Jhandar

My two cents, estimations of actual value may vary: Zeke hit points - These would remain the same as a normal creature, however, only called shots to the head would do actual damage. I would use traditional called shot rules of Aimed Attacks (pages 212 and 213) which would make shots to the head Difficult and players being able to spend 5 DEX ranks "Taking More Time" or if you are not using that set of rules, just another action to offset the modifier. You can then cinematically play out limb damage as appropriate flavor text without having to break out the abacus to track each limb in combat. I am torn about the reduction of Special Circumstances. It is logical not to use the Bleed special circumstance but I think this is true of all residual damages on undead that are not going to die due to circulatory system problems, but the others are fairly logical (again sans the residual damage from Impale). As far as Sanity rules for the Zekes, it depends on how mentally crippling you want them to be. WWZ is very much a great picture of how people can/will 'break' so using Sanity rules would be important to me. If you are wanting this to be a longer running game, not just a one shot, I would likely go with something like: Seeing a Zeke (not doing anything particularly aggressive) - 0/1d3 SAN Being attacked by a Zeke (regardless of outcome of the attack) / Hearing other people being attacked and killed by Zekes while the character is safe and does nothing - 0/1d4 SAN Seeing Zeke(s) feeding on a corpse or other living person / Seeing a body reanimate / seeing a child Zeke doing something creepy - 1/1d6 SAN Being charged by a group (5 or more) of Zekes / Being bitten (and being aware that this causes reanimation upon death) - 1/2d4 SAN Seeing a Zeke horde (50+) - 1/1d10 SAN I would very much use the Growing Numb to Horror rules (page 321). As well as allowing people to regain some SAN through GM award, skill mastery, defeating Zekes, and Psychotherapy and/or other moral boosting events (such as seeing one of the propaganda films from the book, which I can't remember the name of, or watching one of the US' new weapons being tested against zombies or getting ahold of a LOBO). In terms of more permanent sanity if you are wanting to stay true to the books you could have people become the zombie groupies (again can't remember the exact term), or become LaMOS (Last Man on Earth Syndrome). The book has lots of great insanity type scenarios. Two of my favorite are the guy that hated dogs pre-outbreak which ends up becoming a military dog handler and running a dog shelter after his experience seeing the Zekes surrounding the neighborhood pet store, or the guy that once they retake his home town, goes and sits in his recliner and commits suicide. So if you are really going for a clone, pull from WWZ to make it as canonical as you can. But regardless, it sounds fun!

To a degree I question if it is really a bad thing that there are events in the world that are beyond the control of the PCs? In our lives there are lots of forces larger than ourselves that act upon us with veritable impunity. This is certainly not to say that the PCs will not have the ability to affect the outcome. Part of the story which may be more in my head than in the pitch is that society DID in fact survive the last coming of the Dark Ones, although there was a very high percentage of the population was killed. So part of the theme is delving to find out what worked and perhaps more importantly; what did not. I am stealing pretty heavily from the Earthdawn setting, and there are dwarven settlements that survived and even prospered the last coming of the Dark Ones, the elves of the Dark Continent did not do so well. I have a timeline that I am working on covering very macro events that will occur from year 100-0 until the unrestrained influx of the Dark Ones and how seven 'kingdoms' will behave and various milestones that will occur without player intervention. But there IS a strong streak of survival horror in the campaign. Certainly the goal is not for the world to be hopeless, although certainly there will be a percentage of the world's population that descends into hopelessness. It is the implicit hope that the players will be part of the small population that jams their finger into the shark's eye, or at the very least hopes the shark chokes on their body, so to speak. But, I also think it would be an interesting campaign to run a group that is the opposite, the ones that are content to let it burn, grab what they can and have the best ride they can until the end, it may not be heroic per say, but certainly a compelling tale. However, thank you for the feedback Seneschal, that is the goal of this thread, to see how people react to the pitch and see about tweaking the verbiage to convey the expectations more clearly.

