Fight With Spirit – A Review

Context: I love virtually all sports, I’ve been looking for this game for some time, and this review is based on a two player, online game – both of which alter the dynamic of the game slightly, but honestly, not that you’d notice!

Fight with Spirit (FwS) is a ‘sports drama rpg’ by Storybrewers Roleplaying, for 2-5 players with a game lasting between 1-8+ sessions. The physical game itself is a robust boxed set with loads of cards, counters, sheets and push out card bits to build your table layout. The digital game is a thing to behold, with some of the most comprehensive support for setting up your own Roll20 game I have seen, and a simply amazing Google Sheets character keeper.

Let’s unpack that for a moment.

‘Sports Drama’ is a very specific genre, which might thrill some people and ultimately turn others off. The one aspect which isn’t mentioned is that this game is definitely framed as a teens/early-20s characters game. Media touchpoints might be Ted Lasso (but younger), the anime ‘Haikyu!!’ or any of the American football focused teen shows. It focuses on contested sports (ones where players are active in the game at the same time) as opposed to asynchronous sports (like, say, snooker or darts). 

Drama, by the way, is the absolute focus of the game. Sport is very much part of it, but there is a dial within the game for the degree of detail you add to your sporting descriptions. I think if you dial it down so far that your game is essentially ‘some sportsball happens, until Zack does a thing, and it makes me angry’ then you might want to play something else. The drama is everywhere though. The gameplay loop (which I’ll talk about later) entices players to mess with the lives of other players as much as possible, to allow for success for the team later in the game. 

Oh no, a mechanic that rewards drama? How unfortunate…said no-one, ever.

The game can very nicely manage a tight one-on-one game. We are playing a game about a brother and sister mixed doubles tennis team. Due to the nature of the game, a larger game might expand into an unmanageable mess, so keeping it to four players and a facilitator sounds sensible. 

The game is HIGHLY structured, which allows for a short campaign, or a longer one, but long as in 6-8 sessions max. You would have to be chewing scenery or playing multiple tournaments to go beyond that.

The Characters

Each player has a Major Character, and all MCs are part of one of four teams. The Ashpoint Arrows (the reigning champions), the Dockside Demons (the former fallen champs), the Southbeach Sharks (the rising newcomers) and the Newcrest Neons (the troubled talent). Each of these teams has their own set-up – Who is your coach? Where do you play? What are your relationships with the other teams? – and a special Team Special. The teams are all playing in a tournament and each game starts at the Quarterfinals, so you will play each of the other teams before you win the game – or crash out earlier.

MCs have two Traits, which are the dramatic levers for the story. Hal, my MC, has ‘Tempting Offer’ (He’s being actively poached by the Neons) and ‘In their Shadow’ (He still feels like his sister overshadows him). Each trait has set-up questions, creates Connections (NPCs) and has a question to answer to resolve it.

When you resolve the Trait, you either gain a point of Fight (one of game currencies) or a Condition, which itself has an entire drama cycle to resolve. You also get another Trait to replace the resolved one, because the Drama never stops.

The Game Currencies

There are three. Trouble, which is spent to cause other players grief in their scenes and if they accept the grief, turns into a point of Fight for them. Fight, which adds +1 to your score in a Match Game (again, later) and Spirit, which allows you to draw more cards in Match Game. Fight can also be swapped for Spirit in a Match, but that becomes harder, the further you progress in the Tournament (again, see later)

As I said, the emphasis is to spend your Trouble each game, to add to the Team’s Fight which can then become Spirit and help you win. 

The Play Cycle

First you do the Opening Credits – short images and scenes showing the MCs and maybe foreshadowing future events.

Then you do ‘Daily Life and Events’ – a series of scenes and vignettes which allow you to begin to explore your Traits, but as you do, you can have Trouble spent to mess with your scenes. This is excellent, but some people might find it very stone soup/loose play. However, if you lean into it, it’s loads of fun. 

Matches follow this, and they are a whole thing on their own and frankly, if I went through it in detail this review would be much longer but needless to say, the designers have thought it through, and it works. Our first match was a bit of a walkover in terms of the score, but the drama that emerged as the brother and sister learned to play together again was brilliant and honestly, quite uplifting. Our second match was a different story, and while we found the true meaning of family, and resolved our differences, we were thrashed by our rivals and knocked out of the tournament. Game over! … well, until Regionals roll around, right?

Following the match, you have the end credits, which are just like the opening credits, but reflect the content of the game.

And finally you have the Upkeep, which deals with the mechanics of completing traits and conditions and reviewing your safety tools etc.

What’s the Best Bit?

The game is set up in such a way where if you follow the text on the cards for Traits, Conditions and Match Games, you will play the game right. You literally just follow the instructions, answer the questions, draw the cards etc. It looks a bit weird, but as soon as you interact with one card, it becomes so obvious how it works that it’s almost instantly second nature. And these little roadmaps for drama work. They’re well thought through and evocative to the genre.

What’s the Worst Bit?

I think the self-regulating nature of Trait resolution might be too ‘no game here’ mechanic for some people. There’s more than a little Mornington Crescent in this part of the game, but if you have bought into the drama and the premise of the game, you should be willing to cause your MCs real trouble before they succeed or fail. So yeah, for people who like a lot of game in their game, this might not be good for them

Would I recommend it?

Yes, but with two caveats.
If you are one of those gamers who is repelled by sport – you know, you reference ‘Sportsball’ a lot and claim that despite being someone in their middle age in the UK who somehow doesn’t know what a ‘football’ even is – then this is absolutely not the right game for you. If you want a crunchy, gamey engine, then this will also not be a game for you.

But if you like sport, and you love improvised drama games where the emotional beats are more important than the mechanics, then this is absolutely the game for you.