Rust City, a One-Page RPG

A post-apocalyptic setting where humanity burned itself to ashes with nuclear fire centuries ago. Most of the world has been scorched of life, and the oceans rendered nearly barren, leaving only small pockets of habitable zones left for the remaining species of earth.

The year, if the human calendar had kept going, is 3576 A.D. The nuclear fallout has wreaked havoc upon the environment, but life, as ever, finds ways to adapt. The heartiest of species survived, and the radioactivity pushed evolution into unexpected paths, perhaps aided as well by the remnants of humanity’s last biological experimentation. Now, four species vie for control over the last sustainable regions: the Kokrouch, the Pejin, and the Rhat tribes have only recently called a tenuous ceasefire as they are beset by a recently encountered species: the Auktoupous. These amphibious horrors crawl from the ocean depths to claim the resources of the land and drag them back into the briny deep.

The elders of each tribe have opted to send some of their champions to quest once more through the ancient ruins of the lost Homahn civilization. The nearest city, infested with terrible beasts and defective automatons, is said to still hold secrets not yet plumbed by earlier explorers. An expedition has been sent to retrieve something, anything, that can halt the threat of the Auktoupous race.

Welcome to Rust City. Try to survive, and don’t you dare leave empty-handed.

CHARACTER SHEET

Might –

Athletics –

Wits –

Spirit –

-

Health –

Magic –

Movement –

Combat –

-

Race:

Class:

Skills:

INITIAL POINTS

You start with 12 points to distribute across your four Basic Stats. Each stat begins with 2 points before point distribution, and all stats cap at 10.

Next, determine your Derived Stats:

Health – (Might + Spirit) x 5

Magic – (Wits + Spirit) x 5

Movement – 1 + Athletics

Combat – 12 – [(Might + Wits + Athletics) ÷ 3, rounded up]

Next, choose your Race, Profession, and Mutation.

CHOOSE A RACE

You may pick one of three races. Picking a race nets you a starting stat bonus, and a racial ability.

RHAT – Intelligent rats, you begin with a +1 in Wits, Might, and Athletics.

https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/730/847/large/andrey-seleznev-rat-soldier-by-dron111-d4fahz5.jpg?1431706078

KOKROUCH – Intelligent, bipedal cockroaches, you begin with a +1 in Might and an extra 20 HP.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/1b/c4/2c/1bc42cbecae45d8ea57f702b999bdb83--fantasy-monster-monster-art.jpg

PEJIN – Intelligent pigeons, you begin with a +1 in Athletics and the ability to Fly for short bursts.

https://78.media.tumblr.com/7fc982290bab416115c1cbc422fd610b/tumblr_out8vasVsK1vs633po1_500.png

CHOOSE A PROFESSION

You may pick one of five Classes. These determine your starting equipment and grant your class-specific special abilities.

COMMANDO – You are a gifted soldier. You start with a needle-shot rifle that has 30 shots (15 damage, 10 range) and a knife (5 damage, 1 range melee, 3 range thrown). You suffer no penalties when performing Ranged Attacks and the CR of your opponent raises by 2 in melee.

TRAPPER – You are a master of traps. You start with a set of caltrops, a 10’ twine rope and grappling hook, and 2 smoke bombs. You gain a +2 to any attempt to notice and disarm traps or dangerous terrain (Wits).

CHEMIST – You know how to mix chemicals for both healing and destructive effects. You begin with a medical spray with 20 shots (neutralizes poisons and recovers 10 health) and 3 nitroglycerin capsules (15 damage, 3 range thrown, 1 range spread) which function as grenades. You gain a +2 on any attempt to identify strange chemicals.

SCANNER – You are skilled in figuring out the functions of old technology and identifying functioning equipment in the wreckage. You have a knife (5 damage, 1 range melee, 3 range thrown), a spike-ball slingshot with 10 shots (7 damage, 5 range), and a hand-held metal detector.

CHOOSE A MUTATION

RADIANT – You possess the freakish ability to channel the radioactive energy that permeates the land into beams of destructive force. You can fire a beam of energy from your hands or eyes up to 20 times a day. 25 damage, 6 range.

PLANTKIN – You possess the freakish ability to influence the growth of plants via radiation influxes. This enables you to create tangler traps that ensnare enemies or create vines that be used to assist in climbing, up to 20 times a day.

VISIONARY – You possess the freakish ability to see beyond the normal visible spectrum. You can see to a limited capacity in total darkness and see the aura’s of living beings through walls in a manner similar to thermographic vision, as long there is not too much material between you. You can shift your vision to this at any time, but this causes your other senses to dull and gives you a headache which can prove prohibitively distracting in some situations.

SAVAGER – You possess the freakish ability to achieve a monstrous form. In this form, you can double your HP and Might for up to ten rounds. You can only do this 5 times per day, and when you shift back, your HP is halved from the transformed stat.

OBSTACLES

Obstacles will revolve around traversing the broken city’s dangerous landscape, attempting to break into sealed areas, and battling wild animals and dangerous machines. You may also encounter some of the dreaded Auktoupous.

Tripher RPG System

Tripher is a stripped down fusion of the Tri-Stat and Cypher systems, with an emphasis on quick character creation, simple roll resolution, and leeway in player actions and the description of resolutions.

INSPIRATIONS

From both Tri-Stat and Cypher, there is the use of a limited Stat pool upon which to base player actions. This keeps the mechanics focused and hopefully helps keep things from being too bogged down in tedious math, lessening the need to look things up mid-session. This also allows for a lot of leeway in how something is described as happening, while still giving a definitive win-lose result. This does also mean more work for the GM in the sense that they are going to have to make judgment calls where rule might be ambiguous and adapt to players doing things that aren’t spelled out in the book.

From Tri-Stat, I take the idea of rolling against your own stats, which represent the Target Number, as well as the mechanic of hitting the target number or lower. The higher your stats become, the higher the chance of succeeding in your tasks.

In my interpretation, raising your stats in this game is not necessarily a literal raising of your character’s “power level” in that area, but a way of raising the character’s chance to succeed due to practice increasing their skills. Characters in this system tend to be mostly formed at the time of creation, becoming more skillful in their current set-up, instead of steadily power leveling into godhood. Characters can still gain new skills and powers, of course, but these are ideally given to the players in a story-relevant context.

From Cypher, I crib the idea of building characters based on a descriptive system. Cypher uses the phrase, “I am an adjective noun who verbs.” The Adjective, Noun, and Verb each lend not only flavor to the character, but also determines which skills they possess. Likewise, leveling up in these skills grants characters access to all abilities within that level, though this is also usually just a handful per aspect.

I like this concept as it is a more flavorful way of doing a Class/Race system and helping keep some level of focus on the character type. You can allow for a wide variety of mix-and-match concepts that don’t have to be restricted to a certain alignment, and at the same time, better customize the archetypes you are using to a given world.

CHARACTER SHEET

BASIC STATS

Might: 0

Athletics: 0

Wits: 0

Spirit: 0

-

Health Points: 0

Magic Points: 0

Movement: 1

Combat Rank: 12

ATTRIBUTES

Type ___ / Level ___

Skill ___ / Level ___

Power ___ / Level ___