Red Markets (Zombie Survival / Gold Rush RPG)

[Leodiensian]

Ex terrorem, lucrabamur - Out of Terror, We Profit

Red Markets is an upcoming RPG that I'm super-stoked about and would love to try and get a game going for on here in that world. As I backed the Kickstarter, I've been sent a preview that includes all the rules so I'd love to get a game running here.

The game is set five years into the Crash, the apocalyptic event that killed half the human species and divided the continental United States. An unknown infection referred to as The Blight appears seemingly at random worldwide, with no clear point of origin, turning humans into incredibly infectious monsters and shambling corpses. The Crash goes.. poorly. It's not a total wash, the governments of the world resorting to military invention to fight the spreading Blight. But there are only so many bullets, so many trained fighters. The cold, cruel mathematics of logistics prompt the US government to make a dreadful decision. They withdraw to the east coast, taking vital manpower and resources with them and blow the bridges. This splits the country into the Recession (east of the Mississippi river, where the U.S government has rooted out infection and rules with martial law) and the Loss (west of the Mississippi, given up and everyone left behind declared legally dead).

As one of the legally-dead living left behind in the Loss, you probably belong in an enclave, a survivor colony. You've spent the last five years scavenging food, medicine and other supplies, sitting on pre-Crash stockpiles and subsistence farming for staple crops. But five years is a long time and scavenging isn't a forever solution. Those stockpiles are running out. Canned food is coming to the end of its edible life; even the nastiest MRE packets are beginning to turn. Most medicines that haven't been taken are simply expired. Even gasoline goes bad after so long. And people aren't making more, or at least the Loss isn't. But the Recession is. This is where the Carrion Economy comes in. It's an illicit black market trade between Loss enclaves and Recession people to carry out services in exchange for goods both sides want, backed by a form of cryptocurrency called Bounty. An example might be someone whose family was infected during the Crash hiring some Loss-based folks to go out and put their Zombie Grandma out of their misery; they pay in bounty and then that currency goes towards, say, buying Recession-made medicine the Loss enclave needs. People who engage in this Carrion Economy, who hunt zombies or scavenge in the Loss not to survive but to profit, are Takers.

A big part of the Carrion Economy is the trade in legal documentation; the Recession government is gearing up for a big reclamation push in the next 15-20 years and they want to sort out things like inheritance, land ownership, who owns what and what can the State seize, which is causing a big bubble in the Carrion Economy. You play survivors who are taking advantage of this bubble in the Carrion Economy to get rich and buy your way to a better life, whatever that is for you - bribe your way into a new life for you and your family in the Recession? Set yourself up as boss hog of a new enclave? Maybe establish a company incorporating Taker crews from all over the area?

So, it's the end of the world but capitalism is still chugging along just fine. And it's time for you to go out, pay your bills, try to strike it rich - and not get bit.

Mechanics

Dice

In terms of mechanics, Red Markets operates a very light system based around rolling 2d10s - one red, one black. The red dice represents difficulty, factors that go against the character. The black dice represents your character's effort, skills and attempt to succeed.

If black beats red, you're "in the black" - you succeed.
If red beats black, or there's a tie, you're "in the red" - you fail.

Characters add their skill rating to the black dice - so, someone with Shooting 3 rolls 2d10 and adds 3 to the black. In that example, say that they roll Black 2 Red 4. Without a skill bonus, that would be a failure. Adding 3 to the Black pushes the result up to B5R4, which passes.

The red dice might have a bonus added to it to represent an especially tough challenge; so, Shooting 3 versus a highly skilled opponent might end up with +3 to black and +2 to red on the same 2d10 roll.

If you don't have any ranks in a skill (for instance, someone with Shooting 0 firing a gun) then you "default". When you default, look at the Stat the skill belongs to. Roll a Black dice; if you get equal or below your Stat rating, you passing. If you get above it, you fail. In this example, the shooter looks at Speed, because Speed governs the Shooting skill. They have Shooting 2 and so must roll a 1 or 2 on 1d10 to pass. They roll a 3 and fail.

