Okay I’m just putting a collected update of the rules since some stuff has changed and there’s a few new people playing this time around. I’m sure I’ll forget something since there’s always unique shit that pops up so as usual questions can be asked.
This is just a quick and dirty version. (Still how Suranna’s mom likes it)
The Basics
Build up your wasteland rep to become the most important power in this shithole world. This means getting your prestige level to over 20 and your town health to over 80 first.
In case of a tie, I’ll look at other factors such as income per turn and such. (This is CYS, there can only be ONE)
How you do this is by wandering around and getting into adventures. (And yes you can still be an asshole if you find it hard to play any other way, but I’ll get into the consequences of that later)
Each turn you’re basically getting 4 weeks to do stuff. (Basically a month)
Here’s a list of some of the things you can do.
These you can do without wasting a week (You’ll probably do these before anything else)
Building up the town
This can be either an actual structure like a machinist shop, bio-dome, etc and/or upgrading the defense. Only one structure and defense per turn though.
Selling (And buying, but mostly selling)
This is simply selling off equipment sitting in your town you don’t want for coin. You can also tear down existing structures and defense if you really need the money (You won’t get as much as you paid obviously)
Now if you’ve set up some sort of agreement in advance with another player, you can sell to them for whatever (Perhaps even a trade of some sort)
Finally there’s also mercenaries which pop up from time to time. You can hire these NPCs to go attack or claim something (They don’t randomly explore hexes like an expedition party can) They only stick around under your command for one task then they leave, unless you’re hiring them again immediately.
No need to worry about merc actions as far as taking up weeks though is concerned. They do all their stuff independent of your party’s monthly action limits.
Playing an Action Card
All of you start with some and will probably get more as the game goes on. Some of these you’d play in certain situations or anytime. I’ll let you know what you got.
Reorganizing
As long as your expedition party is in your town, you’re free to swap out items and people as you see fit. You can do this in the field as well, but in this case you’d be limited to just what the party is carrying.
Setting Up a Trade Route
Yes, EVERYONE can set them up now!
Only one trade route offer can be made per turn, though you can accept however many are offered to you that turn. Trade routes are set up with you directly contacting the other person and you both agreeing to it. (Or having me ask the other person because you’re shy.)
In the case of NPC towns, they generally accept under certain circumstances and generally keep to the agreement unless you’ve done something against them, then they’ll never deal with you ever again.
Trade Routes are a 2 coins per turn for the 2 people involved in them. Unless someone has an ability that gives them more for some reason.
There’s also no “doubling up” on them either. So for example if the Regulators offer a trade route to the Highwaymen and they agree, that’s the only one. The Highwaymen can’t offer a trade route in return to the Regulators to double up the income.
Everyone can also break off a trade route with someone for whatever reason. Of course if a trading faction is destroyed or something similar you also lose that trade route.
These take 1 WEEK
Moving the expedition party
This is simple enough. Doesn’t matter how far they move, it’s always one week. The next action after moving though has to be different than moving though. Specifically Encountering/PVP, Secure/Destroy a Resource or a Mission.
None of this loop hole of moving then “healing” then moving again shit. The best you can do is forfeit the rest of your actions after moving, then move next turn. (This can be thought of as traveling very cautiously since you’re going out of your way to avoid encounters like a coward)
Encounter/Attacking
This can either be specific hex (city/mountain/plains) another party/mercenaries or different town.
In the case of the hex, you’ll be getting a card and having to deal with whatever you encountered. In the case of another party/mercenaries, you’re probably trying to attack them which will be a PVP situation and all that entails. There’s also special locations that pop up sometimes, so you can interact with those instead of drawing a normal encounter.
In the case of another town, it’s going to depend. If it’s an NPC town and you’re just there to try to heal up, your wish is typically granted if you pay 5 coins (Unless you’ve been attacking them or something similar then they won’t let you in)
If it’s another player, they can freely let you in or demand some sort of payment before letting you in to heal (You can’t attack in this case) They can of course deny you entry completely.
