Temeres in Actually Posts Something shock exclusive
I got inspired the other night. Last Saturday's gaming session was spent playing a pick-up RPG called Everyone Is John. It's a game where there is only player character (the eponymous John), with the players taking turns to control him. John suffers from multiple personality disorder and is pretty useless at just about everything, so whenever he fails a skill check (ie, most of the time), the players bid to take control of him.
I have issues with this game, chiefly its attitude to mental illness. MPD isn't funny. But the idea of a competitive RPG in which the players are trying to beat each other (John has obsessions, and players get points for fulfilling an obsession) is not without merit, especially if it generates a few larfs in the process.
So, mulling over Everyone Is John through the course of a night shift, I came up with something similar, though this is a game in which the position of GM (rather than active player) changes frequently. It is completely unplayed and untested, so there might be a few things or indeed a lot of things that need clarifying or fixing for it to work. But if anyone wants to give it a go, I'd be interested to hear how it went.
EXTERMINATE!
Exterminate! is a table-top role-playing game in which all player characters are daleks.
In most RPGs, the players collaborate to overcome the obstacles presented to them by an impartial GM. In Exterminate!, however, the GM is anything but impartial, being out to screw the players over. The GM in this game is called the Doctor, known to all daleks as a sinister force that can crop up anywhere to thwart their schemes for dalek supremacy.
To restrict the potential for abuse of the Doctor's power, the position of Doctor moves from player to player on a frequent basis. This is called regenerating. Whenever a dalek fails a skill check (here called a CODE check), or temporarily runs out of lives, the Doctor regenerates as that dalek's player becomes the Doctor. His or her own dalek shuts down for the duration, and does not resume activity until the Doctor regenerates again.
Exterminate! also differs from other RPGs in that it is competitive, with a decisive end and a clear winner. The game ends as soon as any one dalek has completed both of its Objectives. The winner, however, is the one with the most unspent Bonus Tokens.
You Will Need...
In addition to pens, paper, playing area, and indeed other players, the following will be needed:
Setting and Objectives
By default, the game is set in London in the present day, but it can be just about anywhere in time and space so long as all players are roughly familiar with the setting. This can include other fictional universes, so the player characters might encounter a pair of rebels disguised as soldiers escorting a giant teddy bear through a space station, or bump into a wizard and a bunch of misfits running from a fire-beathing demon in an ancient dwarven labyrinth.
Once the setting has been decided, each player now sets their Objectives. Write down two Objectives, each on a separate Post-It note or scrap of paper and keep it secret.
Exactly what your Objectives might be is down to you, but they should be something that a dalek could achieve without too much difficulty. It shouldn't be anything too hard, because that could end up making things difficult for you. On the other hand, an Objective shouldn't be too easy, since that could end up helping one of your rival players.
In the default setting, an Objective might be something like:
However, all kinds of other things are perfectly reasonable Objectives for a dalek, at least in this game:
etc etc.
Once you've written down your two Objectives, fold up the Post-It notes and label them A and B. Then ask the player to your left which one you should keep (bearing in mind s/he doesn't know what they are). Keep the one they suggest, and put the other in the middle of the table. Once everyone's done that, you now take one Objective from the pile. It can be any one so long as it's not your own.
After all this, you and every other player should now have two Objectives - one known only to yourself, and one that another player might be able to identify. And one of those other players will also have the Objective you discarded.
Playing The Game
Begin with each player rolling a die for Initiative. Whoever rolls lowest is the Doctor. The Doctor determines the specific starting circumstances, such as where the daleks are, what time of day it is. Probably their ship has just landed (or crashed) near (or on) some famous landmark or other. Or maybe the daleks have slipped through a crack in the time-space continuum. The current Doctor decides.
The Doctor goes from dalek to dalek, starting with the one that rolled highest for Initiative. Each dalek thus sets about completing its Objectives. Doing this, however, will entail making CODE checks (see below). Once the dalek with the highest Initiative has made a CODE check, the Doctor's attention turns to the next dalek in the sequence, unless the CODE check failed, in which case that dalek's player becomes the Doctor. Initiative is rolled again, and play resumes.
