Outbreak

February 18th, 2017. High of 84 degrees Fahrenheit, fairly mild for the practical swamp that is Houston. A day unlike any other, save for the whole recent inauguration of President Trump which has rustled numerous jimmies. People wake up casually in the morning, sip a cup of coffee, suffer through Houston's god-awful morning traffic (and god-awful traffic in general), and promptly get to work. Another dollar, not nearly enough of another dollar. But this peace and serenity will not last. For February 18th, 2017, is the beginning of the end. We were completely unprepared.

Hello, and welcome to Outbreak: A Pandemic Survival with Stats. I want to be very upfront that this RP does involve a series of random number generations or dice rolls if you'd prefer to call them that, rolls that will compare against your character's stats. They do not always happen. Almost anyone can open an unlocked door, but not everyone can bash down a dead-bolted wooden door. Your character's stats are essentially the secondary determining factor that will decide whether they live, get injured, or die, the primary being your own choices as to what the character will do. And I absolutely mean that. Characters in this RP can, and almost certainly will, die and get hurt. If a character dies though, I have no issues allowing you to make another, and encourage it. By the way, just use Google Maps to see Houston. Boom, the RP has a map.

How This RP Runs

You write your own posts, but this RP shall make heavy use of Discord/PMs, as you must let me know what you plan to do so I can determine if rolls are necessary. Searching for food is likely a roll unless you're in a grocery store that hasn't been completely raided yet, for instance. Firing a gun is absolutely a roll, even point-blank sometimes. Climbing a ladder carefully probably is not. Climbing a ladder under duress will likely be. Context applies as does your wording of what you wish to do. You let me know what you want to do, I tell you the result, you write that in your post. A single post may contain numerous decisions, especially in the beginning when characters are isolated from one another and shit is starting to hit the fan. I'll be basically collabing with all of you in the beginning.

This RP requires a good bit of thought, caution, and consideration in order to survive and potentially thrive for as long as possible. People need food. Water. Shelter. Sleep. Your characters are the same. NPCs are the same. There is also a healthy level of realism - someone that has never shot a gun before is unlikely to be able to hit the broad side of a barn on their first shot. Okay, that's an exaggeration, we've all seen people shooting guns in movies before, but the reality of doing it is quite a bit different. It is nearly impossible to hit a fast moving, distant target as an untrained person. Beyond this, things like potential infection apply. Broken bones. Eating things that should not be eaten. Characters can only carry so much, especially without packs or other places to store items. Etc.

The Disease

Without spoiling anything, this RP involves a highly virulent 'disease', the exact characteristics of which will be revealed throughout the RP. It is not zombies. As to why characters in the RP do not have prior knowledge of the disease, that is due to the action of governments in an attempt to keep it heavily under wraps and address the problem before it spirals out of control, and spiral out of control it will.

The Possibilities

There is every possibility of this RP running for a significant amount of time; days, weeks, months, maybe even years into the outbreak. Your characters may become leaders of survivor settlements, or members of them. Perhaps your characters turn into raving lunatics who raid those who cannot defend themselves. Perhaps the government will never fall apart in the first place and actually mount something of an actual response. Who knows. It is not necessary at all that characters come together. As GM, it is my job to supply ample opportunity in the form of NPCs if you choose to intentionally avoid other PCs. Of course, I may drive PCs together for fun. At the same time, you are welcome to organize together and combine forces. There is strength in numbers. But there is also strength in finding and organizing NPCs.

Expectations

I have a full college schedule. Other people have jobs. I'm fully aware of that, and real life comes first. This RP is in a unique position in that characters can simply be killed quite easily as necessary if someone leaves or is disruptive in OOC. I personally hope that players can post at least once a day to a few times per week. I also expect that people chill the fuck out in the OOC. Minor debates and squabbles about realism or something in the RP are fine. But IC does not equal OOC. There is the very real possibility that PCs might kill other PCs, and you need to be cool with that. You also need to be cool with the fact that shit happens, people die, rocks fall, and sometimes a character knocks a task out of the fucking park.

Character Creation

This RP makes use of the Fallout SPECIAL System. If you do not know what that is, no problem, here is an explanatory list despite the names probably being clear;

• Strength: "Do you even lift, bro?" Governs how much your character can carry and things like how hard they can punch. Musculoskeletal stuff, basically.
• Perception: "I can see clearly now..." Governs things like ability to spot loot, involved in ranged aiming, situational awareness, etc.
• Endurance: "Run Forrest, Run!" Do you too wish to be a handicapped man who can run long distances? Then invest here! Seriously though, deals with ability to endure stress/physical punishment.
• Charisma: "Bond, James Bond." Used in all manner of manipulation, charm, leadership, etc.
• Intelligence: "I'd like to protonate your base..." Governs ability to learn new tricks or skills, and general ability to not be a moron.
• Agility: "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge-." Involved in ability to get the fuck out of the way, as well as climb or do fancy parkour shit if your character is into that. Parkour not recommended to attempt.
• Luck: "Damn. Lost another tree fiddy." Involved in damn near everything that I decide it applies to. Might be the saving grace that keeps your character from death. May also result in death.

