First thoughts on of The End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse

[Prak]

The thread which would not die.

So, this is actually a really interesting idea that I'd take and run with but for not exactly being able to parse the system idea entirely. Or rather, I mostly get it, but I'm not entirely clear on the threat cancelling idea. Is it still a dicepool res. system, and you can use dice for successes on your action, or to cancel threat, or are all rolls made to try to cancel threat?

[Judging__Eagle]

Per scene seems reasonable enough, although since you are going to be forced to give ground repeatedly, "scene" is going to necessarily be a fluid concept. You also need a rule against action spamming to prevent people from just repeatedly scavenging or whatever.

Speaking of which, you need a scavenging gimmick mechanic. My thought would be that you can get an item valued at the number of dice you set aside that have the same number.

Also I think every time you give ground there should be an extra threat die rolled.

-Username17

The best that I can think of would be to borrow from digital games that are trying to force a "give ground" form of gamplay simply have the number of zombi spawn increase as you pick up more loot in a scene. Making escape/survival the ultimate plan for every scene.

Alternate methods I've seen include zombie spawns being static; and are adjusted up/down based on the level of noise that the players are making with their weapons.

[TheFlatline]

The thread which would not die.

So, this is actually a really interesting idea that I'd take and run with but for not exactly being able to parse the system idea entirely. Or rather, I mostly get it, but I'm not entirely clear on the threat cancelling idea. Is it still a dicepool res. system, and you can use dice for successes on your action, or to cancel threat, or are all rolls made to try to cancel threat?

I had forgotten about this.

The idea was kind of nebulous at this point. The idea is that it's easy to buy successes towards your goal, but at any given point there is a growing/refreshing threat pool that represents the dangers of the scene/goal.

If I were to go back and work on this again, you'd start a scene by defining a goal:

* Forage for food.

Now we need to have a win condition. So 1 success equals 1/2 of a portion of food per person for a day. Feeding 5 people? 10 successes for a day. So let's say you want to scavenge for 3 days. Or you're just trying to pick up as much food before things go to shit. But you have a goal.

Mister Cavern assigns the scene a threat rating. You're in downtown Atlanta. Zed central. On a danger scale, you're probably talking about an 8 easy. You've wandered into an abandoned distribution warehouse but it looks pretty damaged. Let's throw 1 environmental die into the pool. But you're also going in the middle of a rainstorm, so sound and smell is deadened a little. So 8 dice for a threat pool.

4,5,6,2,2,1,3,3

So 1-2 is envrionmental dangers/stresses, 3-4 is zombies, so we're looking at a few zombies, and 5-6 destroys equipment carried by the party.

It's my turn, and I've got a mental stat of say 2, and I'm using a flashlight for 1 bonus die.

3,3,4

I have a choice. Any of those dice can be used for successes for the goal of foraging for food.

However, I do not have a 5-6 to spend on maintaining my flashlight. It goes dead in my search. Fuck. I can decide to concentrate on those zombies. I'll spend a 3 to pick up food and a 3 & 4 to cancel out the threat pool, leaving

5,6,2,2,1,3

Play continues. But let's imagine we quit after that. We evaluate the threat pool. First comes environmental stress. 2, 2, and 1 mean 3 points of environmental/stress damage. I think environmental damage makes more sense here so we have to divide 3 points of damage among the party. One 3 is left over, so someone has to get a zombie bite (or damage, depending on how hardcore you want to go), and the 5 and 6 means that the party loses two pieces of equipment in their retreat.

To continue, let's not end the scene. Now let's say that the next person rolls for shit and doesn't like what they get. They can blow their turn and all their dice to give ground. I would propose a penalty to add dice to the threat pool in this event but I dunno what that would be at this time so let's ignore it. All the dice get rolled again as we move out of the warehouse and into the shipping center. It's just too treacherous in that warehouse, especially without any lights.

3,1,6,2,6,5

It's safer here, and there's a couple zombies, but this is pretty technical terrain.

