I’ve started up a campaign wiki and game log over at Obsidian Portal. There I’m keeping records of various house rules and setting details, as well as a running tracker of who has died so far, when, and how.

Last night had one of my favorite quotes of the campaign so far: “Randy, roll the dice to see if you beat your wife.” Yeah, this game is moving along very nicely.

Included are the following five sets of House Rules:

• Relationships add skill-modifying percentages to your character to use when relying on, helping, or working against other characters in your team.
• Infection is a mechanic for tracking the spread of the zombie infection after you are exposed to it. It is implemented like a new Madness Meter, with some unique modifications.
• Hordes are my attempt to transform the core Unknown Armies Riot mechanics into an effective representation of the infamous Zombie Horde.
• Fortification rules allow the survivors to work together to locate, acquire, and enhance hideouts and safehouses.
• Scarcities are a way to implement the danger of dwindling necessities, inspired by the core Madness Meter mechanics.

Read on for the details!

Relationships

At creation you get Soul/2 (up) in free skill points just for the purpose of developing relationships with other players. You create and name these like any normal skill: “I think Marsha is fucking hot and I want to do her 5%,” and “Jim’s a loudmouth asshole 8 %.” These are rarely (never?) rolled on their own. You are encouraged to leave some points unassigned, for later use when new players join, or when opinions change.

These can be used by you are any time when you are either counting on or working against another character. If you like Marsha, and she’s watching your back, add your relationship to your skill. If you hate Jim and you’re setting him up for a fall, add your relationship with him to your skill.

These can rise and fall as you see fit. If you think your relationship with someone is suffering, discard some points from it and return them to the pool. Add more points to the pool with XP: 1 XP for two relationship pool points.

It’s loose and open, but you’re not likely to live long enough to be able to exploit it.

Infection

This rule introduces a unique new madness meter, Infection, that only the GM knows about. This meter does not contain Hardened notches at all, only Failed. If a character interacts with a zombie, their player must roll vs Body, using the following modifiers:

• +40% It slobbered on your clothes
• +20% Its head exploded near you
• +/- 0% It scratched you
• -10% It slobbered in your mouth
• -20% You kissed it
• -30% It bit you
• -40% You fucked it
• -60% You ate its flesh

Failure gets you a Failed notch. Matched failure gets you two failed notches. Critical failure gets you four failed notches. At a crucial point in every scene, the GM can force you to make a Body roll, -10% per Failed notch you already have. If you fail, you gain another notch.

If you reach five notches, you die. Make an unmodified Soul roll. If failed, you rise in the near future, when dramatically appropriate. If successful, you come back right fucking now.

Zombie Hordes

These rules adapt the existing Riot mechanics to represent the “sleeping tiger” that is the Zombie Horde.

The Horde Roll: If there are a hundred zombies in the surrounding quarter-mile and a character fires a gun, there is a flat 50% chance of a Horde. Roll dice:

• 1-25: Status quo is maintained as none of the zombies get a bead on the sound, or they are otherwise occupied.
• 26-50: d10 zombies converge on the location of the gunshot, arriving in anywhere from a few seconds to at most a couple of minutes.
• 51+: Congrats, mate. You’ve started a zombie horde.

Modifiers: The basic roll assumes a good number of zombies in the nearby area and a single loud noise to draw them in. There are many factors to consider, but here are a few possibilities:

• A quieter noise, like an axe splitting a skull, will modify the roll by -10 or -20
• Rural countryside is more sparse, so modify by -20 to -30
• Small town areas have more spread-out population, -10
• Big City areas are more dense, +30
• Continuous loud noise, +10 to +30
• One of you is freshly wounded and bleeding, +30
• Lots of zombies: +10 for every additional twenty.

The final roll result is the Horde Rating.

Horde Duration: Unlike normal UA Riots, Hordes do not dwindle and just go away on their own. As long as there is the presence of the living nearby, they will relentlessly attack and try to feast. In fact, the horde will only grow in size. Every ten minutes, roll the dice. If you roll greater than 1/2 the current HR, the Horde remains but doesn’t grow. Otherwise, add the sum of the HR to itself (EX: 71 HR: 7+1=8).

