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[TankKit]

Metro_{(Gameless GM Edition)}

Inspired by a game on Tabletop Simulator, Metro 2033 takes place in the titular universe. You the players will take the reigns of the survivors of the Metro. Contrary to established Canon you will start in an unexplored Metro, with custom factions.

You will have to barter or fight for the few scarce resources available, trying to carve out a living in hostile conditions that only worsen over time and even as you deal with radiation, anomalies and mutants, you fight your fellow human for that scrap of food or that laster filter. Welcome to the Metro.

A few months ago, Ghazkull created this forum game. It was pretty fun, but he has since lost interest in it. My own forum game project is still nowhere near finished, but I'm tired of seeing fun games die out due to a loss in GM interest and have been wanting to GM another game for a while now, so here I am, continuing his game in this new thread.

The premise of the game is simple: Rather than starting out in an already explored Metro with established factions and canon, the players explore and colonise the Metro with their own custom factions, beginning with only a single population of 100 people and a basic military of 2 squads of Soldiers and 1 squad of Rangers and eventually expanding to control large swaths of the Metro with whole armies fighting for control over what remains... assuming you survive, of course. There is no goal except that which you give yourself - this game isn't about the destination, it's about the journey we craft along the way. However, the game will end when only one faction remains.

Do note that I am going into this knowing relatively little about the Metro world beyond the basics. I will do my best to make sure I don't make any especially egregious mistakes, but this will probably go in somewhat of a different direction than the original game.

Spoiler: Action Summary (click to show/hide)

This is a list of all possible actions currently present in the game, assembled in alphabetical order for ease of use. More in-depth descriptions further down.
Combat: If two units hostile to each other are present in the same Station, combat will begin. The attacker decides the units their own units attack. A faction Station successfully invaded by another faction will be partially destroyed based on a D50+modifiers and pass to the victor.
Colonisation: 5 Food can be spent to colonise any Station with one of your units in it. 2 food can be spent to create a Trading Station, which can only be built in a Station that generates its own Natural Resource. A Ranger Squad can deploy a Ranger Outpost that will give you control over that Station without letting you do anything with it until the Ranger Outpost is gone.
Diplomacy: There are no established rules or guidelines around Diplomacy. Figure out agreements, treaties and trade deals among yourselves and feel free to go back on them if you're willing to become un-trusted by the rest of the Metro.
Exploration:If a factions unit enters an unexplored Station, a D100 is rolled to decide what hazard it has. If safe/When cleared, a second D100 is rolled to decide what Resource it produces, if any. A Ranger Squad may also scavenge the surface up to 2 times at the cost of 2 moves and 1 Filter each time, in exchange for a possibility of between 0-4 random Resources or the painful death at the hands of mutant monstrosities.
Movement: Every unit has a certain number of moves. You can move a unit to as many stations as it has moves, either through the Metros tunnels or the surface. Rubble blocks movement. Some areas can only be accessed through surface travel. Every move through the Surface or a radioactive area costs 1 Filter. You can't move through another factions Stations without their permission.
Resource Creation: Fabricated Resources can be created if you have the right amount of Natural Resources. Can currently only create Explosives.
Resource Production: Occasionally a station will have something useful in it. It could be anything from a small farm-in-the-making to a vast armoury but, whatever the case, those resources will only go to the entity with control over that station. Resource production is automatic, but can be doubled by using fuel. Ranger Outposts can not collect Resources.
Trade: 1 Bullet can be traded for 2 other Resources and 4 Resources can be traded for 1 Bullet. Trading Stations allow you to trade 1 Bullet for 3 of the Resource they produce, assuming you haven't done something to anger them.
Training: If a faction has the necessary Resources, they can train units.

