pdf 5 MB
Download
MetaZineCampaignSheet.pdf 198 kB

Install instructions

The print version folds in an unusual way. I'll add instructions shortly.

Development log

Comments

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Metafluid Fallout packs a lot of adventure into just 16 pages. Washington DC has "Gone Wrong" and your FIST team must escape from a dangerous clash of timelines before they are lost forever. 

This journey across timelines takes the form of a hexcrawl. Players roll dice to determine what the next hex or "timeline" may contain. These encounter range from the time of dinosaurs, modern US history, and even strange far off futures. The excitement of not knowing what's coming and the thrill of risking just one more encounter before safety make the main appeals of this mission.

The map is obscured from the players meaning they don't know how far they are from their goal or even what direction they want to go. This rule has one exception in the form of the "Stabilty Detector." This device acts as both a compass and a divination tool. The detector points you in the direction of "Stable Hexes"; points in the journey to rest and regroup. It also gives players a hint of what the shortest path towards the "Stable Hex" may contain.

The "Stabilty Detector" is an ingenious way of making the players decisions in the hexcrawl feel intentional and layered. Maybe the stable hex is north of here and the direct path is described as "cruel and dangerous." The player may choose to go around the long way and risk the danger of extra encounters to avoid the obvious danger. This tiny bit if agency allows players to make meaningful choices instead of advancing blindly without thought.

The author writes the encounters in specifics instead of generalities. This allows the referee to lean on the module more reliably without having to the fill in too many blanks themselves, which is always an option. This fact makes the game friendly to players and referees of all experience levels.

Overall, this mission will give most players a deep and smooth experience.

Metafluid Fallout is a scenario for FIST. It works both as an excellent follow-up to Mandlebrot Set, or as a standalone.

The PDF is 16 pages, with a clean, well-organized layout and easy to read text. There's a custom cover and a rad photobashed hexmap, as well as several public domain illustrations.

The scenario is a hexcrawl without map information, but with the ability to get a premonition about what's in an upcoming hex.

Like Mandlebrot Set, Metafluid Fallout takes place in an unstable zone of spacetime. As a result, the encounters are wild and flavorful, with some being big and bombastic and others skirting existential horror. More than a few are both.

There's a really neat mechanic for replacing player characters in here, with PCs having decent odds to come in as an alternate timeline replacement, as well as new PCs bringing trouble with them when they arrive.

Overall, the writing in this module is incredibly good, and the scenario design is equally strong. If you want an extremely eventful hexcrawl, you should pick this up.