I've been working on my original (Albeit, crappy) RTD idea, and...It just didn't click in for me. I needed something simpler, something faster, something More Fun.
So, enter Zombie Survival RTD. Do note that this is, once again, a very rough lay-out. I'd love if anybody told me what they think of this. Regardless of opinions, I will eventually be starting this RTD.
Zombie Survival RTD
(Kinda a wall of probably badly-written text.)
-Four Players
-They will eventually die, the goal is to last as long as is possible.
-Day Phase
Day lasts one turn. During this time, each turn the Players can do one of many actions: They could reinforce the house, repair damages, search inside the house or outside for supplies, or just generally do something useful.
-Night Phase
Night will last two turns, in which the Undead will immediately attack. The first wave of Undead will be vs the House defences. As long as the house's defences stand, then the Undead cannot get in. If they do get in, then the Players will have to defend themselves. Every night will bring more and more Undead, with resources growing scarcer and scarcer. When the second turn has ended, the Undead will retreat, to wait for the next Night.
-Random Events
Every day/night phase (A coin flip decides) that's not on the first turn has a Random Event. These events are decided by a random roll, which only I (The GM) will know what they do. They could be anything from a group of raiders killing some of the undead outside, or a cache of hidden supplies being revealed. Sometimes they can be bad, summoning extra powerful Undead or having a storm hit the house, weakening it.
-Classes
Engineer: The Engineer gets a +1 to all Building rolls, but a -1 to all Searching rolls. They start with a Saw.
Fighter: The Fighter gets a +1 to all Fighting rolls, but a -1 to all Building rolls. They start with a Baseball Bat.
Scout: The Scout will be able to guess the number of undead that will attack each night, as well as receiving a +1 on all Searching rolls, but a -1 on all Fighting rolls. They start with a Shovel.
Doctor: The Doctor will get a +2 on all Medicine rolls, but a -1 on all Fighting and Searching rolls. They start with a Medical Kit.
Marine: The Marine gets a +2 on all Fighting rolls, but they CANNOT assist in Searching or Building. They start with an M1911 pistol.
Survivalist: The Survivalist begins the game with a special ability. Every second night the Survivalist may initiate a Panic, which gives every survivor a +1 to fighting on the next night. The next day although, every non-fighting skill receives a -1. They receive a +1 to Searching. They start with a Bowie Knife.
Citizen: The Citizen receives no bonuses, but they gain the ability to read Books, which will have various, positive effects for whoever the Citizen gives the read Book too. Some Books can effect the entire party. These effects may be temporary or permanent. They receive a -1 on all Fighting rolls. They start with a bottle of Whiskey. They have a 1/8th chance to find a Book when searching normally.
Items
-Saw: Whoever possesses this Saw may use it to turn one piece of raw Resources into two pieces of Defense, rather than merely a one-to-one ratio.
-Baseball Bat: This weapon deals an additional 2 damage per hit.
-Shovel: This tool has a 1/6th chance of finding an additional Item whenever a search is initiated. This only benefits the wielder.
-Medical Kit: The Medical Kit can heal a wounded player, and it has 3 uses.
-M1911 Pistol: The M1911 starts with 2/7 ammo, which is two magazines with seven shots each. It deals 4 damage, with a 1/4th chance of a headshot, resulting in an instant kill.
-Bowie Knife: This weapon deals an additional 1 damage per hit.
-Whiskey: When drunk from, the Player receives a bonus +1 AP for that day. If drunk during the night, then the Player will receive a +1 to all Fighting rolls for that night.(Two uses.)
-Resources
Resources are the vital source of Defence for the Players. These scraps can be salvaged from outlying buildings or other sources, which can either be Refined into Defensive objects, or used as a temporary, albeit weak barricade. It will not be specified what they are, but examples would be wrought iron or wooden planks.
-Defence
Defence is the only thing that will keep the Players alive at night. The Defence used every day will be calculated in the night, repelling some (Or all) of the undead. Defence is temporary, so when the Undead break it down, it's gone for good. One Defence will stop one Undead.
-House
The House is the last thing between the group of living Players and the horde of savage, hungry Undead. It starts with a Defence ratio of 5, which will be automatically replenished every day. The maximum Defence can be increased by various means, but the amount replenished will always be 5.
-Undead
The Undead are the greatest nemesis of the Players. These rotting corpses would like nothing more than to chew on warm, raw flesh. Every night the Undead will attack in waves, each wave becoming more and more difficult. They are relatively easy to kill, but they are numerous.
-Traps
I wasn't going to add these in, but I figured that I might as well. Traps will allow you to kill a certain number of Undead every day, which will lessen how many will attack you at night. E.G: Two Traps are set up, which will kill 2-6 Undead every night. Traps are quite rare although, but they are a definite boon for the players.
-Players
The Players are all that is left of a devastated civilization. The four of them holed up in a house, knowing that they would die if they stayed outside. They must work together to survive the following nights, for as long as they can.
Each Player begins the game with 20/20 health. Health can be lowered in numerous ways, but the most common is from Undead attacks. When a Player reaches 0 health, they will be in the Incapitated state, unable to do anything until they receive Medical Attention. Anybody can attempt to help the Player, but a bad roll will cause the wounded Player to die. If an Incapitated Player is not healed before the end of the current Night or Day, then they will die.
Each Player receives (2) Action Points every day, which will replenish when the current Night ends. These Action Points may be used during the day, to do anything from reinforcing the house to searching for goods. Some Actions may require two Action Points, but these will be specified when a Player wishes to execute them. Action Points may be replenished in certain ways, but nigh all have side effects.