Finally, if the dice naturally turn up doubles (B1R1, B4R4), then the result is a critical. If both dice are EVEN (B2R2, B4R4 etc), it is a critical success. Double odds (B5R5,B7R7 etc) are a critical failure. Criticals typically offer a special edge or hindrance according to context. For example, a critical success on Research might dig up extra information that gives you an edge, while a failure might mean you end up believing a false rumour as if it were gospel truth.

Will and Spots

Characters have a number of Will points equal to their Will stat. Will is very powerful and can be used a few ways.

First, spending a Will can flip a dice roll. For instance, if you roll Black 1 Red 10 then you can make that roll Black 10 Red 1.

Next, a Will can downgrade a critical failure to a normal failure. This especially comes in handy when your gun jams as a horde of the dead is descending.

Finally, a Will can be used to upgrade a regular success to a critical success, for when you absolutely need a miracle. When a Vector's bearing down on you, and you need a killshot, spend that Will.

Will is regained by acting according to your Spots in such a way that gets you (or your team) in trouble. Spots are character aspects or traits. Each character has three Spots: a Tough, Weak and Soft Spot.

Tough Spots describe how your character survived the Crash. Think of it like a "character class" or "background". Mechanically, Tough Spots provide a benefit and a drawback. For example, someone with the Tough Spot "Hustler" got by on their wits and establishing a dense network of contacts and favours; they never have to roll Networking and always "know a guy" who can help out. However, all these favours soon become debts and the Hustler has creditors on their tail; once per job, the Market can give the Hustler a Will point and declare they owe someone 1d10 Bounty - or else.

Weak Spots are character flaws and failings; a good way to think about them is "when someone complains about your character, this is what they're complaining about". For instance, someone might take the Weak Spot "Napoleon Complex" to represent a character who sometimes overacts to compensate for short stature. They might get a Will by picking a fight they don't need to to show themselves off as "the big man about town".

Soft Spots are a little more complicated; they're traits, personality traits and beliefs that would be virtues were it not for the fact that you're in a zombie wasteland. For example, a character who believes "Why Can't We All Get Along?" would normally be a mediator, a defuser of tensions - but when the insane cultists are at your door with chainsaws and pitchforks, this is not the time for reasoned debate. They might get a Will by walking unarmed into the lion's den to negotiate.

Humanity and Dependants

No man is an island; everyone needs some kind of support network that helps them cope with the stresses of the world. This is especially true when those stresses include undead cannibals and government assassins. This is where Humanity and Dependants come in.

Humanity is your Taker's mental health and it takes a hit from experiencing the traumatic, stressful and deadening realities of life in the apocalypse. Humanity is divided into three categories: Trauma, Detachment and Stress. These tracks go from 0-15. 0 represents total mental health; at 5 and 10, your character experiences some kind of psychotic break and if you reach 15 you're such a broken human no longer playable. When your character encounters something stressful or horrific (such as witnessing someone being torn asunder by a horde of Casualties), the Market will ask for a Self-Control check. On a failure, your character will receive damage to one of their Humanity tracks (especially nightmarish events might give you some damage even if you succeed).

Trauma damage occurs when witnessing gruesome acts of violence, or being placed in life-or-death situations. For instance, being trapped in a truck surrounded by zombies is a Trauma.

Detachment damage occurs when your Taker loses empathy for or faith in the human species and starts seeing other people as 'just meat'. The guy who shoots his friend in the leg so he can escape the zombie horde? Yeah, that guy's Detached to all get out.

Stress represents all those mundane worries you hoped would go away when the world ended but hey, guess what, they didn't. Money, family, co-workers, those are all still things you get Stressed over. When your have to raid your hard-earned savings to replace lost gear, that's Stress. When you run out of savings? Oh BOY is that Stress.

But it's not all bad. Dependants are NPC's who your character can spend time with each Job in order to heal some Humanity damage. These are people who are, as their name suggests, someone who relies on your character at least somewhat; they might be your children, your spouse, your friends. They aren't entirely able to survive on their own - perhaps they lack skills that are useful to the enclave, or suffered some kind of injury that prevents them from working themselves. Either way, a Dependent is a small financial burden on the Taker.