Person 3 goes. They have 3 in their mental stat for searching.
5,4,6

So here's a problem. They have a 4. Which is a zombie die. But they don't have a 3, which is the active zombie. There's a struggle. Noise. Yelling. The kind of thing that draws attention. So at the end of this round, the threat pool increases by the original threat rating. Which was 8. Fuck. So Player 3 spends 3 dice on successes. This isn't ideal. Let's say you grab good cache of food but in salvaging it you crash over a bunch of rubble and it's like ringing the dinner bell.

We're rolling 14 dice for the threat pool now.
3,1,6,2,6,5 for the existing scene.
1,5,4,3,1,5,5,4 for the added threat death-spiral.

3 or 4 dice worth of zombies push through the loading dock door which knocks a stack of equipment and it's a tricky area to work through now.

Player 4's turn. He pulls out his pump action shotgun and goes on the offensive. 3 dice plus his 3 stat dice.
4,4,3,6,5,3

BLAM! We're doing walking dead style zeds. He spends a 3 to avoid the zombies from popping from the gunshot. Spends 6 to keep his shotgun going. Spends a 4, 4, 3, on canceling out the zeds. Spends a 6 clearing a path to GTFO. No successes but he has done a lot this turn.

Threat pool is down to 10 dice:
1,2,6,5 1,5,3,1,5,5
4 successes for food.

Player 1's turn again.

That's an example of how I see the dice mechanics going for the game. Although it is admittedly in a rough state. It'd need playtesting and I can see already broken feedback loops and maybe too deadly of a death spiral. But it's a start that I think you would work with. You can adjust all kinds of things to make things easier or more or less lethal. But you want death spirals, and the thing I like about the system is that as things go from bad to worse, your incentive to GTFO actually kind of goes down, because of the massive ball of trauma your party has to deal with.

[phlapjackage]

Small thought I had while reading all the ideas (I would pay money for a polished version of this, btw)

Party size seems like it should be important, mostly because it seems "in genre" (split the party or all stay together?). Maybe some kind of "noticeability" mechanic, where each party member in a particular area adds a threat die. So a small 2 man team might want to go try to grab some supplies, as they're quicker and quieter than if everyone goes out. And also maybe some way of allowing PCs to reduce their noticeability, like the classic "smear zombie guts on yourself". Typing this, it begins to sound like a stealth minigame would be needed...

But then again you'd want to make sure that there weren't scenes where half the players have to sit around and do nothing but play SSB, so maybe it's not so workable...

[Aryxbez]

Small thought I had while reading all the ideas (I would pay money for a polished version of this, btw)

Same here, I'd happily give TheFlatline money for polishing this idea.

So here's a problem. They have a 4. Which is a zombie die. But they don't have a 3, which is the active zombie.

So you can't spend a bigger number result, to get rid of a smaller one? So if there were 3, 3, 5 for Zombies, I got a 4, I couldn't spend that "4-result" to get rid of one of the Zombie 3's?

Otherwise I found your example of play fairly evocative, so job well done there if nothing else. Sounds like it could be a cool experience with this structure.

[Username17]

The core idea is that you cancel dice with dice that have exactly the number. So if the threat level drops low, you can end up with a lot of blank dice that don't match anything and can at best be used for minor benefits.

One game I've been playing a bit of lately is Pandemic: The Cure, which is pretty fucking awesome. And while it uses special dice with funny sides and an RPG would not want to do that, there's a lot that can learned there. In Pandemic, you roll a new pile of threat dice after each player takes their actions, which means that you have a bit of a forward/back on each turn. It's a nice setup. Also the characters have skills that do specific things to how they interact with the game, which goes pretty deep. And the outbreaks that happen if too many dice come up the same number before you do something about it gives nice incentives to do things.

But while that game is fucking awesome, you're going to have to make adjustments for the fact that you don't get to have dice with weird shit printed on the sides, nor are you going to want to use randomized dice colors.

-Username17

[momothefiddler]

I feel like there's room for "use d6s and cancel numbers that match, 1 and 2 are environmental, 3 and 4 are zombies, 5 and 6 are equipment" as base while also letting you potentially make fancy dice with, like, a raindrop, a lightning bolt, a clawed hand, some teeth, a flashlight, and a gun (or whatever), and use those instead.

Yknow, like how Fudge dice are cool but also you can just use d6s so it's ok to not have any.

