Red Markets Inspiration

[Jace911]

As a central Californian I've occasionally wondered how the Bay area has been faring in Red Markets with regards to water levels, especially the delta area. I love the idea of Taker barges floating from Sac to San Fran and having to steer clear of Casualty mobs stuck in deep muck and water.

[clockworkjoe]

I could see an optional part of the loss - lower Florida. Miami is already sinking into the ocean basically and in 20 years, it will either be like Venice or an empty ruin. They cut the fence through upper Florida and abandon everything south of it. Takers scavenge through Miami, Disney World, and the Keys.

[Jace911]

I could see an optional part of the loss - lower Florida. Miami is already sinking into the ocean basically and in 20 years, it will either be like Venice or an empty ruin. They cut the fence through upper Florida and abandon everything south of it. Takers scavenge through Miami, Disney World, and the Keys.

This is one of those fantastic lore ideas that is both plausible and fucking hilarious.

I'm just imagining some DHQS planners looking at a map of Florida and going



"It's easier for everyone!"

[Adam_Autist]

TBH when you mentioned knots of zombies my mind immediately went to grenade fishing.

[Redroverone]

What about the deep Northeast, like Maine? Too isolated to barricade efficiently.

[Alethea]

Probably also isolated enough that folks wouldn't necessarily be surrounded by Vectors when the Crash happens and would have time to get to an isolated compound or pack up their car and start moving.

[Twisting H]

Example of animals repopulating after a man made apoc.


Wildlife reclaiming and even thriving in the Chernobyl Exclusion zone 30 years later. 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/

Naturally if vectors leave the local fauna alone (and don't serve as vectors for more mundane animal diseases) this scenario could happen in the Loss eventually.

[wilzuma]

I missed the Beta, and wanted to get in on the fun, SO i got creative recently. I created a Dread one-shot based off of it and recently got the chance to run about an hour and a half of it with some friends. It was pretty fun. To see what I made I'll post the google doc link below.

My thoughts: Dread is a great system for tension, which is similar to the goal of Caleb's design of playing against the Market and economic horror. The deck is stacked against you. However the Scale of Red Markets is FAR FAR beyond Dread's framework.

I based it in Minneapolis, since I'm from there, and I wanted to, as a creative exercise figure out how that MIGHT work within the Red Markets universe.

Deviations from standard dread: Because I don't own the Dread Rulebook, (though you kind of don't need one if you like to design your own rules), I deviated from the standard Character Questionnaire Handouts to save on time. I created unique secret goals. And since I like to make more work for myself I created character with unique Dread related abilities, that worked to... varying success. Some not at all. Some VERY successful. Some... I didn't see coming at all.

Summery:

I had them select characters (7 in all) secret goals and vote on a leader. The sheriff ended up getting elected the leader. There was only one traitor in the group but it never got to that. The game began as they left out the gates of the enclave. They sent the runner ahead to distract the zombies, while they charged out. While the Runner was on his own he checked out an abandoned drugstore looking for any opiates or painkillers. There was nothing of use. All expired. Almost got killed by a zombie, but took it out with his crowbar. He made the rendez-vous, but the group waited for him. Which allowed Casualties to catch up to them. The leader wanted to just run away, but the Outsider had the Slayer goal, so he wanted to get his kill count up. So he and the Leader each made pulls and the Runner pulled for the group running.

