The town is deathly silent, litter and bodies spread on the pavements, disturbed only by the light breeze that otherwise disturbed the motionless people. You notice a faint murmur of noise coming from somewhere though. Your weapon in hand, and your eyes darting in every direction watching for movement, you cautiously make your way towards the noise. What was it? You wonder. Surviviors? Unlikely, considering the condition of the town, but anything could be possible you suppose.
The first thing you see is a bloodstained handprint marking the glass of the television shop. To your complete surprise, somehow the shop still had electricity from which the televisions still drew power and broadcast the last transmission made by the Prime Minister before London had gone silent. Looking around, you still can't see anything, and in all honesty, you'd like to see what's being said. It'd remind you of your past life, before everything turned into shit.
Approaching the shop and crouching down, you listen as you watch the Prime Minister, her last words on an eternal loop, speak to the nation.
"-major biological attack. It is this government's belief that terrorists have somehow unleashed a biological weapon of mass destruction that has caused people to enter a psychotic rage. We encourage all people to remain indoors, and prevent all contact with anyone who they believe to be under the influence. If you are showing any signs of sickness, confine and quarantined yourself as best you can after informing the Emergency Services.
At this time, under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, we are creating a National Government with the Opposition for the duration of the crisis. In addition, we are formally declaring a State of Emergency across the United Kingdom. The military is being mobilized to intervene in areas of civil breakdown. All emergency forces, including the police, fire service and ambulance are now subordinate to the requirements of the military for the duration of this engagement.
I would like to assure the British public that all utilities, including water, gas, electricity and telephone services will be kept running as normal. For people in areas of civil breakdown, we strongly encourage you to remain in your homes until the military conducts an evacuation into safe zones. Anyone outside of their homes will be considered looters and will be met with proportional punishment. All civilians are to follow the orders of military personnel to ensure their safety.
I repeat once again, the government is still in control, I repeat, the government is still in control."
Character Creation
Are you a:
[] Female
[]Male
Choose Location:
[] Urban: Increased Chance of random encounters, Increased Chance of additional supplies, Increased Chance of Survivors, Increased Chance of Zombies
[] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[] Rural: Less Chance of random Encounters, Less Chance of Additional Supplies, Less Chance of Survivors, Less Chance of Zombies
Choose Background. Backgrounds give + to some attributes and abilities, but will decrease abilities by -5 if not included in the background package. Sub backgrounds will be posted later.
Choose Attribute and Ability, Roll 1d100 + half your attribute and half your ability stat +- environment
E.g. When night falls, Jeff will make his way to a supermarket to try and find some food. Once he arrives, he discovers that the supermarket's electricity has failed, and that looters already been through the place. Luckily, Jeff does have a torch and decides to see if anything has been left behind.
Despite looking around, Jeff simply couldn't find anything that was edible, but at least there weren't any looters or zombies in there!
What rolls get what?
Automatic Critical Failure - 1
Critical Failure – 2-5 – the worse thing is about to happen
Heavy Failure – 6-15 – Batter down the hatches!
Failure - 16-35 – This will most likely come back to bite you or hurt your situation.,
Minor Failure– 36 -50 – You kinda messed up, but not too badly
Normal Success – 51-75 – You did it, and with all your limbs too!
Improved Success – 76-85 – You succeeded with room to spare, and likely took a big step forward
Excellent Success – 86-94 – you performed the task as well as it could've, and definitely improved your situation
Critical Success – 94-99 – ITS A MIRACLE!
Automatic Critical Success - 100
So what governs this game? Its simple really, at least on my end which is where most of the work will be taking place.
You start with six Attributes which can be divided easily enough into three categories.
Physical: Strength and Dexterity
Mental: Perception and Intelligence
Social: Charisma and Deceive
Physical
Strength – a measure of your physical strength. This statistic also governs how much you can carry at any one time, how much melee damage you can cause, and gives a bonus to HP. Strength also governs health, toughness and resilience.