[TheFlatline]

The core idea is that you cancel dice with dice that have exactly the number. So if the threat level drops low, you can end up with a lot of blank dice that don't match anything and can at best be used for minor benefits.

One game I've been playing a bit of lately is Pandemic: The Cure, which is pretty fucking awesome. And while it uses special dice with funny sides and an RPG would not want to do that, there's a lot that can learned there. In Pandemic, you roll a new pile of threat dice after each player takes their actions, which means that you have a bit of a forward/back on each turn. It's a nice setup. Also the characters have skills that do specific things to how they interact with the game, which goes pretty deep. And the outbreaks that happen if too many dice come up the same number before you do something about it gives nice incentives to do things.

But while that game is fucking awesome, you're going to have to make adjustments for the fact that you don't get to have dice with weird shit printed on the sides, nor are you going to want to use randomized dice colors.

-Username17

I had no idea Pandemic The Cure was anything other than a new edition of Pandemic.

I have to order this now and go check it out. Thanks Frank!

I was actually thinking of rolling at the beginning of every round as part of the zombie game, but if I did that, I feel it would add a lot of chaos to the game. Which is kind of cool but I'm not sure if things should be that fast-paced. Maybe for more 28 Days Later zombies that would be the ticket but for traditional zeds I'd like a slower changing state. I want the feeling of giving ground to really mean something.

Also I can't take credit for the system since Frank literally pulled the core idea out of his ass while commenting on TEOTW.

[TheFlatline]

I feel like there's room for "use d6s and cancel numbers that match, 1 and 2 are environmental, 3 and 4 are zombies, 5 and 6 are equipment" as base while also letting you potentially make fancy dice with, like, a raindrop, a lightning bolt, a clawed hand, some teeth, a flashlight, and a gun (or whatever), and use those instead.

Yknow, like how Fudge dice are cool but also you can just use d6s so it's ok to not have any.

No reason why you couldn't at all. Custom dice are a dollar a face for small runs though, so you're looking at 6 bucks a die until you start getting economies of scale. Which you totally could. I just feel like it's not necessary.

[TheFlatline]

Small thought I had while reading all the ideas (I would pay money for a polished version of this, btw)

Party size seems like it should be important, mostly because it seems "in genre" (split the party or all stay together?). Maybe some kind of "noticeability" mechanic, where each party member in a particular area adds a threat die. So a small 2 man team might want to go try to grab some supplies, as they're quicker and quieter than if everyone goes out. And also maybe some way of allowing PCs to reduce their noticeability, like the classic "smear zombie guts on yourself". Typing this, it begins to sound like a stealth minigame would be needed...

But then again you'd want to make sure that there weren't scenes where half the players have to sit around and do nothing but play SSB, so maybe it's not so workable...

Agreed.

I could see a couple different easy things to do. Default difficulty pools assume the entire party is together. Splitting up adds negative pool modifier dice. So if the party splits up 2 & 2, you get -2 dice to your threat pool.

Same with zombie guts and stuff. If you prep before the scene, it lowers your threat rating accordingly. If you come up with a brilliant idea during the scene, I would actually consider letting you shift numbers. So covering yourself with zombie guts would lessen the zombie threat but be harder to navigate the scene. So you could swap out a 3 or 4 for a 5 or 6. Or if it's one person who is trying stealth I'd let them swap any one die for a zombie die or shift an equipment face to a zombie face. To encourage that kind of creativity I'd probably stipulate something like you declare an idea like that before you roll, I tell you "you must swap an equipment result for a zombie result" and then you roll. If you roll no 5's or 6's, you can't swap to 3's or 4's. I would think initially that "you can swap a 5 for a 3" would be too prohibitive but playtesting might show otherwise.

In fact, that might be how I handle skills/professions from before the fall. Give you threat dice manipulation. That accomplishes two things: First, it provides incentive for the party to have varied skills/professions from before the fall. Second, it means your natural abilities and your gear basically make up your entire dice pool. You have to rely on gear more often, and you run the risk of losing it more often.

So you can't spend a bigger number result, to get rid of a smaller one? So if there were 3, 3, 5 for Zombies, I got a 4, I couldn't spend that "4-result" to get rid of one of the Zombie 3's?

