Fishbones and All In Mail Never Clinking
It’s no secret that I have been low-key obsessed with Richard Kelly’s Rod, Reel, & Fist. So when the Game Exploder Game Jam suggested:
Want to turn that 400 page tome you can never get anyone to play into a single-page game?
I thought this might be my opportunity to wrangle it.
Click here to skip to the final product on itch!
Fishbones
The first part was the rules. I already had a decent handle on them, but I wanted to present them compactly, and in the way that I understood them. (This might make it easier, for myself at least, to present at the table.) I borrowed some typographic conventions from Errant, which I found really click with my way of thinking.
This core rules document is only 14 pages with a cover and a couple “overhead” pages, and contains enough of the rules to create a character and get started. I named it Fishbones.
All In Mail Never Clinking
I had one other problem: having excised most of the group world-building parts of the game, none of the included scenarios worked quite right for me anymore. They mostly fall into two camps:
- A simple enough scenario, but having no included detail. You can’t really set these down and go because you’re meant to personalize them first.
- A more complex scenario with enough detail to run, but possibly requiring more prep or familiarity. These would hardly be representative ways to start.
And all that discourse about capsule games was in the air, so I thought, why not give it a go?
Starter Adventure Best Practices
Before setting out, I wanted to know what makes a good starter adventure. I compiled the following points after asking around:
- It’s quick to start and easy to run. Pre-generated characters or simple builds, little to no background reading necessary.
- It’s short. Only a few pages to read and less than 4 hours total to play.
- It doesn’t assume any prior competency.
- Mechanics are introduced one-at-a-time and in order of complexity.
- It shows off all the most unique and characteristic features of the game.
- It has a fun hook that immediately grounds characters in the fiction and sets stakes.
- It is narratively bounded. While it may situate itself in a larger world, all elements of it point “inward” …
- … until the conclusion, which needs to be open-ended, point “outward” into the rest of the game, and ideally raise the stakes.
- Such a grand conclusion may require special guidance for the GM. How does the adventure continue? What might come next?
I tried to incorporate all of these ideas into All In Mail Never Clinking, to varying degrees of success.
Assembling All In Mail
Adventure written, this also seemed a reasonable place for a minimal fishtiary and bestiary. Covers and end matter bring it to a slim 11 pages.
Fisher’s Pocket Reference
There was one more thing I wanted to do,1 which was create a quick reference for use in play. I included the results of the math I’d worked out earlier, some ideas for setbacks (I find lists like this keep me thinking more broadly), summaries of combat and making camp, and a futile attempt to distill Richard’s excellent advice for running a table generally and for running Rod, Reel, & Fist specifically.
I also made big cross-reference tables for all the fish and animals in RRF by habitat, rarity, and dice (even the ones not included in Fishbones). This is something I found myself wanting when trying to wrap my head around scenario creation, and which I hope others might find useful. But also I’m not sure I needed to be as concerned about them as I had been.
Reception
I published the game on itch in February for free, where it does all right. Clicks and downloads and views are all good, but I’ve really enjoyed seeing other people’s enthusiasm for it.
It was discussed in the jam roundup episode of Dice Exploder, which was really fun to hear.
And this game straight up said, yeah, but I can do it in less than 20 pages. And I love that.
— Lady Tabletop on Dice Exploder
I’m obsessed with this adventure, and I’ll tell you why. […] it’s a game that imagines a world where all the great heroes are just hanging out and fishing and that’s what they do all day.
— Sam R. on Dice Exploder
I think it’s very good.
— Chris on Dice Exploder
But also, Richard Kelly himself has been super supportive of the effort, which means a lot to me.
Fishbones is a slim, clean, and extremely useable quickstart version of Rod Reel And Fist. […] Everything in the PDFs is well organized, professionally layed out, and very easy to read. If you’re thinking about running Rod Reel And Fist, I highly recommend picking this up. It has a stellar grasp of the material, and the included adventure is incredibly flavorful and easy to run.
— Richard Kelly, Author of Rod, Reel, & Fist
One more thing that I wanted to do and did. I never even started working out a character sheet. Some day…↩︎