Spes Magna Games

Today is a two-fer since I didn’t post yesterday. Busy, busy with the beginning of the new school year, making sure all those T’s are dotted and all those I’s are crossed. For my favorite undead, I’m tempted to just link my old post about the death knight and be done with it, but that seems kind of lazy. I’m not going to do that.

My favorite undead is hard to pin down. If I were writing about movies/TV shows, my favorite undead would be zombies, but only when they’re a metaphor (such as in 1978’s Dawn of the Dead) and/or when they serve as a mirror in which the survivors’ humanity becomes reflected (such as in 2011’s State of Emergency, which I found to be surprisingly hopeful). Of course, I’m not supposed to be writing about movies. This is the 30-Day D&D Challenge, and zombies don’t really do it for me in D&D. I’ve used them, of course, and quite a bit, but D&D and survival horror are a tough match.

For D&D, the mummy reigns as my favorite undead.

“But why, Mark?” you ask.

Well, the picture piercing your soul with its glowing stare probably gave it away, but I reply to your question with a simple, “Because Boris Karloff.”

Sure, you can play mummies like lumbering, bandage-wrapped mashers, and the inferior sequels to 1932’s The Mummy veered in that direction, but that’s not the way I feel mummies should be played. The word “mummy” conjures up visions of ancient Egypt. Pyramids and sphinxes and scarabs. Kings, high priests, and powerful ministers got the mummy treatment, which isn’t quite the whole story, but it provides the hook for what a mummy ought to be.

Oh, sure, the boss mummy could have lumbering, bandage-wrapped mummy lackeys to bash interlopers, but the mummy should be more like Ardath Bey, also known as Imhotep. He’s clever, obsessed, powerful, urbane, and menacing. He doesn’t just lunge out of a sarcophagus and start swinging. To get the full-on Imhotep experience, add some divination powers and a vampire-like ability to charm the PC who’s the reincarnation of his forbidden love.

My favorite aberration bears some defining ahead of time. Early D&D didn’t have monster types as introduced by 3E. A monster type is sort of like the monster’s base character class. “An aberration has a bizarre anatomy, strange abilities, an alien mindset, or any combination of the three,” says the SRD. Classic D&D aberrations include monsters such as adherers, blindheims, boggarts, and cloakers.

And, of course, the dreaded aboleth. Evil, intelligent, vaguely fish-like, and tentacled, aboleths fool your senses with illusions and crush you will with charms. Aboleths lair in lightless, flooded caverns or deep under the sea. It’s almost a moral imperative that choirs of aboleths chant obscene litanies to Lovecraftian horrors.

“Ia! Ia! Nyarlathotep Fthagan!”

Tags: 30 Day D&D Challenge, horror, monsters, undead

One of the elements of an effective horror story is a sympathetic protagonist. The person beleaguered by the Forces of Evil needs to be a sort of person that the audience wants to prevail. For example of what I’m not talking about, consider the foul-mouthed crybabies in The Blair Witch Project. Even before the terror started, I was anticipating the student filmmakers’ demises. If you write a horror story, and the audience (in this case me) ends up rooting for the Forces of Evil, I feel as if you’ve perhaps missed something important.*

In contrast (and, yes, it’s not really a horror film), consider 1970’s Airport. Most of the film’s running time is spent not on the disaster but rather focuses on the hopes, dream, conflicts, and disappointments of the ensemble cast. By the time the bomber (Van Heflin in his final film role) jumps into action, the audience has been given plenty of reasons to not want the villain to succeed. The characters threatened are sympathetic, even while they are not without their flaws.

When designing a scenario for a horror RPG session, there’s plenty of good advice out there. (See, for example, “Horror in Roleplaying” by Ernest Mueller.) Some of this advice talks about how to use the players’ investment in their characters as a spur to create dread. In other words, the PCs are sympathetic characters that the audience (meaning the players) wants to succeed. As the scenario’s designer and GM, I also need to keep in mind the need for sympathetic NPCs. The horror story I’m designing and asking my players to participate in needs to have an ensemble cast featuring more than just the Forces of Evil and miscellaneous stock characters.