What is not the same as in Fallout though, is that this system is normally distributed from 0-10. What that essentially means is that higher and lesser numbers are significantly less prevalent in the population. For instance, only 0.45% of humanity is considered to have a zero in agility, while 23.5% would be rated a five in agility. If you want to know the exact percents, check the following hider. If you'd rather logic it out, consider a zero in agility to be basically a damn near wooden person who can barely move their limbs. That, or they're just god-awful at dodging. For those of you who are less mathematically inclined, a character with nine points in Strength is essentially in the top 2% of the entire human population.

With the SPECIAL System now explained, I shall provide the character sheet that all characters play by:

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I've spent a good bit of time reasoning on this, so I hope it garners some interest despite the tendency among forum RPers to avoid stats and rolls. It is my hope that this RP will be highly successful and long-lived, as well as extremely interesting and fun! If you have criticisms, concerns, or questions, feel free to post them here or contact me on PM/Discord. I will now start reviewing applications posted in OOC. Those accepted will receive a like, else I'll post some concerns or thoughts.

Sounds good

Cool, gonna try to post a character sheet up soon

.

Just wondering, what is the limit when it comes to profanity/violence/sexual content?

Pretty much don't break RPGuild's rules as far as I know.

@Ascendant Got it

Name: Jordan Fou
Age: 30

Pre-Outbreak Occupation: Before the outbreak, Jordan Fou was a PR officer who worked under a particularly infamous mayor. Later, he planned to run for the same political office, but the outbreak occurred before the campaign season began.

Description:

Jordan is a charismatic, fun guy who gets along pretty well with others. Just ask anyone who knows him: He’s a trustworthy, down-to-earth guy who tries his best to help people. His wife and kids are all beautiful, happy people, and Jordan’s probably the best father and husband any woman could settle for. He’s one of those friends you can talk to and get real, legitimately helpful advice from, and above all, he’s genuine. At least, that’s what he wants you to think.

History: Jordan grew up in Riverside, California. Like almost every other kid in his area, he attended kindergarten at age six. He was like any other kid his age: He liked to play handball with the guys, climb the monkey bars, ride the slides, or play tag. But sometimes, he had certain... tendencies. In handball, sometimes he’d accidentally punch a kid when trying to hit a ball. Sometimes he’d accidentally kick a kid under the monkey bars. Or he’d accidentally push a kid face-first down a slide. When he played tag, he might accidentally shove a kid to the pavement. Early signs such as these went relatively unnoticed, and they were mainly associated with him being a growing boy. Of course, boys are just naturally aggressive, right?

Fast forward to his adolescent years, right on the cusp of nature’s longest-running joke: Puberty. For most boys, this transitional stage of life naturally led to the usual symptoms: Awkwardness, acne breakouts, social anxiety, and strange sexual urges. Jordan hardly felt the wrath of any of the first three; He never stuttered in his stride or in a sentence, never had a pimple in his life, and he talked to almost everyone. The last one, however, was a different story.

Starting from about age thirteen, Jordan began to have some strange urges. Of course, it’s normal for a boy his age to think about sex, but this was different. He liked it when he saw someone get hurt in a movie or a video game. Whenever he watched Jason kill his next victim, he cheered. It excited him in a way he’d never thought it’d excite him before. Since he lived in a pre-internet age, he could never… alleviate his urges, per se. At least, not with a computer screen.

At fifteen, Jordan had gotten into his first relationship. It was strange to him at first, that this green-eyed, brunette girl was actually attracted to him. Even he was perplexed that girls could actually like guys as well. He just assumed that they were basically another species. He learned a lot from this girl, mostly the stark and subtle differences between men and women when it came to conversation and attraction. Compared to the other girls, she was really nice, and seemed to care about him to some degree. Of course, he felt no real attraction to her. Her physical appearance was all he cared about. They never found her body.

Fast-forward to age thirty. Jordan’s had a pretty successful life thus far, and due to the availability of the internet, can suppress his urges. He was a PR officer working for a particularly controversial mayor in Houston, Texas. Working with a campaign rife with scandal and controversy, however, was of little issue to Jordan. Advising the mayor to viciously attack and slander his opponents on certain issues while letting others slip under the radar, he succeeded in helping his client reach political office.

However, Jordan’s ambition took hold, and using the information he gathered to help the mayor, instead, he planned to run against him in a bid for political office. However, before campaign season started, the outbreak occurred.

Fluff Starting Inventory: He wears an old rolex watch he bought out of impulse. He also carries a silver lighter.

Ha, I like this sick bastard of a character. He can go in the characters section.