Okay, I've finalised my house rules and got the introduction stuff ready. I'll post up the thread after work tomorrow. For now, feel free to discuss character ideas and such in here if you're having trouble. A quick list of custom powers that will be used in this game are:

Incite Effect (replaces Incite Emotion)
Variable Abilities (all lists require GM approval)
Limitation (replaces the Catch)
Item Limitation (replaces Item of Power)
Natural Weaponry (replaces a bunch of powers like Claws & Breath Weapon)
Immunity (replaces Physical Immunity)
Affliction (status effects)
Tinker (replaces Thaumaturgy)

All have pages on the wiki, so look them up. Tinker is of special note because it dramatically changes Thaumaturgy and only barely resembles Enchanted Items.

 

I am rather interested in this but my only experience in pen and paper rpgs is playing DSA(kinda the german D&D) with friends, so, would be a complete novice to the fate/Dresden level system, if that is okay. And I could only really start at Monday since I have an exam at that day, but starting Monday evening I should be fair game.

 

Fine by me, welcome to the team! I'll be easing you lot in to this gently so you can get used to the system, but FATE is a lot less complicated than DnD style games.

 

Recently started a Pathfinder campaign done over Skype and an online site(roll20.net) that has a nice dice tool that displays your rolls to everyone playing. Unless of course, you want to roll specifically to the GM, then you can do that too.

So, we have a 'Human' Two-Weapon Samurai(Kitsune, but nobody technically knows that, as I'm disguised), a Dwarf Inquisitor, a Samsaran(reincarnating beings) Oracle, a Vanaran(monkey-person) Smuggler, Half-Orc Barbarian, and a Construct, well... Anti-Paladin(there are very specific reasons why he is allowed in the campaign as is).
Also, I have a camel of the East-Asian two-humped variety as a companion animal mount.

We gathered in a major tradehub city, then it went under quarantine for a plague which was also raising the dead. Meanwhile, our Oracle was doing some unrelated research in the city's grand temple and rolled a 1 on their perception check when the blaring alarms and such went off and everyone left the temple.

So, we worked our way over to meet up with the Oracle first(during which our Inquisitor almost got one-shot by a zombie-citizen and was brought to one health after he also rolled a critical fail on an attack roll and injured himself).

We get to the temple after another encounter, while avoiding others since our Smuggler(Rogue) is also a local, with some privileged information about how to navigate the city. Of course, after we get to the abandoned temple, and myself and the Barbarian go to aid our Oracle in searching the infirmary for some potions or something, our other three members(the camel went to see what was taking me so long, and was nervous with the actions of the three) bring the roof of the cathedral down in their attempts to break the large golden altar statue.

Context: It wasn't displaying any damage from their various attempts, so they tied it up, and looped a rope over the lengthwise main support beam, and numerous strength checks were lifting it inches and the occasional foot at a time, one of them rolls a crit, and manages to get it to the ceiling... and the beam broke. Unfortunately for the looters, they all managed to escape unharmed.

(happening at the same time)
So after finding the Oracle humming to themselves in a dark infirmary, I light it up, and find half a dozen zombified citizens strapped to tables. We execute three of them before two break free and rush the Barbarian and I. We manage to injure both of them first but, I... take a crit which puts me at negative one health(yeah, we are level one PC's, fighting against enemies with 2 Hit Dice and 18 Strength), but through my Resolve ability, auto-stabilize myself and don't fall unconscious, issue a Challenge to my enemy and manage to finish off my wounded opponent before he can take me down. The Barbian, while partially wounded as well, kills his enemy as well. Meanwhile the Oracle executes the last zombie which is still strapped down.

As we are looking for an alternate way out, my camel that found us and is traveling with our party of three now, rolls a prodigious 29 Perception check, and detects what our GM decided to term an 'Apocalypse Zombie' hanging in the rafters of the hallway above us. Why it was there, who knows, but either way we managed to avoid a surprise round. Which is good, since it hit for 1d6 +6(22 Strength, what the hell!?), and a low damage roll almost fells the Barbarian who had drank a potion to bring himself 1 point off full hp after being wounded earlier. Ultimately, through the two of us, and my camel, working together, we take down the zombie who had, I think, 35 health. and our last party member doles out a healing spell to the Barbarian to heal him up... again.