Many Call of Cthulhu scenarios handle this task admirably by providing the GM with an assortment of NPCs, some good, some useful, and others evil. Time is then given in the scenario for the players’ characters to encounter and interact with these NPCs, thus modeling the movie format of Airport: introduce the main actors so that the audience’s opinions and expectations for their roles can be established.

Should the Forces of Evil kill The Blair Witch Project‘s Heather Donohue? Yes, please. Should the Forces of Evil kill Airport‘s Helen Hayes? Never! What’s the difference between the two ladies? Helen Hayes portrays a sympathetic character that the audience wants to live.

*Of course, this might just say a whole lot more about me and my tolerance for foul-mouthed crybabies.

Tags: adventure design, horror

Before I continue, let’s toss out a table of contents of sorts:

Post 1: Zombie Brainstorming
Post 2: More Zombie Brainstorming!
Post 3: Of Zombies & Exploding Dice
Post 4: The History of the Plague

Next, let’s repost the rundown of infected traits:

Trait 1: The host’s lymph nodes swell into buboes. These buboes fill with a mixture of blood, pus, and live virus. Not only can they pop if roughly handled, the virus changes the host’s body so that the host can vent its buboes’ contents via the mouth and nose.

Trait 2: The infected do not respirate the way humans do. Their lungs do not serve any particular purpose. More physiological changes, however, give an infected the ability to voluntarily control its thoracic diaphragm. By contracting or relaxing this muscle, an infected can inhale or exhale, permitting it produce limited vocalizations. The infected cannot speak, except perhaps single syllable words that would be more hissed than articulated, but they can growl, moan, et cetera.

Trait 3: Further physiological changes alter bone structure and density. The proximal and distal phalanges fuse, and the fused bones grows into something very much like spikes. Since the bones are denser as a whole, the infected is more durable and less suspectible to injury.

Trait 4: The infected’s brain changes as well. It enters a hyper-adrenaline state which constantly floods the infected’s body with this powerful hormone. At the same time, the nervous system is less sensitive to pain and fatigue.

Trait 5: The infected kill and eat the non-infected because uninfected human tissues contain a variety of hormones which nourish the virus. Chief among the hormones that the infected crave are arenaline and cortisol, the hormones that trigger the flight-or-fight response.

Now with all that done, it’s time to tackle the stats of the infected. For this part of the brainstorming, I’m borrowing the idea of templates from the d20 System. For those of you not familiar with this little gem of game design, a template is a set of rules that change a base creature into a different sort of creature. The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for example, has a number of simple templates, such as the Giant Creature template that tells the GM how to quickly adjust a creature’s stats reflect it being bumped up in size by one category.

The Infected Template is applicable to any human. In GYFG!, there are two types of people: Folk and NPCs. The former are generic characters. They are 0-level people with average stats and maybe a special ability or two at most. NPCs are more fleshed out. They have a class, level, all six attributes, et cetera. Since NPCs are the more complicated, I’m going to start with template designed based on them.

Infected Template

The Infected Template is applied to any person who has contracted the plague and become a cannibalistic, raging psychopath.

Class & Level: The infected retain their level, Hit Dice, bonus to hit, bonus to defense, and class abilities.

Attributes: The infected gain a +4 bonus to Strength and Constitution, and a +2 bonus to Dexterity. They suffer a -4 penalty to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. No attribute may be higher than 21 or lower than 5 once these modifiers are applied. Regardless of class, Strength and Constitution are primary attributes. Dexterity is the infected’s only secondary attribute. Mental attributes are all treated as tertiary.

