[GLOG] Dead Century, a GLOG (Unfinished Stream of Consciousness Edition)

Dead Century is a setting I've been mucking about with for a long while. It's set 50 years after a magical zombie apocalypse called the Spasm, in the ruins of a world fought over by squabbling arch-necromancers, with a few pockets of human resistance flying under the radar, beneath notice compared to the grand schemes of the dead. I guess I'd call it "grimbright" - shit's bad, but there's hope for change, and the human spirit has persisted.

I've wanted to make a GLOG out of Dead Century for ages. Today, as we "celebrate" 70 years of the corpse-queen's impotent reign over this wretched isle, it felt appropriate to try and hammer some of it into shape, neatness be damned. So, in the hope of breaking my creative block and maybe harnessing the momentum to do some more work on OLOG, here are the beginnings of a system, I guess. Concrit very welcome. Here's a pretty picture; there's naught but rules under the cut.

"Crowded Crypt", art by Jarel Threat

Character Creation

• Roll 3d3 three times in order for your Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. You may swap two scores.
• Your Prowess starts at 11.
• Your Luck equals 33 minus the sum of your Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.
• Choose a class and gain its Template A. (Classes to come.)
  
• Record your skills, equipment, and Defence.
  

Stats and Saves

The Save is the only type of roll in Dead Century. Whenever you do something for which both success and failure are both plausible and interesting (combat is always interesting), or whenever you try to resist a hazard, roll a d20 and compare it to the relevant stat. Roll equal or under to succeed.

• Save vs. Fortitude for matters of strength and endurance.
• Save vs. Reflex for matters of speed, agility, and evasion.
• Save vs. Will for matters of mental strength and raw determination, and for anything not clearly covered by Fortitude or Reflex.
  
• You may Save vs. Prowess, instead of whichever stat would normally apply, if you have proficiency in the task at hand.
• You may always choose to Save vs. Luck, regardless of which stat would normally apply. Each time you Save vs. Luck and succeed, reduce your Luck by 1 permanently.

If bonuses or penalties apply to a Save, apply them to the stat being tested, not the roll.

If you have active opposition to a task outside combat, both competitors Save, and the better margin of success / failure wins. PCs always win ties.

You have one more stat, Defence. It defaults to 0 and doesn't scale with level, but can be increased by class abilities and armour.

Skills

Like most GLOG variants, skills are binary - you either have a skill or you don't. If you have a skill, you are proficient in tasks related to it, meaning you can Save vs. Prowess for those tasks instead of whichever stat would normally apply. Skills also let you do simple tasks related to your skill automatically; if failing at a task would make you look incompetent at the skill, you can do it without a Save. Skills never apply directly to combat or to resisting harm.

Pain

Most types of bodily harm are represented as one or more points of Pain. Most attacks and hazards inflict one point of Pain if they hit; some might inflict more.

Whenever you suffer a point of Pain, choose something from the list below to wager...

• An advantage you hold in combat - high ground, a flanking position, a barricade, etcetera.
• A point of Grit or Ward (see below).
• Your life.

... then Save vs. an appropriate stat (usually Fortitude for physical harm, but area-of-effect attacks target Reflex and direct mental assaults target Will, and as usual you can always substitute Luck). If you fail, you lose your wager.

Some particularly grievous sources of Pain have a Severity rating, which penalises Saves against them by that number.

Some kinds of attack might limit what you can wager. High ground is no use against psychic attacks, for example.

Grit and Ward

Grit represents a character's fighting spirit, defensive skill, and ability to avoid serious harm and shrug off lesser injuries. You start with zero maximum points of Grit. If you have maximum Grit, you can recover it by resting (see "Maintenance and Recovery", below).

Ward is similar to Grit, but supernatural in nature. It can resist many things that Grit can't, but doesn't usually come back on its own.

Combat

Group initiative. PCs and their allies go first, unless surprised or outmanoeuvred.

You can take two substantial actions in a round from the following list. You can't usually take the same action twice.

• Move about 30'.
  
• Attack.
• Stunt.
  
• Ready up to one item and/or stow up to one readied item.
• Something else.
  

