Thursday 30 August 2012

game notes on a post apoc one shot

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF THE WORLD HAS ENDED ?

One day everything ended. YOu don’t think you were there but its hard to remember. Cause and effect subtly unhinged, and everything began to break down in a flowering of wonders and terrors. People disappeared  by the millions and shops vomited a tide of half formed products. Cars  turned carnivorous , a knife and tape was taken to the maps and the maps become more real this way. Rivers poured down the side of buildings and harpies and other winged murders built their nests in pylons. Nothing makes sense anymore and it’s wondrous like when the incandescent manta rays swim through the night singing to the stars and it’s horrible like when delicate filaments flicker out from streetlights and cut you in tiny pieces to sliver down the drain.
People survive in villages and trading towns, and everything runs on barter , kluding and scavenging .


There’s a serpent in the middle of the world who has the answers. You each have part of the map there on your arm in scars. You don’t know how it go there or much of anything really.
The serpent will answer only one of your questions. Which one is it going to be?

ABOUT YOU
6 traits, one thing, name optional.
traits are Violence, Sneaking ,Athletics, Kludge, Network, Scavenge
Pick a primary , secondary and tertiary .You have a d12 in the primary, d8 in the secondary , d6 in the tertiary, and d4 in the other 2.
You’ll either roll this die against a target number or someone else’s die of the same trait. (or more rarely a different trait).
Rolling a 1 means roll again. IF you get another one you auto fail. Getting one point above is a success. A tie is tie. The status quo is preserved. For every 2 points you succeed by you get a thing.
Examples of things include:
quietly, carefully, stylishly , subtly , quickly.

If you fail a roll in most circumstances you can PUSH YOUR LUCK.


This means you get a reroll but success or failure something else goes wrong as well. 

If you succeed a roll but want to GO BEYOND THE IMPOSSIBLE, then you roll the die again, if you succeed again, add what you succeeded by to the first die's roll. If you fail or roll a one, then the result of the first die is now a failure and something bad happens.


Before you roll can also CUT SICK ON IT and have the maximum value on the dice explode. BUt if you fail the roll something bad happens.




Example of target numbers

Violence:
1: breaking a stick
3: Kicking down a firm door
6: Throwing someone onto a low roof
9: Throwing a fridge at someone
12: Punching a hole in a car


Sneaking:
1: hiding something behind your back when someone turns around without being completely obvious about it
3: sneaking up on someone who’s not really paying attention
6:Picking a pocket
9: Getting through an occupied house with no-one noticing you
12:Stealing the shirt off someones back without them noticing

Athletics
1: catching a ball
3: Jumping over a low fence
6: Doing a backflip
9: Jumping off a 3rd  story building and landing safely
12: Jackie Chan on a good day

Kludging
1. Taping something back together.
3: Getting a bike functioning with various odds and ends
6: Getting a computer functioning with various odds and ends
9: As above but with completely implausible materials
12: Making high tech stuff like a fuel air bomb or a helicopter out of rubbish



Networking:
1. Finding a place to stay with friends at short notice
3. Getting a good swap for something you don’t need
6. Finding someone who knows something that no-one else knows
12. Making best friends in a new and hostile culture where you don’t know the language

Scavenging
1.Finding something that burns okay
3. Finding an okay tool substitute
6. Finding an exact part
12. Finding a fully functionally piece of complicated machinery


For contested rolls there is Done, Totally Done, And Brutally Done
Totally done is beating the opposing roll by at least 4. Brutally done is beating the opposing roll by atleast 6
DIE CHAIN
d2 d4 d6 d8 d10 d12 2d8 d20

Violence contested rolls;
This is when you are trying to violence someones person with an act of violence.
Violently!
If that roll got Done (ie you beat their number ) means they are pushed over, jammed into a dumpster,  knocked around , bleeding, bruised or something. THey roll a smaller die with their violence now until they get a chance to recover.

