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The Apocalypse Survival RPG
RPGs, if properly organized and filled with people who have a good sense of imagination, can be plenty of fun. Accordingly I would like to offer hosting a forum-based post-world-apocalyptic Survival RolePlay(Game) which uses a simplified (and slighty modified) ruleset of Vampires: The Masquerade. It's easy to grasp, even easier to play and should be simple to learn for new people.
This RPG is set in a 'not-so-distant-future' setting where the individual characters find themselves deserted wherever they have last slept, in a large city full of zombies, raiders, madmen and maybe even more then there is to the obvious eye. The player's goal is, in it's most basic form, survival: Gather food, supplies, tools and weapons. Try to hide, dig in, run off or simply fight. Group up with other survivors (players and NPC alike), fight with your enemies, improve your skills, figure out what started the Apocalypse or even try to install a new emergency government. All up to you.
To join this RPG, you merely need to check on the basic rule explanation found below, create a character and send my your character details via PM. If you got Questions, check the FAQ or send me a PM, I would prefer to minimize the amount of OOC (Out-Of-Character, aka non-RPG) talk.
The RPG will be handled both in public and private. Multiple characters may act entirely independ from each other as they make their way through the city (or other areas). People CAN join up in groups (and usually I would advise doing so), but are free to lonewolf around. You are free to act however you wish, say whatever you want and do whatever feels right to do. However, if you intend to do something extraordinary, you should always keep in mind that success is NOT a given and should contact me (the 'gamemaster') beforehand (per PM). Powergaming (acting like a godlike superhero who always wins) will get you kicked/killed from the RPG, square and fair.
Let's proceed with the all-mighty
I'm currently still writing on the rulebook (or rather, writing out the clear definitions), but I think I should probably already post the threat to draw some attention to it.
Since the character creation is already done, you're free to apply (PM!) with your characters. As mentioned, you can run around alone or form up in groups, pick up wounded strangers or leave your companions behind, there is no finalized 'group', 'adventure' or 'player limit'.
The background informations to the setting are intentionally kept low, as it's my intention for you/the players/the readers to find out those pieces of informations along the RP itself. You merely need to know that the basic start location will be a large-ish city in a generalized country without name in the current timeline in a realistic setting. Take New York, Berlin or Paris as example if you want to. I will create a sketch map when I'm done with the rules, but that's all you get. So, no mages, steampunk, Firzen's and mutant-robo-ninja characters for now, please :P
(Albeit I wouldn't actually mind if people made the LF2 chars into 'realistic' characters for the RP. Lawer Woody FTW.)
The Apocalypse Survival RPG
RPGs, if properly organized and filled with people who have a good sense of imagination, can be plenty of fun. Accordingly I would like to offer hosting a forum-based post-world-apocalyptic Survival RolePlay(Game) which uses a simplified (and slighty modified) ruleset of Vampires: The Masquerade. It's easy to grasp, even easier to play and should be simple to learn for new people.
This RPG is set in a 'not-so-distant-future' setting where the individual characters find themselves deserted wherever they have last slept, in a large city full of zombies, raiders, madmen and maybe even more then there is to the obvious eye. The player's goal is, in it's most basic form, survival: Gather food, supplies, tools and weapons. Try to hide, dig in, run off or simply fight. Group up with other survivors (players and NPC alike), fight with your enemies, improve your skills, figure out what started the Apocalypse or even try to install a new emergency government. All up to you.
To join this RPG, you merely need to check on the basic rule explanation found below, create a character and send my your character details via PM. If you got Questions, check the FAQ or send me a PM, I would prefer to minimize the amount of OOC (Out-Of-Character, aka non-RPG) talk.
The RPG will be handled both in public and private. Multiple characters may act entirely independ from each other as they make their way through the city (or other areas). People CAN join up in groups (and usually I would advise doing so), but are free to lonewolf around. You are free to act however you wish, say whatever you want and do whatever feels right to do. However, if you intend to do something extraordinary, you should always keep in mind that success is NOT a given and should contact me (the 'gamemaster') beforehand (per PM). Powergaming (acting like a godlike superhero who always wins) will get you kicked/killed from the RPG, square and fair.
Let's proceed with the all-mighty
RULEBOOK (Click to View)
AlBG - Ruleset I.00
Character Details (Click to View)
'Characters' are the single persons of a game. Technically, every single entity (even animals) could be simulated as 'characters', but for convenience usually only the 'protagonists' and special 'antagonists' are fully detailed, everything else (for example your common simple enemy thug) being a 'mob' character (which means they have defined traits and skills, but aren't as detailed as characters).
A character can be linked to a player (aka, a Player-Character), an NPC (Non-Player-Character = A character controlled by the gamemaster) or a mix in-between (f.e. an inactive player's character could be continued as an NPC or vice versa).
Characters have a set of attributes, skills, equipment, strengths, weaknesses a personality, a background, etcetcetc... the level of detail of this customization is solely up to the player. Only the most fundamental values are strictly required.
Attributes:
Attributed make up the very core of your character, defining what he's good at and what he simply sucks at. Attributes can have a value from 0 to potentially infinite, albeit usually 'human' characters should have values between 1 and 5.
1 means 'average', 2 is 'good', 3 is 'superior', 4 is 'extreme' and 5 would be 'inhuman'. Technically it can be possible to reach higher (and lower values), albeit these would at best be temporal circumstances (f.e. wounds, potions or other effects).
PHYSICAL - Everything related to a characters body and physical capabilities
[STR]ENGTH - The character's raw power and muscle mass. Strength is used for breaking down stuff, overwhelming enemies, crashing through obstacles, carrying heavy objects... Come on, it's strength.
[END]URANCE - The body's capability to endure stress of all kinds, whether it be injury, exhaustion or illness. Endurance highly influences the characters resilence, his chance to survive fighting situations and his capability to recover from bad afflictions.
[DEX]TERITY - Nimble fingers, body control, speed, all these traits are combined in this attribute. Dexterity is used when steady fingers are needed, when obstacles are to be scaled, or complex movement is required.
MENTAL - These attributes evolve around the characters mental state and his cognitive capabilities.
[CHA]RISMA - Charisma is a summarized value of the characters ability to work with other sentient beings. It helps with negotiations, calming panicked individuals and can even be utlilized to calm a wild animal
IN[TUI]TION - To think without actually thinking, this is intuition. If characters need to make split-second decisions or if they got that creepy feeling somebody is behind them, it's intuition.
[INT]ELLIGENCE - The most obvious mental skill. Intelligence is necessary for all complex or scientific tasks, from hacking electronics to treating wounds or creating explosive chemicals.
SPIRITUAL - The 'soul' and 'character' of a character is simplified labelled as 'spritiual attributes'.
[COU]RAGE - Bravery, honesty and a firm mind form up courage. Courage helps against situations that would scare weaker persons and may provide a boost to his overall abilities in situations that would make other's despair or turn on their heels.
[WIL]LPOWER - A strong will is a powerful tool to a human being. Willpower protects a character from psychological harm, whether it may be a trauma or the pain from a deep wound. Willpower permits characters to be oblivious to his body's demands and can even be used to intimidate those with a weaker will.
[MYS]TIC - A rare attribute which specifys a character's capability to use the unuseable and tap into supernatural arts. This attribute may only be obtained by very few and it's effects can vary wildly, depending on the character himself.
Skills:
Skills form up the secondary degree of details regarding a characters capabilities. Skills can be very detailed and specific, or wide and generalistic. One skill could be 'Hacking Databases' and the next one 'Folklore' or 'How to use Blunt Weapons'. There is an unlimited amount of skills and no character can be 'skilled' in everything. If a character doesn't have a skill, he simply never did something like this in particular. A character without a skill 'Blade Weapons' has to find the sharp end by trial+error, a character without a 'Drive Vehicle' skill never took driving lessons. That doesn't necessaryly mean the characters in question wouldn't recognize a sword or a car, but it is a good hint for them not to try using one.
A skill always comes with a value designating the character's knowledge/training with that specific skill. Again, the values range from 1 to 5 (with 0 being 'not skilled'). A characer with 'Firearm Usage 1' can probably fire a pistol without harming himself too much, whilst a 'Lockpick 5' will open the National Bank's safe with a chewing gum, whilst aslept, with both hands tied to the back.
The effects of a skill can be passive, situational or only used when the characer actively employs that skill. For example the skill 'Athletics' could grant a character a passive increase in his running speed, whilst the afromentioned lockpick skill would only be used when the character is trying to open a lock.
Traits:
Lastly, traits are unique habits or strengths of a character. Traits will near always be determined by a game-master and are a response to a character's behavior. Your character often used both of his hands on simultanous tasks across the past few days? He might gain the trait 'Ambidextrous' and can in future use any of his hands with the same efficiency. Or your character is always the one hauling the group's equiment with him and might gain the 'Strong back', permitting him to permanently carry more at all times. Traits can often be very specific and utterly unique and serve to make characters even more distinct. Don't hesitate to inform your gamemaster if you think to have found a nice trait, he might actually award it to your character.
Progression:
Of course a character will start to evolve, hone his skills and become overall stronger the longer he survives. In this rulesset, this is done by awarding 'points' a player can spend to increase his character's values. Namely, there are 'attribute points' and 'skillpoints'.
Whenever your character experiences something notably, succeeds at a tricky task or maybe just manages to survive with his skin intact, you will gain skillpoints. Skillpoints can be directly spent to upgrade your character's skills.
Once you've earned 10 skillpoints, you gain an additional attribute point, which can be used to increase your attributes. After 20 further skillpoints, you will gain another attribute point, the next on after 30 more skillpoints and so on.
Additionally, you will gain a trait after your first gained attribute point, another one after your 2 next attribute points, your 3 next attribute points, etc.
You don't need to keep all this calculation in your own head, though, you can rest assured that your gamemaster will remind you of whatever points you have to spend.
There are rules and limits on how to increase your attributes and skills, though:
An attribute level of 1 is weak and usually your default human start value. Raising an attribute to the next level always takes one attribute point.
