RPG

Hey all, on my regular blog I posted a piece on the gaming aspect of this blog. In order to keep the blog page pure collaborative fiction I want to redirect all game aspect conversations here. I'll also include a Q&A section if things get really complicated.

Signs of the End is a custom scenario for the NEMESIS role playing game (RPG). It also uses a FIASCO setup to establish interpersonal relationships between the characters and establishes some needs and wants that will make collaborative story telling more robust. I want to begin by detailing what we have so far. At some point I'd like to make the scenario available to folks who want to continue the story themselves. Hopefully they will also participate by adding their stories to this blog (ask me if you want to be a contributor).

The Player's Guide
Richard Dufault and I have collaborated to build the modified FIASCO setup and I have provided a good selection of character archetypes (templates) to make character creation quick and easy. If you are familiar with RPGs you will know that lovingly crafting a character takes time and a zombie apocalypse has no mercy on anyone - so using archetypes and FIASCO you can quickly build and integrate an interesting character so that gameplay is not bogged down. It is the bigger story you are telling - the story of humanity - and the individual stories will live on in the memories of those who continue the struggle. To this end one of the tweaks we made was to have players with 2 characters at any given time (they only need to play one but they can switch as often as they like provided both characters are in the scene). Little tweaks like that are the first thing we added to the basic NEMESIS game. Oh, and we ditched the supernatural aspect for our scenario - that also helped simplify things.

The templates we have so far are: Athlete, Athlete (high school jock), Blue Collar Worker, Criminal/Burglar, Hunter, Medic/Doctor, Minister, Mother/Father, Police Officer, Politician, Soldier, Student/Academic/Researcher, Student (high school), and White Collar Worker.

I added the following traits as well: Hacker, Mechanic, Occupation Bonus, Redneck, and Weapons Talent.

The last thing in the Player's Guide is the FIASCO setup, with only three categories: Relationship, Survival (needs), Objects. I ditched location but we do have some location details in the Survival category. This may need some tweaking because we use it to start off and when introducing a new group of characters.

The Source Book
A lot of the Player's Guide stuff is in here too just for completeness, but there is much more as well including:

• rules for scavanging, including rarity/value ratings on various survival items
• rules for technology in a post zombie apocalypse
• natural dangers (taken from the Wild Talents source book and modified for NEMESIS).
• NPC templates (again most from Wild Talents) for: Blue Collar Worker, Hardened Criminal, Performer, White Collar Worker, Federal Agent, Police Detective, Police SWAT Team Member, Police Patrol Officer, Military Officer, Soldier, Survivalist, Pilot, Hacker, and Security Officer.
• assortment of pre-fleshed out NPCs
• anatomy of the disease - a fleshed out (pun intended) understanding of the zombies including six special types (I'll let the story tellers name them as they encounter them), rules for how many you encounter and where, and how to handle large groups of zombies without resorting to combat (and without sacrificing the danger factor)

I also created a couple of sheets for keeping track of damage to humans and damage to zombies (as they work a little differently).

Game Play

Google maps are an awesome role playing tool!

We are still getting a bit used to the mechanic. It is too easy to reach for the dice and the game encourages you to role play things out as much as possible. A scavenging party went to take out a gun shop, they were quite adept at getting around streets blocked with the walking dead, but not so good at quietly getting into a locked building. They managed to break into the cigar and gun shop, take out the three zombies inside, and find lots of guns and ammo. Meanwhile a mass of zombies kept coming to the front door, attracted by the sound. Their hesitation and a squeaky dolly wheel almost got them eaten, but soon they had hot wired an impala, loaded up and took off. Hopefully the gauge is just broken and the impala is not almost out of gas, older cars can be like that.

Just in playing out that scene (and it was a fun one) the tendency is to find a way to resolve it through dice and stats rather than hatch a plan, declare what you are doing, and then tell the story. When the situation becomes questionable then you reach for the dice, but everyone should be playing to their strengths.

The other thing is that the FIASCO setup gives you oodles of ideas for role playing. One of the characters ended up being the high school Chemistry teacher who knew something about one of the teens hiding out at the school, he also knew the English teacher who was the only teacher with the six teens. It also set up some personal needs for the characters that the players can flesh out.

The one thing that I, as GM, need to remember is to have the players make intensity checks before they declare their actions. But that is a mechanic, takes a bit to get used to. 

Frank Emanuel