Some sewer shenanigans later, we finally reach the docks where we had been headed. Because screw trying to save an entire huge city from a plague as level one characters when the damned zombies each have the potential to one-shot half of our party members on a high damage roll.(3 D8 people, 1 D10, 1 D12, and one Construct with 26 HP, but no Constitution, so if he gets below 0, he is simply gone, no resurrection)

The sewers come out roughly 50 feet above the docks as an outlet to the sea. Our Smuggler immediately dives off into the water instead of helping, but thankfully three other people actually have rope as well. We figure out a way to lower the 1,350 pound camel(with the slender Oracle riding along with it), then the Construct is very carefully lowered, since he and sinkable water do not agree with each other. Then I roll a high acrobatics and safely dive into the water, but the Barbarian, who had since picked up the protesting Dwarf, rolls a 20, and while juggling the Dwarf and his apparently present pony(just a purchased one), does flips and somersaults and sticks a landing on the Docks.
...or something to that effect.

Either way, everyone gets down and to the Docks safely. We find a nice ship, but detect three distinct terrible scents on board. After surrounding the doorway with our three(+camel, which has long reach) melee fighters, we open the door and attract their attention. We take down the first two in surprise rounds, much to the GM's chagrin, but the last one is the 'Boss' of the session, running a ludicrous 65 HP and only the Barbarian, my camel and I role initiative above him.

We hurt him a bit, then he hits the Barbarian for 13 damage 1d8+8(...26 Strength) and he's down for the count, but our Oracle is able to stabilize him so he stops dying. The Construct smacks him for damage, and our Smuggler stands around and doesn't want to risk drawing attention to himself. Our Inquisitor attempts to fire into the melee with his heavy repeating crossbow and rolls his second critical failure in only eight attack rolls so far. Thankfully the percentile simply yields him shooting far off course, but not hitting any of his allies.
I hit him again, as does the camel(Barbarian is still on the floor), and he enters some sort of frenzy state which gives him an extra crit multiplier and attack roll. He swings at me with his cutlass and takes me to -6 hp, but I at least use my Resolve(restores one use upon defeating target of my challenge, which I did earlier) to struggle to my feet again, and he shoots the Construct for a staggering critical dealing 23 damage.

The Monkey still just stands around, acting inconspicuous, but the Dwarf tries again, and succeeds this time for some damage. Mr. Construct, practically falling apart, yields a powerful blow on our enemy. Our Oracle heals me because while I'm conscious and able to attack(albeit fall unconscious after doing so if still at negative health), I am still at negative health. On what could be my desperate final attack before the boss would probably turn to me, and honestly wondering how much health this guy had(didn't know then), I swing and actually hit with both swords for probably only the second time that play session. I proceed to barely defeat him by one extra hit point.

As for spoils, I immediately called dibs on his Pirate Captain's hat(it had a crimson feather in it and everything), and we are otherwise given out some loot. Oh, and we commandeered a freakin' 3-mast customized Pirate Caravel.

I won't go into specifics, but during our next short session, as we manage to successfully(barely) move the ship along the coastline towards some islands from a map we found on the Captain's body, we encountered someone fighting off some giant crabs, and quickly deal with some that try and mess with us, too.

Unfortunately, only the Barbarian with his long bow, the Dwarf with his... faulty crossbow, and the Oracle with her sling have the means to help him. Oh, and the Construct went below deck to try to arm and fire a cannon. Suffice to say, the above-deck people trying to help mostly keep missing except for one critical hit from the Oracle. Our lovely Dwarf rolls his third critical failure in thirteen attack rolls, and actually hits the guy we are trying to save... and my internet goes down for about 45 seconds, but when I return, I find out the Construct finally managed to fire the cannon and kill both the giant crab and man.(on purpose)

The GM claimed that it might have been better for us that we didn't bring him on board, ultimately. Oh, and we leveled, after roughly 15 hours of play over three sessions. Didn't save the man, but got enough experience to level, so yay?


-----
Sorry if that was a bit disjointed. I jumped back and forth a little bit with editing, but the events are sequential overall.

 

Stories like that are the reason I keep playing these games.

---------- Post automerged at 06:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:50 PM ----------

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=25726

We're off, gentlemen!

 

On a related note, I'm pretty sure my camel has done roughly as much damage as anyone else in the party at this point, since it's never missed and always rolled a 3 or 4... and I was even accidentally using 1d4+4, rather than the 1d4+6(1.5xStr for having only a single Natural Weapon attack) I was supposed to.

