IntroductionWelcome to Gridland Survival! Its a variation of a series of games previously played on the MSPA forums and Chocolate Pi called Gridhood. The gimmick with this game is that it contains only one major civilization; of which each player is a member. The game will start off being fairly simple, with new rules being added as things happen. You will be hunting for food, exploring new lands, researching technology, fending off monster attacks and maybe participating in an election or something.
Previous knowledge of Gridhood is not required to fully enjoy this game.
Rules (More will be added later. All rules will be added to the first post)Each player will get their own unique character which will generally be superior to the other members of the species. Player Avatars are always 100% loyal to the player controlling them. All Player Avatars can perform research in addition to performing a regular action. Player Avatars count as adults.
Food is the number one most essential resource for your survival. Each turn 1 food is eaten for every member of your species which remains under your control. You will ALWAYS want to have food available. Without food people will starve and eventually die.
If there is not enough food at the start of a turn, an amount of civilians equal to the food deficiency will take damage. Civilians may voluntarily choose not to eat; otherwise the GM will decide who eats and who does not. Consecutive turns without food will cause more damage to be taken.
Most of the map will start off being unknown. You may spend turns exploring a tile that is adjacent to a known tile to learn about it, or you may attempt to discover previously unknown aspects of land you already own. Scouting is potentially dangerous and can cause injury or death to your civilians. (Player Avatars will always survive this if they are uninjured).
The more presence your species has in a tile, the more effective exploration of that tile and adjacent tiles will be. When you attempt to explore a tile you will often discover keywords which give hints about what exists on the tile before you actually unlock the location on the map. You can attempt to travel into unknown lands and try to forage, but this is an extremely risky thing to do.
Each turn you may attempt to research something to grant your species a new ability, such as allowing you to harvest specific resources, build stuff etc. Research is done on a per player basis so multiple things can be researched at a time. Non Player Avatar members of your species can also partake in research.
Several members of your species can collaborate on research if they are in the same tile. Collaborating will reduce the amount of time it will take to complete a research. Note that if multiple civilians work on the same kind of research as individuals, you will unlock multiple similar techs.
You can try to research anything you want. Note that some technologies will probably be hard to get without first getting some prerequisite stuff. If a technology is going to take an unreasonably long amount of time to get such as Time Travel or Immortality or something, you will be notified about this so you can stop wasting turns on it.
You can get an estimate on how long it will take to finish researching something by the amount of question marks there are in the tech screen. One question mark means it will only take a few turns, Two question marks means it is either a difficult tech or you are missing prerequisites and it will take a fair bit longer. No more than five question marks will be displayed, but the scale goes beyond that. If a tech would have more than five question marks it will display as if it had five question marks, but can potentially require thousands of research points to complete or even be literally impossible to do. You will not be told if something is completely impossible or not.
Attempting to Research a prerequisite for a tech without specifying a proper tech name such as "Green Thumb Prerequisite", the research will only result in you getting a hint on what said prerequisite is.
Two adult civilians of opposite genders on the same tile can spend a turn to create eggs which will hatch into new civilians. The eggs may take several turns to hatch, during this time they will be especially vulnerable.
After hatching you will have some new civilians, but they will start in an adolescent state. These children will have low stats and are not especially intelligent. If they survive for a few more turns they will become adults which are generally quite useful.
Any player may tell civilians to do things. Civilians have a will of their own, but will generally take your suggestions seriously.
If a member of your species is problematic for whatever reason, you may disown them. A disowned civilian will not take from your food stockpile, but they will still exist. They may exhibit problematic behaviors, and you may also have diplomatic issues with other players if you didn't have a good reason to do that.
Non player controlled civilians will have a personality which will greatly affect the actions that they take.
Most civilians will have at least one ability which will grant them specific advantages. Note that genetics will be a major factor in determining this. Abilities will also affect how a civilian will generally behave.
If an item is not in a specific place, it will be in what is known as a Communal Inventory. This means any member of your civilization can access it, but it also means it can be stolen from any of your people or from any of your occupied tiles.
Tools and weapons in the Communal Inventory can only be used by one civilian each turn. If you used the tool on the previous turn you will generally be able to use it again in the current turn.
Some items are too heavy to be in the Communal Inventory. Such items will linger at a specific tile unless they are moved by a civilian. A civilian's encumbrance stat will determine how much they can carry in a single turn. Picking things up and dropping them is a free action.
Some items need special measures to contain. These items may wind up in a temporary inventory. A temporary inventory is the worst place to store an item; it will generally be lost when the next turn comes around.
