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The year is 2012. Petroleum-based technology is becoming more and more rare and expensive, except in the USA. Development of fuel-cell and hydrogen-based vehicles are causing an 'arms race' of civilian economy solutions. Meanwhile since 2008, the United States military has been stockpiling fuel to prepare for the resource to be inevitably tapped out. Other countries begin to run out of natural gas and crude oil, the other temporary solutions. In the end, economies begin to grind to a halt as places of employment and food become hard to get to in the cities, and almost impossible to find in rural areas. In response, the US begin operation 'Last Push', and begin to fuel the country from the many stockpiles around the country - boycotting international trade of the precious resource. China arranges for relatively large quantities to be smuggled out, however the amounts that are entering the country aren't enough to keep anything more than the top level personnel moving. US stockpiles start being raided by 'unaffiliated' personnel, and tensions increase as the US abandon stealth, and garrison a veritable army at each stockpile, setting up a 100km perimeter, and 300km no-fly zone around each.
In the end, a rash order by an infuriated officer ends with the Idaho stockpile being firebombed. A proviso is sent to the US that unless the fuel is directly traded with China, with the US's discretion on price, hefty action will be taken.
In response to this, the US mobilize their armies, and prepare for a full-scale invasion of china. Having no way to mobilize their armies, china launches twelve missiles containing the pathogen:TD413. The missiles are comparatively tiny, sneaking past the US nuke defense radar, and landing in various major cities.
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By now it is 2014. The missiles landed just over a week ago and the infection spread rapidly. When the disease hits a host body - usually selectively human, there are four stages of progression.
1. The body shuts down completely, a defense mechanism of the body turned against itself by the disease. While the body is unconscious, the virus overwrites the immune system, and infects the Thalmus and Hypothalmus. This process lasts 1-2 days, and is known as the 'Down' stage - during which time the body is unconscious, appearing dead to all but professional medical equipment.
2. The frontal lobe is shut down, and the rest of the brain re-awakens, with reduced capacity in all but the thalmus and hypothalmus. During this time, the body responds to basic needs- hunger, thirst, tiredness, but will not actively hunt or attack, shambling around with extremely limited senses. While this is happening, the platelet count of the body is boosted extremely high, a lot of water in the lungs is dried up, and the knuckles and digits of the hand begin to mutate. This stage is known as the 'Sleeping' stage, and is relatively harmless. An unlucky survivor may find themselves gnawed in their sleep by these, but they are otherwise passive.
3. Major senses return back online, with a major electrical boost to the olfactory nerves. The red-blood cell and platelet count are now extremely high, and the lungs have expanded and become much more flexible, causing a much faster healing rate, boosted by the infection itself, replacing the t-cells of the body, and an incredible sense of smell, triggered towards the scent of humans. The mutations in the hands have caused the growing of claws, replacing the fingers and knuckles, and the disease begins looking to spread. This stage is known as the 'feeding' stage, and is very dangerous. While not able to match the running speed of most humans, they nevertheless are faster than the shambling 'sleepers', and much more aggressive.
4. Lastly, the frontal lobe is rewired, and comes back online. While the centers of critical reasoning and emotion are still offline, these infected can now use very basic logic and knowledge of physics to achieve their goals- which is now prioritized from - uniformed groups, to large groups, to small groups, to individuals. Unfortunately, all infected will eventually become these 'thinkers', however differences in time are quite drastic from person to person, as accumulated knowledge and memories must be burned out, the virus may be resisted, and a lack of intelligence can impede the rewiring progress. Unexpectedly, the infected in the 'thinking' stage do not direct or lead 'feeders', but instead roam in packs of their own. If a pack of 'thinkers' are encountered, consider yourself doomed if you do not kill them all immediately. Fortifying your position will only last until they sneak in or dismantle the defences, and they will track and hunt down any survivors who run.
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Starting Information
This survival game is based in 'City A', and all player characters are assumed to have the knowledge listed immediately above, through broadcasts or other such media.
I'm going to limit this game to 6 players in total.
The US army have put together a plan. At the time of infection, many radio transmitters were handed out to as many people as possible, with a two single instructions. Survive, and only switch them on on a certain date, the date before the US army will pass through each specific city in turn. For city A, this date is the 21st of August. For you, this is one week away. It is assumed that no players have a transmitter yet.