Hit Points: The infected’s hit points likely change due to the increase in Constitution. The infected are not rendered unconscious when their hit points are reduced to 0 or lower. An infected whose hit points are -1 or lower still loses 1 hit point per combat round from blood loss. The amount of negative hit points an infected has been reduced to is applied as a modifier to all d20 rolls the infected makes. For example, an infected reduced to -5 hit points can still move, fight, et cetera, but it suffers a -5 penalty to d20 rolls. An infected dies when reduced to -10 hit points.

Abilities: The infected often have impaired class abilities due to their adjusted attributes. They also don’t use tools, so abilities such as a gunslinger’s fast draw are almost always irrelevant. Defence Class likely changes due to the increase in Dexterity.

Languages & Literacy: The infected cannot speak properly, but they retain the ability to understand whatever languages they knew prior to infection.

Special Abilities: All infected have the following special abilities.

* Bite: The infected can bite a grappled victim with a successful attack roll. The bite inflicts 1d2 points of damage (modified by Strength), and the victim may be exposed to the virus. The victim is allowed a Dexterity saving throw to avoid exposure. Those that fail this saving throw must make a Constitution saving throw to avoid infection. Both of these saving throws are made with a +2 bonus.

* Cannot Drown: The infected do not respirate the way humans do. They cannot drown in water since they can extract needed oxygen from the water.

* Claws: The infected attack with their claws. They get two claw attacks per round that inflict 1d4 points of damage each, modified by Strength as normal.

* Vent Buboes: As an attack usable a number of times per day equal to Constitution modifier, the infected may vent their buboes via their mouths and noses. This attack has a range of 10 feet. The chosen target must make a Dexterity saving throw to avoid being sprayed. If this saving throw fails, the victim must make a Constitution saving throw to avoid infection. If this fails, the victim is almost certainly doomed.

Special Hazard: An infected reduced to -1 or few hit points presents a special hazard. Anyone adjacent (within 5 feet) of such an injured infected when that infected suffers further damage may be splashed, sprayed, et cetera, by virus-laden fluids. Those who might be sprayed must make a Dexterity saving throw to avoid being hit by bodily fluids. Those that fail this saving throw must make a Constitution saving throw to avoid infection. Both of these saving throws are made with a +2 bonus.

XP: Increase the XP value of the base creature by adding the appropriate special ability modifier twice. For example, a rowdy is normally worth 65 XP. Once infected, he is worth 105 XP.

When applying the template to a Folk, the process is simpler:

* +2 bonus to Strength and Constitution checks, and a +1 bonus to Dexterity checks.
* +2 Strength-based damage.
* +2 hit points per Hit Die.
* +1 Defence Class.
* -2 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma checks.
* Two prime attributes: Strength and Constitution.
* Apply special abilities and special hazard as normal.

Becoming Infected

Eventually, a PC or important NPC is going to get infected. Both the Dexterity and Constitution saving throws are going to fail. At this point, there is nothing to do but kill the victim before he fully succumbs to the virus. Once per combat round for the next 1d4+4 rounds after being infected, the victim may make a Wisdom saving throw. If he succeeds, he can act normally that combat round. Otherwise, he simply screams, flails about, et cetera, as the virus mutates his body and mind with horrifying rapidity. After the 1d4+4 combat rounds, the victim is fully transformed. On the plus side, he’s likely already injured, so at least killing him will be a bit easier.

Tags: adventure design, horror

Enough game mechanics about horror suvival in GFYG!. Well, at least for now. I need to look at background information. Just like a tell my students, “When you do history, start with the five double-yous and the aitch.” Works for 5th graders. I don’t see why it won’t work here.

When?

To start with, I need a time for when the plague first started to spread. In keeping with the apocalyptic theme, I’m going to pick 1860, the year Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States, and the final links in the chain of events leading to the U.S. Civil War were forged. For many Americans, Lincoln’s election was seen as the beginning of the end: the end of the Union, the end of states rights, the end of slavery, et cetera. Well, in our survival horror game, the first outbreak of the infection took place in late November 1860.

What?

The plague isn’t like anything ever seen before. It makes smallpox and the bubonic plague look like the common cold. This deadly bloodborne pathogen spreads quickly, has no known cure, and mutates its hosts into monstrous killing machines.