A Taker has a number of Dependants equal to their Charisma rating, as the more charming you are the easier it is to form significant relationships. Each Dependant costs 1 Bounty per Job to keep them fed, clothed and sheltered. So, if Miss Jones has Charisma 2 she can have 2 Dependants. She decides that her husband James is one of them and that he needs her help because his right arm was amputated when he was bitten so he can't work in the enclave's farm. Her second Dependant is Stacey, her former college roommate; Stacey's skill as a poet means nothing in the wasteland and Jones gives her some Bounty every now and then to keep her from going hungry. Each time Miss Jones gets paid from a Job, she needs to put 2 Bounty towards keeping James and Stacey from going Needy. Missing one payment isn't too bad but over time, if you let your Dependants go hungry they'll leave you.

However, each Dependent a Taker has heals one COLUMN of Humanity (that is, the highest filled levels off Stress, Trauma and Detachment at the same time). For instance, imagine Miss Jones has Trauma 4, Detachment 3 and Stress 4; she's on the verge of breaking in both Trauma and Stress. She also has two Dependants (James and Stacey). In between jobs, spending quality time with her dependants; she heals the 4 column, then the 3 column. This leaves her with 2 in all categories. This means that the better you can support your Dependants (and the more you can get) the more resilient you are to the Loss.

Thoughts? Questions?

[Prophet]

Sounds like a pretty kick ass setting and system that isn't too hard to wrap your head around. I'd love to give it a shot.

[Leodiensian]

Thanks! Yeah, the system is actually pretty light and easy to get your head around so I think it would workk here. I haven't posted all of it because I'm not a maniac, but the other big deal to mention is gear and Charges. Basically, almost every task requires some sort of resource spend - a bullet from a gun, power from a batter, bandages from the medkit, even the caloric count necessary to be able to do physically strenuous tasks. These are abstracted into "charges" which items have. In order to even make the roll (whether you end up passing or failing) you have to spend a charge. However, a lot of items allow you spend extra charges to get a bonus. For instance, you just spend 1 charge from a gun to shoot it, or 1 charge from rations to fuel running, but by choosing to "over-spend" on charges you get a bonus on your skill roll. Spending an extra 2 charges (so 3 total) on shooting would let you roll at a +2.

[Prophet]

I like the sound of that. Now are there things that can be applied after a role, or are they all pre-roll resources? I definitely like how it's not too complex, but there is a simplicity to it. I'm used to NWOD mostly so I find that pretty damn easy to work with, but almost too easy at times where it limits options.

[Leodiensian]

Primarily it's before the roll - which basically allows you to control the difficulty of your rolls, but with a limited resource pool to spend to do so. It also reinforces the game's core underlying themes of economic scarcity and risk-vs-reward (so "How much do you want to gamble on this roll?") I know there is an upgrade for some weapons to represent automatic fire, which allows you to spend charges AFTER the hit in order to up damage (normally extra charges spent on rolling to hit only improve your chance to HIT, not improve your damage).

[Prophet]

I see, well it sounds like a pretty good system at a glance, so if you find enough interest for a group I'd love to take part, just let me know.

[UberBlutwurst]

Going to be checking this thread to see where it goes. So far, I'm interested.

[vosenedich]

This sounds very interesting. Sign me up.

[Leodiensian]

Okay, I think there's enough interest to make it worth putting a thread up.

One last question before I do: Red Markets has a lot of world-building collaborative rules that could be used to create the local enclave (basically, where you guys weathered the apocalypse) and some of the world around you. So, for instance, you might be set up in a university campus in California, a prison in Montana, a high school in Wyoming. Everyone would have some input in creating the enclave, how it fuels itself, what it needs to keep going, what the local competition is etc. Alternatively, I can write that all up for you to help you focus on just making a character that fits in. Which would y'all prefer?

[vosenedich]

I'd like to see how the system handles the generation of the enclave, mostly out of curiosity. So my vote is on that front.

[Leodiensian]

Okay, that's one for group creation.

