Tweet
Hi folks.
I want to test out a game for a pen and paper group. Going to try to run it past some forum folks first.
You do not need to know ANYTHING about pen and paper to play, all you need to do is have role played before.
The problem with playing these sorts of games is it takes forever to get anything done with dice rolls
To play, click this link. It will take you to an IRC chat room, join #zombies. You do NOT need irc installed to join, just click the channel.
This is the link you need: http://darkmyst.org/?page=webchat
Join #zombieooc if you did not talk to me yet. Once you join we’ll get you playing very fast.
You need to read ALL of this to play, making your character will very likely take you LESS time then reading this does. Included is all the stuff you really need to know.
Making a character is going to be as simple as humanly possible.
THE STORY(read it):
The game starts on Long Island, an island connected to New York City which is a mix of urban, suburbs and rural. The game takes place a week after the zombie outbreak, the government has not yet collapsed and society has not yet disintegrated entirely, but the plague began in New York City and both New York City and Long Island are being quarantined by the military, planes in the air, boats off the shore and men on the ground along the coast.. The media is hesitant to use the word “zombie”, they call the virus mutated rabies but the end result is the same, those who are infected by it seem to die and then rise from the dead, slow and mindless, but as savage as a animal.
Reports are conflicting but there is word in the media that there are outbreaks in other cities. On the western tip of Long Island, every house has been shut up and people fear to walk outside.
Your character came to Long Island to visit family in New York City but your plane was rerouted to a small airport in the Hamptons, the east end of Long Island and you were stranded in the airport for nearly a full day . Misery loves company and while stranded there, you became friendly with other people on your flight(all other players, initially).
When word comes that there will be no more flights, you and the other players leave the airport to find yourself in the town of Smalltown mostly abandoned. Eastern long island is mostly rural and wealthy, small towns. Central long island is suburban. Western long island is more urban till it becomes, urban the closer you get to New York City. It is roughly 100 miles east to west.
You are in a small, wealthy town. The houses are large, the cars are nice, the lawns are perfectly manicured. Some of the populace of the Hamptons managed to escape before the island was quarantined and all the boats are gone, or so it seems. You are able to loot your starting equipment from abandoned buildings. No one really knows how bad it is except it is supposed to be pretty bad in New York City. The only land route off the island is on the western tip, about 100 miles west, through a handful of bridges which connect to New York City, but the news warned against trying to cross as the way is blocked by the military.
You are all watching the evening news in an abandoned house when suddenly the screen changes.
“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST”
The president of the United States comes on.
“My fellow Americans, in this time of national emergency…. ”
The game starts here. We will wait till we have a handful of people to start. Players who join late will be assumed to have been in the background during the game, so far.
Making a character is going to be as simple as humanly possible.
STEP 1: PICK YOUR ATTRIBUTES
Everyone has 5 attributes.
Strength-your overall physical strength
Nimbleness/Speed-how dexterous you are, reaction time, run speed etc
Intelligence-Your overall intelligence
Charisma-Your ability to communicate with others, mostly non player characters
Constitution-Your overall physical hardiness, determines things like how much damage you can take till you die of wounds but also how long you can carry a heavy burden or run.
Each attribute is ranked
Very high(+2)
High(+1)
Average(0)
Low(-1)
Very low(-2)
You start at each attribute as average by default and you have 5 additional points you can add
So for example a character might be:
Strength-Very high(+2)
Dex-Very high(+2)
Int-high(+1)
Cha-Average(0)
Con-Average(0)
You can not increase above “very high”
A very high intelligence is not Einstein, but it is, a very, very smart person. A very low intelligence, is a high retarded but high functioning enough to do a greeter job at walmart.
If your charisma is very low, you will have a lot of trouble convincing NPCs of anything.
If your constitution is very low, you’ll run out of constitution fast and so on.
Overall, you are best off to NOT lower any attribute below average but you can if you wish to.
STEP 2: PICK YOUR BACKGROUND(SKILLS)
There are no skills as in most classic RPG systems. These things slow down a game, a lot.
Instead, conceive a concept about your character. Maybe he works in a steam mill. Maybe he is a bus driver. Maybe they are a house wife. Write a VERY short description of your character and message me on IRC about it. It does not need to be longer then 100 words, though it can be as long as you wish. If you wish, you can include specific skills, interests abilities and interests the character has and as long as they make sense, you’ll get them, if they do not make sense or they seem too “high powered”, you will not get to keep them and we’ll remove those skills. Try to have your attributes match your background.
Whenever your character faces a problem, you the player will tell me how you want to solve that problem or overcome or escape that obstacle and then you’ll gain an advantage or a disadvantage based on your attributes and background/skills.
No one can be an active member of the army, a celebrity or anything of that sort, you are for the most part “normal folks”. A world class athlete is not “normal folks”. A professional body builder who has been on TV is not “normal folks”. Someone who works at a gym and is very buff, is “normal folks”. Scientists and engineers are “normal folks”, though if you are a scientist you need to say your specialty.