Where?

In 1860, travel was pretty limited. Most people still walked or road in wagons. The railroads were around, but they were mainly used for shipping freight, not transporting people. Travel via water was still widely used. In modern pandemic apocalypse stories (such as the film Contagion), the disease spread globally quickly because modern folks travel globally quickly. In 1860, this wasn’t the case. In order for a mid-19th century plague to gain purchase and spread rapidly, it needs to hit a major population center that is also a hub for transport and travel.

In 1860, that means New York City.

About half of the cargo and people entering or leaving the U.S. via the Atlantic passed through New York City in 1860. The Big Apple is about 190 miles from Boston, 250 miles from Philadelphia, about 300 miles to Washington, D.C., and about 750 miles to Charleston, South Carolina. Those are overland distances. All four cities were also on major waterways as well as on rail lines.

Not to leave the south and west out of the picture, let’s have an outbreak in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the early days of December 1860. From New Orleans, it’s a short hop to Galveston and Jefferson, Texas, both important ports (the latter being a steamboat port). New Orleans also opens up the possibility of international problems as it is relatively close to many Carribean islands and Mexico.

How?

Well, obviously, the plague spread because the infected bit people who then escaped being eaten long enough to become infected themselves. Then they bit people, et cetera, et cetera. In New York City and New Orleans, the plague spread quickly. Communications and travel were slow enough that by the time militia and/or U.S. military personnel arrived to restore order, the battle was already lost in those cities.

Efforts were made to quarantine both cities. Once it became clear the infected could not be safely treated, a shoot-on-sight policy was implemented. People whose loved ones were infected often disagreed with this policy, and at great risk to themselves, smuggled bound and gagged infected out of quarantine zones to seek treatment in other towns. This, of course, didn’t result in any cures, but instead facilitated the spread of the plague outside the quarantine zones.

By the end of January 1861, the infected were rampaging along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Fortunately, the cold winter months helped slow the spread, especially across the Appalachian Mountains into states like Tennessee and Kentucky. Also, the swamps and bayous in southern Louisiana inhibited the travel of the infected westward into Texas, and the Ozark Mountains had the same effect going to northern Arkansas and southern Missouri.

By March 1861, when Lincoln was inaugurated, the U.S. was in the throes of a pandemic the likes of which the world had never seen. States with low rates of infection spoke of secession, and President Lincoln tried to preserve the Union from within the battlements of the White House.

Who?

This one’s easy. The infection doesn’t discriminate. Rich, poor, slave, free, white, black, native, or immigrant. It doesn’t matter to the plague. Among the hardest hit initially were doctors, nurses, and others who treat the sick, such as members of the clergy and religious communities. Those who keep the peace, such as police and the military, have also been widely affected.

Why?

Here’s where some ambiguity gets injected into the setting. No one knows why the plague started. There are a variety of competing hypotheses, any one of which might be true. Or, maybe none of them are true.

The Democrats: The plague was released somehow by Democrats upset at the election of a known abolitionist to the Oval Office. Unfortunately, the Democrats couldn’t control the disease’s spread and have plunged the entire nation into blood-drenched chaos.

Divine Judgement: The plague is God’s judgement on America for so long tolerating the evil institution of slavery. Or, maybe, it’s God’s judgement on America for so long tolerating the abolitionists. It all depends on which group is making the claim.

Foreigners: The plague was brought to the U.S. by foreign immigrants and/or travelers. This hypothesis dovetails nicely with divine judgement (“America for Americans!”), the Jesuits (“Servants of a foreign power!”), and Mexico (“Revenge for Texas!”).

The Jesuits: Conspiracy theories about the Jesuits go all the way back to just about when the order was formed. Given the widespread anti-Catholic sentiments popular with many Americans in the 19th century, who’s to say those black-robed Papists haven’t finally launched their plan to crush democracy and subjugate the land of the free to the Pope?