However, once you reach 3 in an attribute, your character becomes 'locked' in his attribute 'category': Physical, Mental or Spiritual.
If you increase your WILlpower to 3, you cannot raise STRength or INTelligence past 2. You could keep increasing COUrage to 3, though, as it's in the same category as WIL. This limitation can possibly be overcome by a trait, though.
More importantly, however, you cannot 'simply' increase an attribute past 3. Reaching a value of 4 is only possible after an explicit permission by the gamemaster and is usually only permitted on a character who 'lives' that attribute thoroughly. Only if you're the hyper-intelligent smartass who does everything that requires brains, you might advance to 4. Only that hulk who always smashes head-first (literally) through brickwalls and beats enemys to a puddle may gain strength 4. Additionally, your character may exclusively gain one attribute at level 4, so chose wisely.
Lastly, you cannot 'naturally' reach an attribute level of 5. As it's name 'inhuman' indicates, an attribute level of 5 is close to what you would consider a modern superhero (Hulk = Strength 5, Spider-Man = Dexterity 5, etc). But maybe you will find a way to actuall surpass your human bonds, at some point of your travels...
Be advised that, unless explicitely permitted, you cannot raise the attribute MYStic from 0 to 1 (albeit once it's larger then zero, you can treat it like any other attribute). MYS is a supernatural attribute that will only be (or come) avaible to a few characters. If you really want to do fance stuff, try finding your character a reason to do so (or ask your gamemaster).
Skills are different, as in they can be freely raised to 5. However, each point of a skill costs more then the previous one. To raise a skill from one level to the next, you have to spend twice the next level's value in skillpoints. F.e. raising a skill from 2 to 3 will cost 6 skillpoints.
Additionally, your character can learn 'new' skills as level 1 skills. This costs a lot of skillpoints though and isn't always avaible. How should your character suddenly learn how to brew synthetic alcohol, without any source to teach him? Of course this doesn't apply to all skills (everyone can learn anywhere how to swing a baseball bat without hitting yourself). Your best bet is to ask the gamemaster whether learning skill X is possible.
In any case, you can be taught by other characters. If the other character is willing to teach you, you can learn any skill he already has. Even better, the cost for learning the skill is reduced to 6-his_skill_level. If the other person has just a skilllevel of 1, it still costs you 5 points, but a masterful wall climber of level 5 can teach you 'climbing 1' for the cost of just a single skillpoint. Of course, this method is not avaible if noone is nearby or noone of your group has yet learned that skill...
As mentioned before, Traits are given by the gamemaster in response to your character's actions. The gamemaster will contact you when you gained a new trait and either award it right away, will have it make an entrance in the midst of a sticky situation or maybe will give you a choice amongst a small number of traits he considers applyable. Overall, your best influence on your trait progression is doing whatever you think your character should be supposedly doing.
Character Creation - Hopefully you didn't just skip down here...
For creating an entirely new character, you should first pick a name. This may be a 'real' name consisting of first and last name, a nickname or a mix of those. You may change your name later on (in agreement with the gamemaster). As well, you should pick a gender, and a general appearance (thin, thick, haircolor). Some notes towards clothing never hurt, but aren't required.
Next up, you should note down your attributes. As a basic human character, you start with 1 point in all basic attributes, except for MYStic, which is zero.
Additionally, you may spend one additional attribute point at anything you desire.
Now it's time for skills. For starters, you can spend 15 skillpoints. For learning new skills, you can assume that someone in your previous life helped to teach you, learnign a new skill at level 1 takes 3 skillpoints (only during character creation). This means you could start out with five different skills at level 1. Whilst this seems like a lot, you will quickly notice this isn't that much, after all.
Lastly, you may pick two pieces of extraordinary equipment you start out with. Check on the inventory section further down to figure out what could be a 'extraordinary equipment'.
For your creation, it could be wise to think about a concept for your character. What was he before the Apocalypse? A firefighter may have a STR of 2, knows the basic of how to breach doors, treat wounds, some mechanical skills and how to handle a blade weapon. And he could start out with a fireproof suit and a trusty large fireaxe.
Or you have been your school's most famous quarterback, giving you a endurance of 2, starting skills at tackling, throwing objects and hand-to-hand combat. Of course you would start into the apocalypse with your sport's armor and maybe you snatched a baseball bat from the baseball team's room.
Or you could be that charismatic IT salesman with a CHA of 2, who has skills in persuasion, finance handling and electronics. Of course you had your handy and your GPS on you all time and ready for an eventual customer... or apocalypse.
Bonus: To reward creativity and imagination, you can earn a bonus right upon character creation:
Write a short biography of your characters and/or draw him a simple (profile) picture, maybe just a sketch. Flesh your character out, give people enough information to make them remember your guy easyly. Make him somebody worth to be known. If the gamemaster considers your character info suitable enough, you will earn your first 10 additional skillpoints which, as mentioned in the 'progression' chapter above, means you additionally gain another attribute point and a first trait (and since it's your character's creation, you should actually give the gamemaster some suggestions towards that trait could be. F.e. a natural fire-resistance of the firefighter or an increased sprint duration by your quarterback's past).
This biography could as well have a noteworthy impact on your starting position (Fire Departmant/School) and on your starting equipment.
A character can be linked to a player (aka, a Player-Character), an NPC (Non-Player-Character = A character controlled by the gamemaster) or a mix in-between (f.e. an inactive player's character could be continued as an NPC or vice versa).
Characters have a set of attributes, skills, equipment, strengths, weaknesses a personality, a background, etcetcetc... the level of detail of this customization is solely up to the player. Only the most fundamental values are strictly required.
Attributes:
Attributed make up the very core of your character, defining what he's good at and what he simply sucks at. Attributes can have a value from 0 to potentially infinite, albeit usually 'human' characters should have values between 1 and 5.
1 means 'average', 2 is 'good', 3 is 'superior', 4 is 'extreme' and 5 would be 'inhuman'. Technically it can be possible to reach higher (and lower values), albeit these would at best be temporal circumstances (f.e. wounds, potions or other effects).
PHYSICAL - Everything related to a characters body and physical capabilities
[STR]ENGTH - The character's raw power and muscle mass. Strength is used for breaking down stuff, overwhelming enemies, crashing through obstacles, carrying heavy objects... Come on, it's strength.
[END]URANCE - The body's capability to endure stress of all kinds, whether it be injury, exhaustion or illness. Endurance highly influences the characters resilence, his chance to survive fighting situations and his capability to recover from bad afflictions.
[DEX]TERITY - Nimble fingers, body control, speed, all these traits are combined in this attribute. Dexterity is used when steady fingers are needed, when obstacles are to be scaled, or complex movement is required.
MENTAL - These attributes evolve around the characters mental state and his cognitive capabilities.
[CHA]RISMA - Charisma is a summarized value of the characters ability to work with other sentient beings. It helps with negotiations, calming panicked individuals and can even be utlilized to calm a wild animal
IN[TUI]TION - To think without actually thinking, this is intuition. If characters need to make split-second decisions or if they got that creepy feeling somebody is behind them, it's intuition.
[INT]ELLIGENCE - The most obvious mental skill. Intelligence is necessary for all complex or scientific tasks, from hacking electronics to treating wounds or creating explosive chemicals.
SPIRITUAL - The 'soul' and 'character' of a character is simplified labelled as 'spritiual attributes'.
[COU]RAGE - Bravery, honesty and a firm mind form up courage. Courage helps against situations that would scare weaker persons and may provide a boost to his overall abilities in situations that would make other's despair or turn on their heels.
[WIL]LPOWER - A strong will is a powerful tool to a human being. Willpower protects a character from psychological harm, whether it may be a trauma or the pain from a deep wound. Willpower permits characters to be oblivious to his body's demands and can even be used to intimidate those with a weaker will.
[MYS]TIC - A rare attribute which specifys a character's capability to use the unuseable and tap into supernatural arts. This attribute may only be obtained by very few and it's effects can vary wildly, depending on the character himself.
Skills:
Skills form up the secondary degree of details regarding a characters capabilities. Skills can be very detailed and specific, or wide and generalistic. One skill could be 'Hacking Databases' and the next one 'Folklore' or 'How to use Blunt Weapons'. There is an unlimited amount of skills and no character can be 'skilled' in everything. If a character doesn't have a skill, he simply never did something like this in particular. A character without a skill 'Blade Weapons' has to find the sharp end by trial+error, a character without a 'Drive Vehicle' skill never took driving lessons. That doesn't necessaryly mean the characters in question wouldn't recognize a sword or a car, but it is a good hint for them not to try using one.
A skill always comes with a value designating the character's knowledge/training with that specific skill. Again, the values range from 1 to 5 (with 0 being 'not skilled'). A characer with 'Firearm Usage 1' can probably fire a pistol without harming himself too much, whilst a 'Lockpick 5' will open the National Bank's safe with a chewing gum, whilst aslept, with both hands tied to the back.
The effects of a skill can be passive, situational or only used when the characer actively employs that skill. For example the skill 'Athletics' could grant a character a passive increase in his running speed, whilst the afromentioned lockpick skill would only be used when the character is trying to open a lock.
Traits:
Lastly, traits are unique habits or strengths of a character. Traits will near always be determined by a game-master and are a response to a character's behavior. Your character often used both of his hands on simultanous tasks across the past few days? He might gain the trait 'Ambidextrous' and can in future use any of his hands with the same efficiency. Or your character is always the one hauling the group's equiment with him and might gain the 'Strong back', permitting him to permanently carry more at all times. Traits can often be very specific and utterly unique and serve to make characters even more distinct. Don't hesitate to inform your gamemaster if you think to have found a nice trait, he might actually award it to your character.
Progression:
Of course a character will start to evolve, hone his skills and become overall stronger the longer he survives. In this rulesset, this is done by awarding 'points' a player can spend to increase his character's values. Namely, there are 'attribute points' and 'skillpoints'.