If you want to add your own information to the inventory such as possible locations to find it or possible applications, simply post that you want to add this information in your action post. Note that any information not added by the GM will not necessarily be accurate. Notes cannot be added to items that do not exist.
After researching how to do so, a building can be created on a tile. There is a non infinite amount of space on each tile but there is generally room for several buildings. Buildings will usually require both Labor and materials to create.
In order to use an item to construct a building, you must have owned the item at the start of the turn. Also, a building cannot actually be used unless it was in a usable state at the start of the turn.
When creating a building or an item, you have to specify exactly which materials you are using to do so.
In addition to the abilities that a civilian is born with, Professional abilities can also be obtained. After research has been completed on a profession, a Civilian may use their science to learn the professional ability. Learning a professional ability is treated as research for the purpose of calculating progress towards it. Profession abilities can grant powerful benefit.
Professional abilities require science per turn from the civilian who owns them in order to retain them. Paying "Science upkeep" is done automatically and does not cost an action.
When creatures and items are first discovered, they will start out being unnamed. Any member of your civilization may choose to give them a name. Your own species name may also be decided on.
If you want to rename an item, you will need at least one other player to agree upon the new name.
When a new players submits an application, they will not be able to play immediately and will need to wait for a certain event to occur. If you want to do something special when joining up, send the GM a private message and we can negotiate.
Sometimes a target icon will appear on the map. This means that a problem creature is at the marked location. A small icon represents pests, while large icons indicate a serious danger. The icons themselves just exist to make things a bit easier to understand for players.
You may also see a giant target icon. This one should be avoided at all costs.
It is permissible to attempt to do several things in a turn. If you do this however, then all of the actions that you attempted will have a penalty. For example; if you are fighting a large creature then maybe it is a bad time to be looking for berries. Actions which clearly state that they are free actions do not trigger multi-action penalties. (Free Research is the most notable of these)
In your action post, you must specify the tile that you want to work in. Your action will most likely fail if you do not, even if the tile should be very obvious.
Here is the signup sheet. You will get five character abilities as well as one species ability. Character abilities can be summed up in a single word or you can give a short description of it. This can be physical traits, personality traits or whatever else you can think of. Feel free to be creative here.
I'm not sure how many players I'll be accepting, but it will probably be a lot.
Prior to filling out the Signup Sheet...There have been some changes made since the start of the game. You are not intended to pick from the list of pre-existing abilities. Every single one of the abilities on that list was initially created because it was on an application in the first place. While you are allowed to pick pre-existing skills, I formally discourage you from doing that. Bonus points for not picking the most common gender for your character.
There has been confusion with new players applying to join the game. To clarify, you are NOT supposed to include a description of what abilities do. Just include the names. If you scroll down a bit you can see the first few player's application who signed up. I will also point out that it is recommended to create your own abilities as opposed to picking them from the list below. (Though it is probably acceptable if you pick a few abilities that already exist).
Also, it is preferred to send me a PM with the character sheet as opposed to posting it in the thread.
Name:
Gender:
Character Ability 1:
Character Ability 2:
Character Ability 3:
Character Ability 4:
Character Ability 5:
Species Ability:
Deep Thinking: A character may use this ability to double their research effect if they are not taking any other actions. While using this ability, that character will not notice incoming threats. Does not work with collaboration actions.
Farming: Reduces the odds that negative events will occur when farming. No effect on severe effects.
Natural Cover: Increased chance to go unnoticed by hostiles while in charted sections of the map. Much less effective in unknown lands.
Resilient: Chance to survive an otherwise fatal blow, remaining at 1 health.
Telekinesis: Can move nearby objects without touching them. Telekinetic attacks are much weaker than conventional ones, but can be used without breaking stealth and bypass certain obstacles. Requires mental stability to use.
Analysis: Increases the effectiveness of scouting actions
Blacksmith: Higher quality when crafting with metal
Blades: This characters anatomy includes blades, increasing its melee damage. This increase does not stack with melee weapons. May also be a substitute for certain tools.
Blessing of the Wind: Unknown beneficial effect. Most effective at high altitudes and open spaces.
Born Leader: Increases the damage dealt by civilians on the same tile as you. Only one character with leadership abilities can buff someone at a given time. (Leadership skills can stack if on the same character).
Boss: Immune to instant kill effects.
Brewing: Improved effectiveness of crafting liquids
Building: Increases the quality of buildings made. This effect stacks
Caretaker: Reduces penalty for communicating with children.