They chose to walk through the snowy streets instead of the casualty infested Skyway. This is why they encountered a sniper bandit who had been tracking them from a high perch on a crane. The mechanic found some makeshift cover then led the group into a department store. Among the manikins some casualties began shuffling through. This was a great moment because one player COMPLETELY forgot his genre saavy and suggested they hide in clothing wracks. The Sage pulled to determine if it was safer to fight their way out, or to hole up in a dressing room. If they'd stayed and hid they'd end up doing more pulls because it would be to Hide and then sneak away later. Running and fighting just yielded more upfront. They ran and fight. ( should have made this scene WAY harder)

Getting free of the department store they were back on the street. They spy some gang tags of a rival group that is still making and selling heroine in the Loss. This attracted the Networker (who was the addict) and the Runner (the angel of mercy). They followed it to a car which was the gang's secretly marked "cache". They broke in, but had to contend with a booby-trap. They succeeded, and managed to get two backpacks of drugs and 3 Bounty. The Sage (who had the Tax Man goal) heard that and wanted to get ahold of the bounty. He was metagaming the hell out of it but the outcome was SO worth it. When they got back the group demanded that the Runner show the stash. He hid the drugs, but the Sage wanted the bounty and PvP between teh Sage and the Runner began.

They did maybe 14 pulls on an already ludicrously balanced tower. They used their mechanical ability. I was really impressed that sage was able to stand up to the Runner mechanically and it worked out so well. The tower looked like an insane child skeleton of jenga blocks when finally the tower fell as the runner made his last pull. I ruled that the Sage and the Runner were wrestling for the backpack and in the struggle, the sage shoved the Runner onto nasty spike through the head.

It was late so we called it there.

Successes: Tension. Man the tension worked so well. I got people thinking about what their next move was, what was safe and what would carry the least risk. The mechanic, had the power to pull blocks and put them back in, and an actual Mechanic played this role and he was AMAZING. He put loose blocks from the upper tower then placed them in lower tiers where the tower was weak.  This one was a surprising success. The Sage's ability could work, but requires lots of tweaking. The Runner's power was STRAIGHT UP overpowering. He did maybe 80 to 90 percent of pulls, but he was the first character (and only character) to die before we had to call it a  night. The Outsider worked exactly as I hoped. It reduced a few multiple pulls to just 2. He was combo'd with the Runner and Mechanic several times. And it accomplished my goal of making the tower harder, and they mechanically distrusted the player. Only drawback is you need a more gun-ho player.

Failures: The Leader role is not... ideal. It could not be working OR i just didn't push the group as a whole enough. I should scrap it. It rarely made a real impact. Networker worked... but it may not be effective. I should have done more group pulls where everyone has to pull 1 or 2. That is the only way I think i can make it work. Some abilities i think i would scrap altogether.  The taxman had too high of a goal. I think i should make the goal 3 and its represented by a block for each. Which means they have the ability to either spend for a pull OR hold onto it until the end of the game, a good thematic conflict were I to do this ever again.

Feel free to read through. It was a noble experiment. I don't know if I'll do it again, but it was ultimately a fun way to introduce Dread AND Red Markets to some friends.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10KNDUnhiCGcrH5FHqWwhLNrWMWiOiwDhKYD7gwIzkzc/edit?usp=sharing

[trinite]

Wilzuma: That sounds cool! It's tough to get the emphasis on expending resources and tracking costs that's so central to Red Markets if you're using a single-mechanic system like Dread (that's why Caleb wrote his own system, after all!). But it sounds like you had a really cool game. I especially like how you added roles with special powers to the standard Dread system. It might be tough to balance house rules like that, but I do think Dread is an imminently hackable game.

In case you didn't know, I ran Dread for the RPPR crew once: http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2015/10/genre/horror/dread-moonbase-red/ I too used secret agendas to build in some conflict, and used a house rule that allowed players to spend accumulated blocks to get freebie successes (this was mostly to include more proactive play instead of having players avoid making pulls, and to help me track spotlight time).

[RadioactiveBeer]

So, I had this idea for a job where a group of scientists are trying to "track" Casualties the way you would track the migratory patterns of wild animals; "tag and release" subjects. The idea is to map out "herds" in the area so that enclaves and travellers have plenty of warning about local populations (a kind of weather forecast), but there might be a slightly twisted ideology underneath of a kind of "mild Meekism" where they don't believe zombies are the chosen, but ARE a valid new life form to be treated as you would any sort of wildlife. Perhaps the data might also be useful to better understand the Blight and what it makes people do in aggregate.

