Starhawk

Hi 1d8+DB Thanks.. Hadn't considered the timeframe for the check. The focussed subtraction is good as well. I can see this working mostly in the starting period when it will be the group and a very small tenancy community.After a point there won't be foraging unless the party is willing to go very far afield.

Someone told me that Pendragon has manor rules. Given that I'm running a post-apocalyptic game with a nation building aspect is this something that would add to the game?

Hi Jae, I was thinking kinda magical. As in animated by a process that defies scientific analysis, such that they have essentially infinite energy and do not rot. But scientific in that you shatter one's leg and it cannot continue walking, or in the case of this game.. running. Haven't worked out the senses yet. I was thinking some kind of cross dimensional energy (that spreads like a virus). This idea is from Barbara Hambly's Ladies of Mandrigyn novel. Yes, your concept and mine are essentially the same. 1. Survive the initial onslaught. 2. Develop the resources and strategies to go on the offensive. There are going to be a lot of NPCs, so the PCs have a community that supports them. Some of this is inspired by Barbara Hambly's Time of the Dark series, where humanity retreats to Keeps when human civilisation is overwhelmed by far more powerful monsters.

The kind of thing I'm expecting to see is folk using padded arms with hooks so when the zombie bites the closest thing it can see, it can't let go. Sure, you'll have a zombie's head attached to your arm, but at least it won't get a second chance to bite you. If you're with friends, they can take it out, while you grapple with it, secure in the knowledge that it can't bite you now. Their location is the Lay Dam in Alabama. Thus they will have river access to lots of places by water. The watercourse extends all the way to the sea at Mobile, and north and east for hundreds of miles as well. Zombies sink like stones, so water is a good defensive strategy. I do imagine the players using scuba gear. I have an image in my mind of the players in scuba gear swimming along a canal, the bottom of which is festooned with zombies, stuck in the mud, reaching up to try and grab them. Zombies washed downstream will start piling up against the dam. That'll be fun.. Hospitals with emergency power will have massive drug supplies, some of it will only keep if its continuously refrigerated. Space will be at a premium, since everything has to fit inside the concrete walls of the dam.. What do you choose to fill the space with.. more food, production facilities, people? What do you spend your hours on.. training, building, looting. What social and political organisation do you opt for? What become the laws? What do you do when another bunker (everyone left alive is living in bunkers.. kinda like humans in the Big Rubble in Glorantha) runs into problems? How much energy do you devote to trying to save knowledge? Do you turn your bunker into a zombie slaughtering magnet and abbatoir ?

I remember from playing RQ in Glorantha that there was an aspect of community support. I'd like to see rules for that in the game too.

Wondering if I've bitten off more than I can chew. My plan is to have stocks of food, water, parts, metal, wood etc that the players use up over time... basically like the start of a Warcraft game with a mine, forest etc. It's not going to be a traditional game as it's more of a kingdom creation game with players having to go out on away missions to get the things they need, take care of enemies, clear a particular land area etc. I envisage them having to expend lots of resources on supporting allies as well. First ones to come being a nuclear engineer and some bodyguards needing supplies to get them to the next nuclear power station that needs to be powered down.. They'll need food, ammo, transport etc.. things the players will want to keep. On the other hand preventing a nuclear power station going critical is in everyone's interest.

Thanks RosenMcStern, Good point on locational damage. I imagine cuts all over to a zombie wouldn't count towards general hit points in the same way. Zombies don't go into shock. You'd probably have to do double hit point damage to most locations to render that location useless, which would have different effects depending on the location. Going into negatives in the head would, I think, kill the zombie outright. Have to consider the different outcomes depending on whether a crushing, slicing or penetrating weapon is used.

Hey Mankcam, Yeah, one of the things that I loved about Runequest, both as DM and player, was the hit locations for resolving melee and missile attacks. In RQ games the shield arm hit was the one I dreaded most. In this, I think any crippling leg injury would be really bad..

Hey Tooley1Chris, Got the program. Had to learn more than I ever knew about Java to get the thing to download. Can I ask you how you get a Googlemap onto the thing? Cheers

Hi Guys, Working my way back from most recent post.. Rosen McStern, my French is very rusty and my Italian amounts to a few phrases and what I can figure out from my French unfortunately because this material looks great. Tooley1Chris, Google Maps is the way to go I agree. One of the problems I am having with it though is that pretty much only urban areas have street views and by necessity we're starting at a Dam way out in the country.... power, water, concrete, big steel doors. I was in a PBEM game that used Google Maps and it added a lot of realism to the game. I have to find out how the DM annotated the map, since that helped everyone stay on the same page as it were. TPK is also possible, though I am rather hoping that players will fight zombies with technology, tactics and equipment more than with physicality. Vorax Transtellaris, Morrow Project sounds good but I am going to have to limit the number of books and supplements I buy.

Hi Mankam and Soltakss, Yes, that is a typo. Need a system that allows training by doing and is not level based, since working on stuff and training novices is going to be a big part of the game. D20 modern has the heroic/non heroic dichotomy which I hate and no way outside of adventuring for NPCs to be trained up. Not sure about starvation right off the bat, Massive amounts of agriculture and canned, stored goods in zombieland will likely mean its not a game start issue, but it will almost certainly arise as they take more people into their little haven. As for making combat dangerous. Well I am hinting that taking on zombies hand to hand is suicidal and that technology and tactics need to replace hand to hand. I am starting them in way out in the countryside, Lay Dam in Alabama to be precise, so there's not enough zombies out there to do the "Bus being overturned by a wave of zombies in Jerusalem scene' from World War Z. But that phenomenon will be around in the ruined cities, where a lot of the resources are located. The PCs and their community will have to come up with ways to overcome that phenomenon. I have no idea what they'll opt for... Claymores, heavy vehicles with snowploughs, crowd control turned on its head so as to induce crushing..don't know. BRP is on its way from Amazon right now, so don't have the ruleset yet. Going to need swarming rules, grapples and grabbing and pulling rules that get around armour. I cannot but imagine that the PCs will armour up (I know I would). But will need a fast metric for when folk get swarmed.. Rubble and Ruin looks like Mad Max, which I'm not going for. Players have a good thing going but their resourcefulness will be stretched with immediate problems. An early one is going to be outfitting an away team to go mothball two nuclear power stations, one in the south of the state and one in the north which have to be safely powered down and mothballed. The PCs will not be handling the nuts and bolts of that, but will need to provide resources and diversions to the NPC foray that does, since the whole campaign is basically centered around building and maintaining a Haven.

Hi all, My first time on the site. I'm trying to put together a gritty post apocalypse game in the Walking Dead/World War Z setting. World War Z component would likely be the zombies and how dangerous they are. Walking Dead in regards to civilisational downfall.. i.e. government gone, I'm not going to run it like a zombie game. I'm going to run it like Asimov's Foundation. I've decided to use the BRP ruleset as I need a ruleset that's quick, intuitive and above all skills based and not level based. I need it to be level based as players will be self training and training others. Wondering if there's other stuff out there that will allow me to keep track of, in very basic terms, the groups supply of necessities and civilisational building blocks. Any opinions, hints and tips would be much appreciated. Cheers Starhawk