Yeah, if you know how to create characters you can email me them so I can check them.

If someone doesnt know how to make one, I can meet up with you tomorrow and create them, or you can give me a basic outline and I can create one for you. Its real simple to create a character, you dont even have to have the book.

Str:
Dex:
Con:
Per:
Int:
Will:

These attributes are self explanatory. Dex measures the "to hit" roll with many weapons and for deleterious skills like acrobats, str measures dmg with melee and carrying loads, con is for health rolls for viruses etc., Perception is your senses, int measures your intellect and is associated with mental skill rolls, will is your willpower for resisting coercion both real world and supernatural. You have 14 pts to spread to these within 1 to 4pts.

Skills is easy. Just pick a skill, like say.. handguns, driving, gardening, etc. and assign points to them, you have 30pts to work with. In both attributes and skills, 5 pts and over costs more.

Drawbacks and qualities you need the book for. But you can decide what they will be. Like is he a smoker? And has mental instabilities? I can give you the pt total for these, these drawbacks give you free pts to assign to skills or attribs, and its what I look at when the session ends when i give RP xp pts.

Secondary attributes are calculated (like life points). I dont have the book with me right now, but its a simple calculation we can do before game.

You are free to create whatever you want. A ninja, a whacked out cowboy that thinks its 1800, whatever. I put no restrictions because a classless system is fun due to the freedom of character creation. But I consider this game to be serious survival horror.

The system works with using your attribute (lets say 3 dex) and your handgun skill (4pts), thats a total of 7 added to a d10 rolls against a standard target number.

Yeah, I can open one more spot.

Did you play in one of my games before?

This is going to be a little different compared to games I have ran. I usually have a strong plot that builds up over several sessions, this time its going to be very non-linear. I was rereading the Zombie survival guide, and I had the urge to run something completely chaotic and open with the players making up the whole session based on their actions. So, if we have a boring group, this game might get side-railed. So expect some games to just involve building a fence, or something random like someone electing to go to sail and check any islands off the coast.

I have a question, how aware are our characters of the incoming zombie apocalypse and at what state will our starting location be in?

I ask because as our awareness increases then our likely equipment and its placement (a spade back in the shed as opposed to a handgun in ma hand) is likely to change as at low levels of zombie awareness then it is presumable that we would only have items that we would likely have normally.

You characters have no idea whats going to happen. The town will be undergoing martial law, and several high population areas will be cordoned off to the public. The way the map looks like, is that the towns square is at the center of this town, with small houses spread out around it. So, that means you can go back home and gather any supplies. No one can have a fully stocked house with a fallout shelter with years of rations. No one should have a house full of guns, though having a rifle, or handgun in the house is acceptable, even swords or exotic weapons, but not an arsenal.

The intro starts with everyone headed to the towns square. Their houses should be outside the towns square. No warnings, no reports, no broadcasts will warn the players beforehand. Note, you dont have to be from this town, you can just be a tourist, or just so happen to be driving through this town.

If you have a car, buy it and pick it from the book. If you have a house, and you feel its going to be important to your character (like he would not leave his house, no matter what, or he will run to his house and defend it instead of whatever other options the other PCs want) then create a little description of the house, otherwise I will.

sounds awesome

Yeah, twas the one with me as the strong construction worker, some crazy viet vet and a cowardly fellar. And that sounds nice, non linear RPGs area great!

Game is tomorrow, tuesday 8pm est. I only have two characters in my inbox.

Boarding up:
I am going to clarify certain rules. A dex or carpentry roll allows you to board up a window or door. It takes 4 rounds to board a window, and 8 rounds to board a door, each round is like 5 seconds. If you spend double the listed time boarding up, you can add more armor value and damage capacity to the door. Armor value is what you deduct from damage, and whats left over takes away from the damage capacity (if this hits zero, the door and/or window will be broken into, this is also what you use for normally breaking things). This isnt really new rules, I just set the time per rounds to board something up. The additional material that is used to board up gives its own AV and DC values as per the material in the corebook.

How scenarios will be played:
Since this is non-linear, I will create a bunch of random charts for random events depending on what you are doing (since I have no idea what the heck you guys are going to do, I have put typical situations from zombie movies into charts which are really mini scenarios). Different player actions (based on guesses of mines based on zombie horror movie lore and likely probablity) will offer a different roll on an event chart. So if you are hiding and crying, thats another chart, if you are running and gunning, then thats another chart, if you are going ballistic and sadistic while shooting everything and anything that moves, then thats another chart. You can completely ignore these, but some "rolls" can lead to a scenario that can be very beneficial, or very dangerous. These are usually fleshed out scenarios with more or less narration, once they get used, they are thrown out, a new one is put in place and the rest are recycled for a later session when you are within the same scenario that can trigger this random event. If you enjoy doing whatever you want at your own pace in non-linearity, then completely ignore them, or just investigate if you are curious, its up to you.