I interpret the point total as speaking to the tone of the game. With 1100 point characters I am envisioning super heroic characters capable of doing the impossible. But the important piece missing is the cap on how high they can purchase skills. If they are envisioning a world where everyone is making several attacks with above normal difficulty with multiple weapons, speaking several languages fluently, James Bond type cinematic heroes where they can go toe-to-toe with a minion of Cthulhu the point total may not be unreasonable. Players may be expected to niche out their characters by dumping 85+ points into 13 or less skills to be competent. To the point of point creep, the best answer I can give you is 'maybe'. My default assumption on whether or not a skill check is A) required and/or worthy of a possible skill upgrade is this; "If there is nothing at stake, there is no consequence for failure, or the players can take all of the time they need to succeed; they the answer is 'yes you can do it', but you get no skill check. The moment there is conflict, legitimate consequences for failure, or pressure to complete a task within a shorter than reasonable time frame, then roll the dice." So you would never need to roll a Drive: Automobile roll in my game until you get into a car chase. I tend to even assume that even on icy conditions you can make it where you are going without need for a roll. Sure some people go off the road, but that in my mind would be more Luck roll than a Driving test. Now, a more involved way I would handle that would be if the characters are driving to a location on icy roads and there would be consequences for not arriving on time/being overtaken by something it would be at that point I would initiate a Luck roll to see if they make it safely. If they fail their Luck roll and get stuck, I would then allow a Drive: Automobile roll to see if they could get themselves back on the road but again ONLY if them being in a ditch would impact the outcome of an event. But that is just me.

Thanks a ton for the feedback Chaot! To your point of being a bit long winded; I am guilty as charged. Brevity is something I struggle with setting wise. I have been pecking away at this project and am circling the 148 page mark (not including maps and spreadsheets). But world design is something I enjoy more even if it is for myself. So I will trim down a bit. To clarify question 4) How heroic of a world does this sound like? - This may have been better put with spectrum of heroic vs. street level. Some of the issues I have ran into with players in the past is the varying expectations of how important the PCs are in the world by comparison. For example (using D&D colloquialisms for simplicity); a 1st level character expressing confusion why the Duke of Somewherestonia not taking them seriously enough to even meet with them. Of why the captain of the guard with a contingent of 50 men-at-arms and grizzled veteran of the last orc wars would not bow, scrape , and automatically take the player's side of things. The jerk in me wants to casually label this disconnect as the fault of the player and that I should jettison them like the flotsam that they are. But, I also realize that this very well could (logically) be due to a disconnect between the expectations of the players and the job I have done explaining how the world works. And aside from inserting a 'P.S. Your characters ain't shit till you can prove otherwise.' I am trying to experiment with verbiage to relay this concept more intrinsically. And as an aside I see nothing intrinsically wrong with games where the king begs the brand new PCs to save the kingdom for him (even though he has an army, champions of his own, likely scores of wizards and their apprentices, the combined clergy of the faiths who support his rule, and a horde of conscriptable peasants). That is just a flavor of game that I do not want to run with this setting at this point. I loved the newsletter pitch by the way! It is very much an artifact akin to the essence of this post's intent; that different player's are drawn to different concepts/pitches based on the presentation of the pitch. So essentially this is all just advertising research.

