Wasteland Life: Mutants, Rugged Stuff, Frontier, Self-Reliance, Survival . . .

[Genesis]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

(If some hazard afflicts disadvantages, is there a way to take these disads permanantly for points, but make sure the aforementioned hazard will not make them worse?)

I would just declare it - natural weird hazards occasionally afflict disads temporarily, these will clear up according to the schedule. Long-term exposure, extreme or unusual conditions, etc., may result in such disads becoming permanent - put them on your sheet. If you start play with a permanent version of these disads, you may take points for them. In either case, having a permanent version on your sheet makes it so that the temporary effects don't hit you - you're already warped in the appropriate way. I don't think a special build is required for that.

Equipment:
I'm thinking it would be logical for the cultural traditions to make 'Rugged, Cheap' the default quality of equipment (including vehicles . . . which probably translates into having half as many Systems in a vehicle for the same mass). Mass modifiers are ×1.2 ×1½ = ×1.8. I'm thinking of bumping it to ×2 and throwing in some protection against some of the more specific hazards typical for the zone. How does that sound? The cost ends up being ×1. (High-Tech, page 10)
Note that as far as vehicles go, 'cheap' is supposed to mean 'clunky', but not maintenance-capricious (the usual meaning of 'cheap' in SS).

That sounds totally workable to me. You end up with big, clunky equipment that survives the zone, but is noticeably bottom-shelf outside it. What specific hazards would equipment need to survive that the bonus from Rugged doesn't already cover?

The Survival skill:
Closest thing to a specialisation for a weird wasteland that I've seen in GURPS was in 3e - the Survival (Chthorran) skill. Given that the actual terrain types in the 'wasteland' range from prairies, through savannah, through oases, with the occasional jungly bit . . . I'm not sure if a single specialisation is right. OTOH, adding a bunch of specialisations (Wasteland Desert, Wasteland Plains, Wasteland Jungle . . .) seems wrong too. Requiring a Perk would seem odd too. I'm unsure what to do with this.

Also, the whole setup probably encourages a wandering/hunter-gatherish lifestyle despite a high TL, with all those moving bad-stuff-areas.

I would probably take the usual Survival specialties, then layer a "weird" penalty on top of them - a prairie is a prairie, unless it's all radioactive and mutated. Then it's a prairie with a couple big caveats on it. Give -4 to all survival rolls in the Zone (and a special critical failure table, probably). I think a perk is totally appropriate here: Weird Survival [1], negates the survival penalty due to Zone weirdness. Specialized by terrain type? I would probably demand that, but if you think that's too much noise, scrap it. Yeah - I'd demand the specialty, and call Weird Experience a [5] UB that covers all relevant "zone weirdness" penalties, including Survival (all specialties).

On culture:
I wonder how does a culture look like if it mixes conservative linked-to-land'ness with the need to innovate in order to survive, as well as be sufficiently friendly while acting abroad and trading with the normal-landers.

Semi-anarchic in the zone, but with a strict "us" and "them" mentality regarding normal-landers. There's probably a lot of space in the Zone (judging by what you've said about depopulation), so if you've got a quarrel with someone you can always just walk the other direction when everybody picks up stakes to move camp. Decentralized power, with strong hierarchies within small groups - clans with patriarchs, maybe, but there's room for diversity among different zone-peoples.

What other things should I pay attention to on this topic? What comments there are on things already said?

How chaotic is the place? Is geography relatively stable? Does Navigation take a weirdness penalty, as well as Survival?

Do zone-people from families that've been there since the beginning breed true - that is, is mortality rate among zone children the same as it was in the beginning, or (for all the diversity of mutations), is resistance to the weirdness now pretty much universal? How quickly does this stuff take hold?

Will PCs be outsiders, or from the Zone? How deep can outsiders expect to penetrate into the Zone before they're overcome by the dangers? How long can outsiders last?

Is the weirdness uniform, or does it ramp up as you get closer to an epicenter(s)? Can this epicenter(s) be identified on a map? Do outsiders know what ground 0 was?