As far as my table-topping goes, I’m in the middle of at least two games, with two more on the horizon. First is my Old School Palladium Fantasy sandbox game, which has had four gatherings so far and seems to be maintaining everyone’s excitement pretty nicely. This game is really doing a good job of reinvigorating me, both as an arbiter of events and as a creator of spontaneous content. I haven’t run this seat-of-the-pants in a long, long time, and it is quite simply titillating my gamer imagination. I go into each session with a mental picture of all the events happening in the world within a 20-mile radius of where the characters are, and as they move around, those events progress of their own accord. So far, the players have managed to hit up most of them quite nicely, and get themselves directly involved of their own volition. It’s wonderful.

Next is the Song of Ice and Fire game (loosely using the system, of the same name, by Green Ronin), for which the Torch of Arbitration has been passed on to my pal Sixten. We kicked of the new chunk of the campaign a coupla weekends back, and it looks like the next session is this coming weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Also this weekend is a meet-and-greet session for potentially starting up a new Unknown Armies game. I don’t have much to say about that one just yet, because we haven’t discussed it as a group, but I want to see a story of normal folks from different walks of life brought together by mutual exposure to the Occult Underground. More on this as it unfolds.

Further down the road, probably after the Palladium games comes to its natural end, I’ve got an idea to try a Shadowrun variant in which all the magic is removed, and replaced with simple conspiracy. Magic has always been my biggest complaint about Shadowrun, as it just never seemed to fit right. I was introduced to the setting during the transition from First to Second Edition, and the art back then (some by the always-amazing Tim Bradstreet) depicted a far grittier thing than the more fantasy-inspired Shadowrun of today. Old School Shadowrun was like Ghost in the Shell, while modern Shadowrun feels more like Cutey Honey. My thought now is to remove all the magic from the setting, and replace it with mostly-unexplained conspiracy. Like the Great Ghost Dance, for example, wasn’t a magical event. For some reason a call came in from High Command to just let them go, and the US forces complied – and to this day, no one knows why. And Saeder-Krupp isn’t ruled by lofwyr, but merely an entity known as The Dragon. Is it a person? An AI? A cabal of conspirators? Something else?

All this Shadowrun-minus-magic is in my head thanks to my current obsession with the new Deus Ex: Human Revolution game, of course. Very few games have ever affected me as deeply, or tickled that Fun Spot so furiously, as this one. I’ve been taking a primarily non-violent, stealth-based approach to this game, but the story is so good and the characters so realistically portrayed, that there have been moments where in-game narrative events have successfully swayed my decision. “Fuck. That.” I’d say aloud, before switching from trust stun-zapper to armor-piercing guns and brutally taking out every last motherfucker in the room as an act of revenge that I didn’t know I wanted until only seconds before. The character Jenson radiates this almost-tangible aura of cool boredom that personifies him as the ultimate Gibsonian cyberpunk bad-ass. Every inch of the game emanates a complimentary coolness and enforces a setting-appropriate dirty dismalness, creating what I feel is the most amazing cyberpunk gaming experience to date.

Going back to the subject of Tabletop gaming for a monent, I want to take a moment and talk about two services which have revolutionized my game-scheduling: Agree-a-Date and Doodle. These are online tools that allow you to send out a poll of sorts to a group of people, letting them pick which of the arrayed dates are best available for their attendance. As an adult with a full-time job, an active social life, budding romances, and other hobbies, this makes scheduling gaming sessions much, much less of a headache. I’m moving away from Agree-a-date towards Doodle, because it’s less restrictive and not constantly advertising itself to me. But aide from that, Agree-a-Date has served me very well for small-gathering social functions.

I’ve recently set up a profile on RPGGeek, and have begun posting my plays there. Feel free to friend me.

Finally, the current design project codenamed Hagakure 66 has had some great new developments. I can’t share them just, yet, however. I want the revelation to be damn awesome. It’s on its way, though, most definitely.

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.

The first thing we laid down was the nature of this “journalistic endeavor” I was insisting upon. Thanks to a suggestion from Nievita, we quickly and unexpectedly all agreed: the characters are all part of Anonymous. That idea instantly stuck with me, and spawned a plethora of ideas for plots and content.

We’re using the Unknown Armies core mechanics, but not necessarily the cosmology or magick paths. I’m heavily inspired by the old Nightbane game, so there will definitely be themes of “otherworldly alien darkness” in this game. Both of the character concepts presented so far will definitely work with this, but I’ll resist posting them until they’ve been developed a bit further.

Looks like the foundation for something awesome!

- NPC

Bitches

• Bethany and I have just started part two of our Resident Evil marathon, and are now playing through the collector’s edition of Resident Evil 2 on the Playstation. This is so far lots of fun, and would actually qualify as a rose if it weren’t for the godawful controls. See, in playing through the REmake on the GameCube, I got used to my favorite survival horror control scheme, in which I use one of the shoulder buttons to move forward and the stick to turn. I’ve been using it for years in other games, and love the fact that it doesn’t disorient me. But RE2 lacks this option, and additionally it also lacks a “quick-turn” button, which has become so invaluable to my Resident Evil experiences. Grrrr. Otherwise, this is a pretty great game.

Roses

• #1: I’ve signed on a pair of artists to illustrate the interior of the Cannibal Contagion book. Their work is amazing, and I look forward to posting some sneak previews in the coming days.
• #2: I’ve also signed on another amazing designer to illustrate the book’s cover and draft a game logo. Again, I’ll post more as I hear it, but goddamn, this excites me.
• #3: Getting to play Castle Crashers with Chris, Sam, and Kevin, and then collectively nerd-rage afterwards over a wide variety of geeky conversation topics.

Hopes

• I’m meeting with three players tomorrow to get a new Unknown Armies campaign started, and I do hope it goes well.

I’m going to continue that tradition here, and hopefully keep doing it every Monday. Additionally, I’m adding “Hopes” to the list, to catalog the things I’ve got in the works, or the desires I’ve hopefully got coming to me just around the corner. So without further ado, I’ll kick this off.

Bitches

• My roommate heinously sprained her ankle and had to go to the emergency room Friday night, right before our much-anticipated night of zombie-murdering. She’s in a lot of pain, and it makes me sad.

Roses

• Thankfully, she wasn’t too incapacitated that we weren’t able to pick up our plans Sunday. We finished Resident Evil (Gamecube Remake) yesterday as Jill, and it felt good. Sure, we used a walkthrough, but that’s only because we’re on something of a tight schedule. We need to be able to finish the series in completion before the new one rolls out next year, and we’re both quite aware that the October releases of Fallout 3 and Deadspace will heavily impact our playing of the other titles in the franchise. Go Team Hotness!
• A second one! Saturday we had a fucking fantastic six-player game of Twilight Imperium (3rd Edition). That’s the most epic game I’ve been in yet, and I’ll be uploading pictures soon. Special kudos to Sam, who despite never having played before kept tied with the highest score right to the end.

Hopes

• I want a weekly game again. I’m really inspired for a street-level Unknown Armies game focusing on members of a small zine (maybe grass-roots, maybe political, maybe even poetic). The game would take place, as they say, “20 Minutes into the Future” and be very inspired by Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency, Strange Days, Max Headroom, and Dark Angel. Of course, I have to find players first, so likely this concept will change drastically once I get them. But regardless, I really want to run a street-level UA campaign with some element of journalism uniting the people.