WARPED!
Mutant Hexcrawl RPG
In the year 2021, Walt Labs developed the first working cryogenic chamber. Now, anyone could freeze themselves and wake up... in the future! Fed up with your old life or running away from your past, you signed the forms and paid the sum and entered the chamber.
It worked, but all too well. You awake in the distant future, year unknown. Civilization has collapsed and you and your fellow frozen find yourself in a vast overgrown city that looks nothing like the place you walked in. Moreover, your genome is unstable! Your body is twisted with strange mutations. What secrets does this strange world hold? How will you survive?This is a light roleplaying and hexcrawl exploration game. There's no waitlist, anyone can join at any time, and everyone starts off in the lab. To explore a new hex, just say the compass direction (ne,nw,n,se,sw,s). Players may wish to co-ordinate their exploration and work together as the city may be dangerous... others have clearly awoken from being frozen and disappeared forever.
- To join, fill out a character sheet- you pick everything except the mutation(s), which is random.
- Once we've begun in earnest, to play, describe your
actions in bold. I'll do the rolling and any resolution and keep track of tallies. In return, you keep your character sheets up to date and post them when you make an action (it speeds everything up).
Feel free to ask questions on the Discord Channel.Name:
Appearance: (you can choose to fill this in after you get your mutation if you like)
Profession: (e.g. Builder, Doctor, Telesalesman, Surfer, Basement-Dwelling Gamer NEET, Teacher, etc.)
Stats: Stats start at -1. Distribute 7 points across them, ranging -1 to 2
Body (using your physicality): -1
Wits (using your mind): -1
Empathy (dealing with people): -1
Weird (using your mutant powers): -1
Mutation: (this is randomly assigned to you, there are 1000+ permutations. If you like, you can start with 2 mutations at a cost of -1 to a stat of your choice)
Signature Gear: (choose a handheld or wearable item that says something about your character)
Big dream: (find out why you were mutated, rebuild civilization, escape the city, learn to fly, discover the fate of a loved one etc.... whatever you want)
Conditions: None
Relationship: Name an NPC that you know (they can someone frozen along with you or someone you left behind in the past)
Experience Tallys: None
New Character Creation Options
Any new players (or any players who have retired or abandoned their existing mutant characters) are welcome to create a new Uploxed, Survivor, or Walt character according to the rules below.
Uploxed Character Creation
The uploxed have had their minds uploaded to a digital paradise called Nexus. You have a strong connection still with Earth which prevents you fully embracing Nexus and so it can be a struggle to interact with the digital space. In many ways you are more comfortable controlling and focusing on your physical morph back on Earth.
A morph is a robotic shell the uploxed use to interact with Earth. They usually control these bodies remotely through radio signals. This means going underground or into metal lined spaces is usually impossible. If your morph is destroyed, you can always get another one, though its quality will depend on your faction ties and kudos.
The uploxed can choose to have an avatar: a visual representation of how they appear to others in Nexus.
You faction decides your morph. You can pick any avatar you want and change it whenever.
Morphs
Robo-bug (Eyes of Gaia): pick a creature with more than four legs. Your morph resembles that creature but is about eight feet tall. (E.g. octopus, spider, cranefly, ant, millipede, pillbug, crab). You start with three features associated with that creature (E.g. pincer claws, wings, tentacles). Eyes of Gaia undertake quests to protect nature.
Cyberbeast (Hunter Guild: Great Marmite League): pick any mammal- you have hijacked the body of one of those mammals, with a metal exoskeleton and armor. The flesh is atrophied within. Gain three additional features associated with that mammal (claws, bite, great strength, scent etc.). The GML fight other Hunters and hunt down humans for Kudos. They favour direct approaches and displays of overwhelming force.
Cybercryptid (Hunter Guild: Legends): pick a fictional or mythological or urban legend creature: your body is a Frankenstein-like biomechanical mashup made to look like that creature. Pick three features of that legendary creature (acid saliva, towering physique, signature weapon etc.). The Legends fight other Hunters and hunt down humans for Kudos. They favour long schemes and cunning.
Drone (Terraterror): you control a swarm of small flying drones. The number of drones you have is equal to your Terraterror rep x2. Terraterror is an entertainment organisation who gain kudos by filming fights, bizarre occurrences, interviews etc. on Earth.
Neozombie (Church of the New Millenium). You still inhabit your original body, but now instead of a brain you have a computer inside you. You need to regularly charge yourself with power but otherwise you don't hunger, thirst, etc. The Church engage in quests to expand their power across the Earth, protecting and converting living humans. You can be a current member of the church (rep 1) or an outcast or apostate (rep -1). You have no Connexion stat (but may gain one in play) so put character creation points only in the other three stats. If you previously had mutations, you may keep them and maintain a Weird stat.
Character Creation Steps:
1. Pick a faction and build an appropriate morph. Take +1 rep with that faction.
2. Assign your stats:
Stats start at -1. Distribute 7 points across them, ranging -1 to 2
Body (physical prowess of the morph)
Wits (your mental acuity)
Empathy (your power to relate to others)
Connexion (your ability to interface with the digital realm)
3. Profession: choose what profession or background you had when you were alive.
4. Pick a big dream; you're immortal now, what do you want to do with that immortality? Why are you controlling a robot body on Earth?