Tight adherence to Initiative order is neither necessary nor recommended, but it's there to refer to whenever order of action might come into play. If a dalek is the focus of play for more than a couple of minutes without making a CODE check, the Doctor should move on to the next dalek to ensure that everyone gets their slice of the action.
Or, if you can't be arsed with incessant Initiative rolls, just go round the table and deal with each player in turn.
Since each dalek has its own secret agenda, they will probably go their separate ways sooner or later and most likely sooner.
As a dalek, you are seeking to:
so your best tactic is to capitalise on your strengths and use your highest CODE ratings whenever possible.
As the Doctor you are seeking to:
which basically entails trying to put your rivals into situations where they must use their lowest CODE ratings and
hopefully fail, forcing the Doctor to regenerate.
Character Creation
Daleks are almost invulnerable, highly lethal killing machines with an innately antisocial disposition. Most players will have created at least some characters like this at some point, though for some players this will be more like most if not all of their characters throughout their gaming life. Being a dalek should therefore not be too challenging.
Dalek characters make character design a lot simpler than in most RPGs. Daleks cannot run, climb or swim, so many skills
detailed in other RPGs can be ignored. Since each dalek is in constant high-tech communication contact with all other nearby daleks, the player characters all know what the others are doing, which gets around the problem of metagaming. Also, daleks do not have names, which makes life a lot easier for those players who invariably stall at that particular point of the character design process.
If you thought all daleks were identical, you're wrong. They do vary in their ability at various tasks, and this is reflected in their C.O.D.E. ratings. CODE stands respectively for Compute, Operate, Dominate and, of course, Exterminate.
These four abilities are given the numerical ratings of 1,2,3 and 4, in whichever order the player desires, and that indicates the number of dice you roll whenever you make a CODE check. If you have Exterminate 4, for example, you roll four dice whenever you zap something. If you have Operate 2, you roll two dice to, say, fiddle some quick cash out of an ATM.
Some situations might give you a Bonus Die (or Dice), which simply means you roll an extra die (or dice). Conversely, you might have to suffer a Penalty Die, which means rolling one die less (but never less than one). Most likely, you will get Bonus Dice, by spending Bonus Tokens.
Each dalek also has a number of Lives. The default is 3 but it can be more (or less) if that's what people want. (Note that daleks cannot be killed or destroyed, but they can run out of Lives - see below.)
Game Mechanics
Whenever a dalek tries to do something, the Task Difficulty must first be determined by the Doctor. Normally the GM would make a fair and reasonable assessment of the task, taking into account all relevant extraneous factor, but in Exterminate! the GM is anything but fair and reasonable so Task Difficulty is determined by the Doctor rolling a die. This will give a result between 1 and 6.
The player then rolls a number of dice indicated by his or her pertinent CODE rating. If any one die is equal to or higher than Task Difficulty, the check succeeds. Otherwise it fails. If Task Difficulty is 1, success is automatic, but the dice should still be rolled to see if the player gets any Bonus or Story Tokens.
For every Natural 6 rolled by the dalek, its player gets one Bonus Token. For every Natural 1 rolled by the dalek, the player gets one Story Token. Tokens are earned in this way whether the CODE check succeeds or fails.
Combat
Since this might just possibly crop up in the course of play, it needs to be considered.
Should a dalek come under attack, it gets to shoot first because it's a dalek. The only exception is on failing a Compute roll against a sneak attack. Since this necessarily involves failing a check, the dalek attacked in this way automatically shuts down while its player becomes the Doctor. The outcome of the sneak attack isn't resolved until someone else becomes the Doctor. Just savour the tension while it lasts.
Successfully passing an Exterminate check will rob a target of one Life, which in most cases will probably kill or destroy the target.
If a dalek is attacked, a number of Damage Dice are rolled (by the Doctor) according to the severity of the weapon used. This is judged on how it might affect a human, viz:
Every Damage Die that rolls a Natural 6 will rob the target dalek of one life, down to a limit of 0 Lives. The dalek must then shut down as its player takes over as the Doctor.
Note, however, that daleks are immune to many things that would kill a human. Daleks can't drown, for example, or
asphyxiate. They are effectively immune to fire, which might amuse any pyromaniac players at the table.