Spoiler: Resources (click to show/hide)

Resources are very important, as you simply can't do certain things without the right resources. They can be divided into 2 categories; Natural Resources and Fabricated Resources. While Natural Resources are available from the start and allow for a faction to survive, Fabricated Resources will be unlocked over time and will allow a faction to thrive.
Natural Resources
Food: The most important resource in the game, each factions capital begins with 1 Food production. All units require at least 1 Food to train on top of their other resource requirements and, more importantly, 5 Food can be used to settle stations that meet the right requirements.
Bullets: The backbone of the economy and military, Bullets are almost as important as Food. 2 Bullets can be traded for 1 other Resource and 3 Resources can be traded for 1 Bullet. Perhaps more importantly, every combat dice roll costs a certain amount of Bullets depending on the unit - after all, you can't fire Guns without Bullets.
Guns: Speaking of Guns, they're quite simple but important to a militaristic faction. Each unit requires 1 or more Guns to train.
Filters: Filters are important for any faction that intends to spend its time in radioactive areas. Every move spent moving through a radioactive station and every turn spent standing in a radioactive station cost 1 Filter. Filters can also be used for surface travel and scavenging.
Fuel: Fuel is used to power the machinery of the Metro. 1 Fuel can be spent to double the production of any Resource for a turn. It will also eventually be an important Resource for the construction of Station Upgrades.
Research: The rarest Resource of the Metro, Research has little use early in the game but will eventually become the most important Resource. Currently it can only be used to create Explosives and Armoured Cars, but you will eventually be able to use it to progress down a research tree that will unlock bonuses, upgrades, Resources and more, among other things.

Fabricated Resources
Explosives: Once crafted, a bundle of Explosives will be given to a unit of the players choice. That unit may plant the Explosives in any tunnel or Station it can access within its number of moves and will detonate the next turn. If planted next to a collapsed section of the Metro, that section will become accessible but still have some remaining rubble. The next 3 movements through that rubble will cost an extra movement point, after which it is assumed to of been cleared by the people moving through it. If planted in an un-collapsed tunnel that tunnel will collapse and become inaccessible. If planted in an un-collapsed Station that Station will collapse and all Resource production within it destroyed. Once that Station has been cleared of rubble, any Natural Resource production will be costly to repair and everything previously built within it will need to be either repaired or rebuilt from scratch. Any units in the same area as the Explosives when they activate will die. If Explosives are used too often in one area, that section of the Metro may permanently collapse!

Spoiler: Metro 101: How to not die (click to show/hide)

Movement: First thing's first, you're gonna want to know how to move, as well as how far you can move. There are a few ways to move through the Metro - the first and most obvious method is through the Metro tunnels themselves. This is also the simplest method of movement, with each unit being able to move to as many Stations as it has moves. You can also move via the surface. Surface movement follows the same rules as tunnel movement, but also costs 1 Filter per move and holds the potential for Mutant attacks. If you choose to move via the surface, you will also only enter the last Station you move to for that turn - this means you won't see inside Stations you're passing by from above. On the other hand, surface travel allows you to bypass any Hazards, hostile entities or defences that would otherwise block your path, allowing exploration of areas that wouldn't otherwise be explorable.

And, indeed, it may sometimes be necessary to travel through certain areas via the surface. Beyond the obvious threat of various hazards and enemies blocking you in, there are some areas of the Metro which simply can't be reached without entering the surface. Be it due to a collapsed tunnel or a lack of a roof to keep the surface out, these areas are marked on the map by a light grey colour. Tunnels and Stations marked as such can only be traversed by surface movement, and follow the same rules as surface movement. Eventually these areas will be repairable, but for the early game you're just going to have to deal with it.

Finally, you can only move through Stations owned by another faction if that faction gives permission for you to do so. If you do not have permission it will be treated as an attack.

Exploration: Exploration is by far the most important part of the game early on. Exploration allows you to, well, explore, discovering all sorts of nasties and goodies along the way. It's also quite simple - when a unit moves into a Station that has yet to be previously explored, a d100 is rolled to determine whether or not it is safe. If it is safe, a second D100 will be rolled to decide what resources it has, assuming it has any at all. If it's not safe, then you will have to find a way to defeat that threat - until then, it is little more than another threat to your life.

