So, imagine you were making a game...

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

A post-apocalyptic role playing game, to be precise.

Describe to us one aspect of that game. It can either be a character and their personal development. Or it can be the overall plot of the game. Or perhaps even a long quest with a few surprises for the player. Maybe even part of the combat mechanics.

Get creative!

I will start:

For convenience I will name this character Josh, although something with Latin origin may be more suitable in the end.

Josh was an anesthesiologist in late training before the bombs fell. His background - a rich multimillionaire family with a castle of a house in an upper-class neighborhood. His father traveled frequently to consult some of the biggest corporations out there. Generally a silent man, his military-esque manner of behavior stood out. His mother was the perfect modern, all-achieving house wive - with PhD in psychology, two younger kids, and seemingly no end of social activity connected with the town's community. On the fateful day he was at home after a night shift giving attention to his several-months-old baby. His respected and beloved wife was there, as well.

Josh is now fifty five years old. Roughly thirty years have passed since the day that inadvertently marked a new era in human history. Every connection he had to the old world is gone. His family, mother and father, siblings... all perished in the events that followed. Even his high profile scientific knowledge did him little good. He could not recreate the medical practices he was familiar with in the years after the fateful day. Try as he might he saw a lot of death he could do little to prevent.

Those early years of the new era left a heavy impression on his psyche, and later he saw fit to turn to different methods of healing. He was scraping whatever bits of knowledge he could find. But not of the late industrial period. Instead Roman military medicine, Arab practices, tribal knowledge - all of these were helping him alleviate pain and combat disease in a way he never imagined possible. He started paying attention to how the psychological well-being of people imparted on their health, and considering the circumstances, he was in no short supply.

Josh's interactive height with the player comes later on, when the player learns that Josh had staged an attack on the player character's village. To be precise - Josh had misinformed a raiding band of thugs in believing that can safely assault the village, and also made sure that certain inhabitants of the village were made vulnerable during the attack. Josh sees these certain inhabitants of the village as a non-contributing factor, people who do more ill than good. He believes that he is eradicating two evils with a single shot. The village will prosper doubly more without the raiders being present, as well as these 'socially-accepted parasites.' One such person is the mother of a companion of the player character, who, according to Josh, is severely impairing the ability for said companion's development. Josh sees it fit for her to better not exist. He believes it's ultimately good for the player character, because said companion will only grow stronger in turn. That could be connected with a quest for said companion. Despite the deed, Josh is using his skill and knowledge to heal the wounded survivors of the attack.

 

[alec]

Describe to us one aspect of that game. It can either be a character and their personal development. Or it can be the overall plot of the game. Or perhaps even a long quest with a few surprises for the player. Maybe even part of the combat mechanics.

My game is called "Hobo Hero". It's pretty much finished and Bethesda has shown some interest, so I don't want to spoil much, but here's a simple FedEx quest from the game: you need to get money from hobo Moe and you have to give it to hobo Joe.
The surprise, though, is that Moe won't give you the money unless you suck his hobo cock, and Joe won't accept the money unless you lick his hobo ass. Both of which can get you 'addicted' or 'poisoned'.
There's a second way of completing the quest, but it takes you to a different continent, it involves pedophilia, a funnel and two gallons of mayonnaise, and you still have to suck a lot of hobo cock along the way, so there's really no point of doing it that way.

 

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

My game is called "Hobo Hero". It's pretty much finished and Bethesda has shown some interest, so I don't want to spoil much, but here's a simple FedEx quest from the game: you need to get money from hobo Moe and you have to give it to hobo Joe.
The surprise, though, is that Moe won't give you the money unless you suck his hobo cock, and Joe won't accept the money unless you lick his hobo ass. Both of which can get you 'addicted' or 'poisoned'.
There's a second way of completing the quest, but it takes you to a different continent, it involves pedophilia, a funnel and two gallons of mayonnaise, and you still have to suck a lot of hobo cock along the way, so there's really no point of doing it that way.

I know... you're not the only one who's disappointed with Beth .

Are you sure you don't want to try?

So, in this post-apoc cRPG game enemies, weapons and armour will have an additional natural difficulty modifier that is not affected by skills/traits/perks.

The general idea here is to give a character, particularly in turn-based combat, more tactical option available, while still allowing for rewarding specialization.

To give a basic example: if you manage to disable an enemy by some means - either electroshock, or a concussion trap/grenade, you will be able to use lower general difficulty weapons on them with much greater impact, even if you lack training with them. One such weapon is the knife. If the enemy is armoured in some way, i. e., the general difficulty is higher, the impact of low difficulty weapon is lowered.

In other words, if you take an average human holding a knife, that human will almost never fail to deliver a deadly blow to another disabled average human. In conducted police tests they've established that a holstered gun with safety on is a terrible weapon against a knife, unless there is a distance of roughly ten metres. That distance generally varies in accordance to the speed of the knife wielder and skill of the gun-user, but it shows clearly that when caught off-guard an average human is a frail, and rather easy prey.

