Playtest part three

[Rob Lang]

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

[Muppet]

I believe it's generally oxidation that's your problem with most fuels. Stored in an air-tight container and they should last for a long time. Of course, most fuel tanks aren't air-tight, so they will degrade over the months. Diesel less so.

There are plenty of (anecdotal) examples of vehicles being stored for several years and being in a condition to run on their remaining fuel afterwards. Although, they generally work better if mixed with fresh fuel.

Given a car park full of vehicles, a lucky mechanic might be able to scavenge up enough viable fuel to run one of them. Assuming the tires, battery, plugs, etc are all still in a useable condition. Again, a suitable pool to scavenge might solve that problem.

That said, I agree that properly stored vehicles (or fuel) are your best bet. And establishing a means to create fresh fuel is better yet.

[Rob Lang]

Like the archetypes. We had some more suggestions but I don't have my notebook with me right now. Having a D20 around for rolling scarcity is quite fun for items that should be pretty reliable.

I'll ensure that working vehicles are rare, making their Hi-Lux (which can run on whiskey) extremely useful ad rare. More fun for the plot as it's now in the hands of an unknown thief. I'll also be less generous with the fuel, too - making that a scavenging resource.

In the UK, vehicles are less important than in the US because in the UK you can't go 5 miles through "wilderness" without tripping over a built up area. In the South of the UK, everything is pretty close together. Texas and Montana it is not!

Also, it's great to see my players on here. That's proper feedback.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Welcome to the forums Muppet. Thank you for the input.

You're quite right, with petrol its a matter of degrees. In the video game "Metro 2033" there are two types of ammunition - dirty and military grade - with the later being more powerful and rare, but also acting as currency. A similar situation is probably present with fuel and lubricants - the good stuff might be too valuable to burn.

I haven't really discussed "peak oil" much, but it would be part of the ecological problems in the background. As such, actual petroleum derived fuels are probably hoarded by the military for high performance machines - aircraft and rockets are mostly fueled by kerosene. The rest of us are probably using bio-fuels or electricity. Given the shorter distances in England, you probably have a lot better chance of adopting electric cars than those of us in the US.

There aren't any rules for horse carts or bicycles yet, though those would seem to be rather ideal. Most media misses the idea of using bikes in a post-apocalypse scenario, despite the fact they're quiet, efficient, fast, easy to maintain, and take no fuel.

Speaking of new or modified rules, two things I wanted to check on. Which (if any) variation of ammunition handling are you using? (as noted in the post ) And are you using the doubled damage (top two outcomes) or the old damage (only top one) system?

[Rob Lang]

[Muppet]

I really quite like the scarcity/fragility system - it's a nice way of handling such concerns without worrying about counting every bullet or biscuit.

However, I do have some reservations...
A survival setting is often focused on conservation of resources, as we've established with the need to find more ammo, fuel, sausage rolls, etc. However, using the scarcity system, we have no control over that hoarding of possessions, since it could run out at any time.

We know that if our sniper blasts away happily for hours then his dice will reduce down until he inevitably runs out of ammo, but even if he religiously gathered every round available, maintaining a d12 scarcity dice, he might still roll a 12 and be out of luck.

There's no mechanism for saying that we have 6 shots left with the sniper rifle, so we better make them count.

I'm not sure there's an easy solution to that.

[Groffa]

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Thank you Groffa, binary scarcity for some resources sounds like a good idea. Though since halving a d3 is a little difficult (top two results on a d6) perhaps instead, the rolls retain the normal type, but the failure rate goes up by two - rolling the top four. (Nine through twelve on a d12, for example, or three plus on a d6.)

As to counting bullets - the average sniper rifle has less than ten rounds, most less than five and they don't tend to have extended magazines available, so its d6 for most sniper rifles. (Ok, the M-21 being a derivative of the M-14 can load twenty rounds, and the VSS can take twenty round AS Val mags. However, there is a limit on how much firearms trivia I should inflict upon players -right?)

Even if ammunition isn't a problem, guns are machines with moving parts - so a different scarcity roll could break the weapon or at least knock the sites out of zero. Using negative difficulty on some rolls due to lack of care could be another.

Food and supply stocks - you can increase they die type with scavenging, or the GM can stop forcing rolls for a while after you've gone through provisioning. Perhaps rather like the spare reloads for guns, players can have tokes or single slot sized packs of other resources. Each of these would either be a personal "get out of scarcity free" card or be added to the group's roll as a bonus (either as a straight +1 to roll, or changing the die type). Furthermore, these tokens can be stolen from group stocks, or hidden in various areas so that one raid or accident doesn't wipe out the whole supply.

Of course, the other major limit on out of control snipers, is another sniper. If the gun is that awesome, there must be some other bloke in the area that wants it. A group of humans has more tricks than a wandering type one after all. Slightly smarter reanimates (Alphas) or sneaky climbing ones (Betas) might be a problem as well. The fluff of the "Cold Hard Truth" Document still stands, the numbers are just kind of low for the revised number of dice players get.

This is making me wonder if I should do something about scopes or fused rounds. These seem to be all the rage these days after people play call of duty and the like, and militaries are moving to more optics. Still, a focus on the game and not the equipment is ideal, so that is up in the air for the moment.