Of course if you don't want to clear out the threat, there's always another option. At the cost of 1 Filter and 2 moves, a Ranger Squad can be used to scavenge the surface for 0-4 random Resources. However this action isn't without its own hazards, as the surface is far from a safe place and it is entirely possible that the aforementioned Ranger Squad will be brutally annihilated by some mutant pack. Hmmm. Maybe clearing out that Station full of bandits is safer after all...

Combat: ...Which brings us neatly into our next point: Combat. Let's say you've just lost all of your Rangers and have decided to clear out the bandit Station blocking your way out of your little corner of the Metro. What now? Well, you send a unit into the same Station as the enemy unit. If you didn't know it was there it would surprise you and get the choice of who to attack but, since you're attacking it and all its units are the same, I automatically choose which unit attacks which. Do note, however, that you must specify which units your units are attacking when entering a Station with multiple different hostile unit types.

Combat itself is very simple - each unit roles its Combat Strength dice against the other. The unit with the highest roll wins. If any two fighting units roll the same number against each other, it is a draw and the battle continues into the next turn, allowing each side to either funnel more troops in or retreat from the Station. Half the Combat Strength of a unit is used in bullets, beginning with decimals - for example, a Militia Squad will use 0.2 Bullets for each combat role it makes.

Spoiler: Metro 102: How to survive (click to show/hide)

Expansion: Congratulations! You've just cleared out that annoying Station full of bandits. Now what? Well, you can spend 5 Food to colonise any station you currently have a unit in, regardless of whether or not it is connected to a Station you own. However, Stations owned by you but not connected to your capital by an unbroken line of owned Stations are given a timer based on how disconnected they are and various other factors. If you don't connect them to your capital before that timer runs out, it will become a de-facto independent faction, with its own small military and resource stockpile.

There is a, somewhat temporary, solution to this. A Ranger Squad can establish a Ranger Outpost in any Station with no hostile entities already within it. A Ranger Outpost costs 1 Filter to maintain for each turn it is active. You can not exploit any resources or create anything within a Ranger Outpost for as long as it remains active, but as it still places the Station under your control it can be useful for connecting otherwise un-connected pieces of your faction together. It can also be turned back into a Ranger Squad whenever you desire, though a Ranger Squad can not move after forming or packing up a Ranger Outpost.

Finally, the violent form of expansion: Conquest. While it is simple enough to just overwhelm an opponent and take what they already have, a Station that has just experienced a battle may not survive entirely intact. Depending on the scale of the battle, the number of units fighting, the size of the fight and what units are fighting, a D50 will be rolled, with various modifiers, to decide what percentage of the Station was damaged. For now destruction will only affect Resource production, but in the future it may also negatively affect various upgrades and the stability of the Station.

Diplomacy/Trade: 1 Bullet can be traded for 2 Resources and 4 Resources can be traded for 1 Bullet. This trade takes place in an open market and is somewhat inefficient. One way to get around this inefficiency is by creating a Trading Station, which costs 2 Food. Trading Stations can only be created in Stations with Natural Resource generation, and are more efficient at Trading the Resource they generate. For example, a Trading Station that produces Food will allow you to give them 1 Bullet in exchange for 3 Food instead of the normal 2. However, a Trading Station acts as a neutral entity with its own military, so you can not move units into or through it. Doing so will be treated as an act of aggression and will lock you out of trading with any Trading Station for a certain number of turns, as well as leading to a battle in the Trading Station in question. If you win you conquer the Station and become permanently distrusted by all other Trading Stations, if you lose that Trading Station will attempt to fortify any direction you can reasonably reach it from. On the other hand, keeping a good reputation with them might convince them to give you even more Resources than they normally would...

Of course, you could figure out your own trade deals with other factions, so long as there's a safe route for you to get to each other by, but can you really trust them? Well, sort of. While there are no rules around Diplomacy, leaving the terms of any treaties up to the players in question to follow, I can imagine people will be far less trusting of factions who have previously broken written agreements, so Diplomacy is pretty much self-regulating. I might figure something more solid out in the future, but that's all for now.