Each player's objectives are the same, and simple. Obtain a transmitter, via depot, corpse, or zombie, and survive until the end of the week. Once the week is out, the army will pass through the city, demolishing every building that does not have a transmitter signature, and clearing all life from the ones still standing until the signature is reached. Be warned, being in the same building as a person or group with a transmitter will not save you. Grouping up with other players means you can share your transmitter, however the more people together means more incoming infected, and some classes gain various buffs or debuffs, depending on who they group with.
Each day will be split according to your actions, and your progress through each day will reflect on this. More about that later.
Let's face it, humans are damn complicated creatures, and your condition reflects this. There are six different conditions, and having each at a bad level will give different debuffs. Some also will affect other conditions depending on their level.
Levels of 'debuff' are as follows.
|: You are peachy. Everything is fine, the sun metaphorically shines, and you can do whatever you're currently doing forever.
|: Some problems have arisen with this particular condition, and as such, you're under-performing slightly in a few areas.
|: SOMETHING IS DESPERATELY WRONG! You can barely move, speak, shoot, love, live, play, jump, breathe, etc.
|: You've passed out. It's out of your hands now.
All conditions, despite their name, have all been arranged so that big number = good, and small number = bad. Keep your meters full.
HUNGER (FOD): This is simple- how much you've eaten. Keeping your hunger satisfied is simple- big meals every now and then, or little meals all the time. Lack of FOD will give debuffs to athletic and intellect stats, and increase fatigue.
THIRST (THR): This one can't be fixed as easily as hunger. You're going to need to keep hydrated, and the easiest way to do that is keep water on you, as heavy as it is. A low THR will give debuffs to athletic stats and intellect stats, and can give the 'headache' debuff.
ENERGY (NGY): Energy is how tired you are in the moment - generally a low energy is characterized by the puffing, panting, and wheezing qualities of 'just did heavy exercise'-ness. Your energy will re-fill out of your fatigue, and it's regen rate is determined by how high your fatigue is. Energy defines how much you can do in a turn. Not enough energy, and you're already zombie FOD.
FATIGUE (SLP): Fatigue is how much you need sleep, and the only good way you can increase Fatigue is to get your eight hours, or however many you specifically need, based on traits. Note that being incredibly tired won't be solved by one night's rest. Be warned, energy drinks or caffeine will up you NGY, but won't change your SLP, so be ready for that crash.
HEALTH (HP): Health is your physical wellbeing, i.e. the daily accumulation of bumps, cuts, scratches and punctures. Low health quite literally means you're dying, and will impact your energy. Every condition will in a small way increase your health regen, so if you want to get better faster, be well bandaged, well fed, and well rested.
SANITY (MP): Sanity is how much your current completely screwed situation is getting to you. If your sanity goes too low, you run the risk of acting erratically, freezing up, or even passing out. The easiest ways to restore sanity is to not see zombies for a bit. Having a transmitter, and being in a (reasonably) secure location both also increase sanity.
Athleticism:
Strength: This is your physical power- How hard you can hit, how many hits you can take, and how much health you have. Watch out though, because big people need to eat and sleep more.
Speed: This is how quick you are, in running, reflexes, and how fast you can move.
Agility: This is the power behind any climbing, acrobatics, or squeezing through small areas. Agility and speed combine for dodge chance, and flexibility also helps you avoid being grappled.
Focus:
Accuracy: Anything from recurve to .308, this is behind it. With points in this, shoot to wound becomes shoot to kill.
Perception: This is your sixth sense for danger, your seventh sense for loot, and your eighth sense for everything else which the first seven don't cover.
Detail: Paint brushes, needle nose pliers and scalpels all go in here. People with a lot of detail have nice steady hands, which covers everything from surgeon to handyman. Also increases your critical chance.
Intellect:
Logic: Logic, (and analysis) is seeing a problem and solving it. People with a high logic have a higher sanity, and can plan well, which lowers the energy cost of turns, and allows multiple people to work in unison better.
Knowledge:Knowledge affects the accumulation of book smarts you've gained over the years. You can read signs faster, with Literacy! You can build barricades better, with Maths! You can study new organisms more easily, with Science! And you'll have a chance of an extra perk point when you level up.
Lateral: Lateral thinking is your intellectual crit-chance- your ability to come up with ideas that should not actually work, and make them work anyway. A person who uses lateral problem solving can find the effectiveness of their action increased a lot, or the energy used for it decreased the same. Or both. Who knows how these guys tick. Your zany mind will also lose less Sanity when placed in uncomfortable situations.