Yeah no we're not looking for roll high. Otherwise you'd get a weird situation where 4's are always preferable to 3's etc etc...

And on further thought, reducing it down to 2 environmental sides, 2 zombie sides, and 2 equipment sides kind of sucks too because you've basically made fudge dice at that point. I mean, there's a fudge dice variant to be had I'm sure but that wasn't the idea you wanted.

I'd also put in rules to prevent power-looting after a scene that like... a threat pool can never drop below the number of characters in a scene. There should *always* be a chance of things going to shit. Otherwise you just focus on cleaning up the scene until the threat pool is zero or 1 and then you go loot the fuck out of the scene and it's a cakewalk.

[Aryxbez]

Also I can't take credit for the system since Frank literally pulled the core idea out of his ass while commenting on TEOTW.

True, but you can totally still design the game with a thanks or props to him in mind, even if you're a making shoddy profit from it (if at all). Regardless, thanks again Frank Trollman, its awesome when you throw down ideas that push discussion the way they do.

Since it sounds like we're getting an idea for the RNG here, how big will dice pools get, especially in respect to the the Threat Pool you think? I'm curious how much a variance on Equipment modifiers you would be going, sounded like they'd pretty small (2-3) but I imagine that's going to be slightly expanded.

[Username17]

Splitting the party could create separate threat pools. That would seem to be disincentive enough, because you wouldn't be able to use spare 3s in your pool to cancel a superfluidity of 3s in another group's threat pool. That means that it could end up being really hard to eliminate each group of threats - especially if one of the groups ends up with a really uneven split. A threat pool of just six dice that happens to have four 3s in it would take an average of 24 action dice to clear.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Also I can't take credit for the system since Frank literally pulled the core idea out of his ass while commenting on TEOTW.

True, but you can totally still design the game with a thanks or props to him in mind, even if you're a making shoddy profit from it (if at all). Regardless, thanks again Frank Trollman, its awesome when you throw down ideas that push discussion the way they do.

Since it sounds like we're getting an idea for the RNG here, how big will dice pools get, especially in respect to the the Threat Pool you think? I'm curious how much a variance on Equipment modifiers you would be going, sounded like they'd pretty small (2-3) but I imagine that's going to be slightly expanded.

To me the threat pool size depends on how frequently it can pop/reroll. The bigger the threat pool, the harder it should be for it to pop/reroll, because it's a bigger cost to the players. At one point I thought about rerolling threat ever round, but decided against that for various reasons. At that point I think I was considering a threat pool of 4-5 on average.

The idea was that equipment adds 1-3 dice, depending on a combination of availability and reliability. +3 to your dice pool is a big deal, because odds are in general you'll always roll a 5 or 6 from the equipment roll to keep your equipment AND contribute to the scene somehow. Meanwhile one-shot items like a small first aid kit adds 1 die to the situation. You can either "make use of it" or let it conserve itself.

I like the idea that the threat pool can never drop below the number of players in the party to prevent the ability of players just focusing real hard on resolving the threat pool and then cakewalking. So to build a threat pool let's say:

1. Add a die to the threat pool per player. We're assuming 4.
2. Determine the general danger level of the scene. Originally I was thinking 1-10 but with dice added based on player count I think we're okay with 1-5. This may change with playtesting. I would absolutely have charts/stats to give rules on calculating the threat level so it's not just Bears.
3. Environmental modifiers. Rain, night, particularly unusual situations, etc etc... This should be minor. And you can add and remove dice to the threat pool. This is where pre-planning can pay off. I might have a hard cap of, say, +-3 dice. Playtesting will reveal if there's a need here or not.

So generally I'm thinking with a 4 player game you're looking at 5-9 threat pool dice. Unusual circumstances could boost that up to say 12 dice at a starting point. So 4-12 at a starting point. Every time the threat pool "pops" that will go up from 1-5 dice with no upper limit.

Since there's a minimum of threat pool dice at all times now, we need to figure out a way to get out of a situation without incurring any negative penalties. Always taking 4 dice of damage whenever you do anything seems overly negative.