Dexterity – a measure of your coordination, motor skills, balance, speed and grace. This statistic governs initiative, how fast you're able to react to situations and your agility, as well as your ability to dodge enemy attacks.
Social
Charisma – how adept you are at knowing exactly what to say and do in social situation, and how others view you.
Deceive – measures ability to hide your tells, trick someone into believing you, coming across as something you aren't
Mental
Perception – governs awareness and instincts. Perceptive characters notice details like smells, sounds and sights that don't fit 'normal' pictures.
Intelligence – your higher reasoning power. Intelligent characters have better memories and can solve problems.
Attributes are essentially your skills.
Alertness – your basic knack for noticing things around you, even when not looking for them, as well as finding new information
Athletics – your basic ability to run, jump, throw, swim
Animals – your basic understanding of animals and how to take care of them
Barter – your ability to haggle for items and to get the best possible deal, whether you're dealing in goods, animals, money or even humans
Close Combat - your ability to fight in close quarters combat, whether with weapons or unarmed
Craftsman – your ability to design, make or fix things with your hands
Drive – your ability to drive vehicles
Electronics – your ability to work and use all things electronic
Empathy – your basic ability to read other people's emotions
Firearms – your ability to shoot and maintain small arms from bows to assault rifles
Larceny – your ability to pickpocket, hotwire, safecrack or even cheat at cards
Leadership – Your ability to order people into doing what you want
Medicine – your understanding of the human body, medicines, first aid, diagnosis or treatment
Persuasion – your ability to get your point across – good for arguments, conversations, intimidation and most things verbal
Science – your basic understanding of chemistry, biology and physics, helps enable you to craft certain objects
Sneak – the ability to avoid detection or subtly carry out actions
Subterfuge – your ability to conceal your motives, intrigue and double deal
Survival – your ability to survive in the wild, to make camps, hunt and cook animals
Note: Some weapons or creations are unable to be carried out until characters have reached a certain level of points, e.g. to use a rocket launcher requires a certain amount of strength and firearms.
Example: While looting, Jeff comes across a safe. Although he's had some experience in lock picking, he can immediately tell that he has no chance of opening the safe (Needs 40+ in Dexterity & 60+ in Larceny)
Attributes and Abilities are rough estimates of what your proficiency in a skill are.
0-20 – Poor
21 – 40 - Average
41 – 60 - Good
61-80 – Expert – choose one specialisation
81-100 – Master – choose two specialisations
At any time, characters can have three goals; accomplishment of which will earn bonus xp. Your chosen goals can be anything, but only one can be changed at the start of every ingame day.
The harder the goal accomplished, the more xp earned.
At the end of every in-game week, xp is added based accomplished goals, number of zombies killed, and other xp worthy exploits decided by the GM.
Short term goals = 10 XP
Medium term goals = 40 XP
Long Term goals = 80 XP
Example: Jeff currently has three goals.
1. To find medicine for a ill member of the community (Reward: 20xp)
2. To find special ammunition not commonly produced (Reward: 50xp)
3. To repair the defences around his safehouse (Reward:40xp)
To improve a stat, you must put a certain amount of xp into your Attribute/Skill, which is determined to be the base stat. Stats can only ever be increased by 5.
Example: Jeff accomplished a long term goal by setting up a sustainable food source, and earned 100xp. Looking at his stats, he wants to improve Barter so that he can gain better trade. His Barter is currently at 25, which makes him average. Jeff decides to spend his 100xp on Barter. To improve his stat by five, he spends 25xp, which improves his barter to 30. He then spends another 30xp on barter which improves his barter to 35. Jeff has spent 55xp so far, leaving him with 45 remaining xp. If Jeff wishes, he could improve his barter again, but would have to spend 40xp to improve barter. He decides to focus on Firearms, in which he has a existing skill of 50. Jeff spends 50xp on Firearms, improving it to 55 skill, leaving him with 5 remaining xp. Jeff is unable to spend anymore xp.