My hope from this post is that I can get some feedback. I want to be able to establish a razor sharp elevator pitch for players to sell the world and invoke a good feel for the game I am trying to run. So please enjoy the pitch, and then post any reactions/feedback to this idea. The end IS nigh. The premise is of a world poised at the beginning of an apocalypse. The Lord God Mithra, wise and all-knowing judge and king of the world has given the world many blessings and guided the enlightened believers of the world. The Lord God Mithra has sheltered the world from many ills, but the portents are coming true regarding the one thing that Mithra’s mercy cannot spare us from; the Dark Ones. Through divine inspiration the monks in the Well of Words have discovered an ancient scroll known as the ‘Trepidations of Lam’. The ‘Trepidations of Lam’ speak of the terrible days ahead, of the coming of the Dark Ones, their nearly unstoppable power, and the inevitable ruination of the world. The scroll says that they are terrible creatures dwelling in the darkest corners of the netherworlds. When the magical auras of these worlds eclipse, the Dark Ones will be able to slip between this world and the barren and blasted realm where they dwell. Every ten thousand years these Dark Ones return to Earth to feed upon the creatures and the land, and soon, they will be returning in full force. Terrible and powerful, the Dark Ones are beyond compassion and reason. They seek to consume. Some desire to feed on anything physical; rocks, trees, it matters not. Others want flesh, blood, and bones of those that flee from their sight. The more powerful live on pain, terror, and the dark emotions those experiences arouse in their victims. They will come, and little can be done to stop them. It is said by the priests of Mithra that these Dark Ones can be killed, but many believe that this is just talk to soothe the fears of the populous and give us false hope. But the unavoidable truth is that the magic of the world is growing stronger, and the Dark Ones will soon be able to slip through into our world. Meanwhile, the evils of the world stir. Monsters come forth from the shadows where once they were content to linger. They push and feed upon the fair people of the world. Giants come down from the mountains and hills. The boar-men of the Volg stream from the arrowgrass to plunder and burn the horse lords and nomads of the area. Spiders gather and hunt in packs in the forests tainting the True Woods. The fabled serpent men slither out of their desert lairs and wreak havoc upon the infidels of the East. But most of all, men turn upon men, with panic, paranoia and suspicion showing on many people’s faces. The world was slow to believe that these dire warnings were true, but the signs all point to the inevitable. Long have we lived beside the ruins of the First Men, eyeing what great structures remain, marveling at their mysteries, with few ever having wondered where they had gone; drunk as we were in the power of our own nations. We assumed that they had faded gracefully into the night, but the ‘Trepidations of Lam’ speak otherwise, that they went screaming and painfully into oblivion. But some must have survived to found our world, and so we know that survival is possible and the scrolls speak of this promise too. The priests of Mithra say that the End of Days is coming soon, and that we must make haste to defend ourselves against the coming Dark Ones. Sorcerers make wards and fortify cities and homes against possible incursion. Some have taken to trying to force their way into dwarven strongholds, only to be kept out and killed for their insolence. Others scour the ruins of the First Men, searching for clues about how to do brave the oncoming menace. The priests of Mithra and holy men pour over scriptures and tend to their flock, trying to keep calm. Leaders of men prepare the best they can while arguing over what will work and what will save themselves, and sometimes their people. Now more and more people, and not just the faithful, are heeding the warnings the scrolls provide. However, the reaction has been mixed, given that the date of the Dark One’s arrival is estimated to be about fifty years from now. Some abandon their hopes for the future, and descend into apathy, despair, and hedonism. Others try and soldier on, fortifying their faith and contemplating what the dark days ahead will hold. The best of us prepare, and seek ways to shield others from the coming horrors. This is in this world that you are finding yourself amongst. Will you be a hero such as the world cries out for, or will you see this world as an opportunity to take what you want while you still can? Particular questions I am interested in include: What are the first three adjectives that come to you mind after reading this pitch (does not have to be world/game related)? What assumptions do you have about this potential campaign, and the world, from reading this intro? How gritty of a world does this sound like? How heroic of a world does this sound like? Do you feel like if you were presented with this pitch that your character could make a big impact on the world? Does this pitch make you want to travel the world or stay locally focused? What sort of tropes/themes/expectations do and would you have of a game like this? Thanks a ton for your feedback!