My Samurai has been unlucky and usually rolled a mid-high teen on one weapon, and a low single digit on the other (1d8 and 1d6), the Barbarian has been around 50% hit rate on a 1d12 weapon, the Construct the same on a 2d6 melee and 2d8 ranged weapon, Inquisitor with his 1d10 has either critically failed 3 times out of 13 rolls, critically hit twice, and then mostly just low-roll missed besides that. Well, the Oracle has only hit once(Crit on the giant crab), aside from those two Coup de Grace actions in the infirmary.

 

So last week when I had a bit of downtime, I decided to write a game. It's a zombie apocalypse game (I know, I know,) that I've designed to really highlight the survival horror aspects as well as attempting the emulate the interpersonal conflicts and ruthless mentality that exist in something like The Walking Dead. The game is loosely based around the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, but with some major detours both thematically and mechanically.

Today I GMed the very first session with three friends, all of whom have very different play styles and I actually thought it went pretty swimmingly.

We opened with the three characters driving down the road toward Buena Vista, Virginia, a tiny, nothing town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. The three of them had come from Lexington, to the north, where they'd spent the 7 months since the world went to shit. They'd picked that town clean, so they were heading south, attempting to avoid the oncoming winter and find better hunting grounds.

Saito was at the wheel of their pickup truck, being the designated driver of the group. He'd once been a trust fund baby and a Yale graduate, but had rejected his father's designs to step into the family business and had instead grafted his way through life as a pizza delivery boy.

Beside him sat Gary Milton, flicking his chromed zippo and nervously chewing on the end of his favourite pink pen. He'd once been a Senior Accounts Manager at a Blue Chip corporation. Behind them both, in the flat of the truck, sat Clint, cradling his great grandfather's 1886 Winchester. Before all this Clint had owned a small shop in the centre of Lexington, a men's outfitter, tobacconist and dispensary all in one. This was a long way from what his life had once been, but if history taught one anything, it was that things could change in an instant.

The last two weeks of living in Lexington had not been kind to them, so they rolled into Buena Vista, low on food and with their stomachs growling.

They'd broken from the road onto a small rise overlooking the town and were dismayed to see that it looked like it'd already been picked clean. However Clint's keen eyes quickly picked out a small store that looked as though it had somehow escaped the vultures.

So it was for this and a neighbouring gas station that they headed for, opting to leave the truck on the road out of town and creep in on foot. On the way into town, the party bickered, with the two older members of the group wanting to stick close, but Saito urging them to take the risk of splitting up and covering more ground. The argument got rather heated with Saito insulting the memory of Gary's dead wife Bonnie.

In the end, Saito broke for the gas station, leaving the other two cursing after him. Gary begrudgingly headed after him while Clint headed towards the roof of a nearby building. Saito quickly learned that the gas station was a bust, assuming they didn't wait here for hours to siphon it from the underground tanks. While Gary was belittling him for his idiocy in putting the group at risk, Clint returned to them, telling them that he'd heard automatic gunfire in the vicinity and that they should prepare to leave.

Moving with far more haste, they converged on the small shop and, with practised efficiency, cleared the building. In the very back room they found a zombie swinging from a noose, gurgling and reaching for them when they approached. This was a significant moment for the group, who hadn't until this point realised that people could turn without being bitten.

Having put the zombie out of its misery, they decided to leave the store. In the midst of searching for an elusive bottle of spirits, Clint accidentally overturned a shelf of beer, smashing them loudly on the floor, a sound that reverberated around the store.

They realised that this wouldn't go unheeded and so fled the building, snatching what little supplies they could as they did. As they emerged into the sunlight, they caught their first sight of Buena Vista's residents, shambling out of their homes.

Having hotfooted it from the town and returned to their vehicle, the group continued to argue. Saito loudly protesting that they'd left the store too easily and that they could return, kill the walkers and loot additional supplies. The other two had a far more cautious attitude.

With Saito at the wheel, they proceeded on through town, passing the store they'd earlier looted and finding four walking corpses in the middle of the road. In a sudden fit of bull-headedness, Saito tried to side-swipe one of the zombies, catching it but dragging it beneath the wheel of the car and filling the wheel arch with rotting flesh.

They drove a few more feet down the road before Gary insisted they get out and inspect the damage. Once outside the vehicle, Gary and Clive suggested that Saito fight the zombies he was so eager to face and give them time to clear the wheel arch of debris.

Saito, less enthusiastic now that he was alone, stepped up to the plate with his sword and handily cleaned up two zombies, while Clive dispatched one getting a little too close to Gary, who was righting the car.