Horde Damage: Any living creature caught inside the hungry horde takes damage equal to the Horde rating every ten minutes. Successful Dodge can half this damage. Whatever damage you take, if you’re still alive, check the sum of that damage (EX: 71 damage: 7+1=8). If that sum is 10 or over, you also got bitten; otherwise, it’s just scratches. In either case, remember the Infection rules.

Surviving the Horde: The only way to survive a Horde is to kill it in its entirety, or leave the area. As you increase the size of the Horde, your chances of either of these increases exponentially in difficulty.

Weakening the Horde: For every 2 zombies eliminated, reduce the Horde Rating by 1. I recommend using explosives and powerful tactical weapons. If explosions are used, however, the Horde automatically succeeds its very next size check, increasing in size by the sum of the new roll regardless of the roll.

Hordes vs Fortification: If the survivors have established a fortification compare the Horde Rating to the Fortification. If less than or equal to, the Fortification holds. If HR is greater than the fortification, reduce the Fortification rating by the HR sum (EX: 71 HR: 7+1=8) every ten minutes. Whenever the HR is more than twice the Fortification, it will fail some time in the span of the next ten minutes.

However, as long as the Fortification holds, the survivors inside take no damage from the Horde.

Fortifications

With proper time in advance, you can try to gather supplies in your environs to fortify and barricade a safehouse or other defensible position. These are good for providing enhanced defense against zombie Hordes, as well as having a safe(r) place to sleep at night instead of alone in the wild world outside. Sometimes, just having a bed and a roof is more important and comforting than a loaded gun.

Setting up a new fortification: When searching for a new defensible position, the player makes a significant skill roll, with modifiers from the GM based on location, weather, environment, etc (some places and times will be better than others). If successful, the result is the [I]best[I] position for fortification in the vicinity (no do-overs or try agains). This result sets the base Fortification rating for the new Hideout. This can be modified with additional effort.

The tens digit of the roll allows them to set a number of Key Defenses within the place. If you got a weak success, you also have to name a number of Key Weaknesses equal to 1/2 that (round up).

Examples:

• Collapsable staircase
• Sewer access
• Barred windows
• Gated entryway
• Rooftop access
• Second story
• Wrought iron fence

Setting up defenses like these are key to narrative arrangement of scenes within the hideout, including potential horde attacks.

OSHes: Additionally, some or all of these can instead be set aside as “OSHes” (Oh Shit! Handles). An OSH isn’t defined at first, just kept around as a last-ditch resource in a hideout in case of attack. During a Horde attack or other possible invasion (raiders, single encounter shamblers, wild dogs, etc) an OSH can be sacrificed for a one-time get-away, preventing all damage from one source at one moment in time. For example, you could use one to prevent taking 71 damage when the Horde gets you, saying you knocked over a large cupboard and stalled them long enough for you to make it upstairs.

Enhancing the Fortification: By using relevant skills and resources, you can make rolls over time to enhance your Fortification by small amounts. The basic check is a significant roll, and assumes you spend an entire day of work scavenging, repairing, constructing, and toiling. Strong Success adds the roll sum to the Fortification rating. Weak success adds only the tens digit. Matched success is like strong, and also adds a Key Defense or an OSH. Matched Failure reduces the Fortification by the sum, and adds a Key Weakness. Multiple survivors can do this independently, or one player can make the roll and factor in Relationships for all those working under her leadership.

Utilizing the Fortification: The Fortification rating provides solid defense against intrusion from both the undead and any other force of active antagonism in the game. It’s uses are pretty varied, as if it were just another skill. It could be used as a Dodge skill against applicable attacks. It can make breaking and entering more difficult for intelligent enemies (by acting as a threshold for related entry skills). It actively works with the Horde rules to provide a limited (and sometimes very reliable) defense against the masses of the living dead.