Perks are the little things about You which you pick on a level-up or on start up. You have points which you can use to choose them, and each of them usually give a buff to a certain area of expertise, or a certain situation. Perks will build into better perks, or compound with other perks for even better perks.
Here is the list of perks.
Base perks will be needed to get Combo Perks, and Combo Perks will be needed to get Alpha Perks. The highlighted Perks are ones which give you 'Special Attacks', so, a 1 use attack which you can do every certain amount of hours.
Needless to say, Alpha perks are incredibly powerful, and can be anything, a passive proc, a boost to a special attack, some extra stats, and more.
Traits happen by themselves during the course of your staying-alive adventure. Certain actions you take in certain situations will cause you to gain traits, and traits can have both buffs or debuffs, or both. Here are some example traits. If you wish to start with some traits from your back-story, feel free to PM me, and I'll see if they're well-balanced enough. You're also fine to pick one of these traits.
Light Sleeper: You lose less Perception while sleeping, but you require 10 hours of sleep to be well-rested.
Heavy Sleeper: You lose more Perception while sleeping, but you require 6 hours of sleep to be well-rested.
Hero
Zombie killing is my business, and I'm doing okay
Heroes are those people who are just bigger, stronger, and smarter than everyone else. They can be the natural born leader, or the nerd who always kept his zombie survival kit on him. These guys are better than your average person, and have a much better survivability, however they work best alone, and can have problems with clashing egos.
Heroes can stack each individual stat up to 5.
Heroes get 36 stat points to start.
Heroes get 2 perks to start.
Heroes get a perk every level.
Heroes have fairly little aggro.
Survivors
Safety in numbers, Survival of the fittest
Survivors are groups of your average civilians who have banded together in an attempt to make their lives last longer. When you start, you start with two survivors, and you can use each survivor autonomously, as long as they don't stray too far from each other, which gives you the option to have a band of specialists. However, because survivors stay in groups, they're more likely to provoke zombie attack. Survivors work well under leadership, However, they are prone to fear.
Survivors can stack each individual stat to 4.
Survivors get 26 stat points to start
Survivors start with 1 perk
Survivors get a perk every 2 levels
Survivors have fairly high aggro.
The Uninfected
I think, therefore I mustn't be
The Uninfected are those one in a million people who resisted the disease, and now have a natural immunity. Some were barely more than sleepers, some hunted and ate before their awakening. Either way, the virus left you in a hell of a state. Physically weak and depleted, you don't entirely resemble a human anymore, and spending a lot of time around survivors always carries a risk, especially if they share food or water with you. But hey, you start with kickass claws, with a tiny chance to uninfect any zombie you attack, and are virtually invincible. Time to live the hell out of your second life
The uninfected can stack each individual stat up to 3.
The Uninfected get 20 stat points to start.
The uninfected get 1 perk at startup.
The uninfected get 1 perk per 3 levels.
The uninfected have incredibly low aggro.
Marines
Call in Alpha, Call in...
You're a marine, usually one of the guys who were handing out the transmitters, or one of the tiny pockets still left in the US. But now you're on your own, and your only concern is to get a transmitter and hold tight, and kill every freak that comes at you. You've got good ol' army training, and far superior equipment, but that uniform is going to make you a target.
Marines can stack each individual stat up to 4
Marines start with 30 stat points
Marines start with 1 perk
Marines gain a perk every 2 levels
Marines have incredibly high aggro
Class bonuses
Each class gets a little 'something' every few level-ups.
Heroes get 'feats', which enable them to pull out something amazing every now and then. They are usually one-use. (Last Stand)
Survivors get 'remnants', which allow them to add another survivor into their party. (Joseph the Mechanic)
Uninfected get 'something special', which only uninfected may know about. (****....**.----)
Marines get 'Tactical reconnaissance', which usually involves something as short-lived as it is devastating (Airdrop)
You'll usually get one or two of these to choose from.
Working Together
Each class has a class in particular they work well with, and one or more classes they do not work well with.
Hero:
Gains bonuses around survivors.
Gains Debuffs around Marines.
Gains Debuffs around Heroes.
Survivor:
Gains bonuses around Heroes.
Gains bonuses around Survivors
Gains Debuffs around Uninfected.
Gains bonuses around Marines.
Uninfected:
Gains bonuses around Uninfected.
Gains debuffs around Survivors.
Chance to infect Survivors, Heroes, and Marines.
Marines.
Gains bonuses around Marines.
Gains debuffs around Survivors.
Gains Debuffs around Uninfected.
Combat will be rolled off D20, DnD or Pathfinder rules.
