The End of the World

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trevlix
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The End of the World

Post by trevlix » Wed Sep 03, 2014 7:53 pm

New RPG from Fantasy Flight Games. Some interesting mechanics.
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of The End of the World series, a new roleplaying game line of horror and survival in humanity’s last days!

Four books make up The End of the World roleplaying game series. Each of these four books offers a different apocalyptic genre and experience. The first book in the series, Zombie Apocalypse, challenges you to face hordes of undead that rise and stalk the earth, hungry for the flesh of the living. The series continues with Wrath of the Gods, pitting players against a pantheon of supernatural foes intent of destroying humanity. Ranging from the Mayan apocalypse to Cthulhu, the gods return to exact terrible vengeance in this book. The third installment in the series is Alien Invasion, giving you the opportunity to battle unknown life forms from beyond our galaxy. You may face a species of conquering warriors, or aliens too small to see with the naked eye. Finally, Revolt of the Machines invites you to match wits against artificial intelligence. When our technology develops consciousness, even normal people will need to battle technology in every form. Each of these books offers a complete self-contained experience, although they share the same rules system. No matter which apocalypse you want to explore, you’ll find unending horror and adventure in this roleplaying series.

Better Me than You

In the majority of roleplaying games, you take on the persona of a fictional character – ranging from a elven thief to a half-orc war-mage to a human soldier, and beyond. The End of the World line changes all of this by inviting you to play as yourself amidst the tumult of the world’s ending! You’ll use your own physical, mental, and social attributes to create yourself as an in-game character, allowing you to come as close as you (safely) can to experiencing the apocalypse first-hand. In addition to your chosen attributes, you can represent yourself more accurately by imagining positive and negative features. For example, you may have the Long-distance Runner positive feature, but you may also cope with the Extremely Nearsighted negative feature. Another character may have the Natural Leader positive feature, but this could be tempered by the Wants Revenge negative feature.

Since you’re playing yourself in every game of The End of the World, your starting gear is also limited to what you can find close at hand when you sit down to play the game. You could start with a cell phone, but how long will it stay charged? Who knows how long the cash in your wallet will be accepted as viable currency in light of the world’s ending? You might want a good shotgun to defend yourself, but that could mean venturing out of your friend’s apartment. Kitchen knives might be your only available weapons for defending yourself against hordes of ravenous zombies or conquering aliens.
[Trafford: Insanity: 4, Exhaustion: 2]

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toddwo
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Re: The End of the World

Post by toddwo » Wed Sep 03, 2014 7:56 pm

Hmmm. No Nuclear Armageddon? Huh. I'll be damned. Why, back when I was a lad, that was the only option, and we LIKED it that way!
That’s what you young chaps have got to remember – when you run, run, full speed, with never a thought for anything else; don’t look or listen or dither even for an instant; let terror have his way, for he’s the best friend you’ve got- Harry Flashman

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Re: The End of the World

Post by Keeper Jon » Wed Sep 03, 2014 8:04 pm

Damn. I'm totally buying these. When does the first book come out?

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Re: The End of the World

Post by trevlix » Thu Sep 04, 2014 2:29 am

Keeper Jon wrote:Damn. I'm totally buying these. When does the first book come out?
"Fall"

So, who knows. At least FFG isn't releasing them in beta before like they do with the SW RPGs.

The "play yourself" mechanic is interesting, but I have to wonder how well it would work. I've heard of other games trying this with few having success. Outbreak: Undead attempted it, but from what I've heard, the mess of rules in that RPG was the issue.

Anyhow, I'm sure I'll be getting it anyway for idea fodder at least.
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Re: The End of the World

Post by Wordcraftian » Thu Sep 04, 2014 6:45 am

I've done this. Or something very similar. A friend of mine ran an "All Flesh Must be Eaten" game where we all played ourselves and the opening scene was us sitting down to play a game of "All Flesh Must be Eaten" where we play ourselves... It was a blast!

I will say that if you've never done it before, playing yourself is incredibly difficult. Typically, you will play a character and when your character does something odd you'll just say to yourself, apparently my character is the type of individual who does that... not so when you are your own character. You have to constantly ask yourself "What would I do in this situation?" Turns out, we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do (or at least, I don't). I was playing with my wife in group, so when the zombies attacked I couldn't let loose and roleplay a badass zombie killer named Twitch, I had to try to be myself, protect my wife, and play it super safe so I could be around to continue protecting her. That is, until she shovelcapitated a friend of ours who had maybe been infected on DAY ONE of the outbreak. I didn't worry about her so much after that. It was the most terrifying moment of my life... yet also one of the proudest.