Scarcities

When the world falls to the zombies, the things we need most in order to weather them out and beat them back will be in the most demand, and thus the hardest to come by. Those who wish to survive and stay fit should work hard to keep their supplies in good stock.

The GM will secretly keep track of four major Scarcities: Nourishment, Ammunition, Gasoline, Medicine. Like Madness Meters, these are ranked from Zero (Awesome) to Five (you’re fucked). These Scarcities apply to the entire group of Survivors, and are not managed individually.

• 0: With no dots, you’re full up. You have everything you need in this scarcity: pantries overflowing with canned foods, a VW microbus full of ammunition, a fully-loaded ambulance worth of medical supplies, and an entire Exxon tanker trailer, freshly filled.
• 1: You have access to a fully-stocked pantry; you have enough ammo to keep your guns loaded for a week of combat, and access to tools to make more of your own; you have a portable field medic station and gurney; You have a full take and four spares.
• 2: You have a backpack stuffed with for the next week, maybe three if you ration it out; you have one heavy ammo box; you have an EMT bag and a shitload of gauze; you have a full tank of gas.
• 3: You have enough to eat for the next day or two on tight rations; you have one full clip of ammo left; you’ve got a first-aid kit from the pharmacy down the street; you have half a tank of gas and a siphoning tube.
• 4: You’ve got a twinkie and a can of pepsi; you have one bullet in your gun, and you know who it is for; you have half a box of band-aids and a bottle of children’s chewable vitamins; your moped is running on fumes.
• 5: You’re totally out of this supply, and the end is pretty fucking nigh. You are two days away from starvation; your gun is broken and only useful as a club; you got no medicine and you feel a nasty cough coming on; you have a bike with two flat tires and a broken chain.

Player Awareness: The players should never be consciously aware of the actual numbers related to their Scarcites. They should be encouraged from time to time to keep an eye on their stocks, but otherwise their supply levels will only be known if they actively inspect their stuff. In such a case, give them an estimate based on the level descriptions above.

Initial Scarcity Levels: Initial scarcity levels for the game depend on how your scenario starts. For a Total Doomsday scenario like 28 Days Later, divvy out 17 dots to the Scarcities. For a hardened heroes survival action scenario like Left 4 Dead, divvy out 14 dots.

Raising Scarcity Levels: The GM raises the Scarcity levels in whatever manner seems appropriate. Here are some ideas:

• Matched failure on a firearms test can raise the Ammo scarcity.
• Forced escape from a Horde attack or other such raid forces the survivors to leave things behind in haste. Each survivor rolls both Speed and Mind. Each failure adds a dot to a Scarcity of the GM’s choice, each matched failure adds two dots.
• Both failures and weak successes on medicine skill checks reduce the supplies.
• Days of travel have passed, so food lowers accordingly.

Lowering Scarcity Levels: Likewise, this is done pretty organically. The GM can add stockpiles in the game that the players find, while the players can try skills to search and scavenge, and can even try and violently take things from NPCs.

Scarcities and Madness: Hitting level 4 in-game (not starting that way) on any Scarcity is a level 4 Helplessness check for all affected and aware. Hitting level 5 is a level 6 Helplessness check.

Level 5 Scarcity: When a group reaches level 5 in a Scarcity, they are not only just out of those supplies, but they are also now in a position of weakness in which that scarcity is endangering the group’s continued existence. At the soonest possible moment, you need to bring this horrible scarcity into the full light, in a painfully inconvenient way for them to overcome. Give someone a festering wound, or a painful sickness. Have a gun click or jam right as the character is about to blow away a zombie. Have characters suffer from malnourishment, and all kinds of associated gross afflictions. Set them up in a situation where cannibalism might actually be the only course of action. Have their vehicle break down while escaping a horde, and their generator shut down in a horrible blizzard.