In more practical terms, this translates to a variant of a dead drive using special equipment provided by the scientists; essentially this would be harpoons with embedded trackers. (Who doesn't love harpoon guns?) The Takers have to score as many centre-mass shots with these harpoons as possible (since being skewered through the torso apparently doesn't upset Casualties) and then lure the tagged Casualties into a nearby herd.  Ideally, you then get away safely, of course. There would probably be a base rate of pay assuming a certain number of successfully tagged subjects (say, 10) with bonuses for more successfully tagged (since more subjects means more data, which means better data). Importantly, you don't kill the Casualties and you certainly don't kill the herd.

My idea for a complication on this job would be the encountering of a small Black Math cell, who want to Black Math all over the place. Kill all zombies means totally ruining the scientist's data; short term thinking leading to long term problems as it stays difficult to safely travel through the area.

This also has potential to become a job line to the tune of "hey, a bunch of zombies are heading to this enclave, drive them in a new direction!" or "hey, a bunch of zombies are massing in weird places - go check it out!"

Thoughts?

[Jace911]

So, I had this idea for a job where a group of scientists are trying to "track" Casualties the way you would track the migratory patterns of wild animals; "tag and release" subjects. The idea is to map out "herds" in the area so that enclaves and travellers have plenty of warning about local populations (a kind of weather forecast), but there might be a slightly twisted ideology underneath of a kind of "mild Meekism" where they don't believe zombies are the chosen, but ARE a valid new life form to be treated as you would any sort of wildlife. Perhaps the data might also be useful to better understand the Blight and what it makes people do in aggregate.

In more practical terms, this translates to a variant of a dead drive using special equipment provided by the scientists; essentially this would be harpoons with embedded trackers. (Who doesn't love harpoon guns?) The Takers have to score as many centre-mass shots with these harpoons as possible (since being skewered through the torso apparently doesn't upset Casualties) and then lure the tagged Casualties into a nearby herd.  Ideally, you then get away safely, of course. There would probably be a base rate of pay assuming a certain number of successfully tagged subjects (say, 10) with bonuses for more successfully tagged (since more subjects means more data, which means better data). Importantly, you don't kill the Casualties and you certainly don't kill the herd.

My idea for a complication on this job would be the encountering of a small Black Math cell, who want to Black Math all over the place. Kill all zombies means totally ruining the scientist's data; short term thinking leading to long term problems as it stays difficult to safely travel through the area.

This also has potential to become a job line to the tune of "hey, a bunch of zombies are heading to this enclave, drive them in a new direction!" or "hey, a bunch of zombies are massing in weird places - go check it out!"

Thoughts?

I've had some ideas about this as well; given enough data (Geography of infrastructure, death reports and population listings, tendencies of Casualties to congregate in certain areas based on misfiring leftover memories, etc) I imagine you could build a theoretical model of "zombie weather" in the same way meteorologists do. Such predictions would be invaluable to Takers and anyone else in the Loss.

[RadioactiveBeer]

I've had some ideas about this as well; given enough data (Geography of infrastructure, death reports and population listings, tendencies of Casualties to congregate in certain areas based on misfiring leftover memories, etc) I imagine you could build a theoretical model of "zombie weather" in the same way meteorologists do. Such predictions would be invaluable to Takers and anyone else in the Loss.

The weather is a great way to think about zombies; I think the best zombie fiction treats them as environmental hazards rather that quote-unquote monsters. You have your spike pits, your death traps, and your zombies. Same category.

I think it's important for the horror to keep the predictive power of this sort of thing kind of vague and inconsistent - room for error, not all hordes having tags in them yet - so there's still room for the "suddenly, a horde!" moment that you really need in a zombie game every now and then. Plus, I imagine the practice would actively be hampered by other Takers who reason "why not just KILL them and make the roads safe that way?", even if they're not Black Math religious zombie killers. This means you'd likely have your data points dropping out or becoming unreliable due to outside interference, so you need to keep going out and tagging herds.