The game is still ongoing and I get to play it once a month or so. It's a good time, but be prepared to wield one of the most difficult and complex characters you've ever played.

Has anyone else ever played themselves in game? Most of the group I played with agree that it's incredibly difficult, was your experience different?

Edit: accidentally used IMG tags instead of itallics. Fixed it.
Last edited by Wordcraftian on Fri Sep 05, 2014 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The End of the World

Post by Dr. Gerard » Fri Sep 05, 2014 11:40 am

Wordcraftian wrote:I've done this. Or something very similar. A friend of mine ran an "All Flesh Must be Eaten" game where we all played ourselves and the opening scene was us sitting down to play a game of "All Flesh Must be Eaten" where we play ourselves... It was a blast!

I will say that if you've never done it before, playing yourself is incredibly difficult. Typically, you will play a character and when your character does something odd you'll just say to yourself, apparently my character is the type of individual who does that... not so when you are your own character. You have to constantly ask yourself "What would I do in this situation?" Turns out, we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do (or at least, I don't). I was playing with my wife in group, so when the zombies attacked I couldn't let loose and roleplay a badass zombie killer named Twitch, I had to try to be myself, protect my wife, and play it super safe so I could be around to continue protecting her. That is, until she shovelcapitated a friend of ours who had [img]maybe[/img] been infected on DAY ONE of the outbreak. I didn't worry about her so much after that. It was the most terrifying moment of my life... yet also one of the proudest.

The game is still ongoing and I get to play it once a month or so. It's a good time, but be prepared to wield one of the most difficult and complex characters you've ever played.

Has anyone else ever played themselves in game? Most of the group I played with agree that it's incredibly difficult, was your experience different?
Hah! Great story there. I'd play this.

I played for many years in a supers system called Villains and Vigilantes, and in it you're supposed to roll up a character based on yourself, but add some kind of supers origin story. It was actually a great hook, especially for us comics-devouring 13-14-year-olds. I played the same character for five years, based on myself...called...wait for it...The Golden Pentacle. He was a magic-using sorcerer with telekinesis, a fiery trident and a horse-sized dragon. Yup. In that system, I remember that your weight was an important stat for determining hit points and HTH damage, among other things. I distinctly remember having to write 108 lbs down as a stat on my character sheet. I would weigh myself frequently before games to see if I could boost myself into another weight bracket.

We all loved playing ourselves in that game. It helps, of course, that it was an augmented version of ourselves. Bigtime fantasy fulfillment. Since our campaigns stretched from junior high to early college, the quality of role playing, game mastering and characters all matured at exactly the same rate we did. Looking back, my memories of V&V games over those years shed some interesting perspective on my whole young adulthood, particularly because I was playing a version of myself.
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Re: The End of the World

Post by EddyPo » Fri Sep 05, 2014 12:32 pm

I loved V&V! I was Nightwind, a teleporting ninja with a disintegration ray. Good stuff. Just like you we played that for many years. We even made comic books about ourselves. Still have them and not at all embarrassed about it. ;)
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Re: The End of the World

Post by Keeper Jon » Fri Sep 05, 2014 2:16 pm

EddyPo wrote:I loved V&V! I was Nightwind, a teleporting ninja with a disintegration ray. Good stuff. Just like you we played that for many years. We even made comic books about ourselves. Still have them and not at all embarrassed about it. ;)
Share! Share! Share!

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Re: The End of the World

Post by EddyPo » Fri Sep 05, 2014 2:22 pm

Keeper Jon wrote:
EddyPo wrote:I loved V&V! I was Nightwind, a teleporting ninja with a disintegration ray. Good stuff. Just like you we played that for many years. We even made comic books about ourselves. Still have them and not at all embarrassed about it. ;)
Share! Share! Share!
Maybe I will. Be warned. NSFW.
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Re: The End of the World

Post by Wordcraftian » Fri Sep 05, 2014 8:17 pm

EddyPo wrote:I loved V&V! I was Nightwind, a teleporting ninja with a disintegration ray. Good stuff. Just like you we played that for many years. We even made comic books about ourselves. Still have them and not at all embarrassed about it. ;)
That's awesome! What better way to chronicle a supers game than to put it in a comic book! Wish I had a keepsake that cool from one of the games I played.
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