If that roll got Totally Done they are now knocked out. And possible bleeding to death depending on the means
IF that roll got Brutally Done they are Savaged. THis could be killing them, removing and eye, breaking a limb or otherwise severally inconveniencing them. THe gm will have to rule on a case                 by case basis what this means. `
Armour and Weapons:
(SHOE I’M TRYING TO NOT MAKE THIS COMBAT FOCUSED REALLY I AM)
armour and weapons comes in 4 categorys (if need be could go higher for vehicles and.. ghost dragons or something)
armour: None(Pessimistically), Light(Optimistically), Medium (Adequate) , Heavy (Realistically)
weapons: Minimally(bare hands), Sufficiently (a chair leg, a snooker ball in a sock) , Lethally  (a sharpened stop sign, pistol, katana) , Brutally (a chainsaw, machine gun, a shark)
You can determine what armour you are wearing by that long post on post apoc armours, or just choose one. Wearing Medium or Heavy armour means some other rolls like Sneaking and Athletics will be more difficult for you. Depending on what it is. G.m will just have to wake up I guess.

Your dice size is modified by one size for every category you out or underclass the opponent's category. That was a clumsy sentence. So punching someone with no armour means you would roll your standard violence die, punching someone with light armour would mean you would roll one smaller and using a fire axe on them (lethally) would mean you would be using a die 2 sizes bigger.
The opponent can use athletics to oppose you if they are not trying to fight back, ie ducking behind cover or whatever.
Initiative  is determined by whoever is trying to do the cooler thing going first.


SNEAKING CONTESTED ROLLS
Sneaking is generally a not contested, but sometimes people know you are around and they are totally trying to find you. I am listening to Belinda Carlisle right now. It is amazing.
If your roll gets Done, this action escapes notice. If gets Totally Done you can Misdirect them and they think you are somewhere else. OR in the case of pickpocketing, they think it was someone else.  If this roll gets Brutally Done they are completely obvious. Like in the movies were someone’s right behind someone and they keep being behind them even when the person turns around? That’s what is happening. You can totally steal ammo right from their gun and they will not notice. Go you.

ATHLETICS CONTESTED ROLLS
Athletics contests are generally trying to evade or catch someone, in a mixture of running after each other , ducking under stuff, and jumping on roofs. Other example could be a rock climbing race or anything on that Gladiators show.
Unlike Violence Rolls which do a “my turn , your turn “ thing, Athletics contests just make the one roll for both people.
Like Violence contested rolls a Done roll means you lower their die by one category, as you narrow the gap between you and give them less room for error. IF a roll gets Brutally Done or one party succeed in 3 rolls in a row they have succeeded it whatever they were doing.
Each roll should be like a set piece such as “oh noes its a stray mule pulling a melon cart” or “oh noes a rope bridge”.
So if Brutally Done is an immediate success what is Totally Done? Well this means you have managed to put an obstacle  in your opponent's path (if you are the chasers you did it by cutting off their alternate path. Or something. ) and they have to make a roll to overcome the obstacle with the difficulty being based on how cool a thing you just made up and how sweetly it uses the environment. They might be using Athletics but it’s not inconceivable that they could use Violence, Sneaking , Networking etc depending on Reasons.

THis is all assuming both peeps are the same speed. If you are faster than someone for every category you are faster than them you roll a bigger die.
Speed categorys:
Crawling
Dawdling (children, elderly)
Typical
Crap Bike, skateboard
Dog, Decent bike
Tuk Tuk. Golf Cart, Mule
Horse, Motorized Scooter
Car, motor cycle
etc.

KLUDGE OPPOSED ROLLS
Okay so kludging is building things out of others things in defiance of circumstances, materials, and personal safety.  So ..opposed rolls? Sure.. sometimes you wanna fuck around with something someone else kludged together.
So this is a one off roll, unlike Athletics or Violence (which is are on going things). The counter-kludging process takes a certain amount of time which is going to be so variable based on the size of the thing, what you are using, and most importantly how much bullshit you are spinning about it.
So if the Roll got Done it’s tampered with. One thing about it is not working.
If that roll got Totally Done it’s now doing something you want it to do instead of what it originally did.
If the Roll got Brutally Done, it’s FUBARed. It either immediately tears itself apart or catastrophically fails next time it’s used. As many aspects of this kludge that you want are now irretrievably and utterly ruined.

NETWORK OPPOSED ROLLS
Network opposed rolls are when you wanna lie about someone (or you, know tell the truth if its something juicy), or let people know what a jerk they really are. Or if you wanna take someones reputation and burn it to the ground.
Each roll is done is representing a week or month long campaign of slander, whispering, rumour mongering and shade. If the target wants to retaliate  their roll is resolved after yours.