So as you can see, the usual “move-encounter” set up is going to always take at least two weeks total.
These take two WEEKS
Healing
You can usually sit and heal up anywhere (Though doing it in an irradiated blasted city, probably isn’t a great idea) but if you’re actually in a town you can potentially heal more than just the basic 1D6 and you can heal more serious injuries such as radiation and infected. If you're outside, you generally have to make a medical skill check to see if you even succeed.
Secure/Destroy a Resource
Wouldn’t be a post apocalyptic setting if you didn’t run around trying to secure power plants and gas stations.
Some hex have resources so after dealing with whatever the encounter is, you can secure the resource for your own. This naturally increases your prestige and ongoing town health and coins. Losing them decreases it.
This of course only applies to neutral/unclaimed resources. If the resource belongs to someone, you’re going to have a fight. How big that fight is depends on if the other player bothered to leave some sort of defense there.
Of course if you’re one of those that just likes to watch the world burn, you can destroy a resource making it unusable for all. Doing such a dastardly deed and making the world even more crapsack is generally considered a bad thing so YOU also lose prestige for doing it, however you do gain a number of salvage coins as your people strip the place for as much as they can first.
These take 3 WEEKS
Missions
So it isn’t all just wandering around, there are actual missions (Or quests for you fantasy loving types) around the map that you can head to. Engaging in one of these takes longer than the normal encounter since it’s assumed you’re spending a lot of time wandering even more on your fetch quest. (Seriously your party can wind up in a completely different location than where they started)
Successfully completing these usually result in lots of good rewards. Failing of course results in the opposite.
I’ll describe these missions in vague detail to everyone based on the descriptions on the cards (You can think of these as radio transmissions or rumors you’ve heard) and you won’t get the full story until you actually get there. (And this is still more info than you’d normally otherwise get since in the real board game they’re random and you don’t know shit until you get there)
New missions pop up as others are completed (Successfully or not)
More Rules
Town Upgrades
Garrison - 1 auto success to Combat skill checks
Water and Supplies - 1 auto success to Survival skill checks
Learning Center - 1 auto success to Diplomacy skill checks
Machinist Shop - 1 auto success to Mechanical skill checks
Energy Production - 1 auto success to Technical skill checks
Medical Center - 1 auto success to Medical skill checks
Communication Center - Adds 1 movement bonus to the expedition party
Law and Order - You get a free action card per turn
Marketplace - You get a free spoils card in your town per turn
Biodome - Acts as a resource (Instead of y'know actually having to go out and claim one)
Barring special abilities, all of these cost 30 coins to initially build them upon which you also get 1 prestige and 5 town health. Upgrading to tier 2 costs 60 coins and doubles their abilities. (You get no further prestige or town health though)
Now normally in the real game you can only have 7 tech maximum, but yeah fuck it. You can build as much shit as you can afford because this isn’t gay communism, but an incredible libertarian “utopia”!
Also these upgrades are limited to the amount of tokens there actual are, so if there isn’t any more available oh well. That’s the price of living in a shithole world with limited resources and assholes hoarding everything. Chances are someone's going to blow it all up anyway which frees up real estate.
Town Defense and Resources
Town defense is exactly what you think and it starts at 10 coins for the first one and each additional one is an additional 5 coins. There is no limit to how much defense you can have.
The real game counts your defenses on all your resources in addition to your town, but we’re going to continue to keep it separate. There’s no reason that if you have triple plated titanium walls around your home town that’s going to apply to your sad little windmill farm 50 miles away. Spend money if you want more protection on it.
Defense now is "less shit" as so many have put it because it's going to work differently.
Auto damage is applied to every attacker depending on how much defense a place has. (3 defense = 3 damage to everyone)
The defender also gets extra auto combat successes added every combat turn for each one they have. (Assuming there's someone there to defend it)
Combined with no limit on defenses and that should make them strong enough.
