Asking for sugestions on how to start a "Survivalist" campaign

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm going to recommend that you start by telling your players (a) that your campaign is going to be about something unexpected happening to their characters and (b) you want them to design Citizens, that is, people who lead nonadventurous lives in a fairly mundane setting. Of course, they may still choose to have hobbies like backpacking or martial arts or maker activities; you can't really prevent that. But you could note to them that taking highly specialized skills may result in their having spent points that aren't going to be any use.

I agree: go ahead and tell them they will be playing civilians over their heads.


I did a play by post that required civilians as input, and I had a rule of thumb that one area of preparation was fine, and possibly two if you can justify one as your profession. I ended up with folks who were prepared, but not unreasonably so. A tough nurse who could manhandle folks. A homeless viet nam vet. A kid with good woodsman skills and a big dog.



Folks who weren't totally useless, but still civilians.

[acrosome]

First I'll just say that you had better know your players well, and know that they will enjoy such a game. A lot of players who get survival scenarios foist upon them as a "surprise" will find it to be frustrating, if not outright abuse. I'll admit that it's a pretty standard trope for zombie apocalypse scenarios, though. That's different; go for it for that one, but just be sure that you think your players will enjoy it. As a player I almost always make characters with outdoor skills or military backgrounds, anyway. It's what I am, so it's what I know.

One option is to give a Big Hint. For instance, if you're planning a cryosurvivor AtE camping, then telling them that "you're all volunteers for a hibernation experiment at TL9" will lead any player worth his salt to immediately realize where that campaign is headed. They'll put at least a few points into Survival skill. Also, let a few of them have military backgrounds or whatnot.

Another great option is to just tell the players to make astronauts, and give good guidance on character generation, but don't let them know it's a cryosurvivor campaign. Imply it's some sort of space campaign. Maybe even run a space scenario or two first- Rescue Mission maybe?- then have them assigned to NASA's hibernation experiment. They will be drooling over their (realistic) 300 point characters. That's at a low estimate- astronauts are impressive people to begin with who are then highly trained. But suddenly all of those high-point space skills (Area Knowledge: Moon?) are useless as NASA's hibernation experiment goes awry. But, at least they would have very few disadvantages- either physical or mental- and decent enough survival training. And about half of them would have military backgrounds, again, but even the civilian ones with their ludicrous levels of Engineering, Chemistry, Electronics, Physics or whatever skills would be very useful.

I basically plan to do both of these with my Totally Not Operation Morpheus and Totally Not Sydney: The Wilderness Campaign campaign. Damn, AFTERMATH! was a great game...

Actually, is there an decent realistic astronaut template around here, somewhere? There is one in GURPS Space p.226 but it's clearly meant to be space operatic, and the "realistic" lens leaves a lot to be desired.

For totally unprepared characters like you seem to want I would be certain to provide them with generous resources at the beginning, and allow them time to learn the skills they will need before starting anything challenging. GURPS is pretty generous with Learning By Doing. Operation Morpheus does this by having the characters wake up in a huge underground complex that's just chock full of resources... and killer robots to deal with to get it. The Morrow Project does it by making the characters highly-trained and well-equipped intentional cryosurvivors, but that doesn't sound like what you want.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Nightmaster

By survivalist I mean a campaign where the players would be throw out of their comfort zones (professions and such) and have to work hard to simply survive.

Be very careful running this sort of campaign. You have to know your players and you especially need to know how much "railroading" they'll tolerate. If necessary, tell your players that during the first game session they're going to be railroaded while you set the scene.

It's also more fun for everyone if you have characters who are at least marginally competent, even in a "gritty" campaign. One nice way to do this is to have players partially design their characters while you hold back a certain number of points. Once the players know the actual setting they can then use those points to buy skills and advantages they think will be useful.

Given GURPS' potential lethality, it's not hard to make characters work hard to survive. Just design the threats so that they're challenging based on the characters' skill sets. For example, if you've got a bunch of gun-bunnies with juiced-up combat skills, put them in a situation where the natural environment, or a threat they can't easily detect, is the main danger. If you've got a bunch of grizzled frontiersmen, make the threat more combat-oriented or socially-driven.

If you've got a mixed party, design situations where every character has something to do, and where the characters take turns being the main focus of the game. Cooperative tasks work really well, "Hans, Freddy, and Willow, make ST-based Acrobatics skill rolls to form a human pyramid. Zeno, make a Climbing roll to get to the top of the pyramid, then make a Lockpicking skill roll to open the hatch in the ceiling."

Other ideas for allowing players to adapt their characters to the new setting:

Strange New Powers - The shift in campaign setting altered the characters into aliens, mutants, supers, or wizards. Design the basic character on 25 to 75 points, then give the players a bunch more points and some campaign-specific ideas for character tropes.

Through the Looking Glass - The characters are actually "projections" of themselves sent into the campaign setting via dreams, virtual reality, "magickal dweomors beyond the ken o' man," or alien mind-control rays. In their new form, they lose some or all of the usual human vulnerabilities and might have access to sources of mysterious wisdom.
Design characters normally, but give everyone a package of advantages and skills accessible via a variant of the Shapeshifting advantage.