If that  roll got Done, their Network die is one size smaller for the next 1d4X10 weeks. Or sooner if  they are successfully restore their reputation (resolved as another Network opposed roll)

If that roll got Totally Done everyone know believes something about the target that you choose. MAybe not completely but definitely in “well ..no smoke without fire” kinda way. This lasts until they manage to cover it up or refute it. Which is a Network roll against a set difficulty. THis difficult is based on the evidence for this truth and how plausible it is and how fitting it is with people current perception of them

If that roll got Brutally Done then you make them a Pariah. No-one likes them. They cannot use their network ability for anything other than trying to restore their reputation and even then it’s 2 dice smaller. They will never work in this town again.


SCAVENGE OPPOSED ROLLS
Okay this stretching it. Opposed scavenger roll are pretty much the least likely , but when someone has hidden something and/or you are looting their house that’s when this happens.

If the opposed roll gets Done, you get what you wanted
If the roll gets Totally Done , you scour the place. You get a complete understanding of what’s here  and can pick and choose.
If the roll gets Brutally Done, you not only get what you want, you can rig up a trap for the original owner or make it look like no-ones was here or someone other than you was at fault.




THING
your thing is the thing people immediately notice about you. You get one thing but if you really really want you can trade your secondary  AND your tertiary for a extra one.
You can choose but I numbered it anyway if you wanna roll.

1. Kung Fu master: you have a mystic stare and chiseled buns . Using just your elite bod counts as Sufficient Weapons
2. Mermaid. You are a mermaid.
3. Mutant Animal. You are a mutant animal, like Booga from Tank Girl
4. Talking Animal. You are a regular animal but are smart and can talk.
5. Ex Army/ExPolice/Owns-A-Gun: you start with a pistol or a shotgun or a machine gun or a bazooka. The bigger the weapon the less ammo you have for it.
6. Midget: you are very small. This means your speed is one less but you half as much pieces of armour to count as a armour category
7.Absurdly Good Looking: YOu are really good looking and or likable and funny and shit. Anyone trying to use Networking against you rolls one smaller die.
8.Naturally Over Caffeinated You are really nervous and jumpy. You count your Athleticism as one die higher if you are running away
9.Mutant. You are have some kind of mutation that comes in handy some times.
10. Vampire. You are a vampire. You drink blood, and are really pale , and see well in the dark. THat’s about it. Sneaky rolls Difficultys are one point lower for you, but any other difficultys are one point higher in sunlight
11. Werewolf. Think teen wolf but a little bit less lame. Athletic Difficulty numbers are one point lower for you but only in wolf mode. You can’t talk in wolf mode. It takes 30 dramatic seconds to change to and from werewolf mode.
12. Zombie. You are Zombie. BUt don’t believe those hollywood stereotypes , you can totally talk and drive stick and everything. You don’t need to breathe or eat though. But your speed is Dawdling.
13. Dinosaur. You are a talking dinosaur. BUt like only people sized or atleast as half as big as you would normally be. This gives you Medium armour and Lethal weapons but you can’t really use much in the way of tools, equipment, armour, vehicle etc. YOu can talk though. And wear sunglasses. IF you are using the kludge trait you will need someone to order around
14.Lucky Bastard: You seem dangerously trusting and naive, but somehow survive due to dumb luck.  You can reroll one die in a session
15.Good With Animals: You are always making friends and/or taking care of animals. You can totally use your Network trait on animals. YOu do seem to be slightly naive about what those claws  and fangs are for though.
16.Implausibly muscled ; Ala Zangief. Any Athletic or Violence rolls to do with lifting, throwing or breaking stuff are 1 point lower
17.Astounding Mimic: You can mimic anyone’s voice and do crazy impressions . It’s quite possible that everyone hates you.
18.Future sight! You have visions and get glimpse into the future. Once a game session you can have a vision and say what you see and the g.m has to work it into the session somehow. Like a chump.
19. Appliance: You are an animate kitchen appliance. You do not eat or breathe but need semi-regular dosages of electricity
20.Robot. You are a robot. You have some useful device or ability coz robot but you have a weakness like stairs or water

1 comment:

  1. It's like a melancholy Gamma World. I like it. You should do some illustrations of your version of post-apocalyptia, because I think it sounds very pretty.

    ReplyDelete