Character creation:
Only the corebook is used for creation. Others can be used to add new skills only after you survive at least one night in the game with that one character. if your prior dead character was a good one, and died in awesome style, then i can allow you to start a new character with the extra books (and only if the surviving characters have used any). Also, a new character that is created joins up with still surviving members has to explain what hes done to that point (escaped nyc, drove off road and slept in the woods, etc.), the better the story, the more extra bonus pts I can give you to try to catch up to the other living players in terms of points (at least up to half their extra pt value over a new charater pt total, but never more, and this is only for later sessions down the line... thats if any of you guys and this game are still alive).

These extra books I am referring to are One of the Living (book about scrounging, survival, and gadgetering) Enter the Zombie (for martial arts, not martial arts powers) and I might even allow All Tomorrows Zombies for science skills and such.

COMBAT:
In combat, you have to declare what you are doing in the round, then you roll init. This is important, because you cant declare to dodge a bullet shot after you made a move. To dodge gunfire, is to save up your only action for that one move.

You get -2 to each defense and action after your first attack and first defense (which are free, and thats for melee combat). Yes, they are slow zombies, but once you are surrounded by 4, and are up to -6 to defense (one free defense, -2 for the second zombie, -4 for the third, and -6 for the last, and thats only if you didnt act, if you did 2 actions prior to this, that would be a further -2 after the first free attack move), you will see why its foolish to go toe to toe with a crowd of zombies. Also, I will be noting fatigue, you dont want to act all big and bad because the zombies are slow, because a few minutes of zombies, with no water or food, followed by constant running, will sap your reserves and leave you walking slowly clutching your kidneys from fatigue, and by then it will be too late when you notice the zombies can catch up now.

I have been thinking of a house-rule to deal with a lot of zombies. This game gets to be really annoying once players elect to shoot at a bunch of crowds of zombies. It bogs down the game and slows it to a crawl. Right now, I wont be using any new house rules for this, but if it does happen, I might create one. But keep in mind that some guns can shoot bursts, and some can have the trigger pulled for automatic hits. If you dont know this rule, or dont understand it, ask me in game.

General conduct rules, player vs player conflict:
Also, if you have a problem with foul language, then bring it up before the game. No racism or deregatory terms are allowed, you can rp someone racist, but dont say actual racist terms. Player conflict is up to you guys. I wont be holding your hands on these. Human conflict is a staple in zombie horror, if some player disagrees with you, and according to the make-up of his character decides to whip out his gun and shoot you within RP REASONS, then no hard feelings, and hopefully you can create a new character and keep playing. But I dont have to tell you thats how people die in these zombie movies, its always the guy huddled next to you that you have to worry about.

This is a reminder that the game is scheduled for tonight, with an 8pm est start. I will be there at 7ish, to help with character creation if anyone out there is still willing to join (I have 3 character sheets, another sheet is in my inbox but it needs revising, and I havent heard from the players that messaged me to actually run this game, lol).

The style and setting will be heavily influenced by The Walking Dead comic series (in fact this will feel like our own series within that world). This first session wont be so hard since its the first rise, but either way you would need to keep your thinking caps on tight, and holding tightly onto your survival guides if you want to make it out alive.

Just to make things clear:
Guns are -1 per shot after the first shot. Shooting single shots is considered one whole action (no matter how many shots you shoot), usually I would deduct -2 per action as per the multiple action rule since it doesnt state if you do it for single shots. You can do this up to your gun skill ( so a gun skill of 3 can fire one shot, a second shot at -1, and a second shot at -2) after this its a -2 for another action. GUNS IS DEX + GUN SKILL + D10 ROLL

Guns that fire bursts hit based on the success roll outcame table. So a roll of 14 is 3 catagories of success (good), so that means 3 hits would hit in a burst of 5 shots or 10 shots for full auto.

If you picked your move and performed it, and a bullet is flying toward you, then you have to hope that the person misses his gun skill roll. You forefiet your defense against guns (dodging out the way) when you perform an action.

This will be group initiative. One side takes the highest dex roll and rolls a d10 for init. DEX + 1D10 ROLL

We will be using target hit locations. They range from -4 to -2, depending on the location. If you DONT state your location, you will roll on the random hit location table found in the zombie creation section.

No one is a zombie expert. You dont know what to hit, and until you find the weakness, you will be rolling random hit locations until you find out (thats if there is any weakness).

Zombies bite on a dex+brawl+d10 vs def+dodge+1d10 resisted roll when in close quarters, and also scratch and claw in the same way. There will also be strength contests for when they pull you.

Can we make popular culture guesses and aim for the head? Hehe or have ranks in Occult Knowledge (Zombie).

In other news, I am hoping the rest of you are able to attend as well, its usually a lot of fun in these zombie games.

I will be able to attend tonight's game no problem, though I will somewhat groggy it shoudn't matter once things pick up.

Ill be there and Walking Dead is an awesome series, especially the one with the cannibals