@Prophet @UberBlutwurst @Gisk @tchtkrmkc What do you all think, if you're still interested? The options again were A) I come up with your "home base" and the surrounding environment, competition etc or B) we try out the collaborative enclave creation rules and you guys all have a part in creating your enclave.

[Gisk]

I vote B.

[Prophet]

It does sound like it might make for more of a tie to our enclave, so I'll go with B as well.

[Leodiensian]

Okay, here are the different areas to collaborate on for the enclave.

Enclave Stuff

You don't have to answer these questions precisely, just prompts to get you thinking.

Name (Probably the last thing we actually come up with. Just putting it first because, well, names come first on sheets.)

Location

• Which state? Remember, the Loss is everything west of the Mississippi river.
• What's the general landscape like? Plains, hills, marsh?
• What's the water situation? Are you near a river? A lake? Or are you parched?
• What's the farming like? Is there a lot of arable land or is it more difficult?
• What was the population density like pre-Crash?

Defence

• What keeps the dead away? Are the defences natural (i.e. mountains) or man-made (prison walls)?
• Who mans the walls? Does the enclave any kind of formal police/militia/watch?
• Are there any weaknesses or blind spots? Secret entrances?

History

• Who first decided this was a good place to wait out the apocalypse?
• Did other groups come later, or has the population been the same since the Crash?
• What recent conflict - external or internal - has shaped the operation of the enclave?

Import/Export
Self-sufficiency is a myth. Your enclave has some things other people want and wants some things other people have.

An "export" is something the enclave has in abundance, whether in terms of skills, materials or natural resources. For instance, an enclave that used to be a technical college might make their money as mechanics for other enclaves.

An "import" is something your enclave lacks or has too much demand to supply by itself, and has to rely on outside trade on. The technical college, for example, might be too small to defend itself properly and contracts out to a mercenary band for security.

For each export your enclave has, it must have an import.

Competition

What other groups, settlements etc are in the surrounding area? These can range from trading partners to raiding parties, cults to agricultural communes. They can be directly hostile (for instance, perhaps a group of insane cultists who worship the dead have moved into the area) but don't HAVE to be; you could also describe another enclave a little ways downriver with whom you enjoy a friendly trade relationship. Does the DHQS (the Recession government agency in charge of maintaining the quarantine and leading the reclamation) have any forward bases or agents in the area?

Social Structure

• How does politics in the enclave work? Do you have a democratic system, or perhaps some kind of dictatorship?
• What are the different factions, voting blocs or social classes?
• What is illegal in the enclave? Slavery? Prostitution?
• How does religion play a role in society?
• Has it always been this way or did things used to be different? What changed, and why?

Neighbourhoods

Here, we decide on the scale of the enclave, then break it down into different regions - because no matter how big or small the town, there's always a nice part of town and a bad part of town.

• What does the enclave do with Latents (humans who are infected, and infectious, but don't turn into zombies)? Is there a "ghetto" for them?
• How did space get divided up? Did the nice beds go to the people with the money or with the guns?
• Do Believers have their own 'cloisters' or do they mingle with the general population?
• How did pre-Crash space get converted into living spaces, and for who?

VIPs

The final step, and the most specific step. Basically, who runs Bartertown? Well, not just who runs it. Notable NPC's and a general "who's who" of the enclave.

• Who heads up the different factions? How did they come to power?
• Who do people turn to when they need a 'good time'? How do they provide that service?
• Who gets people what they can't get legally? How do they get that past security?
• Who does everyone hate? Why are they THE. WORST. (ohmygod) and why can't we just get rid of them?

The "Rules"

So, the process is mostly a matter of collaborative consensus which means isn't hugely codified in rules and sort of relies on people being adults here. So, the rule of thumb is "oh! that's cool!" If someone else's idea makes you think or say that, chime in your support for it.

Step 1: The first person with an idea for an aspect of the enclave puts it forward. ("Our enclave used to be a prison.")