Spoiler: Units (click to show/hide)

No man can hope to conquer the Metro on his own - these are the tools he uses.
Militia Squad: A large squad of poorly trained civilians with guns, for when you really need troops and you need them now.
Moves: 2 Stations a turn.
Combat Strength: 1d4

Ranger Squad: A small squad of elite specialised soldiers trained to take on dangerous long-range and surface missions that the common soldier can't take on.
Moves: 4 Stations a turn.
Combat Strength: 1d6

Soldier Squad: An averagely sized squad of generic soldiers fighting in the name of their faction. These men make up the core of Metro armies, but aren't equipped to be as quick as other, weaker units.
Moves: 2 Stations a turn.
Combat Strength: 1d8

Armoured Car: A railcar covered in metal plates and equipped with multiple heavy machine guns and an inbuilt oxygen filtration system, this machine is devastating in the Metro. It is far from perfect, however, as it costs a considerable amount of fuel to move.
Moves: 3 per Station, costing 0.3 Fuel per move.
Combat Strength: 1d12

Spoiler: Known Neutral or Hostile Entities (click to show/hide)

Mutants: There are a wide variety of mutants in the Metro, and none of them are friendly.
Moves: [Unknown]
Combat Strength: 1d4

Bandits: Not everyone chooses to join a faction - some group together and become Bandits, a major threat to the expansion of any faction. Bandit groups also have a strange habit of recovering from losses rather quickly.
Moves: [Unknown]
Combat Strength: 1d6

: All contact with Varshavskaya has been lost - something is happening in the south of the Metro...
Moves: [Unknown]
Combat Strength: [Unknown]

Turns will be done based on the level of activity. The first to post their actions will be the first to act, then the second to post their actions will be the second to act etc.
Also, you don't have to spoiler your actions, but you may PM me actions you don't want other players to know of.
Also also, could everyone please re-post their actions and submissions to this thread? It'll make things more convenient for me when I write the next turn. Thanks in advance.

Finally, I've made a poll to decide whether or not I should make a discord for this game. It'll be more convenient for me when writing about what your factions are like and will allow for me to more quickly respond to questions and suggestions and all that but I'm not sure if its really wanted, so I'll let you guys decide.

Coming up next: Where alliances fail, commonwealths rise...
Planned Next Features: Special faction-based abilities, basic Station upgrades, early Research tree, relations with AI factions.

[notquitethere]

Nice nice. Lookong forward to continuing on!

Spoiler: Neomakhnovia (click to show/hide)

War is hell, of course, but we try to be fair in victory. This expropriation wasn't an act of revenge but fatal necessity. Our people were doomed to languishing in the dark and predation by the mutants and worse. We treat the civilians as well as we can: the food and bounty is always shared equally in Neomakhnovia. Freedom is our watchword, and those that can't live among us may leave.

We respect the resourcefulness and the bold exploring ways of the Swampers and we recruit and re-equip all those that would join our federation. Produce x1 Ranger: -1 Food, -1 Filter, -1 Gun, -1 Bullet in Tretyakovskay-1.

Finding the nearby emptied out bandit camp with starving ex-slaves, Neomakhnovia sends a much needed gift of food and invites them into the federation. The Swampers did a good job saving them from bandits, and together we will finish the job by bringing much needed foodstuffs. Expand to Novokuznetskaya: -5 food

Station a soldier in Tretyakovskoya-2.

Return a soldier to Ploshad-Revolutsii.

Send the armoured car Tuchanka-1 to explore Kitay-Gorod-1. If there's anything dangerous there retreat at first opportunity. Either way, if it survives, send it back to Okytabr'skaya-1, and then retreat back home to Tretyakovskay-1.

[Naturegirl1999]

send 2 Soldiers south to Savecovskaya
Use 1 Fuel to produce 2 Food

[King Zultan]

Glad to see this going again, as I was sad to see it go.