It is not impossible that a dalek might come under attack from multiple attackers. If a full platoon of SAS open up on a dalek, don't take each bullet individually in turn, just treat it as a single attack, probably of 5 Damage Dice. Likewise a gang of builders clobbering a dalek with crowbars and lead pipes would be a 2 Dice attack rather than 1 Die.
Recovery
Once the Doctor has regenerated again, you go back to being a dalek with one Life. To replenish further lost lives, you must plug yourself into any suitable energy source. If you're using the default setting (modern day London) these are everywhere, any mains socket will do. Also street lights, electricity substations, hybrid car recharge points, etc. You must, however, pass an Operate check for each Life you replenish.
Bonus Tokens
Every Natural 6 you roll in a CODE check earns you a Bonus Token, whether you passed or failed the check. You need to have more Bonus Tokens than any other dalek to win the game. However, you can spend them to give you Bonus Dice in your CODE checks. Each Bonus Token you spend lets you roll an extra die in the check, increasing your chances of success.
You get Bonus Tokens whenever you complete an Objective. When you complete an Objective, reveal it to the other players (to confirm that you have indeed completed it). If it was one you set for yourself, you get four Bonus Tokens. If it was one set by another player, you get two Bonus Tokens, and that other player also gets two.
Story Tokens
You get a Story Token for every Natural 1 you roll in a CODE check, whether you pass or fail the check. You can use a Story Token to countermand a call by the Doctor, so long as your alternative is at least as feasible or reasonable. This need not be a call against your own dalek - you can use a Story Token to make things harder (or easier) for another dalek.
You can also spend a Story Token to create events. If, for example, one of your Objectives is to get Boris Johnson's autograph, you can spend a Story Token to have Boris Johnson conveniently walk by (a Compute check might be needed to confirm that it is indeed him). However, another player who knows what you're up to can then spend a Story Token to declare that Boris Johnson is actually cycling by, not walking, so there's no opportunity to accost him. But that's okay, you can just Exterminate the car in front of him to make him stop.
You can also spend a Story Token to reset the Task Difficulty against a CODE check. Again, this need not be a CODE check for your own dalek. However, the reroll stands, so if you tried to make a task easier for yourself but end up making it harder, you just have to live with it.
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So, there you have it. It should be pretty clear how you're supposed to win this game - don't complete your second Objective until you've got the most Bonus Tokens. Which means thinking up interesting (and hopefully amusing) ways to prevent the rest of the players completing their own Objectives. Whether or not that will generate the kind of chaos and mayhem I was aiming for...
I have issues with this game, chiefly its attitude to mental illness. MPD isn't funny. But the idea of a competitive RPG in which the players are trying to beat each other (John has obsessions, and players get points for fulfilling an obsession) is not without merit, especially if it generates a few larfs in the process.
So, mulling over Everyone Is John through the course of a night shift, I came up with something similar, though this is a game in which the position of GM (rather than active player) changes frequently. It is completely unplayed and untested, so there might be a few things or indeed a lot of things that need clarifying or fixing for it to work. But if anyone wants to give it a go, I'd be interested to hear how it went.
EXTERMINATE!
Exterminate! is a table-top role-playing game in which all player characters are daleks.
In most RPGs, the players collaborate to overcome the obstacles presented to them by an impartial GM. In Exterminate!, however, the GM is anything but impartial, being out to screw the players over. The GM in this game is called the Doctor, known to all daleks as a sinister force that can crop up anywhere to thwart their schemes for dalek supremacy.
To restrict the potential for abuse of the Doctor's power, the position of Doctor moves from player to player on a frequent basis. This is called regenerating. Whenever a dalek fails a skill check (here called a CODE check), or temporarily runs out of lives, the Doctor regenerates as that dalek's player becomes the Doctor. His or her own dalek shuts down for the duration, and does not resume activity until the Doctor regenerates again.
Exterminate! also differs from other RPGs in that it is competitive, with a decisive end and a clear winner. The game ends as soon as any one dalek has completed both of its Objectives. The winner, however, is the one with the most unspent Bonus Tokens.
You Will Need...
In addition to pens, paper, playing area, and indeed other players, the following will be needed:
- Six-sided dice: As many as you can get, preferably at least four per player.