This coming Thursday night will be the first session of a five-part December-only mini-campaign, which I have entitled “Project Dismember.” Currently the roster is full for the first session, but I want to post the details here to share the setup. I’m really looking forward to this one, and have been deeply immersing myself in zombie fiction since deciding to throw this thing together.

What: Project Dismember is a five-week tournament-style open-story role-playing experience. You and your friends must survive not only the overwhelming desolation of the zombie apocalypse, but your own dark sides as well. When the dead walk the earth and feed upon the flesh of the living, when a single bite is all it takes to turn your best friend into your worst enemy, who can you trust? What will you do to stay alive?

When: The first session will be hosted the night of Thursday, December 2nd, starting at 7 PM, at my place. We’ll play four-hour sessions each time, ending around 11 PM. Five full sessions will happen, with the last night taking place on December 30th.

Who: You! I have open room for up to 10 players each night, on a strict RSVP roster. See the Rules further below for details.

Other: There will be prizes given based on a combination of character experience and longevity. The short of it is that the longest-lived characters who went through the most shit will net their players rewards. These will be books, gift cards, games, and other items of nerdly or even monetary value.

I’m asking a $1 buy-in for each night of the game you play. Since I’ll be spending real actual money to acquire several possible prizes, I think this is pretty fair – and to be quite frank, I would gladly pay a GM a dollar a night ro run a bitchin’ game, if it kept the group together and assured a good time for all.

I’m currently also planning on audio-recording these sessions, and releasing them as MP3s on my blog.

THE RULES:

• For this tournament, we will be using the core dice mechanic from the game Unknown Armies, with all of the magick stuff stripped out and thrown away. It is a relatively simple and elegant core mechanic, and allows for some realistic and very, very deadly combat.
• There will be special mechanics for earning character experience primarily through three avenues: Survival, Teamwork, and “Meta-Betrayal.” This third involves you taking an active interest in the flaws of other characters, and inserting in-game situations in which those flaws will come to light and be challenged. Should the specifically affected character(s) accept those challenges and overcome, then both of you receive the experience.
• I have maximum room for ten players each night. Starting with the first session, any pre-existing players will be given first-pick placement for the following sessions. There’s one catch: when your character dies or gets turned, you are out of the game as a player. You can still hang around and provide an audience, and even give suggestions to the GM (me) on ways to screw with the others, but you are out of the prize lineup. Additionally, if ever you have to miss a session for any reason, your character is killed or turned, no exceptions. If there are open player slots, new players can drop in and take a place in the game, as new survivors encountered in the story. New players most certainly can have a go at the prizes, too.
• I will function as a hands-off GM. My role will be that of antagonist and world-setter, and nothing more. There will be no plot or meta-story other than the ones you create with your own characters. My job will be to make their lives miserable, and make them suffer horrible, disgustin, ignoble fates. Players will have enhanced story control through the activation of other characters’ nagative traits, using them to create bad situations for experience.

So it’s all up to you. You can work together to survive. You can resolve your differences, ignore your fellows’ flaws, get past their twisted pasts in order to survive as a team. Or you can throw your fellows to the wolves and take the prize for yourself.

I was going to mention this last week but got side-tracked: the Alliterated Games Forums are down for an indefinite period of time. No one was using them, and they were just collecting spammers and bots. If I bring them back up in the future, it will likely be as part of…

The new website I’m putting together! The current AG website isn’t all that easy to update without me breaking things, so I’m setting up a content management suite to handle the basics. My first order of business is to get the basic game pages set up and an official newsfeed. After that, having a forum again would be nice, but it isn’t a major priority. I also want to set up a cart application, so folks can buy things directly from my website, without me having to handle fulfillment through Paypal.

Alpha Protocol continues to rock my knickers. I am only halfway through the game, and I’m already itching for a second play-through. My current style is the suave, stealthy master of the silent kill. My second play will be all BigGuns McDoucheBaggins, the no-questions-asked bullet-loving commando. I am looking forward to see more of the drastic changes in story and play I’ve already sipped with the handful of checkpoint replays I’ve experimented with in the game so far.