Whenever your character experiences something notably, succeeds at a tricky task or maybe just manages to survive with his skin intact, you will gain skillpoints. Skillpoints can be directly spent to upgrade your character's skills.
Once you've earned 10 skillpoints, you gain an additional attribute point, which can be used to increase your attributes. After 20 further skillpoints, you will gain another attribute point, the next on after 30 more skillpoints and so on.
Additionally, you will gain a trait after your first gained attribute point, another one after your 2 next attribute points, your 3 next attribute points, etc.
You don't need to keep all this calculation in your own head, though, you can rest assured that your gamemaster will remind you of whatever points you have to spend.
There are rules and limits on how to increase your attributes and skills, though:
An attribute level of 1 is weak and usually your default human start value. Raising an attribute to the next level always takes one attribute point.
However, once you reach 3 in an attribute, your character becomes 'locked' in his attribute 'category': Physical, Mental or Spiritual.
If you increase your WILlpower to 3, you cannot raise STRength or INTelligence past 2. You could keep increasing COUrage to 3, though, as it's in the same category as WIL. This limitation can possibly be overcome by a trait, though.
More importantly, however, you cannot 'simply' increase an attribute past 3. Reaching a value of 4 is only possible after an explicit permission by the gamemaster and is usually only permitted on a character who 'lives' that attribute thoroughly. Only if you're the hyper-intelligent smartass who does everything that requires brains, you might advance to 4. Only that hulk who always smashes head-first (literally) through brickwalls and beats enemys to a puddle may gain strength 4. Additionally, your character may exclusively gain one attribute at level 4, so chose wisely.
Lastly, you cannot 'naturally' reach an attribute level of 5. As it's name 'inhuman' indicates, an attribute level of 5 is close to what you would consider a modern superhero (Hulk = Strength 5, Spider-Man = Dexterity 5, etc). But maybe you will find a way to actuall surpass your human bonds, at some point of your travels...
Be advised that, unless explicitely permitted, you cannot raise the attribute MYStic from 0 to 1 (albeit once it's larger then zero, you can treat it like any other attribute). MYS is a supernatural attribute that will only be (or come) avaible to a few characters. If you really want to do fance stuff, try finding your character a reason to do so (or ask your gamemaster).
Skills are different, as in they can be freely raised to 5. However, each point of a skill costs more then the previous one. To raise a skill from one level to the next, you have to spend twice the next level's value in skillpoints. F.e. raising a skill from 2 to 3 will cost 6 skillpoints.
Additionally, your character can learn 'new' skills as level 1 skills. This costs a lot of skillpoints though and isn't always avaible. How should your character suddenly learn how to brew synthetic alcohol, without any source to teach him? Of course this doesn't apply to all skills (everyone can learn anywhere how to swing a baseball bat without hitting yourself). Your best bet is to ask the gamemaster whether learning skill X is possible.
In any case, you can be taught by other characters. If the other character is willing to teach you, you can learn any skill he already has. Even better, the cost for learning the skill is reduced to 6-his_skill_level. If the other person has just a skilllevel of 1, it still costs you 5 points, but a masterful wall climber of level 5 can teach you 'climbing 1' for the cost of just a single skillpoint. Of course, this method is not avaible if noone is nearby or noone of your group has yet learned that skill...
As mentioned before, Traits are given by the gamemaster in response to your character's actions. The gamemaster will contact you when you gained a new trait and either award it right away, will have it make an entrance in the midst of a sticky situation or maybe will give you a choice amongst a small number of traits he considers applyable. Overall, your best influence on your trait progression is doing whatever you think your character should be supposedly doing.
Character Creation - Hopefully you didn't just skip down here...
For creating an entirely new character, you should first pick a name. This may be a 'real' name consisting of first and last name, a nickname or a mix of those. You may change your name later on (in agreement with the gamemaster). As well, you should pick a gender, and a general appearance (thin, thick, haircolor). Some notes towards clothing never hurt, but aren't required.
Next up, you should note down your attributes. As a basic human character, you start with 1 point in all basic attributes, except for MYStic, which is zero.
Additionally, you may spend one additional attribute point at anything you desire.
Now it's time for skills. For starters, you can spend 15 skillpoints. For learning new skills, you can assume that someone in your previous life helped to teach you, learnign a new skill at level 1 takes 3 skillpoints (only during character creation). This means you could start out with five different skills at level 1. Whilst this seems like a lot, you will quickly notice this isn't that much, after all.
Lastly, you may pick two pieces of extraordinary equipment you start out with. Check on the inventory section further down to figure out what could be a 'extraordinary equipment'.
For your creation, it could be wise to think about a concept for your character. What was he before the Apocalypse? A firefighter may have a STR of 2, knows the basic of how to breach doors, treat wounds, some mechanical skills and how to handle a blade weapon. And he could start out with a fireproof suit and a trusty large fireaxe.
Or you have been your school's most famous quarterback, giving you a endurance of 2, starting skills at tackling, throwing objects and hand-to-hand combat. Of course you would start into the apocalypse with your sport's armor and maybe you snatched a baseball bat from the baseball team's room.
Or you could be that charismatic IT salesman with a CHA of 2, who has skills in persuasion, finance handling and electronics. Of course you had your handy and your GPS on you all time and ready for an eventual customer... or apocalypse.
Bonus: To reward creativity and imagination, you can earn a bonus right upon character creation:
Write a short biography of your characters and/or draw him a simple (profile) picture, maybe just a sketch. Flesh your character out, give people enough information to make them remember your guy easyly. Make him somebody worth to be known. If the gamemaster considers your character info suitable enough, you will earn your first 10 additional skillpoints which, as mentioned in the 'progression' chapter above, means you additionally gain another attribute point and a first trait (and since it's your character's creation, you should actually give the gamemaster some suggestions towards that trait could be. F.e. a natural fire-resistance of the firefighter or an increased sprint duration by your quarterback's past).
This biography could as well have a noteworthy impact on your starting position (Fire Departmant/School) and on your starting equipment.
Exemplary Character Sheet (Click to View)
If you want to, you can use the following format sheet for the creation of your character:
Code:
[size=large][b]-NAME-[/b][/size]
STR: X CHA: X COU: X
END: X TUI : X WIL : X
DEX: X INT : X MYS: 0
[u]Skills:[/u]
-SKILLNAME- X
-SKILLNAME- X
[u]Biography[/u]
I'm me. I'm 0 years old. I have no hair and no eyes. I'm wearing a hat made of paper. I'm funny, smart, boring and dumb. I like cake, but cake's are a lie.Ingame Interaction (Click to View)
This RP is like any other in this aspect: The gamemaster tells you in what situation you are, where you are, what you are and how you are. You respond to him as to what you want to do or do. There are plenty of ways to do this.
You could tell the gamemaster "I think I will have Davis explore the room and try to open that door." or you could write "Davis starts examining the unknown room, a glance of confusion on his face. He then proceeds to open the only visible door."
What you should NOT do would be writing "davis is in a super-large secret lab full of awesome bat-weapons and then he goes to the hidden door in the back and punches it open and takes all the gold from the large treasure behind and then finds a cellphone and calls for a super-pizza-service". Do never assume something to act as you would assume it to act.
You may indicate what you would exspect to happen (f.e. the sentence "He then proceeds to open the only visible door." says that the character Davis is going to open the door, but neither implies whether he succeeded, nor does it say what is behind that door.), but in the end it is up to the gamemaster and the dice to decide what actually happens.
Format conventions:
Try to keep your content in an easyly readable format. Common internet courtesy applies, don't be offensive, speak in English and try to keep your grammar and punctuation to a level where it does not impede the flow of reading. Additionally, don't use strange fonts, text sizes and colors everywhere.
More importantly, make clear which parts of the text are
-your personal thoughst, questions, hints (Out-Of-Character talk)
-your character's actions and thoughts (In-Of-Character talk)
-"your character's actual words and spoken lines" (Character talk).
I recommend to use the format seen in the list above, utilizing italic for OOC content, whilst marking spoken text with simple ""s.
Attribute/Skill rolls:
So, what decides whether you succeed or fail? Technically it's up to the gamemaster, but even the gamemaster can be biased at times. That's why the gamemaster use fair dice to determine the outcome of many actions. Actions which are determined by random dices, are called 'rolls'. Usually rolls are done in correlation to attribute and skills.
If your character, for example, tries to open a lock, there could be a lockpicking-skill-roll.
For this ruleset, rolls are performed with a 20-sided dice, called d20 for short. It contains the numbers 1 to 20 with an equal chance to result in any of those. All rolls are always linked to a 'difficulty', whereas 1 is pretty much a free success, whilst 20 is near impossible. To determine whether an action was successfull a d20 is thrown for every level of the attribute/skill in question. Then the amount of '[S]uccesses' is counted: Every dice which shows a number equal or higher then the difficulty, the roll gains one '[S]uccess'. Additionally, a 20 always means success, regardless of the difficulty (if the difficulty is 21 or higher, a 20 will still count as success).
Often, that one success is all you need. But the amount of successes might influence 'how well' you succeed. For example jumping across a gap. 1S means you barely missed the other end, but managed to somehow cling to the edge and pull yourself on top of it. 2S means you managed to land on the other side, nearly fell off backwards, but managed to regain your balance just in time. 3S would mean you simply jumped across the gap, easz. And 5S means you probably jumped across the gap with a double salto and a piroutte and found a goldcoin doing so.
After the dice have spoken, the GameMaster will usually tell you the result (or just what happens) and it could be up to you to turn the 'raw numbers' into a coherent story.
In all cases, it's the gamemaster's decision what rolls are performed and against which values. In most cases, rolls will be performed against an attribute, unless a specific skill is required. Maybe the gamemaster will simply deny your action if your character can't possibly succeed or doesn't have a clue how to do it (No lockpicking skill means no lockpicking!).