-Combat
Every Night, waves of Undead will assault the house. It is up to the Players to decide how they will survive. This is generally by either relying on the House Defences, or by simple fighting...Which they will have to do eventually. Combat is rolled like this
The Attacker rolls a 1d6 for accuracy, and the Defender rolls a 1d6 for Dodge. All Fighting boosts (Such as the Marine's) will add a +# to the Accuracy, but not the Dodge. When the initial Accuracy and Dodge rolls finish, the Damage will come in place. Players do a set amount of damage, more if they have a certain tool or weapon. A Player's fists will do 1-3 damage. Undead will deal 1-2 damage. Here's an example of a fight:
HP HP
Fighter (15/20) [Baseball Bat] vs Undead (5/5) [Fists]
Combat Initiative. Fighter: [41]. Undead: [22]. Fighter takes Initiative.
Fighter rolls [4+1=5]. Undead rolls [3-1=2]. The Undead fails to avoid the attack.
Damage. Fighter: [1+2=3] (3) Damage. Undead HP: 2/5.
Combat Initiative. Fighter: [16]. Undead: [77]. Undead takes Initiative.
Undead rolls [6-1=5]. Fighter rolls [2]. The Fighter fails to avoid the attack.
Damage. Undead: [2]. Fighter HP: 13/20
Combat Initiative. Fighter: [91]. Undead: [17]. Fighter takes Initiative.
Damage. Fighter: [2+2=4]. Undead HP: 0/5. Fighter Wins.
If you're wondering, more on books later.
Looks pretty good mechanically speaking- 2 critiques.
1- Simplifying combat. As is, that's a lot of rolling to do without player input, and you want to do that for four players twice a night against increasing swarms of enemies until they die? It'll wear you out, and not be terribly interesting to read unless you're a much better creative writer than I am. If I were running it, I'd change two things.
First, I'd abstract the Undead from a bunch of individual enemies into a swarm. Say the wave starts with 25 Undead. The defenses account for 5 of them, so 20 get through to the players. There are four players- the zombies split up into 4 groups of 5 zombies, so each player fights an Undead of strength 5. Obviously, player actions can modify this- if one guy decides to defend a hurt player he might take more than his fair share- play it by ear.
Second, I'd establish a firm time limit for the combat. Say each night has 2 combat rolls each segment, 4 for the whole night. Damage is dealt, yadda yadda yadda. Daylight comes, and the Undead disintegrate or flee or what have you. The players don't need to destroy the endless waves of zombies (after all, they can't, that's why they're endless,) they just need to survive. Winning isn't killing all the zombies that attack in the night, it's living long enough to see another dawn. It fits the mood well, and it happens to mean you don't have to roll a million rounds of combat if everyone is rolling poorly
2- The overarching goal could use some work, depending on how you want the game to be played. If the game is just "stab zombies until you die, and then there's nothing but the empty void of space," then players'll get bored because Losing is inevitable without any hope of an interim reward. Again, a couple ways you could play this.
The first way, as mentioned, would be to do a more plot-oriented thing where the survivors try to find the cause of the zombie apocalypse or become kings of the wasteland or whatever. The reward for seeing another dawn is delicious nibbles of plotty goodness and the feeling they're making a difference in your imaginary world.
The second way would be to do it with more of an arcadey feel. For inspiration here, I'd look to Left 4 Dead. The players have a clear goal to work towards, whether it is moving across a map to get to extraction or defending their single location while waiting for extraction. TPK is a possibility, but so is ultimate survival. What could really make this shine would be some kind of points system- rewards for killing lots of zombies, or taking the least damage, or completing secondary objectives (save the helpless survivors, anyone?) At the end of the round, you tally it all up and demonstrate how well the group did, as well as how well each individual player did. Then you can start again, and the players can try to set new high scores or out-compete previous groups. I actually had an idea for this kind of co-op/competitiveness kicking around, though I was going with a "rob the dwarves as kobolds" thing. Same basic attraction though.
In either case though, you need to mix up the setting a bit. Defending the same old house over and over? Been there, done that. Surviving the zombie apocalypse from the airport? The hospital? The zoo? A nuclear power plant? Interesting! Each new place can present a new wrinkle on the basic rules, changing up your priorities and allowing the players to make interesting choices instead of the same old wash rinse repeat. Again, Left 4 Dead did this very well. If this game takes a "travel the world map" turn then this'll happen naturally, if it goes the "defend the location" route then you can mix it up between rounds.
And I do hope you'll link it here when it starts, I'd like to get in on the ground floor of this.
FAKEEDIT: WARNING, WHILE YOU WERE TYPING A BAJILLION NEW REPLIES HAVE BEEN POSTED
I prefer settings which allow for freeform magic myself.
Stay away from the RTD's I make! You'd end up breaking them somehow and bringing about the apocalypse!...
Never-mind that order, make sure you join one of my RTD's. I need a proper apocalypse. Also: Freeform magic is pretty cool, but it's so hard knowing what's in the "Possible to cast" range and "Completely Im-freaking-possible" range.
Freeform magic is pretty tricky- either you go the "yeah whatever" route and let the
rolls determine what is and isn't possible, or you have to do a lot of work on how each branch of magic
fundamentally works.
Guess which one I prefer.
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Topic: Roller's Block (RTD Brainstorming Thread) (HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY) (Derm is 5k) (Read 740130 times)