An example of a very basic background:
Bob is a steel worker from Pittsburgh. He was on his way to New York City to visit his aunt when he was stranded. He is 34 and in good shape. He is a gun aficionado and goes to the shooting range on weekends. He is a smoker, he loves science fiction movies and votes Republican. He likes Fox News and is a vegetarian.
STEP 3: PICK YOUR ITEMS
You start with whatever you had in your ullage you can scrounge from an abandoned main street in Smalltown USA and a handful of abandoned homes. There is a grocery store, a radioshack, a hardware store, a starnucks, a sports outfitter, an ice cream shop, the public post office, a blockbuster video, a generic clothing store, the public library and a handful of other small shops.
You do not find bazookas. You can have any items you want, within reason. You can not have an AK47, though you can have as many small handguns and rifles as you want as well as ammunition. Pitch forks and baseball bats are fine as well.
There a handful of people still in the town, those left are mostly barricaded in their homes and businesses and most of them, are armed. If you try to loot the wrong house, they may shoot at you.
Write down a list of what you have, the “big” stuff. Guns and weapons are big stuff. Medicine and food are big stuff. Plastic zip lock bags are not “big stuff”. Also include what the stuff is inside of, a backpack, a sack, carrying it by hand etc. If you are carrying too much it may slow you down.
STEP 4: MISCELANEOUS THINGS TO KNOW
1. Unless you do something stupid, you will not usually die. There is always a (very) small chance a gun might explode when you fire it, or a zombie pops out of a door next to you etc but it is very small. Your life or death will be 98% what you do and only 2% random chance. Play smart and you’ll live. Take stupid and pointless risks and you may not.
2. It is impossible to manage people when they split up ten different ways. Try to stick together if possible, if people separate we will keep playing, but we will have to switch back and forth between parties which slows down the game.
3. You can kill, rob, cheat steal etc from other players. Keep your actions in character. Anyone who is just being a jerk and just tries to kill people to end the game, will be eaten by a zombie and we will rewind to before the asshatery.
4. The game can go in whatever direction you take it. You CAN escape the island if you wish to, I am not trying to ‘trap’ you there, it will simply be difficult to do so.
5. Send me your characters in a private message either on the forum or in IRC in this format:
Attributes
Background/skills
Inventory
6. We only have room for so many people. First come, first serve. We can proboably manage up to 5 or 6 people. Other peopel are welcome to watch after that if they want and wait for someone to quit(or die). I will edit this to tell people when we have 5 or 6 people.
I want to test out a game for a pen and paper group. Going to try to run it past some forum folks first.
You do not need to know ANYTHING about pen and paper to play, all you need to do is have role played before.
The problem with playing these sorts of games is it takes forever to get anything done with dice rolls
To play, click this link. It will take you to an IRC chat room, join #zombies. You do NOT need irc installed to join, just click the channel.
This is the link you need: http://darkmyst.org/?page=webchat
Join #zombieooc if you did not talk to me yet. Once you join we’ll get you playing very fast.
You need to read ALL of this to play, making your character will very likely take you LESS time then reading this does. Included is all the stuff you really need to know.
Making a character is going to be as simple as humanly possible.
THE STORY(read it):
The game starts on Long Island, an island connected to New York City which is a mix of urban, suburbs and rural. The game takes place a week after the zombie outbreak, the government has not yet collapsed and society has not yet disintegrated entirely, but the plague began in New York City and both New York City and Long Island are being quarantined by the military, planes in the air, boats off the shore and men on the ground along the coast.. The media is hesitant to use the word “zombie”, they call the virus mutated rabies but the end result is the same, those who are infected by it seem to die and then rise from the dead, slow and mindless, but as savage as a animal.
Reports are conflicting but there is word in the media that there are outbreaks in other cities. On the western tip of Long Island, every house has been shut up and people fear to walk outside.
Your character came to Long Island to visit family in New York City but your plane was rerouted to a small airport in the Hamptons, the east end of Long Island and you were stranded in the airport for nearly a full day . Misery loves company and while stranded there, you became friendly with other people on your flight(all other players, initially).
When word comes that there will be no more flights, you and the other players leave the airport to find yourself in the town of Smalltown mostly abandoned. Eastern long island is mostly rural and wealthy, small towns. Central long island is suburban. Western long island is more urban till it becomes, urban the closer you get to New York City. It is roughly 100 miles east to west.
You are in a small, wealthy town. The houses are large, the cars are nice, the lawns are perfectly manicured. Some of the populace of the Hamptons managed to escape before the island was quarantined and all the boats are gone, or so it seems. You are able to loot your starting equipment from abandoned buildings. No one really knows how bad it is except it is supposed to be pretty bad in New York City. The only land route off the island is on the western tip, about 100 miles west, through a handful of bridges which connect to New York City, but the news warned against trying to cross as the way is blocked by the military.
You are all watching the evening news in an abandoned house when suddenly the screen changes.
“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST”
The president of the United States comes on.
