Zombie survival, but with a dice system.

[Gisk]

I don't like it, especially in a "survival" RP when everything works out for the characters. I want there to be an element of randomness, and a possibility of failure.

Plot will be pretty typical, and I'll need three things:
Adequate interest, a Co-GM and a relatively simple RPG system. I have a rough one in my head that I'll lay out when I get home, and if anyone has experience with dice systems, they can critique it.

[Munk]

I'm sure you know it already, but you might wanna look into the Apocalypse World system. It's based around moves, and uses 2d6+stat rolls.

[Gisk]

Okay, so, proposed dice system. This is a very simple, rough version of one that a group I played with used once.

You have attributes and skills, and you roll 1d20 with your actions. If you roll less than your skill, you succeed(so, the higher your skill, the higher your chance of success).
I was also going to add in bonuses for your character's cool-headedness(let's call this trait, Stoicism) (Actually, we'll go the other way and have a penalty for their panic) and their familiarity with a given weapon.
Let's say Panic goes from 0-3, 0 being someone who is just improbably unflappable. And the stress of a situation multiplies this.
Weapon familiarity also goes 0-3, 0 being they just picked it up for the first time.

So let's say they have a handgun skill of 13, and a panic of 2, the camp's perimeter has been breached(call this stress level 2), and they're using a gun they've been training on the past week(familiarity 1). Panic adds four to their roll(panic level of 2, and stress level 2), but weapon familiarity subtracts 1. You roll a nine. Add 3, and that's a twelve. Under your skill, so it's a successful shot. Let's say you rolled 11 instead, adds up to 14, so you miss what you were aiming for(the head, presumably) but it was a near miss, and you could say you got a chest shot instead.

What are thoughts on this?

[Gisk]

Oh, hey Munk. You played Alain in my Heroes in Training, didn't you?

No, I didn't know this. This is actually the first time I've used a dice system for an RP(aside from the half assed system my aforementioned play group had).

[Gisk]

Roll two six sided dice and add the character's relevant statistic (which again varies from game to game) - on a 10+ the move succeeds, on a 7-9 the move partially succeeds

This could work. Have you ever used it? What's an appropriate range for skills/stats, and how should they be decided/earned?

EDIT: I like it a lot better, in fact, ignore my previous post. The one thing I do want is to add in a way for situational stress to factor in. We can just subtract 1(or in extreme cases 2) in stressful situations.

Maybe we can even have "perks" for the characters to have.

[Munk]

I most certainly did. I'm not sure if I have time to join this one, but I'm always happy to throw in some dice mechanics.

The way AW works, you have five stats: Cool, Hard, Hot, Sharp, and Weird. These range from 0 to 3, meaning that unaugmented, you can at most roll 2d6+3 for a move. A move is some kind of fictional trigger, such as attacking someone, acting under fire, reading a situation, etc. When you do it, you roll and act on the result. All classes have moves of their own, and usually they can get boosts to other rolls as well.

It's pretty simple overall, but it might have to be adapted to something more appropriate for the zombie apocalypse setting. I just stumbled upon this, which might be a little elaborate for a play-by-post (and it uses playing cards rather than dice), but it should be possible to whittle it down to something usable. I'll get on it.

[Gisk]

Thanks, man. Whatever we use, I think it needs to be useable without a limited set of moves.

Wikipedia says that stats can actually go from -3 to +3. I think I like this because it allows a character's incompetence to be a detriment.

[Munk]

That sounds about right, yeah.

The way some of these games do it, if there's no specific move for something and it can't be shoehorned into another, just roll the most appropriate stat and wing it. As long as there's some kind of consensus on how limited a limited success is and so on, that should work just fine.

[Gisk]

Do you think this system would work with specific skills, rather than stats? I prefer it that way, because someone could be exceedingly sharp eyed, but if he's never picked up a gun he's not going to be much use.

I'm thinking of using their stats:

Cool: As in clear-thinking, calm, rational
Hard: As in hard-hearted, aggressive, violent
Hot: As in attractive, gracious, inspiring
Sharp: As in smart, perceptive, educated
Weird: As in uncanny, psychic, strange

Probably minus "Weird," and with the addition of various specific weapon skills. In ranged combat, you'll use your weapon skill, in close quarters and everywhere else you'll use the appropriate stat.

Probably ranged skills will just be
Handgun
Rifle
Bow
Thrown

And however points are assigned in the beginning, weapon skills and stats will be done separately.
How many points do characters usually start off with using this system? I couldn't find anything on it in those pages.