Towards that end I propose this: When a group ends the scene, they each get one more round where they roll their pertinent dice pools for disengaging (usually I imagine a physically-related roll but whatever) with any equipment they wish to use. Equipment preservation rules still count (so you have to spend a 5 or 6 to keep your equipment). You can use dice to cancel out the threat pool as you disengage. After everyone who can does go, resolve the remaining threat pool immediately.

[TheFlatline]

Splitting the party could create separate threat pools. That would seem to be disincentive enough, because you wouldn't be able to use spare 3s in your pool to cancel a superfluidity of 3s in another group's threat pool. That means that it could end up being really hard to eliminate each group of threats - especially if one of the groups ends up with a really uneven split. A threat pool of just six dice that happens to have four 3s in it would take an average of 24 action dice to clear.

-Username17

I like this. You could handle it where you actually divide the scene's threat pool or you could create different scenes and adjust threat pool difficulties accordingly depending on the narrative requirements. Rules wouldn't be that complicated.

If you wanted to make divided parties even more risky, the threat level for the scene remains the same, so if the zombie horde pops on the one guy who is split up from the group in a Danger-4 scene, that's 4 dice that get added to *his* threat pool.

Dice mechanics for player vs player and player vs npc still would need to be decided I think though.

It could be simple. Each side rolls their dice pool. Matches cancel each other out. Dice that remain are successes. It almost seems like it's predetermined even in that situation though as to who has the higher dice pool.

[Neurosis]

@TheFlatline:

I am kind of boycotting FFG because Star Wars: Armada was a thing that happened. (Note to any FFG marketing goons reading this: three capital ships does not an armada make, fucktards, I want my 140 dollars back.)

So I mainly just wanted to express my unchecked envy of your username. I assume it's a reference to the Dixie Flatline from Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy era?

[Aryxbez]

It could be simple. Each side rolls their dice pool. Matches cancel each other out. Dice that remain are successes. It almost seems like it's predetermined even in that situation though as to who has the higher dice pool.

That sounds like a problem, especially if we want to represent the party fighting a group of fellow survivors (bound to happen eventually). As well as a three-way fight between PC's, Fellow Scavengers, and Zombies all in one encounter. Such as, one side is fighting the zombies while the PC's go in and take what they can, Or the NPC's were fighting the PC's until all their gunfire caused Zombies to show up and attack.

Sounds like it would be then two Threat Pools you'd have to diminish, and you apply which matches to remove which threat from the pool? That could be kinda clunky, but if the pools are in public view of the PC's, it would be presentably smooth at least (whether tracking the numbers on paper, or as physical dice as they landed and removed as necessary).

[TheFlatline]

@TheFlatline:

I am kind of boycotting FFG because Star Wars: Armada was a thing that happened. (Note to any FFG marketing goons reading this: three capital ships does not an armada make, fucktards, I want my 140 dollars back.)

So I mainly just wanted to express my unchecked envy of your username. I assume it's a reference to the Dixie Flatline from Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy era?

Hell yes. My favorite character from Neuromancer. It's reasonably popular but I've been going by some derivative of it for... oh... 20 years now.

"I never did like to do anything simple when I could do it ass-backwards" has become like a family motto for me.

[TheFlatline]

It could be simple. Each side rolls their dice pool. Matches cancel each other out. Dice that remain are successes. It almost seems like it's predetermined even in that situation though as to who has the higher dice pool.

That sounds like a problem, especially if we want to represent the party fighting a group of fellow survivors (bound to happen eventually). As well as a three-way fight between PC's, Fellow Scavengers, and Zombies all in one encounter. Such as, one side is fighting the zombies while the PC's go in and take what they can, Or the NPC's were fighting the PC's until all their gunfire caused Zombies to show up and attack.

Sounds like it would be then two Threat Pools you'd have to diminish, and you apply which matches to remove which threat from the pool? That could be kinda clunky, but if the pools are in public view of the PC's, it would be presentably smooth at least (whether tracking the numbers on paper, or as physical dice as they landed and removed as necessary).

Two threat pools actually sounds interesting. Off the top of my head that introduces a nice little conflict engine between survivor groups.