However, in some situations, where 'basic human capabilities' are tested, skills could come in handy and make rolls easier. An example would be climbing: There is a wall to scale. Everyone can climb at a basic level. Probably the gamemaster is going to use your DEX value (of 1) for the roll. However, maybe your character was a mountain lifeguard before and already has a profound climbing skill level of 4. In this case, the gamemaster could decide to roll against 'skill+attribute'. In this case, he would roll 5 dice (1 from DEX, 4 from skill). This means that your skilled climber (climbing 4), even though he isn'T very dexterous (DEX 1) would have a better chance then Mr. Nimble with his DEX of 3 (but without climbing skill). In some situations, the gamemaster may decide that the lack of a required skill increases the difficulty for the roll (usually by a value like 5). For example Mr. Nimble would have to roll his 3 dice against a difficulty of 15 because he has never climbed anything before, whilst your character has 5 dices against a lesser difficulty of 10.
(And yet you could still roll 1-1-1-1-1 and him a 20-20-20, meaning he succeeded and you didn't... but that's badluck.)
You could tell the gamemaster "I think I will have Davis explore the room and try to open that door." or you could write "Davis starts examining the unknown room, a glance of confusion on his face. He then proceeds to open the only visible door."
What you should NOT do would be writing "davis is in a super-large secret lab full of awesome bat-weapons and then he goes to the hidden door in the back and punches it open and takes all the gold from the large treasure behind and then finds a cellphone and calls for a super-pizza-service". Do never assume something to act as you would assume it to act.
You may indicate what you would exspect to happen (f.e. the sentence "He then proceeds to open the only visible door." says that the character Davis is going to open the door, but neither implies whether he succeeded, nor does it say what is behind that door.), but in the end it is up to the gamemaster and the dice to decide what actually happens.
Format conventions:
Try to keep your content in an easyly readable format. Common internet courtesy applies, don't be offensive, speak in English and try to keep your grammar and punctuation to a level where it does not impede the flow of reading. Additionally, don't use strange fonts, text sizes and colors everywhere.
More importantly, make clear which parts of the text are
-your personal thoughst, questions, hints (Out-Of-Character talk)
-your character's actions and thoughts (In-Of-Character talk)
-"your character's actual words and spoken lines" (Character talk).
I recommend to use the format seen in the list above, utilizing italic for OOC content, whilst marking spoken text with simple ""s.
Example (Click to View)
Lol, didn't exspect you to ignite yourself Firen.
Davis decided to do what he's best at: Hand-To-Hand combat. Accordingly, he jumps forward and starts attacking the closest enemy with his bare fists, aiming to make the enemy stumble with a fierceful uppercut, whilst yelling "THAAAAAI!".
Can I do an uppercut? Or just something like that? In any case, I want to attack that Bandit #2, since Bandit #1 is already dead and Bandit #3 is probably going to be toast within a matter of seconds.
Davis decided to do what he's best at: Hand-To-Hand combat. Accordingly, he jumps forward and starts attacking the closest enemy with his bare fists, aiming to make the enemy stumble with a fierceful uppercut, whilst yelling "THAAAAAI!".
Can I do an uppercut? Or just something like that? In any case, I want to attack that Bandit #2, since Bandit #1 is already dead and Bandit #3 is probably going to be toast within a matter of seconds.
Attribute/Skill rolls:
So, what decides whether you succeed or fail? Technically it's up to the gamemaster, but even the gamemaster can be biased at times. That's why the gamemaster use fair dice to determine the outcome of many actions. Actions which are determined by random dices, are called 'rolls'. Usually rolls are done in correlation to attribute and skills.
If your character, for example, tries to open a lock, there could be a lockpicking-skill-roll.
For this ruleset, rolls are performed with a 20-sided dice, called d20 for short. It contains the numbers 1 to 20 with an equal chance to result in any of those. All rolls are always linked to a 'difficulty', whereas 1 is pretty much a free success, whilst 20 is near impossible. To determine whether an action was successfull a d20 is thrown for every level of the attribute/skill in question. Then the amount of '[S]uccesses' is counted: Every dice which shows a number equal or higher then the difficulty, the roll gains one '[S]uccess'. Additionally, a 20 always means success, regardless of the difficulty (if the difficulty is 21 or higher, a 20 will still count as success).
Often, that one success is all you need. But the amount of successes might influence 'how well' you succeed. For example jumping across a gap. 1S means you barely missed the other end, but managed to somehow cling to the edge and pull yourself on top of it. 2S means you managed to land on the other side, nearly fell off backwards, but managed to regain your balance just in time. 3S would mean you simply jumped across the gap, easz. And 5S means you probably jumped across the gap with a double salto and a piroutte and found a goldcoin doing so.
After the dice have spoken, the GameMaster will usually tell you the result (or just what happens) and it could be up to you to turn the 'raw numbers' into a coherent story.
Example (Click to View)
-Continuing with the example of fighting Davis from above-
GameMaster:
By means of your own 'HtH-Combat' skill and the enemies dexterity, hitting him has a difficulty of 15. Your skill level is 2.
Rolls: 2, 4
You missed terribly.
Player:
Gah, my diceluck sucks...
In his head, Davis had already sent the enemy skywards with a powerful uppercut, but in reality he was too distracted and slipped across a banana peel on the ground, landing on the floor with a muffled "Ouch".
Please, Firen, tell me you're not gonna burn down the house if your rolls fail...
GameMaster:
By means of your own 'HtH-Combat' skill and the enemies dexterity, hitting him has a difficulty of 15. Your skill level is 2.
Rolls: 2, 4
You missed terribly.
Player:
Gah, my diceluck sucks...
In his head, Davis had already sent the enemy skywards with a powerful uppercut, but in reality he was too distracted and slipped across a banana peel on the ground, landing on the floor with a muffled "Ouch".
Please, Firen, tell me you're not gonna burn down the house if your rolls fail...
However, in some situations, where 'basic human capabilities' are tested, skills could come in handy and make rolls easier. An example would be climbing: There is a wall to scale. Everyone can climb at a basic level. Probably the gamemaster is going to use your DEX value (of 1) for the roll. However, maybe your character was a mountain lifeguard before and already has a profound climbing skill level of 4. In this case, the gamemaster could decide to roll against 'skill+attribute'. In this case, he would roll 5 dice (1 from DEX, 4 from skill). This means that your skilled climber (climbing 4), even though he isn'T very dexterous (DEX 1) would have a better chance then Mr. Nimble with his DEX of 3 (but without climbing skill). In some situations, the gamemaster may decide that the lack of a required skill increases the difficulty for the roll (usually by a value like 5). For example Mr. Nimble would have to roll his 3 dice against a difficulty of 15 because he has never climbed anything before, whilst your character has 5 dices against a lesser difficulty of 10.
(And yet you could still roll 1-1-1-1-1 and him a 20-20-20, meaning he succeeded and you didn't... but that's badluck.)
The Challenges of a Living (Click to View)
Since this RP aims to create an at least semi-realistic environment, of course the characters played by the characters are no immortal inwasteable superheros. They're human (for now) and have, accordingly, human needs and limits.
The most basic needs are, of course, food and water. A human body can survive without either for a number of days, but neither is really healthy. In this ruleset, the whole complexity of nurishment and hydration is simplified to basic units, called 'rations'. One ration of food can nurish one character for one day. A ration may be egg&ham for breakfast, a steak with potatoes for noon and some bread and soup for dinner. Or it may is just a big can of baked beans. Or just a set of calory bars or literally an military ration. If the players want to, they can put detail into what they picked up and what they eat when, but for the ruleset, rations stay rations. Same goes for liquids. Whether it's a bottle of water, a sixpack of soda or a bucket of rain water. One ration of liquid is required per character per day.
However, there are different 'qualities' to those rations. Both food and 'water' (simplified term for any sort of liquid) can be either 'unhealthy/rotten' 'eadible' or 'healthy/prepared'. Whilst all of these qualities will still feed a character the same way, continued exposure to lesser quality goods will eventually lead to illness or an overall weakness that temporaryly reduces his attributes. Vice versa, a very healthy diet could promote the character's progression with additional skillpoints per day or at the very least cure the aftereffects of bad food. The exact mechanics behind this are left to the gamemaster.
Keep in mind that even drinking dirty water could still be better then not drinking anything at all. In gameplay, characters will receive severe penalitys if they go longer then 24 hours without food and water. The second day will be a further and further worsening hell of pain and reduced stats. After 48 hours, the character's body will start to take direct physical damage and eventually fall unconscious. Depending on his physical constitution, he may survive 72-96 hours, but will starve/die of thirst at some point, unless found by a more or less mercyful soul.
The next important need of the human body simulated in this ruleset is Sleep and Rest. It should be assumed that a human character without outward factors can survive on six hours of sleep per day. And of course it's much less severe to skip a night of sleep then skipping a day of food. As well, it's noticeable hard to die due to a lack of sleep. Ingame, a character who does sleep for 24 hours will receive progressingly worse penalitys. After 48 hours, the character will have to roll against his WIL periodically to stay awake, with the rolls difficulty raising continously. If the roll fails, the character will fall unconscious into a forced sleep.
In effect this means sleep is probably a lesser worry. But if you're all by yourself, sleeping means you're entirely unprotected and even the best warrior cannot defend instantly if someone were to attack him in his sleep.
A main aspect of this RP's simulation part is, of course, a characters 'health'. Health in this case refers to the characters overall healthyness, blood pressure, absence of illness, etc. As well, running out of health is a good way to have your character leave the RP permanently by means of death (though he might make a comeback as the enemy of the next night, who knows...).
A character's overall healthyness is measured in an abstract value labelled 'health' or 'healthpoints'. A character's amount of health is determined by a combination of various attributes:
For example a basic character (all attributes = 1) would have a health of 1+1+1+2*1+1=6.
If a character's health drops to 0, he's dead. Albeit there may be occasions where a character can be saved 'after death' if sufficient medical treatment and reanimation is performed right after his death.