Mexico: Mexico is still stinging after its embarrassing defeat at the hands of the U.S. in the Mexican-American War. Mexico lost thousands and thousands of square miles of territory under the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The plague was unleashed in the U.S. by Mexico as revenge for its defeat. This theory fits in nicely with the foreigners and Jesuits hypotheses.

The Republicans: The plague was released somehow by Republicans to punish the Southern states for slavery. Unfortunately, the Republicans couldn’t control the disease’s spread and have plunged the entire nation into blood-drenched chaos.

Voodoo: Slaves started the plague with their devilish voodoo practices.

Right now, I lean toward avoiding any particular origin to the plague. In survival horror films, the victims very often don’t have a clue why things have gone horribly wrong. They don’t know who’s to blame, and that’s part of the horror. Can the government be trusted? Are those doctors really trying help? If you don’t who’s guilty, you don’t know who’s innocent either. After a while, maybe everyone becomes a suspect.

In a similar vein, I’m not worried about going into much socio-political detail. Survival horror isn’t about the big picture. It’s about small groups of people cut off from conventional sources of help trying to stay alive from one day to the next. Before Tex McGraw was eaten in the saloon, he didn’t care what President Lincoln was doing in D.C. He wasn’t waiting for the federal marshal to come riding in to save the day. He was trying to get a bottle of whiskey and that shotgun from under the bar.

In other words, survival horror is a style of game that almost requires the start small and gradually develop the big picture style of play.

Giant Boy just asked, “What’s the current year?” Not sure. I’d be inclined to start a GFYG! surival horror campaign circa late spring 1861. The mountain passes would be thawed up nicely by then. Perhaps a good starting point for such a campaign would be with a small group of survivors trying to keep the infected from swarming through the Cumberland Gap.

Tags: adventure design, horror

Before I continue with my zombie brainstorms, I realized I made a boo-boo of sorts. GFYG! doesn’t grant a new Hit Die at every level, but only for the first 4 levels. For example, the brave character class grants a d10 Hit Die at each level 1 through 4 only. After that, the brave gets +3 hit points per level thereafter.

The proposed Bruises/Wounds system in the last post will still work with one clarification. The bonus hit points gained by a character after 4th level are added to Bruises only.

Classes

GFYG! has 11 classes, including the optional wandering monk. The other 10 classes are the brave, doctor, drifter, gunslinger, maverick, mountain man, muckraker, preacher, scout, and wrangler. Many of these classes look like they’d work without modifications in a survival horror game. There are some questionable cases, however.

Doctor: Can a doctor treat an infected via his herbals class ability? It seems the answer must be, “No.” Part of the horror is that the infected cannot be cured. It does seem fair, however, that a doctor might be able to help an exposed person resist initial infection. Thus, we need an addendum to Herbals.

Herbals Addendum: A doctor cannot cure an infected. If, however, he acts quickly once a person is exposed, he does grant his Herbals save bonus to the victim. To do this, the doctor must take an action before the end of the round after the victim is exposed. After that, it is too late to apply medical countermeasures.

Another doctor ability, Pain Relief Potion, mentions negating “the effects of negative modifiers on attribute checks and attack rolls from painful wounds.” I don’t see any mention of such modifiers in GFYG!. Do they need to be clarified? Maybe, maybe not.

Care & Attention, Heal, and Minor Surgery also need some tweaking due to the change in hit points. Treat all references to hit points as applicable to Wounds. Bruises are restored at twice the rate of Wounds (although for Care & Attention this won’t matter much).

Drifter: The drifter’s Prairie Tales ability applies to “zombie” lore as well.

Maverick & Muckraker: The Silvertongue ability cannot be used to “strike up friendships” with the infected. A maverick can use Showmanship against the infected, but the maximum duration is halved. The muckraker’s Prairie Tales ability applies to “zombie” lore. These classes’ other abilities work as normal.