Which was a big mistake I made in the last game, making it far too complicated.
The only added complication is Injuries.
So you've been hit by a zombie, and taken some damage. Injuries are going to happen, however they all have a very high risk of infection, for all but the uninfected.
Injuries come in three categories- minor injuries, serious injuries, and critical injuries. Depending on what percentage of your current health you've lost on this particular attack, you will gain one of these three injuries.
All injuries roll on a 1d6 for damage.
Minor Injury Breakdown. 1= Completely fine. 2,3= Infected (Game over). 4,5 = Slight bleeding (Staunch the bleeding in the next two turns, or it will become a serious injury) 6 = Roll on Serious Injury
Serious Injury Breakdown. 1= Roll on Minor Injury. 2-4= Infected (Game over). 5 = Heavy bleeding (Staunch the bleeding in the next two turns, or it will become a critical injury). 6= Roll on Critical Injury.
Critical Injury Breakdown. 1= Roll on Serious Injury. 2-5 Infected (Game over). 6= You have died. (Game Over)
You will gain levels for every successful action, as well as some experience at the end of each day.
Experience is mainly broken down so that most people will gain 20 levels in the 7 days. As for specifics, it's still in development.
Watch this space as the game progresses
Turns will be every 24 hours, or when everyone gets their turn in, whichever comes earliest. If you miss a turn, it's assumed you spent your turn pondering the complexities of the zombie apocalypse.
Your turn, however, is very freeform, and you can attempt to use any inventory item on any object in your environment, or any combination of the two. If you want to get somewhere fast, then specify running or jogging, and if you want to hole up, specify barricading. Keep in mind, though, that moving around a lot will attract feeders, and staying in one place for a long time will attract thinkers.
In a turn, you can specify a time or action goal for that turn, and depending on your logic, maths and lateral thinking skills, I will gauge the energy use. If you use too much energy for that section of time, there will be a pause while your energy recharges before you can continue your task. At the end of your turn, I will calculate the time taken for your turn to be affected, and then put that as the time your turn took.
Due to this, people will be slightly behind, or slightly ahead, in each day. I'll be 'pausing' the game when it hits 12:00 at night until all players have caught up, at which point I'll start the game again. If one character comes into contact with another character, then I have a mechanic in place to bring them both into similar timelines, usually through PM's.
Upon entering an area, I won't be putting 'You see a baseball bat, twelve shillings, a toy bird' etc. in. Otherwise the first supermarket you walk into would eat up all of my time. Instead, just say something like 'Go to the supermarket, search for a weapon', or 'Go to the supermarket, search for food'. You can either specify how much time you want to spend searching, or specify the quality/quantity you are going to search for until you find the right object.
You don't have to re-post your character sheet every turn, or worry about shifting your items as you use them. Just focus on giving your turns plenty of detail. There is a lot of under-the-hood stuff to make this as realistic as possible, so use common sense. A backpack will carry more than pockets. Walking around without shoes will be painful.
So now that you know roughly 1/3 of the stuff that goes into the game, you can make a character.
Easiest way to make a character sheet is off this. I'll give you your items, and calculate your max conditions from that.
Name:
Gender:
Class:
Perks:
Stats:
- Athleticism:
Strength:
Speed:
Agility:
- Focus:
Accuracy:
Perception:
Detail:
- Intellect:
Logic:
Knowledge:
Lateral:
Bio/Backstory:
i know. It's crummy. But it was taking way too long.
Each square represents half a day's travel (walking) for a person with 0 speed. Every additional point gives you an extra square per day.
Exploration is based on perception. If you have a high perception, you'll notice special features from further away.
The different sections of the city just change the likelihood of certain random events happening.
How do I gain sanity?
Sanity is actually very based on class. Having a high logic makes you regain sanity around comfortable situations, and having a high lateral makes you lose less in strange situations. For instance, a person with 5 logic and 0 lateral would actually lose sanity if they saw one of their companions jury-rig up a tesla coil using a powerline, three potatoes and a matchbox.
Do I get to choose my starting items?
Nope. Marines will get better equipment all 'round, and each Hero will start with a minor-ly game-breaking item. Survivors will, of course, start with twice the supplies, but use twice the supplies. And Uninfected start without food or much equipment.
How you survive is up to you. As long as you survive.
Good luck.
By the way, this is an idea I made from scratch. Please don't steal it.
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Topic: Tack's Zombie Survival RPG (Turn 2) (Read 10743 times)