Additionally, if a character's health drops to or below a certain value, he will fall unconscious. This value is determined by
This means that a character with WIL 1 will fall unconscious if his health drops below 50% of it's maximum value. A WIL 5 character will remain conscious until he drops below 10% health. In all occasions this doesn't, however, mean the character is totally unconscious and comatous. It merely means that the characters is extremely weakened, to the degree where he will be inable to even crawl, can only speak weakly, cannot perform any real tasks and will spontanously black out for minutes or even hours. A character may attempt staying awake or perform simplistic tasks (sitting up, drinking) by means of WIL rolls, but that's up to the gamemaster.
Health can be lost in various ways as 'damage' is taking from various sources. And usually, reversing those sources as well means curing the damage and restoring the health.
The most trivial way to lose health are probably wounds. If a character is wounded in an accident, trap, fall, fight or whatever else, the severity of the wound defines the amount of health lost. A bruise would do nothing at all, a cut may deduce one health, whilst taking a sword to your chest could cost you 5 health or upwards. In general, the amount of health lost remains lost for as long as the wound remains. The severity of a wound does decrease over time, as the body heals up. Without any treatment, a wound will lose one point of severity per 7 days. This assumes that the wound doesn't infect and worsenes, though. Applying a basic form of bandaid, maybe a piece of cloth, and trying to rest the injured body part can reduce the time down to 5 days. Applying medicaments and treating a wound with sufficient medical skill will reduce the time to 3 days per point. A skillied doctor could even cauterize or stitch the wound. Stitched wounds of smaller severity (f.e. minor cuts) will 'heal' in a single day, but leave a 'stitched wound' for two more, which does not directly impede health anymore, but can instantly turn into a wound again if the same part of the body is injured by a different wound.
Of course this sounds much simpler then it is. Oh yeah, that sword-to-the-chest will just heal after 35 days, it's just a fleshwound. Of course wounds of a larger severity (namely anything past 1) will cause additional loss of blood. Loss of blood is a very nasty kind of damage, as it takes very long to recover from. Any time a wound is created, there is a chance a character will instantly take 'bloodloss damage' depending on the severity of the wound. Taking our example case, the sword-to-the-chest could probably cause 5 points of wound damage and additional 3 points of bloodloss damage, outright killing a weak character. Because, you know, taking a sword to the chest IS usually quite lethal.
Additionally, open wounds will proceed to lose blood until taken care of or crusted by themselves. The higher the wound severity, the faster you take bloodloss damage. For example a severity 5 wound would add 1 bloodloss damage for every minute (being a surefire way to kill yourself if ignored), whilst a severity 1 wound may take an entire hour for 1 bloodloss... and would close itself after said hour, creating a total damage of 2 even when left completely untreated.
On the bright side, blood is continously produced and restored by a human body. If the character in question is sufficiently nourished (and only then), he can regain one point of bloodloss damage per 7 days. Be advised that this means 3 wounds of severity 1 each will take 7 days to heal up parallelly... but 3 points of bloodloss take 3*7=21 days, as blood is only regenerated continously. The blood regeneration can be sped up to 1 point per 5 days if the patient either eats double rations or 'high quality' meals.
And of course, one could rapidly regenerate bloodloss by means of bloodbags and other medical supplys or even blood transfusion from player to player...
Of course you can not only receive outwards wounds, but as well broken bones or fractures. Originating from a massive application of remote force, a character can suffer internal damage to the degree where his bones are hit. Bone damage can be less severe (light crack) or very severe (triple fractured & broken) or even lethal (broken neck, nuff said). Bone damage generally heals up fast, but often requires the body part to be wrapped in splinters or at least bandaged and even more important, kept still. You should assume about 21 days per severity point of a 'bone wound'. And even after healing, the bone may remains 'cracked' for longer and can easyly cause new trouble, similar to a stitched wound.
Internal Organ damage is probably the worst kind of damage you can receive. Either caused by massive impacts or a deep cut, organ damage will, at the very least, cause a number of attribute reductions for a medium duration. In worst case, you could receive a 'bleeding' wound that will cause bloodluss just like an outward wound... with the slight difference you just can't bandage an interior wound. Without a very durable body or a medic nearby, you can assume a organ wound to be lethal. Even more so if the organ in question is either lung, brain or heart, in which case the wound may turn into an instant fatality.
Another major damage source would be Illness, infections and hungre/starvation. All these sources are named here, because they are 'invisible' (or barely visible) and less direct means. As well, they are the most diverse ones. An illness may range from a cold (-1 health for 2 days) to a flu (-2 health for a week) to something like Malaria (-x health for x days). Severity, sideeffects, duration and treatment are all up to the gamemaste to decide. But generally common sense dicatates that you won't get ill if you don't get an illness reason to do so. And yes, swimming nakes at winter does classify as reason.
Infections are a more common complication and can occur if wounds are not properly treated. Desinfecting wounds and bandaging them is a sure way to avoid infections. But just having a high END or avoiding large wounds can be sufficient as well. Infected wounds generally double their severity for the duration of the infection (including additional health loss) and do not proceed to heal until the infection itself has healed (or was shut down with medicaments). Side-effects of infections may be additional illnesses (for example a chest wound could trigger a lung infection).
Hungre and Starvation also belong into this section, as they both deal damage to a character's halth without actually being an outward wound. Generally both these damage sources heal up in the same speed as they occured in, assuming the character fixes his deficit.
Lastly, there is a special type of damage called 'Concussion'. If a character is knocked out with a large shovel to the back of his head, this definitely turns him unconscious, but his health may won't actually suffer (as much). Concussion damage is special, as it is accumulated similar to normal wounds and counts in for the calculation as to whether a character falls unconscious. Assuming our standard character with his 6 health and 50% limit, a hit dealing 3 points of concussion damage would knock him out. Concussion damage quickly fades over time, restoring 1 point of 'concussione'd health' per 1 hour whilst unconscious and triple that amount if the character is back awake and resting. This means our example guy would have been knocked out for a flat hour, but be fully recovered in two again. Unless the shoveler were to do something else to him whilst he was down.
Concussion damage can come in varying strengths and sources. Additionally, Concussion damage can usually be reduced or even nullified by WIL and END rolls, at decision of the game master.
The most basic needs are, of course, food and water. A human body can survive without either for a number of days, but neither is really healthy. In this ruleset, the whole complexity of nurishment and hydration is simplified to basic units, called 'rations'. One ration of food can nurish one character for one day. A ration may be egg&ham for breakfast, a steak with potatoes for noon and some bread and soup for dinner. Or it may is just a big can of baked beans. Or just a set of calory bars or literally an military ration. If the players want to, they can put detail into what they picked up and what they eat when, but for the ruleset, rations stay rations. Same goes for liquids. Whether it's a bottle of water, a sixpack of soda or a bucket of rain water. One ration of liquid is required per character per day.
However, there are different 'qualities' to those rations. Both food and 'water' (simplified term for any sort of liquid) can be either 'unhealthy/rotten' 'eadible' or 'healthy/prepared'. Whilst all of these qualities will still feed a character the same way, continued exposure to lesser quality goods will eventually lead to illness or an overall weakness that temporaryly reduces his attributes. Vice versa, a very healthy diet could promote the character's progression with additional skillpoints per day or at the very least cure the aftereffects of bad food. The exact mechanics behind this are left to the gamemaster.
Keep in mind that even drinking dirty water could still be better then not drinking anything at all. In gameplay, characters will receive severe penalitys if they go longer then 24 hours without food and water. The second day will be a further and further worsening hell of pain and reduced stats. After 48 hours, the character's body will start to take direct physical damage and eventually fall unconscious. Depending on his physical constitution, he may survive 72-96 hours, but will starve/die of thirst at some point, unless found by a more or less mercyful soul.
The next important need of the human body simulated in this ruleset is Sleep and Rest. It should be assumed that a human character without outward factors can survive on six hours of sleep per day. And of course it's much less severe to skip a night of sleep then skipping a day of food. As well, it's noticeable hard to die due to a lack of sleep. Ingame, a character who does sleep for 24 hours will receive progressingly worse penalitys. After 48 hours, the character will have to roll against his WIL periodically to stay awake, with the rolls difficulty raising continously. If the roll fails, the character will fall unconscious into a forced sleep.
In effect this means sleep is probably a lesser worry. But if you're all by yourself, sleeping means you're entirely unprotected and even the best warrior cannot defend instantly if someone were to attack him in his sleep.
A main aspect of this RP's simulation part is, of course, a characters 'health'. Health in this case refers to the characters overall healthyness, blood pressure, absence of illness, etc. As well, running out of health is a good way to have your character leave the RP permanently by means of death (though he might make a comeback as the enemy of the next night, who knows...).
A character's overall healthyness is measured in an abstract value labelled 'health' or 'healthpoints'. A character's amount of health is determined by a combination of various attributes:
Code:
Highest Physical attribute + highest Mental attribute + highest Spiritual attribute + 2 * ENDurance + WILpowerIf a character's health drops to 0, he's dead. Albeit there may be occasions where a character can be saved 'after death' if sufficient medical treatment and reanimation is performed right after his death.
Additionally, if a character's health drops to or below a certain value, he will fall unconscious. This value is determined by
Code:
Max Health * 0.1 * (6-WIL)Health can be lost in various ways as 'damage' is taking from various sources. And usually, reversing those sources as well means curing the damage and restoring the health.
The most trivial way to lose health are probably wounds. If a character is wounded in an accident, trap, fall, fight or whatever else, the severity of the wound defines the amount of health lost. A bruise would do nothing at all, a cut may deduce one health, whilst taking a sword to your chest could cost you 5 health or upwards. In general, the amount of health lost remains lost for as long as the wound remains. The severity of a wound does decrease over time, as the body heals up. Without any treatment, a wound will lose one point of severity per 7 days. This assumes that the wound doesn't infect and worsenes, though. Applying a basic form of bandaid, maybe a piece of cloth, and trying to rest the injured body part can reduce the time down to 5 days. Applying medicaments and treating a wound with sufficient medical skill will reduce the time to 3 days per point. A skillied doctor could even cauterize or stitch the wound. Stitched wounds of smaller severity (f.e. minor cuts) will 'heal' in a single day, but leave a 'stitched wound' for two more, which does not directly impede health anymore, but can instantly turn into a wound again if the same part of the body is injured by a different wound.