Causes Fear: Witnessing this character causes creatures to flee. This ability also grants immunity to fear and resistance to Terror. Does not negatively affect allies. Riding this character gives the rider the same fear and terror protection.
Cautious: Decreases damage taken from unknown threats.
Cute: Civilians are less likely to have a negative opinion about this character.
Crafting: Small bonus to all crafting actions
Creative: Improves the effects of researching something that was already researched.
Dreams big: This character may declare an action which is currently impossible. Gives a temporary bonus to that action when it becomes possible. Only one action may be declared at a time, and the longer it takes to realize, the better the bonus.
Diplomatic: Increases the odds civilians will listen to you.
Fast: Increases movement range by 1.
Fertile: May spend a turn with another creature of the same species to create eggs. This consumes both characters turns and cannot be used several turns in a row.
Fragile: This entity can take damage from actions which do not usually cause damage.
Free Research: Research is a free action for this unit, and does not need to relate to the task they are performing. Attempting to do an action you cannot do grants 1 free research point.
Green Thumb: Chance to grow giant plants when performing farming actions.
Growing: Increases the effects of farming actions
Hand-to-hand: Increases combat ability. Does not stack with weapons. DOES stack with weapon replacing abilities.
Hard Worker: Increased performance when only performing one activity.
Hawkeye: Increases accuracy, particularly at long range.
Inspirational Leader: Increases the effect of Collaboration actions on your tile. Only one character with leadership abilities can buff someone at a given time. (Leadership skills can stack if on the same character).
Oratory: Communication range +1 (Can communicate with civilians in adjacent tiles instead of just ones on your tile)
Persuasion: May spend an action to permanently alter a civilians opinion on something. Not infallible, and reduced effectiveness on children.
Poison: Physical attacks from this character will continue to hurt on subsequent turns. Eating a poisonous entity will cause a large amount of damage over time.
Ranged Weapons: Bonus when using ranged weapons to attack.
Research: Increases the effectiveness of research. Stacks with deep thinking.
Runt: Life isn't fair, especially for civilians with this trait. Reduced size and penalizes almost all actions.
Scouting: Scouting is less dangerous for this character
Smart: May obtain information about objects and locations by investigating them as an action. Also, the Deep Thinking ability will not prevent threat detection for this character, and can be used in collaboration efforts.
Stealth: May sneak to decrease chance of being detected. This action needs to be declared. This ability reduces how far you can move by 1 tile and can negatively affect other tasks you try to do. Greatly reduces chance of being noticed. Attacking breaks stealth.
Strong: Slightly increases damage and certain gathering actions.
Strong Opinions: This characters opinions cannot forcibly be altered, and has 100% loyalty to a specific player stated in the character list.
Teaching: Increases the effects of teaching actions, and reduces the penalty for trying to teach children.
Trapper: Bonus when creating and using traps.
Trapping: Increased chance to capture creatures.
Unruly: This civilian or animal has a greatly reduced chance to listen to or understand players.
Water Breathing: Reduces penalties for working on deep water tiles, and may permit foraging actions that otherwise cannot be done. Also prevents drowning in water.
Male: Cannot produce eggs with other Males
Female: Cannot produce eggs with other Females
Alpha: 20 Health, 3 Attack, 2 Defense, 2 Move, 5 Science, 3 Labor, 8 Capacity, 3 Equipment. Strong Opinions, Free Research, Boss, Causes Fear, Fertile
Child: 5 Health, 1 Attack, 0 Defense, 1 Move, 1 Science, 1 Labor, 1 Capacity, 1 Equipment. Cute, Unruly
Prodigy: 2 science. Strong Opinions, Free Research
Egg: 1 Health. Fragile.
Health: How much harm a character can take before dying. Current health will be tracked on the character list. A character dies if this drops to zero. A character may rest for a turn by not doing any work to restore 1 lost health per turn.
Attack: Damage dealt by this character is *Multiplied* by its attack stat.
Defense: Reduces damage taken from all sources by this amount.
Move: How many tiles a character can move in a turn. A character may act then move, OR move then act.
Science: How good a character is at research. This is how much research they contribute before modifiers.
Labor: How much labor a character can perform per turn. Used for actions such as building and foraging.
Capacity: How much a character can carry at a given time. A character can only move this many objects at once in a personal inventory.
Equipment: How much equipment a character can use at a given time.
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Topic: Gridland Survival! A game about learning lessons the hard way. (Read 32502 times)