“My fellow Americans, in this time of national emergency…. ”
The game starts here. We will wait till we have a handful of people to start. Players who join late will be assumed to have been in the background during the game, so far.
Making a character is going to be as simple as humanly possible.
STEP 1: PICK YOUR ATTRIBUTES
Everyone has 5 attributes.
Strength-your overall physical strength
Nimbleness/Speed-how dexterous you are, reaction time, run speed etc
Intelligence-Your overall intelligence
Charisma-Your ability to communicate with others, mostly non player characters
Constitution-Your overall physical hardiness, determines things like how much damage you can take till you die of wounds but also how long you can carry a heavy burden or run.
Each attribute is ranked
Very high(+2)
High(+1)
Average(0)
Low(-1)
Very low(-2)
You start at each attribute as average by default and you have 5 additional points you can add
So for example a character might be:
Strength-Very high(+2)
Dex-Very high(+2)
Int-high(+1)
Cha-Average(0)
Con-Average(0)
You can not increase above “very high”
A very high intelligence is not Einstein, but it is, a very, very smart person. A very low intelligence, is a high retarded but high functioning enough to do a greeter job at walmart.
If your charisma is very low, you will have a lot of trouble convincing NPCs of anything.
If your constitution is very low, you’ll run out of constitution fast and so on.
Overall, you are best off to NOT lower any attribute below average but you can if you wish to.
STEP 2: PICK YOUR BACKGROUND(SKILLS)
There are no skills as in most classic RPG systems. These things slow down a game, a lot.
Instead, conceive a concept about your character. Maybe he works in a steam mill. Maybe he is a bus driver. Maybe they are a house wife. Write a VERY short description of your character and message me on IRC about it. It does not need to be longer then 100 words, though it can be as long as you wish. If you wish, you can include specific skills, interests abilities and interests the character has and as long as they make sense, you’ll get them, if they do not make sense or they seem too “high powered”, you will not get to keep them and we’ll remove those skills. Try to have your attributes match your background.
Whenever your character faces a problem, you the player will tell me how you want to solve that problem or overcome or escape that obstacle and then you’ll gain an advantage or a disadvantage based on your attributes and background/skills.
No one can be an active member of the army, a celebrity or anything of that sort, you are for the most part “normal folks”. A world class athlete is not “normal folks”. A professional body builder who has been on TV is not “normal folks”. Someone who works at a gym and is very buff, is “normal folks”. Scientists and engineers are “normal folks”, though if you are a scientist you need to say your specialty.
An example of a very basic background:
Bob is a steel worker from Pittsburgh. He was on his way to New York City to visit his aunt when he was stranded. He is 34 and in good shape. He is a gun aficionado and goes to the shooting range on weekends. He is a smoker, he loves science fiction movies and votes Republican. He likes Fox News and is a vegetarian.
STEP 3: PICK YOUR ITEMS
You start with whatever you had in your ullage you can scrounge from an abandoned main street in Smalltown USA and a handful of abandoned homes. There is a grocery store, a radioshack, a hardware store, a starnucks, a sports outfitter, an ice cream shop, the public post office, a blockbuster video, a generic clothing store, the public library and a handful of other small shops.
You do not find bazookas. You can have any items you want, within reason. You can not have an AK47, though you can have as many small handguns and rifles as you want as well as ammunition. Pitch forks and baseball bats are fine as well.
There a handful of people still in the town, those left are mostly barricaded in their homes and businesses and most of them, are armed. If you try to loot the wrong house, they may shoot at you.
Write down a list of what you have, the “big” stuff. Guns and weapons are big stuff. Medicine and food are big stuff. Plastic zip lock bags are not “big stuff”. Also include what the stuff is inside of, a backpack, a sack, carrying it by hand etc. If you are carrying too much it may slow you down.
STEP 4: MISCELANEOUS THINGS TO KNOW
1. Unless you do something stupid, you will not usually die. There is always a (very) small chance a gun might explode when you fire it, or a zombie pops out of a door next to you etc but it is very small. Your life or death will be 98% what you do and only 2% random chance. Play smart and you’ll live. Take stupid and pointless risks and you may not.
2. It is impossible to manage people when they split up ten different ways. Try to stick together if possible, if people separate we will keep playing, but we will have to switch back and forth between parties which slows down the game.
3. You can kill, rob, cheat steal etc from other players. Keep your actions in character. Anyone who is just being a jerk and just tries to kill people to end the game, will be eaten by a zombie and we will rewind to before the asshatery.
4. The game can go in whatever direction you take it. You CAN escape the island if you wish to, I am not trying to ‘trap’ you there, it will simply be difficult to do so.
5. Send me your characters in a private message either on the forum or in IRC in this format:
Attributes
Background/skills
Inventory
6. We only have room for so many people. First come, first serve. We can proboably manage up to 5 or 6 people. Other peopel are welcome to watch after that if they want and wait for someone to quit(or die). I will edit this to tell people when we have 5 or 6 people.