To attack, Save vs. an appropriate stat - if you're proficient in combat this will be Prowess, otherwise it's Fortitude for melee and Reflex for ranged. This Save is penalised by the target's Defence stat. If you succeed, you hit and the target suffers Pain; otherwise, you miss.

To stunt, declare what you're trying to do (knock down an opponent, trip them, disarm them, etcetera), then Save vs. an appropriate stat, usually Fortitude or Reflex. (Being proficient in combat will not make you proficient in manoeuvres by default, though you may be proficient in some types of manoeuvre through other means. Skills never apply.) This Save is penalised by the target's maximum Grit, as more seasoned fighters are wiser to such dirty tricks. If you succeed, you pull it off; otherwise, you fail, and likely put yourself in a worse position.

Encumbrance

You have a number of item slots equal to 4 plus your Fortitude. Bigger items may take up more slots; smaller ones like rations and waterskins can stack three to a slot, but only items of the same kind can stack. Only the top third of your inventory, rounded down, is accessible quickly (i.e. with an action in combat); the rest takes substantial time to sift through.

Maintenance and Recovery

Humans need the following three things to live reasonably well each day:

• A skinful of potable water. 
• Two meals.
  
• Eight hours' sleep (which need not be consecutive) somewhere non-hostile.

At the start of each day, check how many of the above conditions are met, and to what extent.

• All three fully met: You lose a point of Exhaustion if you have any. Otherwise, you regain a point of Grit, up to your maximum.
  
• One or two fully met, the others half-met: Not ideal, but you can get by like this.
• All half-met: You gain a point of Exhaustion if you don't already have one.
• At least one not met: You gain a point of Exhaustion for each unmet need.

Your current exhaustion applies as a penalty to all Saves. There are special penalties for going three days with the same need completely unmet:

• Sleep: Save vs. Will or pass out for 24 hours.
• Food: Save vs. Fortitude or die.
  
• Water: Save vs. Fortitude, then die anyway.

Experience and Levels

1 XP for each player per significant accomplishment, maybe more for something truly impressive. Some examples:

• Defeat a specific, powerful undead threat.
• Put a permanent end to a problem plaguing a community.
• Recover a significant body of knowledge or critical piece of infrastructure from before the Spasm.
• Complete some quest of great personal import to one of the PCs (everyone gets this, not just the character whose problem it is).
• Become rich.
• If you're already rich, become fabulously so.
• Found a lasting community or institution and protect it from inevitable threats.

To gain a level, spend XP equal to twice your current level. Gain +1 Prowess, +1 to your choice of Fortitude, Reflex, or Will, and the next sequential template in a class of your choice (A>B>C>D), with all attendant benefits.

Monsters, NPCs, and Conversions

Monsters and NPCs only have four stats, besides their attacks:

• Prowess, used exactly as PCs use it. For conversions, 9+HD.
• Body, which substitutes for Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. For conversions, 4+HD.
• Defence, again just like PCs. For conversions, AC-10 for ascending AC, or 10-AC for descending AC.
• Grit. For conversions, HD/2, rounded down. Elementals, spirits, and similar nonconcrete beings may have natural Ward instead.
  

Each attack is described in terms of its Severity and the number of points of Pain it inflicts. A basic "0x1" attack, for example, inflicts one point of Pain with Severity 0 (no modifier to the Save).

For conversions, attacks deal a number of Pain points equal to the number of dice rolled. Severity should be 2 for d10s and 4 for d12s, otherwise 0. A 3d6 fireball becomes a 0x3 attack; a 2d12 thunderbolt becomes a 4x2.

Use a regular Prowess save for morale checks, perhaps with a bonus for especially disciplined or fanatical foes or a penalty for cowardly ones.

Example statblocks:
Gretchling - Prw 10, Bdy 5, Def 0 (unarmoured), Grit 0, Atk knife 0x1.
Owlbear - Prw 14, Bdy 9, Def 4 (thick hide), Grit 2, Atk claw 0x1 / claw 0x1 / bite 4x1.

Still Not Present Yet

• Classes.
  
• Currency and equipment.
  
• A bestiary.
• Exploration procedures.
  
• Proper setting information.
• Worldbuilding tools / adventure hooks.
• Community management procedures?