Other weapons will have higher/different difficulty modifier - such as a throwing knife, a sword, a spear, and so will be used with a more variable success even against disabled targets. Simple hand guns could have perks that reduce their general difficulty. If you've never handled a hand gun, I think it unlikely you will hit even a stationary target at ten metres away. With basic training and a few clips fired, though, you will be able to kill another unarmoured stationary human at roughly ten metres away. I have no doubt. You will still need a lot of training to hit moving targets, or targets that are further away without you aiming for too long. A light machine gun could probably be a deadly weapon in the hands of pretty much anyone, as well as a rotary Gatling gun, but the difference in skill there could either be expended ammo, reload speed, jamming fix speed, general upkeep and maintenance, but I think that when it comes to weapons such as these, an average human can be accurate and deadly with them - up to a certain distance, that is. After all, in Post-Apocalyptia bullets are very expensive, so if you waste too many on these raiders here, you might not have enough for later.

On the other hand, if the enemy has higher general difficulty modifier - such as being very bulky, armoured in some way, is a robot, mutant, ect., these tactics will generally yield less success. The general idea behind such a system is to allow a greater scope of tools available to a character, where he/she is capable of dealing with certain enemies without expending more valuable/expensive resources and/or being able to expand their arsenal with limited training. In Post-Apocalyptia every bullet should count.

That system will not generally give a K.O., but rather a significant boost in accuracy and damage when it comes to using low difficulty modifier weapons/tools against disabled enemies. So there might still be a case when a significantly muscular and tough but unarmoured enemy is not outright killed, even if stabbed while being stunned/disabled.

General Chad.

Chad is used purely for convenience to denote physical strength and I think a rare and interesting name would be more suitable here.

General Chad was very young when the bombs fell. He is by all standards an above average human in terms of genetics. A gifted individual in every sense. This didn't extend to his luck as the early years of Post Apocalyptia saw him going through several tribulations. An early gang of Old-World remnants - soon after all forms of Government failed, wanted to seize him for a slave. They, apparently, severely underestimated the boy as he broke the larynx of his much larger captor with his teeth. Quickly realizing how unruly Chad is they lashed and beat him, and left him for dead. He survived off the flesh of his captor the next day. Next he managed to kill another member of the gang with a sharp broken brick and a strike to the back of the head. Only for a bottle of water this time. There was quickly another murder after that for similar reasons, and the gang, not knowing whether they are being hunted or exterminated decided to leave the area. Young Chad, by now, had embraced a very primal part of his being. He preyed like a lion preys. And all either for meat or water. One might argue he didn't know better and perhaps that's true. His tools were crude and makeshift, his methods--beastly, and his spirit was restless unless he was on the hunt.

That primal visage and behaviour became instantly appealing to one of his victims. Immediately pledging inferiority to Chad, he became his first follower and oldest member of his soon-to-be-formed ruthless gang. Every individual adopted Chad's primal means of survival. The necessities of the environment are probably chief cause why the new blood of Post Apocalyptia--the first generation into the New Era, so to speak, became wild and pagan-like - in the negative sense of the words. They hunted down the gang which previously nearly captured Chad and used them for meat. They also started growing with new members taking in their methods and adopting cannibalism. They weren't eating human flesh all the time, but it constituted a large part of their diet. Their method of cooking was extremely unrefined, though. Perhaps that's why Chad decided to have some division of labour for the first time when he made an old chef--a captured slave, prepare a meal for him. The chef refused even under threat of death. For him it was better to die than to be a slave. Instead the chef wanted to strike a deal with Chad. He would cook for him and his gang, but he and his slave brethren would work for them instead of being captives wasted for meat. The chef reasoned that way was better for everyone because together they had better odds. Chad feinted agreement at first. For him having someone inferior make such propositions was unacceptable. He instead opted to get rid of the chef once he had done cooking for him. The chef, however, prepared the most succulent human steak anyone has ever eaten... if that's an expression any sane mind would put together. His Old World knowledge of cooking was put into action for the first time in so many years and Chad could not let go of that brief experience. He agreed to the terms of the chef and, indeed, the captives began working for the gang in return of protection. Chad saw it wise to share the experience with his warriors and soon the entire gang knew the pleasure of well prepared meat. The gang never let go of cannibalism, but it was slowly transforming into something else. Only chosen individuals would be put to the knife and such that couldn't work for some reason. Despite the chef's best efforts in the selection he had to cook clinical idiots, neuro-atypical people, the elderly, cripples, etc(I should note that if I were in this situation I'd most probably be meat. A rather lean one, but meat still). On the other hand he, with the help of a few members of the proto council of the gang--all ex-slaves, managed to save many. They also started recovering books and documents concerning growing food, canning and preservation, as well as whatever other topics they could scavenge. Women began being used for breeding and even though the first preserved food that the gang produced was all human meat, later they managed to grow a fruit tree.

The player comes into a well organized village. It's defenses are sturdy, the numerous individuals inhabiting it are fit and strong and also seem rather disciplined. Other communities have managed to do well in Post Apocalyptia, but this one seems especially good at it. There are many things the player can find here--a blacksmith, car scavenger, metal-monger, an apothecarist. Even a bread-maker, although his bread is a rather rare and expensive oddity when it comes to trading(it should be noted that yeast in Post Apocalyptia does not have a grand time). The elder of the community is one General Chad, although he himself deflects every praise addressed at him. There is a monument in the middle of the village made mostly of human skulls. When asked about it General Chad merely says that sometimes flowers sprout out of mud.