However, Saito's next swing, though demolishing a walker, took him a little too close to another, which managed to latch on to him. Panicking, he reached for his revolver, but fired wildly, missing entirely. Though he eventually managed to finish off the zombie and get himself free, he turned back to his companions just in time to see the pickup ride off without him.

Clive and Gary watched with small, grim smiles as Saito disappeared in the rear-view mirror, a horde of undead spilling out of the buildings around him.​

(An aside here: This was totally unplanned and really really cool. I think both I as the GM and Saito's player were completely taken by surprise by this. Though the game I've written does punish groups that aren't cohesive, I was really surprised that they so quickly opted to lose the character that was causing trouble for them.)

We returned to Clive and Gary a little while later, as they pulled into the next stop on the road: Glasgow, VA. They still weren't too far from their old stomping grounds in Lexington, but still enough that they weren't really quite sure what to expect.

As they approached from the highway, they realised it was very much the quintessential American town, with a long main street strewn with businesses and some quieter, residential districts further out of town. They used the tightly packed buildings to their advantage, leaping from rooftop to rooftop until they came across an impassable gap. They descended into the building below where, to their utter surprise, they came across mutual friend John Washing.

Years before the outbreak John had lived in Lexington, where he'd been the security guard at Gary's company. At the same time, and completely coincidentally, he'd been a regular at Clive's shop. Since then he'd fufilled his life long dream of becoming a fully-fledged police officer, eventually ending up being relocated to the Glasgow PD.

However the three of them had barely a chance to become reacquainted before a horde of undead began to pound at the building's doors. They fled, via the roof, and discovered that their approach to the town hadn't been as stealthy as they'd thought.

Mainstreet was teeming with walkers, brought from their lurking spots by the approach of the characters. They retreated across the roofs and just made it back to the pickup in the nick of time, screeching out of town before the approaching horde descended upon them.

They headed south out of Glasgow, having scrounged barely enough food to see them through the next three days, and found a small campsite known as Rowanoake a little way into the mountains. They entered the reception area, housed in a wooden cabin, and when John attempted to traverse a shattered counter, he fell face first into the waiting grasp of a lurking zombie.

He was just able to fight his way free, giving Clive the chance to demolish it with a big swing of his baseball bat. With John making sure that he polished off the zombie thoroughly, they proceeded to explore through the campsite, finding some ammo, a flare and some medicine, but little else of value.

However, with the sun sinking low in the mountains behind them, they decided to make camp here, barricading themselves into the reception lodge. They lit a fire in the stone fireplace there and while John kept watch, Clive and Gary told stories of how the world had once been.

They awoke the following morning refreshed and ready to go. They continued their journey south toward Lynchburg, until they noticed a military cargo plane high in the sky to the north east. This worried them until they caught sight of something falling from the back of the plane, attached to a parachute.

They headed that way to investigate and discovered the package in the middle of a field. In the crate they found several weeks worth of food and some interesting pamphlets that seemed to indicate that the nearby city of Richmond was destined for nuclear demolition in the near future and that they were slam bang in the middle the estimated fallout trajectory.

Just as they were beginning to process this information, they caught the sound of a large truck approaching from the south that would be on them in a matter of minutes.​

We left it there for the night, with everyone pretty keen for more game next week

TL;DR: My players are awesome. And the game worked pretty much as intended, creating a really nail-biting tension at all the right moments and the appropriate lulls for character building.

I'll drop the PDFs here if anyone is particularly interested.

 

I've been trying to get a zombie game off the ground for awhile now. What system did you use?

 

I've been considering starting up a Play by Post game, but I've never done one of those before. Anyone know any resources to teach me how to DM one?

Second thing: would anyone be interested in a PbP Pathfinder game? It'd be a third party Adventure Path called 'Way of the Wicked', where the party plays an evil group bent on world domination. I love it because it lets you all be evil, but give you built in safeguards to stop most interparty conflict (It involves the threat of Hellfire).

 

I've found that reading through other peoples' games is a good way to learn how PbP usually works.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/board,5.0.html

The Dresden Files RPG section over on the Jim Butcher forums has a ton of RPGs going at any one time, so feel free to check them out.

Also, I'm willing to help out if you need some support, though Pathfinder isn't a system I'm particularly familiar with. Can't play though; Worm RPG will be taking up too much of my time.

 

Pathfinder is a system I'm familiar with. I've never played a Pbp before, but I'd be willing to try. From what I understand though, these things take a fair bit of time, so the trick is to not get bored if it takes a while.

