Mistaken
A downloadable Framework
Content Warning : PCs involved in atrocities as backstory, despair, suicide, ego death.
"MISTAKEN" is a framework for the FIST TTRPG that puts the players in the shoes of CYCLOPS agents pushed to their extremes and hovering on the edge of their loyalties. New mechanics are implemented to make players question how far they are willing to go to preserve order and what price they're wiling to set on their character's spark of humanity.
CYCLOPS Agents start on firmer footing, mechanically, than FIST Operatives but have a series of counterbalanced ticking clocks working against them. By the end of a handful of missions the agents will be corpses, tragic figures, or on the lam from a world-spanning conspiracy.
Note : Written, last minute, for FIST JAM 3. As such, thorough playtesting has not occurred and balancing issues may exist. Stable diffusion was used to develop the cover art, although redundant variation cycles were run and manual adjustments were made to ensure the art pieces are not direct rip offs of existing artwork.
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In "Mistaken" playing a Cyclops agent is a little bit like playing FIST on hard-core mode. PCs are a little darker and grittier and they have a lot more to balance than just saving the day without dying.
There are mechanical additions that you could compare with "sanity" from the Call of Chuthlu rpgs. Players can only commit so many war crimes before they either become NPCs or take their own life in despair.
This zine is full of prose that really gets you in the mind of an Cyclops agent which is fun to read. If you want to add some survival elements or alternate role play tools to FIST you should check this out.
Mistaken is a FIST hack where the PCs play as members of CYCLOPS.
The PDF is 16 pages with a wonderful, evocative cover and a generally clean layout. The text feels slightly cramped in a few places, but the overall structure is easy to read.
Contents-wise, this is a fairly comprehensive hack of FIST's rules. CROs are stronger but more limited than FIST agents, and have to worry about HUMANITY, DESPAIR, and other factors that FIST is relatively free from.
There's some sample missions included, as well as rules for collaboratively worldbuilding a mission zero that went poorly before the game began.
The writing is direct and evocative, and the overall game environment is interesting. The sample missions are super flavorful, and there's plenty of room for them to go wrong.
Overall, this is a solid examination of an under-examined faction in FIST, and potentially also a good system for running something like a Bad Batch game, or just a more bleak examination of spycraft. Pick it up if you like FIST but want something a bit darker in tone.