Story:May 5th, 2018. Just when everyone had gotten used to the omnipresent plague of walking corpses, the undead collapsed as fast as they had risen, and this time they didn't get back up. Did they die from entropy? Was there some sort of microorganism that fed on their brains? Had God been able to vanquish them in a sudden smiting? The theories were endless, and none were more valid than any others in this age with no books or Internet, where only voice and letter could serve as a form of communication. The only truly important matter was that there would be no more zombies.
While this was no doubt a positive development in the post-infection world, it did mean that the organizations and factions once suppressed by the zombies would now no longer be able to hide, whether they be maleficent, benevolent, or as in most cases, not pertaining to the moral spectrum, just another group trying to survive. Humanity had not won, it was simply a native populace that was hunted down by a vicious army of conquerors, who fell in their attempt to conquer the New World. Now the fall of civilization was behind, though the future was still as unsure as ever. Our modest protagonists have trekked through many lands and encountered all sorts of living and un-living folk, with the former having come in and out of the group. Smiles, tears, and laughter have come and gone with the arrival of life and the appearance of death. After sustaining themselves for years in the fertile South-Eastern United States starting in Americus, Georgia, the group has gradually made their way West towards a town which a rusted, dilapidated sign calls Monticello, Arkansas. It is here where our tale resumes...
Gameplay:
Ensanglanté Gymnopédies is the direct sequel of my previous RTD, The World is a Ghetto. While it only lasted thirty turns or so, it provided me with knowledge and lessons for my future games, including the decision to remove zombies. Yes, cutting through waves of undead with a sword or assault rifle can be great fun indeed, but it would be better left in the hands of another GM adept at that style of game. The removal of zombies comes so that I can remove dull and forced sections of the game to put more emphasis on survival, strategy, group coordination and interaction with non-player entities.
I am boosting the starting number of players this time around to 9. Players from The World is a Ghetto will have priority in getting in, and as consolation for having the last game end inconclusively, my apologies for that, they will start out this game with a cool bonus item. If any of the players wish not to join this game, their characters will have retroactively been 'lost' during the three years in the time span between games, but not necessarily dead. Waitlisters come next, and even if they do not get in, this is their opportunity to move up in the waitlist, as I assume not everyone from the previous list will get a new spot in the list this time around.
Waitlisters are not brought in immediately to replace dead players. They will come in as new survivors that the main party stumbles upon. The group can find new survivors alone or in their own groups, and the new survivors can be Waitlisters, NPCs, or a mixture of both. I would not be surprised if the total population of the group in this game contains 3 survivors at one point and 20 at another, only to shoot back down.
Each chapter will last a period of time according to the current situation. The default chapter time is a passing of 3 hours for the survivors to accomplish what they'd like to do, but in a tense combat situation the time elapsed in a chapter may be as little as 30 seconds.
There is no HP system, this game will instead use a combination of Subjective Ruling on my decision, "Rules of Realism","Chunky Salsa" methods.
Because of the way Attributes and Skills work, (see below for more details) high rolls are not Overshots in this game, the higher a roll is, the better. So when the dice roll, the aim is to get a 6 or above.
Combat with will start with an initiative roll, subjective to the speed of both parties. The attacker will strike with a (X vs. Y) roll first, and then it will switch to (Y vs. X), assuming the defender isn't dead. If the attack lands, the damage is calculated and the defender goes next, but if it doesn't land then the defender gets a better counter-attack based on how much of a failure the attack was.
Weapons do not give roll penalties, but rather are factored into damage. For example, a (6 vs. 1) roll unarmed might just be a knock-out uppercut, but with a gun it could be an instantly fatal shot.
Again, everything is subjective to the situation.
Secret actions can be PM'ed, and will remain secrets unless the other players happen to come across whatever the secret action is. For example, a player can decide to kill off someone in the group secretly. This is perfectly allowed, but another player can walk in on them in the act.
