Do you need something different for your gaming table? Something with a unique premise atop a rarely used yet easy to learn system? While sitting at the gaming table do you find your mind wandering to anime? Have you ever thought you could use a carp to save your village? Are you secretly Lew Zealand of The Muppets? Then let’s talk about Richard Kelly’s unique tabletop roleplaying game, Rod, Reel, & Fist. The game has “players take on the roles of heroic fishers trying to save their village by making a truly legendary catch.” My buddy, Wolf, backed this Kickstarter, ran our group through a one-shot, and let me read his copy of the game for this RPG-view Copy review.
The Bait
This all-ages RPG has its roots in a unique setting and system that draws heavily upon the gonzo nature of bubbly manga and anime concepts. In fact, the PDF cites its influences as Legend of the River King, Golden Sky Stories, Ryuutama, Dept.H, Nusakana, and Mechfishin’. In Rod, Reel, & Fist (RR&F), you and your friends are village fishers. When your village is in danger, the only option is to grab your rod and reel and head to the shore to land a magical Fish of Legend that can save the day.
If the terms “excitable,” “comedy,” “anime,” “fishing,” or “super fish” are off-putting then RR&F may not be for you. This game is for a room of buddies that are ready to go over the top with every interaction. Fishing is a solitary combat between a single fisher and a fish. As bystanders, your only support is a move dubbed Yell Encouragement. This action helps the fisher when the fish has worn them down. However, its true purpose is to get you to cheer on your fellow PCs. To give you some interaction during the extended fishing combats. As such, this game is at its best when you lean into the excitable side of the equation and really cheer. It keeps the game lively and makes the Yell Encouragement move feel genuine.
The Reel
This game is highly interactive as the table designs the village the fishers live in; the problem that’s coming down the creek, river, aquarium, pond, lake, sea, or ocean to harm said village; what the solution is; the Fish of Legend that they’ll need to catch or ally with; and the characters they’ll play to resolve this fish tale. For this RPG, the GM, who is called the Swamp Being or SB, plays the NPCs and fish and narrates the encounters as you’d expect. However, since the table crafts the world and problems, the Swamp Being is along for the ride like the rest of the players.
Your fisher is more text than numbers. You start with a class called a Type. They’re options like an Angler that gets a bonus die in Fish Combat, or an Engineer who gets to auto-win one Fish Combat per story, or the Entertainer who gets bonus options to cheer other fishers on during Fish Combat, and many more. They’re all fun and focused on winning Fishing and Hunting Combats in different ways. On top of a Type, your fisher gets a Temperament which is a description of how your character acts and grants a bonus during the Gambit phase of the combat (more on Gambits shortly). Along with equipment, these descriptions let you know how many dice you’ll have in your pool when rolling against fish or other animals.
To cover the fishing and animal combat, you’ll need a handful of d6s and some index cards for Gambits, their version of rock/paper/scissors. Getting into the nuts and bolts, let’s do fish combat as that’s the focus of this RPG. First, fish combat is one-on-one. Your fisher casts their line and the SB tells you there’s a fish on the hook, but not what kind of fish. This keeps you from knowing what to expect from the creature, if it’s a common fish or something worth fighting for. That means you do not know when you face off against the Fish of Legend. The first phase of each round of combat is the Gambit, a version of rock/paper/scissors in which the loser has their dice pool reduced by 2d6 for the Standing Firm portion of the round. Once the results of the Gambit are known, in the first round, the fish decides on a Target Number between 1 and 7. Then the fish and fisher roll their dice pool with both trying to reach the Target Number either on a single die or by rolling duplicates and using that die’s number plus the number of duplicates rolled. If the Target Number is 4 and your dice pool is 3d6 then you either need to roll a 4 or more, or you need to roll two 3s which equals 4 (taking a single 3 and adding one for getting a single duplicate). If one party fails the Stand Firm Roll then they suffer a Stress. Stress increases the base Target Number. For instance, if the Target Number is 4 and the fisher has 2 Stress then their Target Number increases by two to become 6. On top of taking the Stress for failing the Stand Firm Roll, the loser(s) must make a Hang On Test (base Target Number 3 plus any points of Stress or Exhaustion, which is another factor) and if the fisher fails it, the fish gets away. Alternately, if the fish fails a Hang On Test then they are landed. Assuming no one failed to Hang On, the next round begins with a new Gambit then Stand Firm Roll and Hang On Test. For the other players, they can Yell Encouragement to temporarily reduce Stress for the fisher. If you land a fish, it comes with its own properties. It may be food or it may offer to teach you a combat skill or offer you some other advantage.
While there’s more to it, as well as land combat, that’s the basics of the system. After you do a single round, it is easy to keep up with. Every round is rock/paper/scissors and up to two rolls to see if you land the fish or go for another round. For the SB and fisher, it’s an intense contest. For the other players, it’s a chance to cheer on your friend as you await your turn to fish.
The Fishing Book
This PDF clocks in at 288 pages with lots of bright art and some paintings. The contributors section in this book is nice. Richard Kelly went the extra mile for the individuals that designed this RPG and gives each a short bio with what they do and where to find more work by them. The table of contents is detailed and hyperlinked to every page of the game. This makes the table of contents 20 pages long, but it will get you to what information you need. There’s a lot of setting options, character options, fishing and land combat, and a wide variety of bestiary.
Should You Land This Or Toss It Back?
This is an anime-inspired game that’s meant for a night of reaching for weirdness where everyone wants to play someone fishing for their savior. Every player will need to lean into over the top characters and big gesture roleplaying, nothing subtle, but that makes for epic nights. If you’re ready to be true blue heroes out to fish your village to safety, Richard Kelly’s Rod, Reel, & Fist is just the bait you need!
Rod, Reel, & Fist was created via a Kickstarter campaign and is available through DriveThruRPG.
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