One thing about it that I really dig – and wish other games would pick up ASAP – is the Social Mission. A lot of Alpha Protocol’s game play involves hands-on espionage, sneaking into secret complexes and doing all that cool stealth-action spy stuff that makes movies like The Bourne Identity awesome. But almost as many game missions are purely social: you arrive on scene, meet a guy, try and make a deal of some sort, and hopefully walk away with a new ally or piece of information. The clothes you wear in these missions frequently makes a difference, so you should remember to switch out of that tactical armor before heading off to have dinner with the syndicate honcho, otherwise you might piss her off with your incredible social faux pas. I love this, and aside from Mass Effect 2 – which only has a small handful of missions like these – I’ve not seen it implemented in other mission-based games.

This coming weekend will be Free RPG Day! Every year I get excited about this one, as my favorite local game store Guardian Games always has a big shindig to celebrate. This year I’ll be running the new teaser adventure Final Sanction for the upcoming Deathwatch RPG from Fantasy Flight Games – the newest RPG in the Warhammer 40K product line. I’m not well-versed in the W40K universe, but this one looks nice – it’s the equivalent to me of the Starcraft storyline: Space Marines in massive suits of power armor fighting wave upon wave of infectious buglike monster hordes.

I leave you with a video for a song that’s been stuck in my head all morning:

First, a link. Check out Universal Dead, a new low-budget web series about zombies. It’s… not bad. Not bad at all.

For the last few days I’ve been going back and forth between Dragon Age and Alpha Protocol. My current goal in Dragon Age is to play as a solo Archer Rogue + Dog combo for as long as I can manage, outside of the few spots in the game where other companions are forced upon you. I’ve always been a fan of odd “challenge runs” in video games, and I figure this one would be called the “Post-Apocalypse” DA run – survivor + dog, in other words.

Alpha Protocol has been fun. I see a game series in the making here, and this one’s a good start. It reminds me a lot of the original Mass Effect – awesome in many ways, but marred by some rather aggravating design choices. I’m only a few hours in, though, so I’ll save my full decision for a later time after more hands-on experience with it.

I met a few awesome folks and sold a few more copies of Cannibal Contagion this past Memorial Day. Guardian Games hosted their second annual “May of the Dead” celebration, and I was there pimpin’ my game and hanging out with my fellow nerd. Had some great talks with a fellow from the local chapter of the Zombie Squad, and ran a hilariously fun session of my game for a new crew of survivors. Thanks for playing, folks!

I’ll close this post with some thoughts on video game trailers. First, read this article. Go ahead, it’s a good read. Watch all the trailers.

Done? Understand that I get where the writer is coming from, and I whole-heartedly disagree. I want actual game-play footage in my video game trailers, goddammit. Without actual gameplay footage, I might have made the mistake of purchasing any number of generic “guns plus one cool trick no one else does” first-person shooters. I want to actually see how this game is different. You can take a shitty game, give it an awesome story, and fill the trailer with so many awesome cinematics and popular industrial tunes and the consumers won’t know the depth of your deception until they pay for it and hate it, because you never showed them the actual game.

I want to see the game. I don’t give a rat’s ass about marketing cinematics which most likely won’t even be in the final product, and probably look better than that product will, too. Yeah, that new Deus Ex trailer looks cool, and shows us a wonderful cyberpunk world with a compelling story. SO did the trailers for Neocron. Remember how much that game sucked?

Aaron from the Geek in the City Podcast peruses a copy of Cannibal Contagion, shortly before playing in a fantastically hilarious session of the game. “Richard Thruster” will forever be in the annals of Cannibal Contagion fame, Aaron. Thanks for playing!

(original picture source here)

I’ll be selling the last of the signed-and-numbered copies of Cannibal Contagion’s first print run there. Additionally, I’ll be giving out free copies of the PDF to all who take part in the demos, as special thank you gifts for coming in and playing my game. I’m also looking forward to kicking some ass in the Left 4 Dead Survival Mode tournaments.

See you there!