Preacher: A preacher cannot Exalt or Demoralize the infected. He cannot Exhort Greatness in an infected. His Sanctuary ability works against the infected, but the preacher suffers a -2 penalty to his attribute check. His General Knowledge applies to “zombie” lore. Like the doctor, the preacher’s first aid restores Wounds and twice as many Bruises. The preacher’s other abilities are unchanged.

Wandering Monk: A wandering monk’s Stunning Attack works against the infected, but the duration is halved. The monk’s Fast Healing restores Wounds and twice that number of Bruises. Otherwise, the wandering monk is unchanged.

Brave, Gunslinger, Mountain Man, Scout, & Wrangler: These classes work as normal.

Exploding Dice

Every GFYG! hero has two primary attributes, two secondary attributes, and two tertiary attributes. One of the hero’s primary attributes is determined by class. For example, a scout’s primary attributes always include Dexterity. Each attribute has a particular exploding die assigned to it.

But wait, you say. What are exploding dice? That sounds dangerous!

Well, that’s kind of the point. Let’s say your exploding die is a d4. When you roll it, if it comes up a 4, you roll again and add the two rolls. If another 4 comes up, you roll again, et cetera.

For example, Tex makes a Wisdom check, rolling 1d20 plus 1d4 against a target number of 18 (since Wisdom is one of his tertiary attributes). He rolls a 9 on the d20, and a 4 on the d4. He rerolls the latter die and gets another 4. He rolls again, scoring a 2. His total roll is 9 + 4 + 4 + 2, or 19 (not counting any applicable Wisdom modifier). Tex makes his Wisdom check!

Now, back to the types of exploding dice that go with a hero’s attributes:

Primary Attribute: d8
Secondary Attribute: d6
Tertiary Attribute: d4

Exploding dice also apply to attack rolls. Any hero who has a +1 Bonus to Hit at 1st level uses a d6 exploding die with attack rolls. Other heroes use a d4.

But why? Why use exploding dice in survival horror?

Good question. The main reason is that the odds of surviving long are stacked against the heroes. The infected are seriously dangerous. One failed Constitution check against infection is a death sentence. The exploding dice reflect that special element of luck that many characters in survival horror movies seem to enjoy.

But, as Brendan Gleeson’s character Frank in 28 Days Later demonstrated, even a hero’s luck runs out eventually, and exploding dice can help simulate that as well.

If a hero both fails an attribute check or attack roll and his exploding die yields its lowest possible result, the hero’s luck has run out. For the rest of the game day, the hero doesn’t get to use his exploding dice.

For example, Tex swings his machete at an infected, rolling 1d20 and 1d6. He rolls a 5 on the d20 and a 1 on the d6. He not only fails the attack, but his luck has run out. As more infected rush through the shattered saloon windows, Tex’s situation looks grim. He can still attack, but he doesn’t get to use his exploding dice for anything.

Back to Survival of the Fittest

Even with the distinction between Bruises and Wounds and the addition of exploding dice, hero death is all but inevitable in survival horror. As Tex demostrates above, when a hero’s luck runs out, he can find himself going from frying pan into fire. This means players are probably going to end up making up new heroes.

A new hero comes into the game at the same level as the player’s recently deceased hero. What’s more, the player doesn’t have to roll 3d6 for all six attributes. Instead, he rolls 3d6 five times, and gets a sixth score equal to either 15 or his last character’s highest ability score, whichever is higher. The player can then arrange these attributes to taste.

For example, Tex is eaten. His attributes were Strength 13, Dexterity 17, Constitution 14, Intelligence 5, Wisdom 10, Charisma 11. (Tex was as a dull as a loaf of bread.) Tex’s player gets to keep the 17. He rolls 3d6 five times, getting these results: 14, 11, 13, 10, and 6. Tex’s player decides his new character will be a mountain man with a 17 Constitution.

Next up, I think I’m going to shift away from game mechanics and look at the history of the infection. Where did it come from? Who has done what in response? When did the plague start?

Tags: adventure design, game play, horror