Sometimes as a referee it's really nice to take some of the load off when it comes to planning storylines and plot points for your campaign. Players will often be happy to help you, but figuring out how to collaborate creatively can be just as difficult and time consuming if you don't have structure. Luckily, there is H.A.N.D.S.

Hands will guide you and your group through creating your own F.I.S.T mythos. Past missions, VIPs, and current threats are all things you take turns creating. The prompts given got me thinking about my game just by reading them aloud, so while the Zine itself is meant to create collaborative content,  it could also be inspiring for any referee just looking to write their own stories.

H.A.N.D.S is great for session zero or at any point at all. Have fun creating with it!

At least once per FIST Ops Jam, someone releases a PDF that is going to save me a whole lot of trouble. This time around, it’s Christian Livinus, whose H.A.N.D.S (History Analysis and Narrative Direction System, natch) neatly handles (eh? see what I did there?) shared narrative worldbuilding with your players. This is something I was planning on doing, so it’s a real treat having everything waiting and ready to go.

First you establish the foundation: emerging technology, people being left behind, paranormal creeping in. Then on to the present: elements of modern society, a major superpower, and (my favorite) create an ominous headline from this era. Then it’s on to the foundation of FIST itself: legacy operatives, key figures, assets and locations.

Shared worldbuilding might seem like an alien concept to some, and as such it can seem a bit daunting. Through use of large headers, ample white space, and eye-catching, playful illustrations, the process seems simple to grasp, easy to understand, and downright do-able.

If I had to ask for one addition, it would be a bonus PDF with a sort of Actual Play example from the author’s own playtesting. Even though each world is going to be fine-tuned for that particular game’s players (as it should be), it’d be nice to see the results of a pre-game H.A.N.D.S. phase, if only to daydream about until you can use it for your own game.

H.A.N.D.S. is sure to get your players into the game world, hitting the ground running with maximum buy-in. Hats off for the included Zine spreads and printing instructions PDF.

HANDS is a worldbuilding engine for FIST.

This is a neat idea, as the core game relies on a sort of all-the-espionage-myths-are-true narrative soup, and if you have a group that really likes to be on the same page about how the world works that core approach can sometimes conflict.

The PDF is 11 pages with great visual composition and some nice public domain retro art. Everything is clean and easy to read, and the typefaces are big to boot.

Contents-wise, the writing here is really strong. There are some spectacularly good acronyms and system terms, and the worldbuilding process is layed out clearly.

The worldbuilding is also very comprehensive, and can easily spit out worlds that look nothing like our own. If you want to make a parallel dimension for your FIST game, or want to play your game in that parallel dimension, you should get this.

Overall, HANDS is a splendid utility for FIST. If you like worldbuilding games, or if you want to flesh out your FIST setting, please give this a look.

Minor Issues:

-There are three bookmarks, and they are all random strings of alphanumerics. If you imported a .doc into Affinity and didn't manually clear out the junk anchors and hyperlinks, that might be what caused this.

HANDS is a world/campaign building game for FIST. It's similar to games like Questlandia and The Creature Comes For Us, but with it's own take on the process and with a FIST flair. The "throw another punch" step means that new ideas can develop without the older ones being left behind. I have not actually played it, but I'm excited to! The art is also awesome, I love the collage style.

If I had one critique, it would be that there not being many idea prompts (stuff where it tells the players to create a type of idea - like in the Shield Your Face step) might make it flow a little less smoothly than if there were a bunch of them, but that's understandable for the zine format, and one can always use prompts from other games or online.

Overall, HANDS is very cool! I'd recommend playing it if starting a campaign that you don't already have a campaign idea for or just for fun.