Of course this sounds much simpler then it is. Oh yeah, that sword-to-the-chest will just heal after 35 days, it's just a fleshwound. Of course wounds of a larger severity (namely anything past 1) will cause additional loss of blood. Loss of blood is a very nasty kind of damage, as it takes very long to recover from. Any time a wound is created, there is a chance a character will instantly take 'bloodloss damage' depending on the severity of the wound. Taking our example case, the sword-to-the-chest could probably cause 5 points of wound damage and additional 3 points of bloodloss damage, outright killing a weak character. Because, you know, taking a sword to the chest IS usually quite lethal.
Additionally, open wounds will proceed to lose blood until taken care of or crusted by themselves. The higher the wound severity, the faster you take bloodloss damage. For example a severity 5 wound would add 1 bloodloss damage for every minute (being a surefire way to kill yourself if ignored), whilst a severity 1 wound may take an entire hour for 1 bloodloss... and would close itself after said hour, creating a total damage of 2 even when left completely untreated.
On the bright side, blood is continously produced and restored by a human body. If the character in question is sufficiently nourished (and only then), he can regain one point of bloodloss damage per 7 days. Be advised that this means 3 wounds of severity 1 each will take 7 days to heal up parallelly... but 3 points of bloodloss take 3*7=21 days, as blood is only regenerated continously. The blood regeneration can be sped up to 1 point per 5 days if the patient either eats double rations or 'high quality' meals.
And of course, one could rapidly regenerate bloodloss by means of bloodbags and other medical supplys or even blood transfusion from player to player...
Of course you can not only receive outwards wounds, but as well broken bones or fractures. Originating from a massive application of remote force, a character can suffer internal damage to the degree where his bones are hit. Bone damage can be less severe (light crack) or very severe (triple fractured & broken) or even lethal (broken neck, nuff said). Bone damage generally heals up fast, but often requires the body part to be wrapped in splinters or at least bandaged and even more important, kept still. You should assume about 21 days per severity point of a 'bone wound'. And even after healing, the bone may remains 'cracked' for longer and can easyly cause new trouble, similar to a stitched wound.
Internal Organ damage is probably the worst kind of damage you can receive. Either caused by massive impacts or a deep cut, organ damage will, at the very least, cause a number of attribute reductions for a medium duration. In worst case, you could receive a 'bleeding' wound that will cause bloodluss just like an outward wound... with the slight difference you just can't bandage an interior wound. Without a very durable body or a medic nearby, you can assume a organ wound to be lethal. Even more so if the organ in question is either lung, brain or heart, in which case the wound may turn into an instant fatality.
Another major damage source would be Illness, infections and hungre/starvation. All these sources are named here, because they are 'invisible' (or barely visible) and less direct means. As well, they are the most diverse ones. An illness may range from a cold (-1 health for 2 days) to a flu (-2 health for a week) to something like Malaria (-x health for x days). Severity, sideeffects, duration and treatment are all up to the gamemaste to decide. But generally common sense dicatates that you won't get ill if you don't get an illness reason to do so. And yes, swimming nakes at winter does classify as reason.
Infections are a more common complication and can occur if wounds are not properly treated. Desinfecting wounds and bandaging them is a sure way to avoid infections. But just having a high END or avoiding large wounds can be sufficient as well. Infected wounds generally double their severity for the duration of the infection (including additional health loss) and do not proceed to heal until the infection itself has healed (or was shut down with medicaments). Side-effects of infections may be additional illnesses (for example a chest wound could trigger a lung infection).
Hungre and Starvation also belong into this section, as they both deal damage to a character's halth without actually being an outward wound. Generally both these damage sources heal up in the same speed as they occured in, assuming the character fixes his deficit.
Lastly, there is a special type of damage called 'Concussion'. If a character is knocked out with a large shovel to the back of his head, this definitely turns him unconscious, but his health may won't actually suffer (as much). Concussion damage is special, as it is accumulated similar to normal wounds and counts in for the calculation as to whether a character falls unconscious. Assuming our standard character with his 6 health and 50% limit, a hit dealing 3 points of concussion damage would knock him out. Concussion damage quickly fades over time, restoring 1 point of 'concussione'd health' per 1 hour whilst unconscious and triple that amount if the character is back awake and resting. This means our example guy would have been knocked out for a flat hour, but be fully recovered in two again. Unless the shoveler were to do something else to him whilst he was down.
Concussion damage can come in varying strengths and sources. Additionally, Concussion damage can usually be reduced or even nullified by WIL and END rolls, at decision of the game master.
Inventory Management (Click to View)
Supply System:
Of course it's barely possible to play a RP without a proper inventory system. For this ruleset, a very generalized and simplified inventory is used, which aids in reducing the amount of unnecessaery clutter.
Instead of listing every sheet of paper, every pin and every pen your character picks up, a characters inventory of 'minor' objects is summarized in a value called 'Supplies' or 'Supply Points'. Supply points are gathered/generated by scavenging (roaming areas and picking up useful stuff). If the characters needs a common item like a pen and a sheet of paper, he requests it by the gamemaster and, when permitted, his character will 'just' pull the required items out of his pile of supplies (which of course reduces the amount of supply points the character possesses).
With this method, one can severely cut down the amount of information necessary for a character's inventory, as there is no need to write down those 'generic items'.
Of course 'extravagant', unique, special or rare items are excluded from this: Usually weapons and special tools, as well as food and water are noted down in detail for the characters (albeit food and water both get generalized into individual rations). These objects can not be generated from supply points, but need to be found or searched for. Depending on the item it may or may not be easy to find. For example finding a knife in a residental kitchen shouldn't pose an issue, whilst finding a shotgun in a elementary school should be reasonably difficult.
Inventory Limits:
A characters inventory is limited by two factors: Weight and Space.
For larger items, f.e. weapons or backpacks, weight is the main factor. For smaller objects like supplies or food, it's space.
In this simplified system, an 'uncommon item' takes up no space, but a definied amount of weight, usually 1 point. The amount of weight a character can carry is defined by STR+END (so, 2 for a basic character).
Space-wise, the character can additionally carry 5 units of 'common goods'. 1 ration of food equals 1 unit of space, as does 1 ration of water. For supplies, they take 1 point of space for each 10 supply points (rounded up).
This limits are only meant as a measure for 'constant travel/movement'. Of course a character can pick up that bag of bricks and carry it over to that wall to climb over it, even though he is already fully packed with supplies.
The most basic way of increasing one's storage capacity is finding a backpack. Backpacks count as uncommin items and will require weight points, but provide additional space for common goods. The amount of space and consumed weight for each backpack can be different, usually depending on the size and quality of the backpack. But trivially, you can imagine that larger backpacks take more weight (if filled) and can contain more supplies.
Alternatively, a player could create a small storage or stockpile of supplies at any given location. Usually any room will be able to store far more then any player could carry. Of course this means that the character won't have access to his supplies when not in that room and additional it would be prone to being stolen from.
Money:
In this RP ruleset, there is no money. Money is a financial system that bases upon a country's stability. In an apocalyptic scenario with an utter lack of a government, money is not worth anything.
On the other hand, characters could attempt to build up a trading economy by means of supply points, trading supplies for rations, items, services and so on...
Of course it's barely possible to play a RP without a proper inventory system. For this ruleset, a very generalized and simplified inventory is used, which aids in reducing the amount of unnecessaery clutter.
Instead of listing every sheet of paper, every pin and every pen your character picks up, a characters inventory of 'minor' objects is summarized in a value called 'Supplies' or 'Supply Points'. Supply points are gathered/generated by scavenging (roaming areas and picking up useful stuff). If the characters needs a common item like a pen and a sheet of paper, he requests it by the gamemaster and, when permitted, his character will 'just' pull the required items out of his pile of supplies (which of course reduces the amount of supply points the character possesses).
With this method, one can severely cut down the amount of information necessary for a character's inventory, as there is no need to write down those 'generic items'.
Of course 'extravagant', unique, special or rare items are excluded from this: Usually weapons and special tools, as well as food and water are noted down in detail for the characters (albeit food and water both get generalized into individual rations). These objects can not be generated from supply points, but need to be found or searched for. Depending on the item it may or may not be easy to find. For example finding a knife in a residental kitchen shouldn't pose an issue, whilst finding a shotgun in a elementary school should be reasonably difficult.
Inventory Limits:
A characters inventory is limited by two factors: Weight and Space.
For larger items, f.e. weapons or backpacks, weight is the main factor. For smaller objects like supplies or food, it's space.
In this simplified system, an 'uncommon item' takes up no space, but a definied amount of weight, usually 1 point. The amount of weight a character can carry is defined by STR+END (so, 2 for a basic character).
Space-wise, the character can additionally carry 5 units of 'common goods'. 1 ration of food equals 1 unit of space, as does 1 ration of water. For supplies, they take 1 point of space for each 10 supply points (rounded up).
This limits are only meant as a measure for 'constant travel/movement'. Of course a character can pick up that bag of bricks and carry it over to that wall to climb over it, even though he is already fully packed with supplies.
The most basic way of increasing one's storage capacity is finding a backpack. Backpacks count as uncommin items and will require weight points, but provide additional space for common goods. The amount of space and consumed weight for each backpack can be different, usually depending on the size and quality of the backpack. But trivially, you can imagine that larger backpacks take more weight (if filled) and can contain more supplies.
Alternatively, a player could create a small storage or stockpile of supplies at any given location. Usually any room will be able to store far more then any player could carry. Of course this means that the character won't have access to his supplies when not in that room and additional it would be prone to being stolen from.
Money:
In this RP ruleset, there is no money. Money is a financial system that bases upon a country's stability. In an apocalyptic scenario with an utter lack of a government, money is not worth anything.
On the other hand, characters could attempt to build up a trading economy by means of supply points, trading supplies for rations, items, services and so on...
Combat Calculations (Click to View)
As with the action rolls, combat rolls are intended to be simple and quick to perform.
