One thing TTRPGs often overlook is what happens when the party can’t win. Rarely do you hear what happens when the mighty TTRPG heroes are forced to beat a hasty retreat, sprinting from the dungeon with their tails between their legs. Thankfully, Fly You Fools takes this rarely discussed storytelling element and turns it into a complete game, one that is sure to remind you that, while Sun Tzu was right about many things, sometimes you need to take your conflict handling tips from Scooby-Doo.
Fly You Fools is a Havoc Engine-inspired TTRPG for 3-5 players and a GM. In it, players step into the shoes of people who, while on adventure, have bitten off way more than they can chew and are being forced to retreat as quickly as possible. Naturally, this is easier said than done, meaning that all of the characters are going to have to work as hard as possible if they want to make it out with their buttocks intact.
The Best Laid Plans (Are Sure To Go Wrong)
Naturally (as the game doesn’t have a default setting), the game begins with the TTRPG players and the GM coming up with the opening scenario the characters have to retreat from, deciding on where the story is set and what the characters’ original goal was (before everything went wrong).
After this, the players create their characters (dubbed Fools). In Fly You Fools, characters have 7 traits that define their abilities. At the start of the game, players put 4 points into one trait, 3 points into two others, two points into three others, and one point into the final remaining trait. On top of this, each character has a Calling (basically a career or class) and two Aspects (things that define their personality and how they approach situations).
When it’s time to overcome a problem, the player makes a pool of six-sided dice, getting one die for each point in the relevant trait and extra dice, with the player aiming to roll as many fours, fives, and sixes as possible.
However, one thing that sets Fly You Fools apart from other TTRPG titles (aside from its focus on retreat) is the fact that, whenever you use a Trait, you tick off one box on its track. Tick off enough boxes, and that trait’s value reduces, making future checks harder.
Then the main game starts with a first scene during which the GM sets the stage by describing the moment when everything goes wrong, and the players are forced to give up their original goals and run away.
During the game, there are three key numbers the players have to keep track of. First is Threat, which tracks the intensity of the forces trying to take the characters down. The higher the Threat, the more dice the GM rolls when making contested checks.
The second is Achievements. Achievements are a currency players collect during the first scene by completing goals. Achievements can be spent to get various effects (like reducing Threat or boosting stats) during gameplay. Finally, there is Lead, which functions like health in other games. If a character’s Lead falls to zero, they are caught and are removed from the game.
After every player has had a chance to take an action, each player gets to decide whether their character hangs around or flees. If any players opt to hang around, the Threat increases by 1, and all remaining players’ Leads fall by 1. Then the players who opted to continue take another round of actions, repeating this process until all the players have been captured or opted to flee.
Then players transition to the final set of scenes, dubbed The Fly. In this, the player attempts to finally escape the area before they can be captured. This plays out like the previous scene, with the added twist that players can’t earn new Achievements, forcing them to make the best of what they have.
A Surprisingly Complex Game In Simple Clothing
Fly You Fools is a really fun one-shot TTRPG. While a TTRPG about performing a retreat after a job gone wrong may sound odd on paper, in practice, it works really well, because it drops players directly into the action and lets them use all of their skills and abilities right from the word go.
A big reason why Fly You Fools works so well is its well-thought-out mechanics. While some people may feel uneasy about the idea of Traits weakening the more they are used, it gels perfectly with the type of stories Fly You Fools is trying to tell. The entire game focuses on chaotic situations. Ones where the player characters lack control and are forced to fly by the seat of their pants to get what they want. Having traits slowly decrease forces players to use all their skills, including those they are not as good with. This forces creative thinking and upping the chaos factor, as things are more likely to go wrong.
Plus, the slowly decreasing stats help convey the idea that the story is a frantic race against time, where the characters will be captured if they hang around too long, due to the slowly growing Threat or their own dwindling resources, meaning that every game of Fly You Fools has a good sense of pace and progression as the players are being constantly pushed forward. It also means the last scenes of Fly You Fools are always memorable as your group of exhausted characters, running on willpower alone, push beyond their limits to overcome the final hurdle between them and glorious victory.
The Achievements system is also interesting, as it adds a nice element of risk vs reward to the proceedings because players naturally want to extend the first scene for as long as possible to get as many Achievements as possible, but doing this reduces your Lead (especially if you end up having to spend it to help other players), making you more vulnerable during the final escape sequence.
Plus, only being able to gain Achievements during the first scene leads to fun and tense resource management during the later scenes, as you have to make each and every use of them count, leading to some very exciting moments when players use their Achievements to turn the tide of otherwise unwinnable situations and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Thanks to its quick character creation and collaborative world building, this is a game you can pick up and start playing within 30 minutes, meaning that Fly You Fools is the perfect TTRPG for tables that want a quick, intense burst of action and a story that can be wrapped up within a single 2-3 hour session. However, this speed doesn’t mean the game is shallow. While the game is very intuitive, it features several surprisingly complex mechanics that ask players to carefully manage several resources and balance risk and reward. So, while Fly You Fools is a TTRPG about trying to retreat, I suggest you run towards it.