Absolutely, American is spoken by a great number of people in a great number of places. It makes languages, such as American, far more useful than say Tagalong, depending on where you are geographically that is. However, I tend to lean to the more 'gritty'/'simulationist' side of the of the spectrum so I tend to get nit-picky about such things. That is why it is important for the GM of a similar bent, assuming they are taking the position that Languages are an important skill in their campaign, to have an understanding of who speaks what and where, what languages have roots in what other languages, which alphabets are predicated on the same shapes and ad nauseam . However, there is nothing wrong with games where everyone from the noblest of courtesans to the loin cloth swaddled pygmies of the darkest jungles all speaking 'Common' if that is the way the group and GM like to run. But that then circles back to the core point of this thread, at least in my eyes, which is: language is more about eloquence than actual communication. Bartering and rudimentary exchange of ideas can occur between two strangers without any words at all, and it is the role of the Language skill to dictate to what degree the participants can invoke higher levels of concepts such as persuasion, logic, emotional pleas, density and accuracy of information transfer, etc. I suppose it is one heck of a climb on a precarious soap box to distribute a few cents, but meh.

For what it is worth, my interpretation of how to apply percentiles to actual play languages is as follows: Language/Literacy is used to determine how much technical language or jargon that can be interpreted by the speaker/reader. For a more coherent example, if a person had Language: American at 30% they could likely get by, would use improper grammar and sentence structure (For examples; my personal pet peeve of corporate memes: 'I'm lovin' it', or using 'Me and Billy' rather than 'Billy and I', or not understanding the difference between there, their, and they're. Or you can get more stereotypical and apply jargons similar to the deep woods hick, that may slur or muddle words, running them together.). Where as someone with a Language: American at 85% would be able to orally discuss complex terms such as medical jargon, technical terms and polysyllabic adjectives/synonyms, etc. (For example, a character may not be understand what 'acute command psychotic confabulation' means unless they make a Language roll. However, if the player does not make the roll, they can ask the speaker to give it in layman's terms, or dumb it down, and would be able to understand that the statements means 'short, time-limited hallucinations that provide direct orders or directions to the hallucinatee that often come as a result of creating a back story or reading into events that is neither accurate or reasonable for the person to do so'.). Literacy is just the reading version of my language rules, except without the ability to ask the speaker to drop the technical jargon. By making their Literacy roll regarding technical jargon, the player can then get the rough idea through context clues. In the world I am working on, there are derivations of language that provide some bonus to other languages based on skill. A real world example would be if you know French, you can understand a bit of Creole, same if you know American, you get another bit of Creole. However, if you know both, this does not mean that you understand Creole perfectly, as there is a lot of jargon and slang. Mechanically I would say if you have the main line language (American or French) above 50% then you would get a 5% bonus to Language: Creole (and a 10% bonus if you have both American and French at +50%). It also works in reverse and if the character comes from a Creole dominated area, and they have over 50% in Language: Creole, then they would receive the +5% bonus to both Language: American and Language: French. However, this does NOT work with Literacy in my mind. But I also keep a list of languages that do not have written forms, and for simplicity's sake for my game world, the derived languages do not have literacy equivalents (but then again I am running a fantasy world where literacy is a fairly rare skill as is).

Thank you for the clarification guys, I appreciate it. And Seneschal I am whipping up a campaign world, although I would go another title than 'Shields and Sorcery'. Not sure it would ever be publication worthy, but it keeps me busy.

I am curious about the spell 'Sorcerer's Bulwark' (pg 133 of the big yellow book), it indicates that it 'adds +1 armor protection value of shields and any objects used as shields' (per rank). This makes think that the use of a shield provides bonus AP to a wielder's armor, but in reading the shield skill it makes it fairly clear that shields are a vehicle to parry with (and thusly do not provide the passive AP that armor does when an attack gets through). The section on Slung Shields points to a shield (not being wielded) providing some passive AP if the GM is using hit locations and the strike hits where the shield is currently slung, with damage being subtracted from the shields AP/HP, with the example of blocking an arrow to the back which normally would not be possible. So, my question is; Does Sorcerous Bulwark just provided bonuses to AP to a shield and I am misunderstanding how defenses are gleaned from the use of a shield, or is the intent of the spell to provide additional AP in the form of hit points to a shield to help it resist the erosion of combat?