No One Gets Out of Here Alive- A Survival Horror RPG by Cris

Character Creation

The Three Main statistics of every character are Brains, Brawn, and Will.  Brains  is a measure of smarts and know how, Brawn is physical power and general all around body athletics, and Will is inner strength and willpower.  The Character begins with 10 points divided between the three.  Points can go from 1, very poor, to 6, exceptional.  Example: John has Brains 4, Brawn 2, and Will 4.  Now choose an upbringing and three associated skills to go with it.  Players upbringing will help determine the skills.  Skills can be anything within reason.  The Player gets 10 points to allot to these skills.  Skills again can range from 1 to 6.  Example: John grew up on a farm so the skills he chooses are Operate Farm Equipment 2, Horse Riding 5, Animal First Aid 3. 

Next, the Player chooses an Occupation and Five corresponding skills.  The occupation is what the player has devoted his time to; it need not necessarily be a career.  The Player gets to allot 20 points to these skills.  Example: John moved to the big city and became a Reporter for a local underground Anarchist newspaper.  His skills are: Research 6, Breaking and Entering 3, Writing (English) 3, Computer Operation 4, and Interview 4. 

The Player then Chooses two skills for hobbies, these can be anything within the characters ability.  Allot 6 Points to these skills, again ranging from 1-6.  John chooses Antiques 2 and Swimming 4

After that the characters Toughness, the amount of punishment he can take, which is derived from adding Brawn and Will together.  John has a Toughness of 6.  The last step is to derive Health, which is equal to Brawn, so John has a Health of 2.

Fear, Hopelessness, and Mental Stability

Every character has these three negative aspects, which start at zero and increase over time.  Each aspect it tied to Main Statistic; Fear-Brawn, Hopelessness-Will, and Mental Stability-Brains.  Any time a Negative aspect is more than a Main statistic the character is consumed by it.  So if John has a Will of 4 and a Hopelessness of 5 he becomes hopeless about the future.  The player can role play this any way he wishes within reason.  All Negative aspects when dominant cause self-destructive behavior and actions.

Dominant Negative Statistics and Traits

Fear- Character flees or cowers away from what he is afraid of and will not take risks to help anyone but themselves.  Survival is the top priority

Hopelessness- Character does not care about his own safety and becomes fatalistic and uncaring.  He will not care if people die and may refuse to help in crisis situations.

Mental Stability- Character becomes unstable and dangerous.  A player might attack others, eat glue, attempt to hug the evil out of a monster, or just plain babble nonsense. 

So Let us look at John:

Main Stats               Skills

Brain 4                       Operate Farm Equipment 2

Brawn 2                     Horse Ridding 5

Will 4                         Animal First Aid 3

Toughness 6               Research 6

Health 2                      Writing 3

                                  Breaking and Entering 3
                                  Computer Operation 4

Fear 0                         Interview 4

Hopelessness 0           Antiques 2

Mental Stability 0        Swimming 4

Making Checks

The only dice you will need are a bunch of d6’s.  The object of a check is to roll doubles with the amount of d6’s you have.  When the GM calls for a check roll a corresponding skill or if no skill is relevant roll to the closest Main Statistic.  The Skill number or Main Statistic Number is equivalent to how many D6’s a character rolls.  Example: John is going to Jump a ravine, he has no relevant skill so he will roll on Brawn.  John has a Brawn of 2 so he rolls 2d6.  He rolls a 4 and a 2, no doubles, he fall down the ravine. 

The two types of checks are opposed and unopposed.  Opposed checks are where two people are engaged in some sort of contest with a winner and loser.  Both players roll for corresponding skills or Main Statistics, if the skill is not available, and the person with the highest double wins.  If no doubles are present the highest number wins.  Three of a kind always beat any double and four of a kind always beat any three of a kind; so three 4’s will beat a pair of 6’s.  If there is a tie then reroll.  John is in a contest to wrestle a knife out a cultists hands, he rolls 2d6 for Brawn, having no applicable skill, while the cultist rolls 4d6 for his skill of Knife Fighting.  John ends up with a 1 and a 6 while the Cultist gets a pair of 3’s.  The knife is now in the Cultists hands and he moves in for the attack.

Unopposed rolls are where there is no opposed action.  Shooting someone who is not aware of you or Sneaking are Unopposed rolls.  The GM then decides how difficult the action is and assigns it a Challenge number 1-6.  The player has to roll doubles at or above that number to succeed.  The Challenge Rate is as Follows:

1                   Moderately Difficult    Jumping a ravine with 50 ft running start

2                   Difficult                           Jumping a ravine with 20ft running start

3                   Hard                                 Jumping a ravine with 10ft running start

4                   Very Hard                       Jumping a ravine with 5ft running start

5                   Exceptionally Hard       Jumping a ravine at the edge at rest

6                   Unlikely to succeed      Jumping a ravine at the edge…, backwards

Three, four, and five 6’s may be used but those things are near impossible to accomplish and only by the highest trained and the luckiest.

            Fear, Hopelessness, and Mental Stability checks are all unopposed rolls and correspond to the previous chart.  Having a pet die would be a 1 on the hopelessness scale, the player would have to roll a double of 1 or higher to succeed.  Entering a Nazi concentration camp and seeing all the inhumane suffering would be a 6, the player would have to roll a pair of 6’s or higher to succeed.  Any time a character fails a check on any of the Negative Statistics then the score goes up by 1. 

Death, Healing, and Removing Negative Statistics

            Characters when hurt subtract from Toughness first and then Health.  When a characters Toughness and Health are both at 0 they are dead.  A Characters Toughness naturally heals at 1 Point per hour, and Health heals naturally at 1 point per day.  The GM may allow for a higher healing rate if the characters have access to supplies, perform a relevant skill check such as first aid, or both.  A player can lose points in Negative Statistics by doing specific actions.  For Fear a player must be removed from what frightened him or her and spend at least an hour relaxing without any further fright, then the Fear can be reduced by 1.  Trapped in a closet while a beast is waiting outside to eat you is not relaxing.  For Hopelessness a character needs to be inspired by others significant successful actions or the characters actions themselves, then Hopelessness can be reduced by one.  Escaping from a monster of some sort would warrant a loss of 1 Hopelessness.  Mental Stability can be recovered usually by three ways; therapy of some sort, Mental Reconditioning (Hypnosis, Meditation, Extensive Self Study), and Drugs.  A character who participates in such things for an appropriate amount of time can reduce their Mental Stability by 1.

Weapons and Equipment

Weapon                                            Damage

Small Knife                                       1 Point

Large Knife                                       2 Points

Club, Axe, Sword                             3 Points

Small Gun                                         2 Points

Large Gun                                         4 Points

Shotgun                                            5 Points

Explosives                                        6 Points or Death

            Any Equipment the players have with them that help them in a skill, a first aid kit to bandage some ones wounds or a grappling hook for climbing, should give them an extra 1-3 d6’s depending on how relevant to the situation and skill.