 

I haven't actually played Pathfinder, I've looked it over but never got to try it out, but I'd be up for it although I've never done a Pbp either though so I might not be the best one for this.

 

Pretty much that. The biggest threat PbP games face is boredom and inherent limitations in the system of PbP. For example, if even one person gets too busy or something, and can't post their move or action, it can stall the game for Days.

Depending on the game system, making a Map may be required and can be time consuming. And it usually ends up kind of ugly.

As far as DMing a game, I've found most DM's usually wait until everyone's actions are taken before making their post, dealing with everything the players did. Sometimes a DM will make an exception.

 

I'd be interested in the PDF also! I'm trying to get one of my friend into a game, but he doesn't click with most fantasy horror setting...however, he's a big fan of the Walking Dead.

It depends a lot of how you want to play it. I've seen big forums where every subforum was a place in the world and we'd be 40+ playing at the same time with numerous DM playing the NPC through another account. Smaller group can simply use 1 forum/subject and it works well too.

It depends a lot on your gameplay too. Some systems are better than other, but there again it depends on how you decide to make the dice roll. Are the character doing their own roll and then the DM does the NPC one. Or do you do all the roll? How do you do the roll? I know there are some system online or you simply trust your players to do them without any supervision?

One of the big concern is when someone is away for too long. Best method I've seen is simply to allow the DM to take control of the character if he hasn't played for more than 2-3 days. Again, it depends on who you're playing with. I was playing with French player and we had a 7 hours diff. We had 3 days to answer, if the story could not progress further without us, then the DM or the other character could make us act in accordance to our character motivations, etc. as best as they could.

 

I've been reading a whole bunch of PbP, mostly on the paizo boards, and I think I could do it. I mean, I've already got the entire campaign, and I've DM'd before, just not in this format. And if I can play chess (or Solium Infernum) by email, I can wait for this lol.

So the other question remains. Who would be interested in this? I would like ideally 6 players. Experience wouldn't be a problem. The main thing: all the characters would have to be EVIL. Capital letters. Not raping evil either. The-World-Has-Wronged-Me-And-Now-It-Shall-Burn EVIL.

Here's a link to the blurb for the first book, for reference: Knot of Thorns

The other thing I've noticed from Pbps: They're all extremely RP heavy. So anyone who'd want to play would have to be up for some serious roleplaying.

Let me know if you'd be up for it!

 

Me! /tenchars

 

If you don't care about DLP post count, I've been itching to play something for a while, and this sounds cool.

 

I've played a lot of PbP but never in a system with rolling or anything. Could be interesting, and a good way for me to un-rust my literary skills.

 

Alright. I think that makes four. That's the minimum I need, though I'd really prefer six. A new thread is going up to avoid clogging this one up. Anyone else who wants to sign up can do it there.

 

Okay, so this is an early version, it's a lite system as it is and though it's mechanically complete (or mostly) it's not been well documented or play-tested and probably ought to have a GM section.

Game Rules

Character Sheet

Group Sheet

Some notes on the game:

• Your players need to get in the habit of accounting for everything. The default roll on a test in this game is a d6. The default value for failure? 6 and below. They need those extra dice.
• Start by asking which die they intend to use. Point out the ones they're missing. If they're sensible, they should never be rolling less than 3 dice. After a while, start making them argue their dice. Then stop altogether. Took less than 2 hours of our first session for my players to just describe what they were doing, how they were doing it, what they were doing it with and then rolling. It becomes super immersive.
• It's brutal as fuck. Every zombie is a massive threat. People doubly so. If your players don't consider every action fully, they'll die quick.
• That said, don't be too keen to roll on the damage table. Feel free to find other ways of handicapping your players. Take things away from them. This is an Apocalyse World clone, look at them through crosshairs.
• This is an abstract game of shared narration. If you're not comfortable with that, or your players aren't. This is probably the wrong game for you.
• The item system works best for long campaigns with an average of d6-d8. For oneshots and the like d4-d6
• Character creation is deliberately simple. The rules are deliberately designed so you learn more about characters during play. We found it took less than 15 minutes to create and slot a new character into the story. Don't get attached. No really, don't.

All of that said, I'm looking for play testers. If anyone actually ever plays it, I'd appreciate the feedback.

If anyone on DLP would be interested in putting a group together, or fancies subjecting themselves to a half finished game, I'd greatly appreciate the chance to test it out Having played it via Roll20 and Skype, that works very nicely. For the same reasons I think it has a nice potential to work as a PbP game, so I might do that, should anyone be interested.