Step 2: Everyone else either throws in a contrary idea ("I think it would be cooler if our enclave was a high school"), adds an elaboration on someone else's idea in support of it ("It was a prison, but minimum security - mostly white collar crime, Bernie Madoff types.") or declares they abstain.

Step 3: Once everyone's declared one way or another, the votes are added up and the winning option becomes "canon". The Market (i.e. me) breaks ties.

Step 4: Repeat on the next aspect of the enclave ("Our enclave is near a lake.")

Step 5: Once all areas of the enclave are sufficiently defined, we move on to character creation.

Does that all make sense?

[Paraffin]

Most certainly interested in this, so in the spirit of jolly cooperation I'll toss in an enclave idea to get started.

Missouri could be a very interesting locale (bootheel especially), as it's prime real estate for disaster. Flooding, tornadoes, dangerous wildlife and close enough to the east-west divide to have the powers that be breathing down our necks. Not only this, but due to the inherent risk of overland travel various 'river gangs' could be vying for dominance of the waterways, either as a means of navigating the state proper or smuggling goods in and out of the Mississippi cordon.

As for the enclave itself I'd suggest that as the borders were redrawn a splinter faction the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fortified the Truman reservoir. It's a bit further west but being on the Osage means that we'd have to contend with trouble coming out of state over the Marais des Cygnes and are smack dab in the center of anything floating up or down our little slice of the apocalypse

As an aside and play on post-fall nomenclature I'm thinking we could be nicknamed either "the Dammed" or "the True Men" by other groups/settlements.

[Leodiensian]

Missouri could be a very interesting locale (bootheel especially), as it's prime real estate for disaster.

@Paraffin

Fun fact, the game designer is from Springfield, Missouri! And everything he writes is exactly as bleak and cynical as you'd expect from an atheist intellectual trapped in the Bible belt.

[Paraffin]

Incidentally that reminds me, seeing as many groups are constantly prepping for a 'forever nigh' race-war, several factions of supremacists are bound to be alive and kicking. Maybe even thriving in this sort of scenario. Since you brought up Springfield I'm thinking of the Joplin Honkies and Peckerwood Midwest, but I think that the Aryan Circle and Sacred Separatist Group have a foothold in Missouri as well.

[rush99999]

@Leodiensian

I have a question about the Humanity mechanic.

How does becoming too detached result in a game over? I can understand that too much mental trauma can be just as dangerous as too much physical trauma. And I can definitely understand that too much stress can lead to people doing dumb stuff to escape it. But losing all empathy for or faith in the human species and starting to see other people as 'just meat'? I don't see how that could be bad enough to make a character unplayable.

[Leodiensian]

I have a question about the Humanity mechanic.

How does becoming too detached result in a game over? I can understand that too much mental trauma can be just as dangerous as too much physical trauma. And I can definitely understand that too much stress can lead to people doing dumb stuff to escape it. But losing all empathy for or faith in the human species and starting to see other people as 'just meat'? I don't see how that could be bad enough to make a character unplayable.

@rush99999

So, when you experience a Break - when you max out a Humanity threat - it's not that you sit down and spend the rest of your day in the lunatic asylum. You become "That Guy" in the zombie movie - the guy who fucks it all up for everyone. Think the guy who goes crazy, sees his wife in the horde so he opens the gate and the zombies flood the enclave, or the scientist who keeps zombies chained up as pets and starts feeding humans to them.

You don't necessarily "go crazy", you just cross the line from protagonist to antagonist. You become a threat. Where you Break, your character does something that ruins everybody's day and may or may not die - maybe they get rent asunder by the zombie they can no longer bring themselves to kill, or the other Takers see the monster you've become and shoot you down. The character might survive to become an antagonist later on - run off to make a cannibal cult say - but in a tabletop game that means they functionally stop being a player character and become an NPC.

For someone broken on Detachment, think the Governor in Walking Dead. Breaking on detachment might look like the scene where he guns down his own men and the survivors defect.

[Paraffin]

Max detachment could also lead to a nihilism event horizon. Like being in a life and death situation and choosing a certain painless death over a risky and painful escape. We're sensations to one another, to distance oneself from others is to grow numb.