Finally, the real trick isn't actual threats to the characters, it's player perception of threat levels. Good game mastering, and story plotting which constantly keeps the players on their toes and second-guessing themselves, is more effective than a succession of "Make a saving throw or die" situations.

[AlexanderHowl]

Survival horror is difficult to do as players will often make prepared characters. I would suggest having a few sessions being normal and transitioning to survival horror in the vein of Descent (they were going spelunking) or The Strain (people got caught up in the disaster).

Another alternative is to go with the preparation and drop prepared characters into a survival horror situation. Perhaps the PCs are CDC scientists dealing with a reported outbreak of ebola in NYC, or soldiers stationed in an allied nation that suffers a major disaster, or cops in a city like New Orleans during a major storm. When communications and power go out, every campaign can become survival horror.

[acrosome]

I just thought of something. With the astronaut angle they don't need to be cryosurvivors at all. Make The End happen during their year-long return trip from Mars or something. This would allow you to send them limited data about what's going on at Earth as things break down, rumors fly, the government fails, etc. And then eventually no one shows up at Houston any more...

Have them pick up a telemetry transponder near where you want the campaign to happen, to prompt them to land there. They would start with some very minimalist survival gear from their lander (survival blankets, a few days worth of food and water, a flare gun, etc.). Houston, Canaveral, or any of the old Shuttle alternate landing areas would be good choices. Or SPACECOM in Colorado Springs. Or Mojave Spaceport? (Or Baikonur?)

With The End so recent they might even be able to get some sort of aircraft flying again, to use those expensive aerospace skills.

[Apollonian]

If I were doing it, I'd give the players 50-point "ordinary folks" templates to start with, and then allocate a budget of up to whatever I wanted the campaign starting total to be. Players could then spend that budget in 25-point chunks once per session for the first few sessions. That'd allow for some organic growth and let the players discover things without feeling screwed or like they've been hit by a bait and switch. Of course, I'd have to carefully scale the challenges to avoid a TPK or the like during those first few sessions.

[acrosome]

Starting with lots of resources helps, too. If everyone else has spiked baseball bats and shotguns, whereas the PCs have automatic rifles, camping gear, and a month worth of MREs, then they'll survive long enough to learn what they need before the ammo/food runs out and the camping gear gets destroyed. Relieving them of the gear will be fun for the GM, too. Or.. not. Let them keep the stuff and have it turn into a "the PCs are major movers and shakers, building alliances and rebuilding the Old World" style of campaign. That's sort of what the AFTERMATH! setting I described above was. The PCs had a starkly obscene amount of stuff to loot in Operation Morpheus.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Nightmaster

How I make my players get surprised by all that in a way to avoid some smartasses in my group to "be prepared" for the setting?

Here's the lazy way: hand out characters. They don't get to create prepared characters. If they are acting abnormally prepared, dock them roleplaying points.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Here's the lazy way: hand out characters. They don't get to create prepared characters. If they are acting abnormally prepared, dock them roleplaying points.

That's just another form of GM railroading.

Some players will be happy to run pre-gen characters, others won't.

Also, just about any player WILL try to game the system or the campaign setting to their advantage. If the GM tells the players to except a change-up, then overtly penalizes them for trying to anticipate that change-up, a lot of players will feel ripped off.

Some players also love to create characters who are way more "generally paranoid" than regular folks. In that case, it's outright unfair of the GM to penalize the character for bad roleplaying.

For example, if you're running a paranoid survivalist who never goes anywhere without at least two weapons and a "go-bag" and has bolt-holes and caches hidden across the landscape, it's bad roleplaying to NOT be constantly on edge or to expect the world to end at any moment.

Again, the meta-theme here is know your players.

[AlexanderHowl]

Of course, a lot depends on the exact nature of your zombies. Slow zombies require a much different type of character for survival than fast zombies, undead zombies require a much different type of character for survival than living zombies, and magical zombies require a much different type of character for survival than biological zombies. In some cases, a 50 point academic character is capable of surviving without much difficulty. In other cases, a 200 point military character is going to find it difficult to survive.

In one of my zombie apocalypse campaigns, my zombies were living human beings infected with a virus that reduced cognitive abilities and impulse control while increasing ST, DX, HT, Per, and Will and physical durability. The virus had four stages, each lasting an average of three months, with the victim becoming progressively more and more dangerous as the virus progressed. The virus was airborne, required a HT+1 roll to avoid infection when exposed to a victim, possessed a one month delay during which the victim was contagious, and required a HT+1 roll every month to avoid progressing to the next stage.

For reference, each stage of the zombie disease gave the victims an additive 25 point template: ST+1, DX+1, IQ-1, HT+1, Per+2, Will+2, Breath Holding 1, Damage Resistance (Tough Skin, -40%) 1, Reduced Consumption (Cast Iron Stomach, -50%) 1, Night Vision 2, Temperature Tolerance (Cold) 1, Temperature Tolerance (Heat) 1, Bad Temper (15), Berserk (15), Bloodlust (15), Impulsiveness (15), and Xenophilia (15). The resulting living zombies were quite capable opponents, though they often devolved into smart animals rather than dumb people at the later stages, and the PCs needed every advantage that they possessed to avoid becoming victims of the zombie apocalypse. The slow manifestation of symptoms also meant that the PCs could never tell who had been infected, which created a delightful sense of paranoia through the campaign.