Combat is initiated whenever two hostile persons/groups encounter. Combat is calculated in rounds. In each round, every character in combat might take an action, with the most common action being an attack against a specified target.
The order in which the characters take action is only limited by the group they belong to: if group A and B collide, one of them takes the initiative. F.e. group A. In this case all members of A will perform their action. Only after that, it's B's turn and all members of group B will take one action.
Which group starts is determined in the beginning of the fight: If the situation dictates, one group can trivially be given the first turn, f.e. if one group ambushes the other. If both groups start on even ground, every character rolls d20's equal to his TUI value. The highest thrown number for each character is taken and added to his group's initiative value. The group with the higher value begins (this means that outnumbering the enemy is a good way to gain the initiative).
Melee/CQC:
The most basic form of combat is close-quarters-combat (CQC) either done with bare hands or a(n improvised) weapon.
In a CQC action, the attacker rolls in an attempt to hit the target, whilst the target rolls in an attempt to either dodge or parry the incoming strike.
For this, the attacked rolls with a base difficulty of 5 on DEX+Combatskill, where combatskill relates to the kind of weapon used, f.e. 'Blunt Weapons' for using a club or 'Hand-To-Hand' for fighting unarmed. If the attacker uses a weapon he has no skill for, he incurs no special penality (but doesn't get any dice past his DEX one). The weapon itself may alter the difficulty value. F.e. an improvised weapon (brick, filecase, toothbrush) could incur penalitys (increasing the difficulty).
If the roll failed (0S), then the strike missed and the attacker's turn is over. If the attack didn't miss, the target can either attempt to parry or dodge. Parrying can only be used when the target can realistically intercept the attack. F.e. fists could easyly parry fists, but parrying a claymore with a toothbrush would be impossible. Parrys are rolled against the same 5-point difficulty (modified by penalities if the defense weapon isnt suited to parry the attacker) on TUI+Combatskill.
An alternative to parrying is evading. Evading is usually a good way to avoid being hit, regardless of the weapon used. But on the downside, in some situations a character cannot evade. F.e. whilst laying on the ground, in enclosed space or whilst otherwise mobility-impeded. Evasion rolls are rolled against a base difficulty of 10 on DEX+TUI.
If the defender rolled equal or more S then the attacker on his attack roll, the attack was parried/dodged and no damage is dealt.
In any other case, the difference between the attacker's S and the defender's S is the 'damage capacity' of the strike, aka the potential damage the strike can cause. The actual damage caused depends on the weapon used and the attacker's STR value. Weapons usually come with a base damage value (often it's 1), a damage type (f.e. blunt or cutting) and a strength difficulty. The attacker now rolls with the labelled strength difficulty on his STR, each success counts as one point of bonus damage. The total damage, however, cannot surpass the damage capcity of the strike.
This means, in total, that a semi-successful parry or evade (some success, but enough to entirely block the attack) will still reduce the damage taken.
In the last step, a d6 (6-sided dice) is rolled to determine the zone the attack hit (1 = head, 2 = left arm, 3 = chest/pelvis, 4 = right arm, 5 = left leg, 6 = rigth leg) and eventual armor is applied. Wearing a kevlar vest, f.e., could reduce any cutting (or bullet) damage taken to the chest by 1, which means that any 1-damage attack would be rendered useless.
The hitzone is important in case a non-trivial wound (severity > 1) was dealt, which will most likely infringe the character's usage of said body part. For example a severity 2 cut to a leg would cause the character to limb, reducing his speed and reducing his DEX. A wound to his right arm could incur penalitys for all further attacks with his right hand.
Lastly, the head is a critical zone where all damage dealt will be increased by 50% (rounded down) and additionally deal concussion damage equal to the previous damage. (F.e. 1 health damage to the head would turn into 1 health damage and 1 concussion damage).
Ranged Combat:
Ranged combat is handled similary to melee combat and contains everything from throwing objects to firing guns or even bows.
The attacker rolls on DEX+skill against a difficulty of 5+penalitys. Opposed to melee combat though, ranged combat receives a lot of penalitys depending on distance to and size of the target. Hitting somebody in two meter distance may be easy, but hitting the same target across 50 meters with a rock might incur a 10 point penality. These penalitys of course depend on the weapon used. F.e. a thrown rock receives much harsher range penalitys then a military-grade sniper rifle.
In any case, if the shot or throw did not miss, the defender now has a chance to dodge the projectile, assuming he saw the source of it (one cannot dodge an incoming baseball that had been thrown from behind). Parrying a projectile is usually only permitted with specific defensive tools and only heavyly penalyzed. F.e. one could indeed try 'parrying' a thrown rock with raised arms, but parrying a bullet with anything but a reinforced riot shield wouldn't be possible at all (and even then it would carry a heavy penality, did you ever try blocking a bullet?). Same applies to evading, the faster the projectile, the higher the penality added to evading.
In both cases, however, defending against a ranged attack is an all-or-nothing gamble: Either you score equal/more S then the attacker or you don't.
The damage for firearms, bows and suchlike is usually a fix value. Throwing weapons can be influenced by strength though, depending on the weapon in question.
Called Shots/Strikes and Advanced Techniques:
As a character's experience with a specific weapon type increases, so do his options for attacking. For each level of a learned combatskill, a character receives a slight bonus or option when fighting with the according weapon type.
At level 1, the character receives the ability of 'calling shots/strikes'. Called attacks aim directly at a specific body part of the enemy (f.e. the head) and will (if they hit properly) skip the hitzone calculation and just hit the 'called' body part. However, performing a called shot incurs a penality on the attack rolls, the severity of the penality depending on the zone (Examples for a human body: +10 for head, +5 for a specific arm/leg, +3 for chest).
At a skill level of 2, the character receives the ability to perform 'trick attacks'. Trick attacks aim to confuse the opponent and have him parry or evade into the wrong directions, f.e. by feinting a strike or by delaying a throw or shot. Trick attacks incur a penality on the attack roll and the same penality to the defense rolls of the target. The penality can be set by the attacker (aka, he can determine how tricky he wants to pull his stunt). The more risky the strike, the harder it will be blocked or evaded.
A skill level of 5 means the characte thoroughly mastered the weaponry in question and utilize it for feats others couldn't imagine, severly reducing all penalitys for 'near impossible' tasks. For example a hand-to-hand 5 specialist would receive no penalitys for blocking incoming melee attacks, regardless of the weapon (parrying swords with his mere hands) or even have a realistic chance at catching a bullet out of thin air (still a +10 penality).
Further 'advanced techniques' as dual wielding or anything else one can come up with should be best discussed with the game master.
Generalized weapon/damage types:
This is a generalized and basic list of the more common weapon types. It serves as a rough guide and individual weapons may still differ.
Unarmed Combat - Fighting without any weapon deals modest concussion damage at best. Fists deal 1 concussion damage as base and add 1 more concussion damage for each success in a STR roll against 16. Every fourth point of concussion damage is converted into a real 'blunt' health damage.
Blunt Weapons - Blunt weapons can cause actual damage, but are as well useful for knocking out enemies. Blunt weapons deal a base damage of 1 blunt, with additional damage for STR rolls against 10. STR-based bonus damage is equally spread amongst blunt and concussion damage, starting with concussion damage. (0S = 1blunt, 1S = 1blunt+1con, 2blunt+1con, 2blunt+2con...)
Cuttin Weapons - Cutting weapons deal severe direct damage and always cause wounds when hitting. Cutting weapons can have varying base damages, but often it is 1 cutting damage. STR rolls add more cutting damage, but are usually of a mugh higher difficulty, as base difficulty one can assume 18. All damage by cutting weapons is true cutting damage.
Bullet/Arrow/Projectiles
(Note; thrown projectiles like knifes or rocks count for blunt or cutting weapons in regards to damage)
Bullets and arrows tend to do fix amount of 'piercing' damage. They come with moderate or even high base damages, but do not profit from strength (duh!). Wounds created by bullets and arrows have the added malicious effect of not healing properly until the projectile has been removed (and the removal from unschooled personal / failed rolls can cause additional bloodloss damage).
Combat is initiated whenever two hostile persons/groups encounter. Combat is calculated in rounds. In each round, every character in combat might take an action, with the most common action being an attack against a specified target.
The order in which the characters take action is only limited by the group they belong to: if group A and B collide, one of them takes the initiative. F.e. group A. In this case all members of A will perform their action. Only after that, it's B's turn and all members of group B will take one action.
Which group starts is determined in the beginning of the fight: If the situation dictates, one group can trivially be given the first turn, f.e. if one group ambushes the other. If both groups start on even ground, every character rolls d20's equal to his TUI value. The highest thrown number for each character is taken and added to his group's initiative value. The group with the higher value begins (this means that outnumbering the enemy is a good way to gain the initiative).
Melee/CQC:
The most basic form of combat is close-quarters-combat (CQC) either done with bare hands or a(n improvised) weapon.
In a CQC action, the attacker rolls in an attempt to hit the target, whilst the target rolls in an attempt to either dodge or parry the incoming strike.
For this, the attacked rolls with a base difficulty of 5 on DEX+Combatskill, where combatskill relates to the kind of weapon used, f.e. 'Blunt Weapons' for using a club or 'Hand-To-Hand' for fighting unarmed. If the attacker uses a weapon he has no skill for, he incurs no special penality (but doesn't get any dice past his DEX one). The weapon itself may alter the difficulty value. F.e. an improvised weapon (brick, filecase, toothbrush) could incur penalitys (increasing the difficulty).
If the roll failed (0S), then the strike missed and the attacker's turn is over. If the attack didn't miss, the target can either attempt to parry or dodge. Parrying can only be used when the target can realistically intercept the attack. F.e. fists could easyly parry fists, but parrying a claymore with a toothbrush would be impossible. Parrys are rolled against the same 5-point difficulty (modified by penalities if the defense weapon isnt suited to parry the attacker) on TUI+Combatskill.
