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

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Genesis

OK - then as Anthony says, you probably want a separate advantage that shields the character from further weird radiation damage. If you lack the advantage you take further weird mutations as normal, but picking up permanent weird mutations occasionally bestows the resistance advantage (or makes it available for purchase? Perhaps it comes in levels, and you need a certain number/type of mutations to get enough to be totally immune?).

Radiation Resistance is already part of the template. How to price a flat immunity to a fixed point-equivalent amount of afflictable disads (but not more) is unclear to me.

Originally Posted by Genesis

Well, normal rugged adds to the item's HT, which would help it resist corrosion/rust/nasties by default. Do you want items made from endogenous "weird" materials to have extra bonuses against weird damage? In that case, invent a new materials quality. Maybe something like Weird Construction: +2 HT against Zone anomalies and hazards, but -1 HT against normal wear and tear. +0 CF. This'll partially cancel out Ruggedization bonuses and make the items simply Cheap in the outside world, but will make specially-made gear a must for adventuring in the Zone. Play with the numbers a bit if that's too big a boost. Maybe it only gives +1 HT to Zone stuff, but occasionally spawns its own Zone weirdness of a lesser, annoying (as opposed to dangerous) fashion.

I'm just not sure whether +2 HT is actually good enough.
I do like the idea of a totally different quality-class that provides greater protection, but only against zone-specific stuff. Now I'm pondering whether this is too implausible in the context.

Originally Posted by Genesis

Yeah, that sounds like a perk to me - why did you want to avoid doing it as such?

Mostly because being careful around any sort of trait bloat. But the more I think of it, the more it seems like a once-and-for-all solution.

Originally Posted by Genesis

Not necessary, I suppose, but they tend to crop up when survival is hard and population density is low. People need each other to survive, disputes need to be settled according to some schema... I was just giving an option. Tightly knit small groups are the norm among low-population density people in hostile environments all over the place (with obvious exceptions). I said strong hierarchies because you prompted with "conservative."

Hmm. Now I'm wondering about plugging in at least some bits of ubuntu into those societies.

Originally Posted by Genesis

Yeah, that'd fit. They don't have to be hostile, but they probably see themselves as separate, at this point. Language drift might be an issue, but cultural drift will be extreme (especially if the rest of the world is still urbanized). Not to mention the physical manifestations of the mutations. Zoners might see them as a point of pride, and have a whole culture of mutation aesthetics that prizes odd traits that outsiders find disconcerting ("I love how her tongue forks!" "Oh stop it dear - I just can't get enough of your fur..." *makeout noises*)

Seeing selves as separate - definitely, but I'd prefer to see this as 'different, but neither better nor worse' (even though they're sure better in their main environment).
Language shift is something I already thought of, yes.
Æethetics - hmm, that makes one consider of having a separate racial Appearance level, despite technically being of the same race(s) as the surrounding continent.

Originally Posted by Genesis

Well, locals and long-term stalkers have the appropriate perks. But outsiders aren't likely to get a month's walk into the Zone and discover that the landscape behind them has changed and they're forever lost, right? (I have a setting where that's explicitly the case, the whole world over, actually - so I'm partial to the notion, but it doesn't seem like what you're going for exactly)

No global geographical changes behind one's back. Radically changing weather/climate is probably the most drastic geographic change available.

Originally Posted by Genesis

So the populations are robust at this point. How often do outsiders breed into the Zoner population? In another hundred years of accumulated mutations will Zoners be a whole different species (or set of species)? What's the Zoner take on this phenomenon?

I think zoner+outsider families are rare, because zoners don't spend more than half their lives outside, while outsiders have a certain amount of difficulty staying in the zone.
Different species? That's probably going too far.

Originally Posted by Genesis

If you go this route I'd ask for one skill roll (a more normal-flavored skill roll, albeit with weird critical failures), and layer on top of that a GM roll for "weirdness encountered" where you set up a table of possible events and dish them out at random intervals. That way the PCs can respond how they like and the flavor of the Zone doesn't get subsumed into a "we successfully avoid having weird stuff happen to us today" roll.

Hmm. Maybe average two rolls - the normal survival and the weird survival, and see which one(s) are failures/successes.
Both successful - things are OK, some phenomena encountered harmlessly.
Weird success, normal failure, net result successful - a hazard has been avoided by smart use of ambient weirdness.
Vice-versa, net result successful - weird complications, but things went OK.
Weird failure, normal success, net result failure - things were OK, but the weirdness suddenly ruined everything.
Etc.

Originally Posted by Genesis

Oh, that's very interesting. Does the Zone migrate over time? Is it expanding or shrinking? Does anyone know what causes the disturbances? Why lies at the hearts of these epicenters?

Well, southern parts of it are receding gradually. Otherwise it mostly migrates within established boundaries. So you'd rather not try to colonise certain right-now-okay areas, unless you're ready to deal with the weirdness returning eventually.
The cause of disturbances is very vaguely linked to spacetime anomalies resulting from attempts to make FTL gates. (And yes, the anomalies started some time before the FTL gate experiment was performed - and on a different planet too.)