Survival Needs:
To survive in this world, the needs of each person must be kept in check. The most important ones include the following:
Water - Highest immediate priority, a human being will die without 72 hours of water, but even lack of water over 24 hours can severely damage a human body. Make sure to keep hydrated, otherwise all of your attributes, skills, and health will falter. Collected water for the survival party will be measured in Water Supplies, or WS. WS is calculated based on how much water is found or produced. To stay properly hydrated, a survivor must drink 3 WS a day. Other drinks also contain WS, which is based on the amount of water they contain.
Food - The most immediate priority after water, a human can go weeks without food, but malnutrition and starvation can hurt and incapacitate people long before death, similarly to dehydration. Collected food for the survival party will be measured in Food Supplies, or FS. FS is calculated based on how much nutrition an item has, or how much food was produced by the party through other means. A survivor must consume 3 FS a day to stay healthy.
Shelter - Not a listed or calculated survival need, but very important still. A lot of consideration should be put into picking and improving the shelter of the party, whatever it may be at any time.
Sleep - Sleep is a very important process in refueling the body, and the average adult requires 6 straight hours of it. Lack of sleep or total deprivation will create negative impacts on a survivor, both physically and mentally. Sleep deprivation will kill a survivor eventually, but they'll probably already be dead from the insanity before that.
Wellness - Even with the zombies gone, the diseases and harmful microbes in the world remain in plentiful supplies. Since hospitals have been closed, and doctors have fled and disbanded like everyone else, it's up to the survivors to attend to their own sicknesses with whatever they can find. If you're lucky, maybe someone with medical experience could be in your group.
Mental Health - The mental health of the survivors is just as crucial as mental health. If the mentality of a survivor decreases, it will take a toll on their physical being as well. While a destroyed mind can not directly kill a person, it can cause them to become insane or depressed, which could easily kill a person. Long-term boredom or sadness degrades mental health, as does witnessing something like the death of a close one, which is an extreme negative influence. However, positive factors also have an important role in maintaining mental health.
Attributes:
Attributes are general roll-modifiers and characteristics of your character that will pretty much always stay the same.
The way Attributes work is that they are activated when a character attempts an action relevant to the attribute, if the attribute has a + or -, the roll will be modified. For every +, there is a 50% chance that the roll will gain a +1. Every 2 +'s, it is a guaranteed +1. For 3 +'s, the roll retains the guaranteed +1, and a 50% chance to go up to a +2. At 4 +'s, it's a guaranteed +2. This goes on for a similar fashion for all attributes.
While attributes take a very long time to permanently change, it is common for temporary factors, such as substance ingestion or injury, to effect them. For example, enough Caffeine will boost a character's Perception and Agility for a few hours.
The available characteristics are as follows:
Strength - The amount of muscle force your character can put into an action such as picking up a heavy object, the distance they could throw an item, or how much force they could throw into a punch.
Perception - How heightened your character's senses are. This effects actions like viewing something in the distance or in the dark, picking up specific sounds, and aiming at long distances.
Agility - How fast your character can move. Effects sprinting and dodging, among other things.
Endurance - How much physical stamina your character has. Effects tasks like having to run for long distances, or doing strenuous labor for extended periods.
Stealth - How well your character is at remaining hidden, regarding both the undead and other people.
Dexterity - Determines the amount of skill your character has with manipulating theirs hands. Covers rolls involving actions like building and grappling.
Constitution - How well your character can handle physical trauma. This includes things like pain, injury and sickness.
Will - The mental form of Constitution. Determines how your character handles feelings of boredom, isolation, shock, terror and capitulation.
Intelligence - How much logical power your character is equipped with. This handles sophisticated things like creating complex chemicals and medicine. Intelligence also slightly effects Skill growth. (See below)
Charisma - The effect that your character has on influencing other living people. Useful for bargaining for a trade, or negotiating a hostage situation.
Luck - The innate luck of your character. Effects occasional, random, miscellaneous rolls.
Skills:
Skills are much more specific than Attributes, and take a much shorter time period to gain. Skills handle anything that can be improved with frequent practice and usage, from Cleaning, to Carpentry, to Explosives Construction, etc. There are thousands upon thousands of skills to learn.