Create the threat pool for each party. Define the scene goals. Instead of spending dice on successes, you can send 2 dice of one type (1-2, 3-4, 5-6) over to the enemy threat pool. Maybe 1-to-1 if the 2-to-1 isn't damaging enough.

Play continues until one team chickens out and disengages. At which point they get a goddamn pile of hurt coming their way. So you have to manage the scene you're in *and* try to damage the other team.

Two things I see about this.

First, there probably needs to be a "burst" value rule where the scene ends and the threat pool applies. I think the "burst" needs to not be able to be cancelled at all like a disengagement to give parties reason to disengage even when there's a large pile of threat. This is less survivor group conflict than just a core rule I think that needs to be created.

If you're in a situation where *obviously* there are no zombies, there needs to be rules on that. I kind of like the idea of tallying those zed dice, and once they reach a certain threshold it's like "oh shit the horde found us!" and the zombies come flooding in and fuck the entire narrative. So even if you're in a "safe" place, you can't rely on it necessarily being safe forever.

The more I think about this game the more it seems to be one of those weird abstract storytelling games. Definitely less simulation than narrative if we're going by that concept. Because if survivor group conflict plays that way you can't ever just shoot someone in the middle of a scene for 3 points of damage.

[Username17]

I want to talk a little bit about dice probabilities. First of all, the chances of having doubles or worse to deal with on 6 dice of threat is over 98%. Meanwhile, the chance of failing to clear two 3s (or whatever) with 12 action dice is over 38%. And the chances of failing to clear three of a single number with 12 action dice is more than two in three.

To illustrate this, let's assume the threat pool is only 5 dice (because then I can scavenge Yatzee probabilities), and the players are coming after it with a total of twelve dice. What follows is your chance of clearing the largest number of threats.

Biggest Threat	Threat Chance	Clearance Chance	Total Fail Chance
1	9.259%	88.78%	1.038%
2	69.444%	61.87%	26.479%
3	19.290%	32.26%	13.067%
4	1.929%	12.52%	1.687%
5	0.077%	3.64%	0.074%
Total:	100%	100%	42.345%

Now that actually underestimates the chances of failing to clear 5 threat dice with 12 action dice, because it only counts the chances of failing to cler the largest pile in the threat pool. But if you're staring down triple fives, you're probably also looking at a 2 and a 6, and there's an 11% chance you won't clear one of those either.

What this means generally is that there need to be a lot more action dice than threat dice to keep failure from being "basically guaranteed," but also that threat dice need to be capped in how many can be in a run at any given time. If there are five 2s in the pile, you can basically fuck right off. Which brings us back to Pandemic: the Cure. In Pandemic, you are trying to collect samples and prevent outbreaks. Outbreaks happen when there are already three dice of a single color in a region and you would be expected to put another die of that color there - instead there's an "outbreak" and the die gets placed in the next region over and your losing the game total advances by one.

So I could see something broadly similar here - with the players getting setbacks in the narrative and advancing their doom track when one of the piles got past three (or four, depending on how many dice you intend to roll on an action, but with the dicepools I am imagining, three seems fine). So that implies that you should have multiple piles and when one of them gets a threat die that already has three buddies, then a bad event happens instead of adding it to the pile.

Another thing is that there needs to be choices. The most basic choice is what threat pool you want to work on. Which would normally be just as simple as "which one is closest to exploding?" and isn't much of a choice. But if people also had and acquired super powers like unto the dice manipulation in To Court The King, then there'd be some tactical choices. Like how the guy who could always have a 3 if he wanted might be useful to send to a problem area that had a surplus of 3s even if there was another area where 2s and 4s were in the danger zone. Another issue would be diverting threats to threat pools. During the threat proliferation phase, there could be a number of dice that were rolled and then the players could assign them to the threat pools as they wished - followed by some dice rolled for each threat pool.

But the reroll system of To Court The King actually sounds pretty good here. You have to spend at least one die from the roll to keep your equipment or cancel a threat die, but then you can reroll the rest.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Interesting.

You're right there needs to be choices. I need to mull on this for a while.

I also just got my copy of The Cure. Going to play a few rounds of it to see how it plays out this weekend.