An alternative to parrying is evading. Evading is usually a good way to avoid being hit, regardless of the weapon used. But on the downside, in some situations a character cannot evade. F.e. whilst laying on the ground, in enclosed space or whilst otherwise mobility-impeded. Evasion rolls are rolled against a base difficulty of 10 on DEX+TUI.
If the defender rolled equal or more S then the attacker on his attack roll, the attack was parried/dodged and no damage is dealt.
In any other case, the difference between the attacker's S and the defender's S is the 'damage capacity' of the strike, aka the potential damage the strike can cause. The actual damage caused depends on the weapon used and the attacker's STR value. Weapons usually come with a base damage value (often it's 1), a damage type (f.e. blunt or cutting) and a strength difficulty. The attacker now rolls with the labelled strength difficulty on his STR, each success counts as one point of bonus damage. The total damage, however, cannot surpass the damage capcity of the strike.
This means, in total, that a semi-successful parry or evade (some success, but enough to entirely block the attack) will still reduce the damage taken.
In the last step, a d6 (6-sided dice) is rolled to determine the zone the attack hit (1 = head, 2 = left arm, 3 = chest/pelvis, 4 = right arm, 5 = left leg, 6 = rigth leg) and eventual armor is applied. Wearing a kevlar vest, f.e., could reduce any cutting (or bullet) damage taken to the chest by 1, which means that any 1-damage attack would be rendered useless.
The hitzone is important in case a non-trivial wound (severity > 1) was dealt, which will most likely infringe the character's usage of said body part. For example a severity 2 cut to a leg would cause the character to limb, reducing his speed and reducing his DEX. A wound to his right arm could incur penalitys for all further attacks with his right hand.
Lastly, the head is a critical zone where all damage dealt will be increased by 50% (rounded down) and additionally deal concussion damage equal to the previous damage. (F.e. 1 health damage to the head would turn into 1 health damage and 1 concussion damage).
Example calculation (Click to View)
In this example, two 'standard' (all attributes 1) characters fight each other. Guy A fights with a short knife, but without any applyable skill. Guy B fights with his bare fists, but has a 'hand-to-hand' combat skill of 2. Both characters engage facing each other, with no special ambush situation.
Initiative calculation:
Both characters have a TUI of 1 and accordingly roll one dice.
A rolls 18, B rolls 6. A starts.
A's attack:
A has 1 DEX and no combat skill for the knife he uses.
He rolls an 8, which means he scored 1S.
B tries to dodge the attack (DEX+TUI) and rolls 4, 11. He has 1S as well, which means he successfully dodged the strike.
B's attack:
B has 1 DEX, but 2 points in his combat skill. He rolls three dice.
He rolls 2, 17, 8, for a total of 2S.
B tries to parry. Parrying a fist with a knife isn't exactly a great move (in best case you would cut the fist, but not exactly deflect it), which gives him a +3 penality on his parry.
With his TUI+skill of 1, he can only roll one dice, scoring a 7, just below the 8 he would have needed (5 base + 3 penality = 8 difficulty).
With 2S vs 0S, the attack fully hits. Let's assume B's fists deal a base damage of 1 concussion + 1 concussion per successfull STR throw against a difficulty of 12. B now rolls on his STR, resulting in a 19. This means the strike will deal a total of 2 concussion damage.
The hitzone roll with the d6 results in a 1: A blow to the head!
Since A's head is not armored in any way, this means A takes a total damage of 2+(2*0.5)+2=5 concussion damage. With his base health of 6 this means he now has 1 virtual health (virtual = counting for unconsciousness). Instant Knock-out!
Initiative calculation:
Both characters have a TUI of 1 and accordingly roll one dice.
A rolls 18, B rolls 6. A starts.
A's attack:
A has 1 DEX and no combat skill for the knife he uses.
He rolls an 8, which means he scored 1S.
B tries to dodge the attack (DEX+TUI) and rolls 4, 11. He has 1S as well, which means he successfully dodged the strike.
B's attack:
B has 1 DEX, but 2 points in his combat skill. He rolls three dice.
He rolls 2, 17, 8, for a total of 2S.
B tries to parry. Parrying a fist with a knife isn't exactly a great move (in best case you would cut the fist, but not exactly deflect it), which gives him a +3 penality on his parry.
With his TUI+skill of 1, he can only roll one dice, scoring a 7, just below the 8 he would have needed (5 base + 3 penality = 8 difficulty).
With 2S vs 0S, the attack fully hits. Let's assume B's fists deal a base damage of 1 concussion + 1 concussion per successfull STR throw against a difficulty of 12. B now rolls on his STR, resulting in a 19. This means the strike will deal a total of 2 concussion damage.
The hitzone roll with the d6 results in a 1: A blow to the head!
Since A's head is not armored in any way, this means A takes a total damage of 2+(2*0.5)+2=5 concussion damage. With his base health of 6 this means he now has 1 virtual health (virtual = counting for unconsciousness). Instant Knock-out!
Ranged Combat:
Ranged combat is handled similary to melee combat and contains everything from throwing objects to firing guns or even bows.
The attacker rolls on DEX+skill against a difficulty of 5+penalitys. Opposed to melee combat though, ranged combat receives a lot of penalitys depending on distance to and size of the target. Hitting somebody in two meter distance may be easy, but hitting the same target across 50 meters with a rock might incur a 10 point penality. These penalitys of course depend on the weapon used. F.e. a thrown rock receives much harsher range penalitys then a military-grade sniper rifle.
In any case, if the shot or throw did not miss, the defender now has a chance to dodge the projectile, assuming he saw the source of it (one cannot dodge an incoming baseball that had been thrown from behind). Parrying a projectile is usually only permitted with specific defensive tools and only heavyly penalyzed. F.e. one could indeed try 'parrying' a thrown rock with raised arms, but parrying a bullet with anything but a reinforced riot shield wouldn't be possible at all (and even then it would carry a heavy penality, did you ever try blocking a bullet?). Same applies to evading, the faster the projectile, the higher the penality added to evading.
In both cases, however, defending against a ranged attack is an all-or-nothing gamble: Either you score equal/more S then the attacker or you don't.
The damage for firearms, bows and suchlike is usually a fix value. Throwing weapons can be influenced by strength though, depending on the weapon in question.
Called Shots/Strikes and Advanced Techniques:
As a character's experience with a specific weapon type increases, so do his options for attacking. For each level of a learned combatskill, a character receives a slight bonus or option when fighting with the according weapon type.
At level 1, the character receives the ability of 'calling shots/strikes'. Called attacks aim directly at a specific body part of the enemy (f.e. the head) and will (if they hit properly) skip the hitzone calculation and just hit the 'called' body part. However, performing a called shot incurs a penality on the attack rolls, the severity of the penality depending on the zone (Examples for a human body: +10 for head, +5 for a specific arm/leg, +3 for chest).
At a skill level of 2, the character receives the ability to perform 'trick attacks'. Trick attacks aim to confuse the opponent and have him parry or evade into the wrong directions, f.e. by feinting a strike or by delaying a throw or shot. Trick attacks incur a penality on the attack roll and the same penality to the defense rolls of the target. The penality can be set by the attacker (aka, he can determine how tricky he wants to pull his stunt). The more risky the strike, the harder it will be blocked or evaded.
A skill level of 5 means the characte thoroughly mastered the weaponry in question and utilize it for feats others couldn't imagine, severly reducing all penalitys for 'near impossible' tasks. For example a hand-to-hand 5 specialist would receive no penalitys for blocking incoming melee attacks, regardless of the weapon (parrying swords with his mere hands) or even have a realistic chance at catching a bullet out of thin air (still a +10 penality).
Further 'advanced techniques' as dual wielding or anything else one can come up with should be best discussed with the game master.
Generalized weapon/damage types:
This is a generalized and basic list of the more common weapon types. It serves as a rough guide and individual weapons may still differ.
Unarmed Combat - Fighting without any weapon deals modest concussion damage at best. Fists deal 1 concussion damage as base and add 1 more concussion damage for each success in a STR roll against 16. Every fourth point of concussion damage is converted into a real 'blunt' health damage.
Blunt Weapons - Blunt weapons can cause actual damage, but are as well useful for knocking out enemies. Blunt weapons deal a base damage of 1 blunt, with additional damage for STR rolls against 10. STR-based bonus damage is equally spread amongst blunt and concussion damage, starting with concussion damage. (0S = 1blunt, 1S = 1blunt+1con, 2blunt+1con, 2blunt+2con...)
Cuttin Weapons - Cutting weapons deal severe direct damage and always cause wounds when hitting. Cutting weapons can have varying base damages, but often it is 1 cutting damage. STR rolls add more cutting damage, but are usually of a mugh higher difficulty, as base difficulty one can assume 18. All damage by cutting weapons is true cutting damage.
Bullet/Arrow/Projectiles
(Note; thrown projectiles like knifes or rocks count for blunt or cutting weapons in regards to damage)
Bullets and arrows tend to do fix amount of 'piercing' damage. They come with moderate or even high base damages, but do not profit from strength (duh!). Wounds created by bullets and arrows have the added malicious effect of not healing properly until the projectile has been removed (and the removal from unschooled personal / failed rolls can cause additional bloodloss damage).
I'm currently still writing on the rulebook (or rather, writing out the clear definitions), but I think I should probably already post the threat to draw some attention to it.
Since the character creation is already done, you're free to apply (PM!) with your characters. As mentioned, you can run around alone or form up in groups, pick up wounded strangers or leave your companions behind, there is no finalized 'group', 'adventure' or 'player limit'.
The background informations to the setting are intentionally kept low, as it's my intention for you/the players/the readers to find out those pieces of informations along the RP itself. You merely need to know that the basic start location will be a large-ish city in a generalized country without name in the current timeline in a realistic setting. Take New York, Berlin or Paris as example if you want to. I will create a sketch map when I'm done with the rules, but that's all you get. So, no mages, steampunk, Firzen's and mutant-robo-ninja characters for now, please :P
(Albeit I wouldn't actually mind if people made the LF2 chars into 'realistic' characters for the RP. Lawer Woody FTW.)
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