[Munk]

That's definitely a possibility. It could be something as simple as dividing a skill into Unfamiliar (-1 to rolls using the weapon), Average (+0 to rolls using the weapon) and Skilled (+1 to skills using the weapon). Depending on how the Perks mechanic comes along, it might be possible to just add "Choose a weapon proficiency" as a perk. I'm just spitballin' here, no idea if that's gonna work.

As for point allocation, I just checked the AW playbook. When you choose your character class, you get a pick of different sets of stats (like Cool+1 Hard-1 Hot+2 Sharp+1 Weird=0 or Cool-1 Hard=0 Hot+2 Sharp+2 Weird-1, usually favoring one or two stats that appear often in that class's moves. Looks to me like it's a net of +3 to your stats, so to simplify things, you could just let everybody assign their own stats as long as it doesn't add up to more than +3.

[Gisk]

I like that, just a three point system, and add it to.. what would it be, Sharp or Hard?

Alright, a net of plus three... but if I take out weird that would shift the stats a bit. Maybe I'll leave it in after all. I was going to go the Walking Dead route, and say that everyone carries a dormant version of the virus, that makes them turn upon death. Maybe it can cause special powers that use the Weird stat.

[Munk]

That would depend on the style of your game as well as the move. In AW, +Hard usually denotes your willingness to do harm, while +Sharp is more, like, focus, so stuff like shooting the zombie in front of you in the face might go that way, but lining up a shot at two hundred paces while the horde is slowly approaching you might use +Cool or +Sharp.

It's totally possible to set a specific stat for combat, though. Maybe +Hard for melee, +Sharp for ranged?

[Munk]

With regards to stress, you could just make a Stress pool; maybe have it increase by 1 every time you roll a 6 and below? Then you could do shit like:

At a Stress of 1, you're okay, just, you know, stressed.

At a Stress of 2 to 3, you're maybe shaking a little, maybe you're having a hard time focusing. Take -1 to all rolls.

At a Stress of 4, you take -2 to all rolls.

At a Stress of 5, you end up cracking. Maybe you break down crying, maybe you lash out at someone, maybe you finally give in to your lust for your teammate. This is less of a mechanical consequence.

You reset your Stress by resting and so on.

That make sense?

[Gisk]

Yeah, I like it that way. I intended for melee and ranged to be different anyway.

Okay, so here's my current system:

Cool: As in clear-thinking, calm, rational
Hard: As in hard-hearted, aggressive, violent. Determines melee combat.
Swift: As in quick, reactive, flighty.
Sharp: As in smart, perceptive, educated.
Steady: As in dextrous, unflappable. Determines ranged combat.

These stats range from -3 to +3. They must equal a net of +3.

Handgun
Rifle
Bow
Thrown
Melee

These range from -1 to +1. They must equal a net of +1.

As for how play goes, you just post as normal, but without the conclusion for whatever action you take. I, or a co GM will roll and announce the number result. The player then posts again, or edits their previous post? I'm not sure what would be best here. We roll with 2d6(two six sided dice) and add(or subtract) the appropriate stat, skill, and stress penalty.

Stress pool:
Each roll of 6 or lower adds one to your stress pool. Stress pool resets upon resting(whether it's actual sleep, or just the characters getting a break.

1-2 No penalty
3-4 Penalty of -1
5-6 Penalty of -2
Above this all actions get -2, and players should have their characters act accordingly.

[Gisk]

I like stress pool. But let's give them one and two are both non-penalties. It gets to -1 and 3 and 4.

So:
1-2 No penalty
3-4 Penalty of -1
5-6 Penalty of -2
Above this all actions get minus two, and players should have their characters act accordingly.

[Munk]

Good shit. As for how PbP works, you could maybe consider just going by the honor system, using Invisible Castle for rolls and just asking people to be reasonable when describing when and how their character fails at something. Maybe supply a list of how different things could go wrong so people have something to go by?

[Gisk]

I think player versus player they'll both roll and whoever got higher wins out.

What's invisible castle? I was just going to have GMs be responsible for rolling. I don't want to assume anyone's cheating, but it happens.

[Munk]

Just a dice rolling site that lets you link to your roll so people can see you're not cheating.

[Gisk]

Couldn't one just roll over and over until they get one they like and then link it? I don't know how it works, so maybe there's some way to prevent this.

[Gisk]

I took weird out after all, and replaced it with Steady, which I think fits gun combat better. It also keeps the stats balanced without having to rethink the math.