Spoiler: Union of Red Line Stations (click to show/hide)

With the takeover of cerkizovskaya we are one step closer to calming the whole Red Line!
The group of soldiers in the home station shall go to preobrazhenskaya ploschad.
The group of soldier in Krasnye vorota shall go explore Chistve Prudy.

[helmacon]

Just putting my last actions into the new thread here.

Spoiler: Corrections: (click to show/hide)

You missed my order to use fuel to double food production. It should be 4 food, one fuel.

Alders Refuge

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For GM's Benefit:
Production:
Rimskaya
1x Food
1x Filters

Ploshadil'yicha
1x Fuel


Stockpile:
2x Bullets
4x Food
5x Filters
1x Fuel

Military:
1x Ranger (Coyote-2) (At Rimskaya)
1x Ranger (Coyote-1)(At Rimskaya) 
1x Soldier (Raven-2)(At Rimskaya)
1x Soldier (Raven-3)(At Rimskaya)

Player Actions:
Orders:
Each Ranger will scavenge once on the surface using filters. Then all units will move to attack Chkalovskaya. Soldiers will attack first and rangers will support if needed.
One (1) extra bullets are carried by the rangers to be used if they are attacked on the surface. If not attacked on the surface, the bullets are returned to the stockpile.
Production Orders:
Use one (1) fuel to double food production at Rimskaya

I do have to question the absolutely insane buff to bullets here. Because they can be traded for 2 of any resource on the open market, they become literally the only resource you need. There was no reason for anyone to have started with production of anything else in game, because with bullets you could have bought your original production and then an extra resource every turn. It gets even worse though. If you buy fuel as one of those resources, you can then produce 2 bullets a turn, which translates into four (4) resources (of your choice) a turn from a single station. On top of this, bullets can be used to buff units in a way no other resource can. This all seems incredibly broken and unbalanced, especially for players without a source of bullets compared to those who do. I hearby petition that the open market exchange rate be changed to 2 bullets for 1 resource of any type, and 3 resources for 1 bullet.

[TankKit]

Hmm. For some reason I didn't consider the possibility of buying Fuel with Bullets to further double Bullet production. You are correct - the buff to Bullets is quite ridiculous when taking that into account. I shall edit it accordingly. Though, I must correct you when you say that bullets can be used to buff units - that's been replaced with just straight up making Bullets a requirement for using Guns.

...This is why I need a discord. I'm honestly the worst here when it comes to noticing methods of abusing systems I've created/edited. Probably why I tend to lean towards looser systems or just have no system at all.

Out of curiosity, for those who voted nay to discord, why?

[helmacon]

Even without buying fuel, bullets still double resource production on the open market, and with any resources you want at that. That's more powerful than fuel. That still feels broken, just to a lesser degree.
(Also, I hadn't noticed the change to bullet use in combat. Thanks)

I voted Nay on discord because I just don't see what we would talk about for the most part. Other than a few rules discussions like this that could happen just as easily in thread, and diplomacy that I prefer to do in the privacy of dms anyways, I think it would largely sit unused, but would still be inconvenient for those without discord or who already have a lot of servers to keep track of.

[TankKit]

Aren't bullets supposed to be the new currency in the Metro? I probably figured it would make sense for them to be able to buy some extra stuff.

And eh, fair enough on the discord. I can certainly see your point.

[Dwarmin]

Shouldn't we argue this in discord or the ooc thread...?

But if we're here...I think bullets are fine. Remember Helmacon that fuel scales upwards as we improve our stations. The bigger it is, the better the bonus. Fuel is going to be a lot more valuable later on.

I would suggest the GM keep track of how much stuff gets traded and to what station. If you enrich a station, they should spend the influx to grow stronger, and possibly even become a threat. And likewise, they shouldn't be able to produce a magic amount of resources out of nowhere. If multiple people make multiple orders they should split the difference according to who they like more.

Aren't bullets supposed to be the new currency in the Metro? I probably figured it would make sense for them to be able to buy some extra stuff.