5. Name someone you know who is still alive on Earth and your connection to them.
Walt Mutant
You may now also start as a mutant who has been in the world for months or years under the banner of Walt Labs. Follow regular character creation, with the exception that you may sacrifice as many stat points for mutant powers as you wish. Walt Mutants are engaged in a long term plan for mutants to take over Earth as a dominant life form. Start with +1 Walt rep.
Survivors
Follow regular character creation except don't take a Weird stat or any mutations. Instead take two professions that represent how you survive in the post apocalypse, and up to three signature items (including weapons, tools, vehicles). Most people left Earth about twenty years in the past, so bear that in mind when thinking about your character backgrounds. Pick one of these three starting factions (taking +1 rep with them):
The Keep: You live in a castle in the ruined city of Norwich. The Keep engage in quests to make Norwich safe and rescue human survivors. Many of them hate the uploxed.
The Church of the New Millenium: you are a child or teen, or a woman of child bearing age who has grown up in the church (in the last decade). The Church believe the kingdom of the Lord has arrived and they are working to make the Earth safe for their kind of human. When you come of age or give birth to a child, you will be turned into a Neozombie.
The Cursed: you and your family and friends desperately want to be uploxed so you can leave this hell on Earth. Your parent missed the opportunity and were stranded here. They're dead now, and you're still left searching for a way to upload your mind and escape this misery. Pick an uploxed faction who promise to uplox you too if you do enough favours for them. Start with 0 rep with them.
Experience
You get a tally every time you:
- discover the answer to a mystery of the new world
- explore a new section of the map for the first time
- save a friend from danger
- make a significant step towards your big dream
- fail with a < 7 roll
When you have 5 tallies, you can cash them in for:
+1 on one of your stats (max 3 in a stat)
Gain a new profession (max 3 professions)
Gain a new mutation but take -1 to the stat of your choice (max -2 in a stat)
Gain a new favoured action.
At any point you may Go Rogue and retire your character. They remain as a threat in the wastes. You can then generate a new character.
Mutations are assigned. They are randomly rolled from a huge secret list of over 1000 mutations, with only interesting results chosen (purely negative or cosmetic powers are rerolled). All allow you to do something, though they vary in usefulness. To use your mutations when the failure could be interesting, you'll roll on Weird. New mutations always decrease your base stats, as the extreme changes take their toll on your body and mind.
Under the hood
The system uses a 2d6 (+ relevant stat, +1 if your role is relevant, +1 relevant gear, -1 for relevant condition) roll. 10+ success; 7-9 it works but there's complications; <7 it doesn't work and there's complications but you gain an experience tally. Complications aren't always going to be directly emerging from the situation, though they may do. A complication may sometimes be a condition (like a wound), or loss of gear.
Professions and gear add +1 to relevant rolls (max +1 for each). You can gain Favoured Actions by spending tallies. A Favoured Action is a discrete kind of action (like looting, punching, persuading, intimidating, running, sneaking, foraging, using your mutant power in a specific way, etc.), ideally an action you're already good at. Whenever you roll a 14+ when performing that action, it will have extraordinary success above and beyond what is normally possible or likely.
Faction Rep
There are different factions in the world. Players who interact with factions can gain or lose faction rep. Faction rep starts at 0 for neutral factions (like The Keep, The Church of the New Millennium, Terraterror, Walt Labs), and -1 for hostile factions (like Eyes of Gaia, Hunters Guild). The faction rep is added to empathy rolls with those factions. Successfully checks, and performing favours for different factions will raise your level. Harming faction members or their stuff is the main way to lose faction rep.
Anywhere with a
? is unexplored and explorable. The colour gives some indication of what sort of environment it looks like (but only through exploration can you determine for certain).
Current Mysteries Yet To Fathom (non-exhaustive list)
+1 tally for the character(s) getting to the bottom of each...
How do the mutations work?
Why were the frozen people moved to this city?
What is Project Reconquista?
How does uploxing work?
How did that woman get a printout of the luchador and why?
What's the deal with the Rapturists?
What's happening in America?
Who is sending aid to Cromer pier?
Mysteries Fathomed
The cyberdogs are not alive, they are actually remote-controlled biomechanical drones.
People were mutated in order to help them survive in the new world.
The start date was April 22nd 2062.
They started in Norcom lab, in the city of Norwich.
The other mutants left with Dr Davis, to a Walt rendezvous point somewhere in the north called Cromer Pier.
There are five Walt Labs where mutations were created (of which they know of Swancom, Norcom, and Loncom).
Terraterror is apparently an entertainment brand, hence why it appears on the side of the blimp
The Church of the New Millennium is responsible for jamming the signal of the Eyes of Gaia machines.
The Church of the New Millennium believes that the Second Coming happened 15 years ago.
Kudos is a kind of currency based on how much people care about you.
Kudos began as a mobile app, funded by the Finnish government.
The Eyes of Gaia aren't in their robot bodies, they control them from satellites far above.
People left Earth for a digital paradise, that's a large part of why its like this.
The whole Earth is abandoned, except perhaps America.
The digital afterlife can be reached even after dying.
Author
Topic: Warped! - a Mutant Hexcrawl RPG - Part One Ends (Read 66051 times)