hook, line, & cyb3r

every additional $5 over purchase price adds three community copies to the pool

a go fish-powered cyberpunk-flavoured game of blade-wielding bounty hunters, originally developed for the fishblade 2023 game jam

you may wonder what "go fish-powered" means

you play this game by playing go fish

a zero prep, GMless, pick-up-&-play one shot of dastardly neon-tinged montages, leaning on mechanics you've known like your entire life & a vast array of generative tables to slide you effortlessly into playing out the chaotic professional lives of shadowrunners, bounty hunters, or some other type of high tech dystopic gig economy adjacent freelance criminals for hire.

stats & resources

gm: no. prep: no. fish: go.

what you need to play

• a few hours (around three)
• 2-6 players (though i learned in the process of making this game that some people claim go fish works for up to 12 people, so, i dunno, give it a try)
• or just you-- there's a section on solo variants
• a deck of cards (or digital analogue (that you can play go fish with))
• a light handful of d6s (or an e-handful of cyber-d6s)
• the provided play assets (or another way to take both private & public notes)

what you get

• the 34 page rulebook .pdf
  • in singles
    • with a full-colour cover
    • & a more home-printer-friendly toned-down version
  • & spreads
• play assets
  • printable for physical play
    • public record markers to organise your intel
    • a full page character sheet with quick reference rules
    • a pamphlet with all of the generator tables
  • digital
    • a google sheets document that can automatically apply your rolls to tables
      • in separated form, where each player has their own private spreadsheet, & the group also has a public record document
      • & in combined form, where everyone is working in one document

how it works

you PLAY this GAME by PLAYING go FISH

each suit of cards represents one of the four pillars of intel you need to pull off a job: the client, the objective, the opportunity, & your "in". the intel gets privately generated by each player (with the help of an extensive series of tables to roll on) when they "fish" from the deck, so by the time you've assembled all four cards of a value to complete a book, they've picked up a wild spread of facts that you get to weave into one single successful mission. if you complete a book by taking those cards from another player's hand, the two of you work together to build the narrative of how you stole that job out from under them.

the tables

this game requires zero prep. in service of that, it's full of generative tables for every instance of information you might need to build a scenario. this is a GMless game in part because the cards & tables can help GM for you. let the dice set your characters up so you can focus your creative energy on how they pull off the impossible. the nature of randomness means you'll be confronting situations zanier than any non-table entity would generally find reasonable to throw at you, leaving you with even more room for coming up with inventive & cinematic solutions.

on tables & providing structure for preplessness

to be perfectly candid, part of my design philosophy for this game stems from the fact that i'm very very tired most of the time & often feel that the narrative games i love don't provide me enough structure to work with to get play started. i wanted to make a system that doesn't require me to be having one of my best days to be able to get something creative & fun out of it. in addition, it can be difficult to get busy & sleepy adults together for a game, so i wanted to make something you can pick up & play almost immediately.

google sheets playdocs (file > make a copy > edit freely!)

private notes & intel generator - public record
combined version

physical play assets

at the bottom of the page, under "download demo",  you'll find

a full page character sheet that folds up into a nametag, with quick reference rules
& a generator pamphlet with all of the tables you'll need during play

a sheet of public record markers to keep your intel organised as it changes hands

printing a copy & want to go a little further with it? the pages were designed to fit on half of a standard sheet of printer paper. if you turn one of the singles .pdfs into a booklet, print it double-sided, fold it in the middle, then staple or stitch it, you've got a little book <3