L O R E

More specifically the currency is military-grade ammunition rounds that cannot be reproduced easily in the metro anymore. They essentially are like coins-rare enough materials to function as money, can't be duplicated/faked easily, while still plentiful enough that it allows for fair exchange. And from a pragmatic standpoint, these rounds are less likely to jam or misfire and have much better stopping power, meaning they are good for when you really need them. In the metro giving a bullet to a beggar is a nice thing to do.

Also, most people in the metro use far crappier bullets to actually fight, since firing MGA is literally 'shooting money'-it is very expensive, the sort of thing rangers and wanna-be tunnel Emperors do. Which is why in the original game Ghazkull made, bullets were just a force multiplier, not actually used for attacking. Since you're not actually using bullets to train the units or attack most of the time, you're actually paying your soldiers their wages. MGA is spent when investing in a particularly important battle.

It stands to reason stations that produce bullets are either good at trading a wide variety of things, or are rarely the few settlements that can have the high grade materials and skills needed to produce MGA rounds.

Now of course, I know lore and game mechanics don't have to mix.

Anyway here is my 1st turn!

Spoiler: Human Mutant Commonwealth Orders Turn 1 (click to show/hide)

Spend 1 fuel to double food production in Sevastopolskaya-2
Rangers sent North four spaces to explore Nagatinskaya

Spoiler: Classified Information (click to show/hide)

Production:
Sevastopolskaya-2 (Capital)
2x Food

Stockpile:
0x Bullets
1x Guns
2x Filters
0x Fuel
1x Food

Military:
[Loc: Sevastopolskaya-2]
1x Rangers (1st Rangers 'Loners')
Only a single Ranger survived the destruction of Varshavskaya-injured in an earlier attack that wiped out his squad, he was forced to carry the message of the stations final, desperate stand. He claimed no name, but answered to the callsign Loner, and was fundamental in training the Commonwealths first fresh Ranger squad.
1x Soldier (1st HMC Irregulars 'Sarrisa')
1x Soldier (2nd HMC Irregulars 'Kopis')
A mix of the shreds of Varshavskaya's former military, the irregulars were augmented by the Mutant Clansmen who had joined the Commonwealth.

[TankKit]

Eh, while fuel might become more valuable later on, it is currently not particularly valuable beyond doubling Production. Maybe I'll change things to be more balanced in the future.

And, huh. Interesting... makes me wonder if I should have different bullet types.

And...

You know what, I might just put a bullet in this current game and figure out all of the features and lore before starting it again and potentially fucking with things and causing more arguments later on, then begin a new game of Metro. This game has been proven to have plenty of interest, I feel like adding features gradually instead of creating a single, proper, functional system is just unnecessarily complicating things and will require constant changes to the balance. I do want to GM this game, but I don't want to be constantly stressed out wondering if this newest feature has fucked with the balance in some way I haven't noticed. I'll even keep you informed here on how progress is going so you know I've not abandoned the game. How about it?

[Dwarmin]

I think continuing the game should take priority. Maybe you could just toss out all the rules at once and THEN we could continue with the rules Ghazkull made, using the same map, without restarting. His idea was to more or less roll them out one at a time and 'bugtest' them. We could potentially just do that ourselves, all in one big bang, though we couldn't guess everything. From my point of view this system was also intended to grow over time, so in a way adding things into the system was his intent, not something he left out.

It is clear however Ghaz made an experimental game system that needed patching. That is not a reason for stress, all of us should understand that is intended. If you want to continue, I say we do that right off.

Maybe open a discord for all that.

[King Zultan]

Out of curiosity, for those who voted nay to discord, why?

I don't have an account and don't intend to get one.


Also I think it would be easier to improve the rules as we play the game.

[notquitethere]

I'm happy with new features being rolled out as it goes. Getting feedback (like with the bullets) can be useful, so having a bedding-in period where you share the proposed addition before it's introduced allows any bugs or exploits to be ironed out. I can see sharing these ideas on an informal discord, or in an OOC forum thread might be best. I'm happy to continue where we left off.