When a skill is first learned, your character is promoted to Level 1. Every level, there is a 20% chance, multiplied by the level, that you will gain a +1 to relevant rolls. So at Level 2, it is a 40% chance, Level 3, is 60%, Level 4 is 80%, and Level 5 is a guaranteed +1. At Level 6 you will get the guaranteed +1, as well as a 20% chance to get a +2, and this goes on forever the same way the Attributes system does.
Skills can be trained by either actually preforming a relevant action, or studying the skill through something like a manual guide or a much more experienced teacher. Each Level takes exponentially longer to get to, so Level 1 for many skills can be reached in a few days, while Level 20 would take decades to reach.
Each character will start with one Level 4 Skill and two Level 2 Skills. These initial skills will be based on your character's Occupation and Biography.
The inspiration for this new feature I've implemented comes from Telltale's The Walking Dead. Much of the drama from that game comes from the fact that the main character is a convicted murderer, but most of the other survivors in the group do not know this about him at first. And since this game is all about internal strife and drama, I've added it in.
Characters will come with a piece of secret history called a Dark Secret. This could be some personal fact, (like being a Transvestite, or Related to a Notorious Criminal) or some form of impairment (such as Bi-Polar Syndrome, or a Drug Addiction). The only thing that links all Dark Secrets together is that they are secrets that the characters have not told anyone prior to the end of civilization. These secrets will be something plausible, based on your character's Biography. The secrets will then be PM'd to you.
Some secrets, like the impairments listed before, will trigger secret Will rolls. For example, one character might be Addicted to Cocaine. If they go through withdrawal, they will have to engage in a Will roll to fight off the negative effects. These rolls will be secret, but if the signs become apparent enough, the other players can start to catch on. For handling something that requires a material to ingested, the character can also fulfill their needs secretly. So this coke-addicted character might have cocaine on them, but it won't appear in the public inventory, and only they will know about it.
Secrets can be handled however the character wishes. They can tell the whole group right off the bat, select the individuals whom they want to tell in private, or never reveal it to the group. Sometimes though, secrets, especially those on record, may be discovered by others. On the other hand, some secrets can be hidden forever. Like I stated before, Dark Secrets are handled in any manner of your choosing.
However, don't think once you meet anyone you can assume they're hiding something. Each character has an 80% chance of getting a Dark Secret, so some characters will have no secret. In fact, it's very unlikely, but in the initial group there's a chance that no one will have a secret.
Name: (Nicknames are fine too.)
Gender: (Male or female, unless your secret dictates otherwise.)
Age: (Accepted Age Range is 13-75.)
Occupation: (Helps to determine what your initial Skills will be. Also determines your starting equipment.)
Color: (What color you'd like to represent your character on the maps. Restricted colors are Black, used for NPCs, and any shades of Green, which are used for zombies.)
Attributes: (Remember, equal number of +'s and -'s.)
Strength:
Perception:
Agility:
Endurance:
Stealth:
Dexterity:
Constitution:
Will:
Intelligence:
Charisma:
Luck:
Skills: (Leave this section blank)
Biography: (Determines your Skills and Dark Secret, if you happen to get one. This can be as short or as long as you wish, but make sure there's enough stuff to give me some insight on what your character knows and has done.)
Physical Health: Normal
Mental Health: Normal
1. kj1225 (Kyle Johnson)
2. Patrick Hunt (Decado Bison)
3. IcyTea31 (Alejandro Cuéllar)
4. NAV (Big Joe Davidson)
5. Harry Baldman (Majikthise)
6. Aseaheru (Charles)
7. Berius (Jason Caldwell)
Waitlist:1. Powder Miner (Shiri Blumenthal)
2. WhitiusOpus (Wilhelm Güstein)
3. RangerCado (Selina Martin)
4. Lyeos (Raven Yevich)
5. Kamin
6. SaberToothTiger
Reserved:1. Greenstarfanatic (Alexander Lunge)
2. mastahcheese (Cromwell Jackson)
The Fallen:Empty so far....
Author
Topic: ~Ensanglanté Gymnopédies~ Chapter 15: Preparing for the First Night (Read 42364 times)