Might as well mention the Resources too. Again, the more you claim, the more coin and town health you get per turn. Maximum is supposed to be 5, but if you can somehow claim more than that, I'll figure out the next logical bonus that you can reap.
1 Resource - 1 coin and 1 health per turn
2 Resource - 4/2
3 Resource - 9/3
4 Resource - 16/4
5 Resource - 25/5
Action Cards
Maximum amount of action cards you can have is 7 (Unless you got some sort of ability that allows for more)
Normally you're supposed to get 1 every turn, but these things are generally powerful enough that they seem like something you shouldn't just be getting so easily. So unless you've got something that gives them to you somehow (Ability, tech, etc) you're not just getting those. Nothing's free in the Fallen Land.
Going to allow selling them this time (They all have a value on them), I’ll consider it as selling information.
Even More Rules
Characters
Recruiting new characters costs 1 prestige or 4 town health each.
Limit of characters you can have is 10. (5 in your party and 5 in town)
Perma-Death is in play. If a character dies, they’re dead for good. Though the card still gets recycled back into the deck, but if drawn again it’s not the same person but just their less skilled twin sibling, long lost cousin, strange duplicate, etc. They won’t have the cool special abilities, just the stats. Masters of any kind are out for good if killed.
Any special abilities that a character might have only apply when they’re in an active party. So no having your zombie hacker sitting at home racking up bitcoin I’m afraid.
Also remember unless specified if a character suffers 3 psychological damage they lose their mind and go gibbering off into the wasteland taking all their equipment on them (Potentially even the vehicle) so be wary of those about to crack.
A reminder of all the little symbols on the cards and other stuff
Skull - Combat skill
Campfire - Survival skill
Handshake - Diplomacy skill
Wrench - Mechanical skill
Microscope - Technical skill
Snake Staff - Medical skill
Blood drop - Health
Brain Guy - Psych Health (Or bonus)
Backpack Guy - Carrying capacity (Or weight if its an item)
Vest - Armor
Shoe - Movement
Lightning - You auto get the first strike in PVP unless they got it too.
Chain - This is a “link” meaning something gets a bonus if you add it. For example a character might be a soldier, so they get an extra bonus to combat skill if you give them a gun.
You’ll probably also see a little yellow circle in the corner of most equipment cards, that’s the sales value.
There’s some others, but those are the most important ones.
Generally speaking the higher the number the better for skill checks and such.
Move bonus is limited to +8
Bonuses do NOT stack this time. If someone gets a +3 bonus from sharp objects, they only get that +3 for a single sword. They don’t get a +3 for every blade you shove on them. (Though you’re still free to shove a bunch of knives on someone as long as they can carry them)
Keep in mind there’s still characters where they may very well get a bonus for more than one item so super autists keep your eyes open!
Directly Attacking a Town
Okay this is the big one and here’s the final decision on it.
You generally can’t mainly because it would be a lot harder to do successfully this time with how defenses work and the nerfing of bonuses. Any “rewards” wouldn’t be worth it.
Also the Angels of Mercy faction lead by Warren Ripley has been a big outspoken figure against such things, so much so that there’s a wasteland “law” in place that everyone more or less agreed to. Break this one law and face considerable losses.
NPC towns, middle powers and the minor powers will become hostile and that’s not including what players you actually do piss off by doing such dastardly deeds. One can probably expect a sanctioned coalition against you along with civil unrest, loss of prestige and whatever else I decide to throw at you every turn.
Basically don’t do this bad thing unless there is a really really REALLY good reason for doing so. (Like the town got taken over by hostile mutant mole people or something)
One Last Thing
Always remember that time marches on regardless of what you're doing. Obviously everyone has their own lives and shit pops up, so if you don't answer for a turn, you'll be given some time to eventually answer. If you just disappear however, you'll be skipped. Hope nobody decided to attack you that turn.
Now if you know you'll be missing for a few days, you can let me know ahead of time and arrangements can be made for your faction. You can even suggest what actions you want to emphasize while you're gone.