Improving Stats
The possibility exists to improve an Attribute or Ability. If he rolls a Critical Success (94-100) during an action without the use of bonuses, either the Attribute or ability used will each improve by 1 which will be decided by a 1d3 (1 is the Attribute, 2/3 is the Ability).
Example: Jeff is fighting a zombie with a hatchet. On his d100 roll, he rolls a 98. The GM rolls a 1d3 and gets a result of 2. His used skill, Close Combat, improves by 1.
If you choose to spend a turn entirely on focusing on an attribute or ability, you can improve it by 1 if you roll a 61-100. On a 94-100, it increases by two. Bonuses do not apply.
Example: Jeff decides to spend the evening practicing his firearms skill. He rolls a 76 and improves his firearm skill by 1.
Turns
Days are divided into four phases: Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night. Most actions take up one of these slots, unless they are extended actions and take up more than two slots.
Example: Jeff wants to fortify his safehouse, search for supplies and improve his strength stat. Jeff only wants to board up the windows, which is a one turn action. He decides to use the morning to do that. Jeff also wants to search for supplies at a nearby supermarket which would only take up an afternoon slot. He decides to do some weightlifting when he's finished his tasks for the day. After rolling well on both tasks, successfully boarding up the safehouse for rudimentary protection and finding enough food to last him the next two days, he uses his evening slot to weight lift. After rolling a moderate success, Jeff successfully raises his strength by two. With the evening phase done, Jeff decides to go to sleep to avoid fatigue the next day.
Extended Actions are actions that take up two or more turns, and can last as long as necessary.
Every action can include sub-actions that aren't likely to overlap into the next turn, for example:
[] Loot the supermarket
-[] Check if the supermarket has any medicine, and if so take it
-[] Clear out any zombies
Health Points
8 + 1d4 + Strength Bonus
Combat
Roll 1d100 + Strength Bonus + Equipment Bonus - Environment
vs.
1d100 + Dexterity Bonus+ Equipment Bonus - Environment
If the attacker wins by a higher score, he wins that round of combat. For each 10 degrees of success, he inflicts 1 automatic wound.
Example: Jeff is facing against a zombie. Luckily for Jeff, he has better initiative as he attacked the zombie while it was unaware of him. Jeff rolls 1d100 and scores a 58. In addition to the 58, he has a crowbar (+10) and the zombie was off balance (+10). In total, Jeff rolled a 78. The zombie then rolls 1d100 and scored a 22. In addition to the 22, it has a Feel No Pain bonus (+10), but due to not having seen Jeff, takes a negative (-20). In total, the zombie rolled a 12. The GM then subtracts 12 from 78 which gives him a 66. Therefore, Jeff won first round of combat by 66, inflicting 6 damage on the zombie.
[X] Male [X] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Law Enforcement
I love a good zombie quest! I'd check out Welcome to Shalebrook, if you haven't already.
[X]Male
[X] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Criminal
Too many paramilitary routes in these kind of fics. Criminals have just as many useful skills.
[X] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[X]Male
[X] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Law Enforcement
I love a good zombie quest! I'd check out Welcome to Shalebrook, if you haven't already.
[X]Male
[X] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Criminal
Too many paramilitary routes in these kind of fics. Criminals have just as many useful skills.
[X] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Semi-urban: Partial Chance of Random Encounters, Partial Increased Chance of Additional Supplies, Partial Chance of Survivors, Partial Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Female [X] Urban: Increased Chance of random encounters, Increased Chance of additional supplies, Increased Chance of Survivors, Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Criminal
[X] Male
[X] Urban
[X] Barrister
That's the right term for the U.K. Right?
I say let's run a diplo/intrigue character a high powered lawyer using all his guile to survive.
[X] Female [X] Urban: Increased Chance of random encounters, Increased Chance of additional supplies, Increased Chance of Survivors, Increased Chance of Zombies
[X] Criminal