[wilzuma]

Wilzuma: That sounds cool! It's tough to get the emphasis on expending resources and tracking costs that's so central to Red Markets if you're using a single-mechanic system like Dread (that's why Caleb wrote his own system, after all!). But it sounds like you had a really cool game. I especially like how you added roles with special powers to the standard Dread system. It might be tough to balance house rules like that, but I do think Dread is an imminently hackable game.

In case you didn't know, I ran Dread for the RPPR crew once: http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2015/10/genre/horror/dread-moonbase-red/ I too used secret agendas to build in some conflict, and used a house rule that allowed players to spend accumulated blocks to get freebie successes (this was mostly to include more proactive play instead of having players avoid making pulls, and to help me track spotlight time).

That game is where I got the idea to run this dread game. ;-)

[trinite]

Wilzuma: That sounds cool! It's tough to get the emphasis on expending resources and tracking costs that's so central to Red Markets if you're using a single-mechanic system like Dread (that's why Caleb wrote his own system, after all!). But it sounds like you had a really cool game. I especially like how you added roles with special powers to the standard Dread system. It might be tough to balance house rules like that, but I do think Dread is an imminently hackable game.

In case you didn't know, I ran Dread for the RPPR crew once: http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2015/10/genre/horror/dread-moonbase-red/ I too used secret agendas to build in some conflict, and used a house rule that allowed players to spend accumulated blocks to get freebie successes (this was mostly to include more proactive play instead of having players avoid making pulls, and to help me track spotlight time).

That game is where I got the idea to run this dread game. ;-)

Aw, now ya makin' me blush!

[trinite]

So, I had this idea for a job where a group of scientists are trying to "track" Casualties the way you would track the migratory patterns of wild animals; "tag and release" subjects. The idea is to map out "herds" in the area so that enclaves and travellers have plenty of warning about local populations (a kind of weather forecast), but there might be a slightly twisted ideology underneath of a kind of "mild Meekism" where they don't believe zombies are the chosen, but ARE a valid new life form to be treated as you would any sort of wildlife. Perhaps the data might also be useful to better understand the Blight and what it makes people do in aggregate.

In more practical terms, this translates to a variant of a dead drive using special equipment provided by the scientists; essentially this would be harpoons with embedded trackers. (Who doesn't love harpoon guns?) The Takers have to score as many centre-mass shots with these harpoons as possible (since being skewered through the torso apparently doesn't upset Casualties) and then lure the tagged Casualties into a nearby herd.  Ideally, you then get away safely, of course. There would probably be a base rate of pay assuming a certain number of successfully tagged subjects (say, 10) with bonuses for more successfully tagged (since more subjects means more data, which means better data). Importantly, you don't kill the Casualties and you certainly don't kill the herd.

My idea for a complication on this job would be the encountering of a small Black Math cell, who want to Black Math all over the place. Kill all zombies means totally ruining the scientist's data; short term thinking leading to long term problems as it stays difficult to safely travel through the area.

This also has potential to become a job line to the tune of "hey, a bunch of zombies are heading to this enclave, drive them in a new direction!" or "hey, a bunch of zombies are massing in weird places - go check it out!"

Thoughts?

That's a great idea. And for more personal tension, play up the detachment of the scientists, who live in the Recession and have the luxury of seeing the Casualties as subjects to be studied rather than immediate threats of death. Maybe they also insist that the Takers wear trackers on themselves, just in case they get bitten and join the herd.

Or maybe for a secondary complication, the tagging process isn't actually the real experiment -- it's actually a social behavior experiment studying the responses of the Takers themselves as the scientists ask them to do stranger and more dangerous things. Homo Sacer, after all, make excellent test subjects -- especially since they don't have any human rights or anything.