Squad Traits for FIST
A downloadable supplement
A single-sheet supplement with 17 "squad traits" that apply to all player characters, for modifying difficulty and adding flavor. Use them as inspiration to create your own!
Public domain -- use however you like.
Download
Install instructions
Printing instructions: double-sided, flip on short edge, enable borderless printing if available. Z-fold when printed.
Comments
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"Squad Traits" is pretty much what you expect. It is a list of traits that affect the players as a whole instead of as individuals. What I was most impressed with was the versatility these traits can bring to the game.
The author recommends several ways they can be used, including increasing difficulty, unifying characters thematicly, and even as temporary mechanics to go along with a mission's plot.
After reading this I am starting to think of traits in different ways!
A fun bolt-on to the ruleset that personalizes a ... what's the FIST equivalent of a MURDER? 'A TEAM'? 'A-TEAM'? .... and both provides seventeen example team-wide traits and excites the imagination with ideas for troupe level abilities / penalties / modifications.
At a minimum, the 'negative' traits are worth keeping in the Ref's back pocket to incorporate as a penalty for particularly disastrous (and thematically associated) failure rolls.
Squad traits is a pamphlet adding a simple, but creative and clever mechanic to FIST. The players or referee choose from a list of traits which make the game easier, harder or a bit more unique. It stays true to the feel of traits in the main rules, but with great ideas for how these could impact a group all at once.
The use of art from a field manual fits the vibe and jazzes up the simple and clear layout.
This is a great mechanical addition to a referee's arsenal with a lot of potential for people to build on top of.
Squad Traits is a short supplement for FIST that adds modifiers to the entire team of PCs. These modifiers range from making the game harder, to making it easier, to making it weirder. Think of them as a slider that controls the game's micro-genre.
The PDF is 2 pages, with a bare but readable layout. There's no art or cover, but the content is solid.
Overall, this is a really clever idea and fits naturally with most FIST games. I think a lot of third party content tends to work well as standalone material, but this is a rare example of a mechanic that I think belongs in the core book.
Thanks for the kind words! I've just uploaded a new version with some visual flair, a better layout, and double the amount of squad traits.