- Small slips of paper on which to write Objectives (two per player). Post-It notes are ideal for this, if you have some.
- Bonus Tokens, which can be coins, poker chips, playing cards or whatever.
- Story Tokens, which again can be whatever you like so long as they don't stand to get mixed up with Bonus Tokens.
- Liquid refreshment, at least for those players determined to speak in character throughout the game.
Setting and Objectives
By default, the game is set in London in the present day, but it can be just about anywhere in time and space so long as all players are roughly familiar with the setting. This can include other fictional universes, so the player characters might encounter a pair of rebels disguised as soldiers escorting a giant teddy bear through a space station, or bump into a wizard and a bunch of misfits running from a fire-beathing demon in an ancient dwarven labyrinth.
Once the setting has been decided, each player now sets their Objectives. Write down two Objectives, each on a separate Post-It note or scrap of paper and keep it secret.
Exactly what your Objectives might be is down to you, but they should be something that a dalek could achieve without too much difficulty. It shouldn't be anything too hard, because that could end up making things difficult for you. On the other hand, an Objective shouldn't be too easy, since that could end up helping one of your rival players.
In the default setting, an Objective might be something like:
- acquiring a vital component for a new dalek super weapon. (It will be in the Science Museum, or maybe the Planetarium, or somewhere.)
- getting lots of gold out of the Bank of England's vaults to help inflict a crushing defeat on the Cybermen.
- Exterminating any living actor who once played the title role in Dr Who, just in case he's the real thing.
However, all kinds of other things are perfectly reasonable Objectives for a dalek, at least in this game:
- auditioning for Britain's Got Talent.
- getting a selfie taken with Theresa May.
- posing as a Michelin reviewer to get Gordon Ramsay feeling nervous.
- using the zebra crossing at Abbey Road.
etc etc.
Once you've written down your two Objectives, fold up the Post-It notes and label them A and B. Then ask the player to your left which one you should keep (bearing in mind s/he doesn't know what they are). Keep the one they suggest, and put the other in the middle of the table. Once everyone's done that, you now take one Objective from the pile. It can be any one so long as it's not your own.
After all this, you and every other player should now have two Objectives - one known only to yourself, and one that another player might be able to identify. And one of those other players will also have the Objective you discarded.
Playing The Game
Begin with each player rolling a die for Initiative. Whoever rolls lowest is the Doctor. The Doctor determines the specific starting circumstances, such as where the daleks are, what time of day it is. Probably their ship has just landed (or crashed) near (or on) some famous landmark or other. Or maybe the daleks have slipped through a crack in the time-space continuum. The current Doctor decides.
The Doctor goes from dalek to dalek, starting with the one that rolled highest for Initiative. Each dalek thus sets about completing its Objectives. Doing this, however, will entail making CODE checks (see below). Once the dalek with the highest Initiative has made a CODE check, the Doctor's attention turns to the next dalek in the sequence, unless the CODE check failed, in which case that dalek's player becomes the Doctor. Initiative is rolled again, and play resumes.
Tight adherence to Initiative order is neither necessary nor recommended, but it's there to refer to whenever order of action might come into play. If a dalek is the focus of play for more than a couple of minutes without making a CODE check, the Doctor should move on to the next dalek to ensure that everyone gets their slice of the action.
Or, if you can't be arsed with incessant Initiative rolls, just go round the table and deal with each player in turn.
Since each dalek has its own secret agenda, they will probably go their separate ways sooner or later and most likely sooner.
As a dalek, you are seeking to:
- complete your Objectives.
- acquire Bonus Tokens (you need more than anyone else to win the game) by rolling Natural 6s on your CODE checks.
- avoid becoming the Doctor (because that takes you out of play) through failing a CODE check or running out of Lives
so your best tactic is to capitalise on your strengths and use your highest CODE ratings whenever possible.
As the Doctor you are seeking to:
- stop the other daleks completing their objectives, whatever they might be.
- stop them acquiring Bonus Tokens by not letting them use their highest CODE ratings.
- regenerate, so you can go back to being a dalek
which basically entails trying to put your rivals into situations where they must use their lowest CODE ratings and
hopefully fail, forcing the Doctor to regenerate.
Character Creation
Daleks are almost invulnerable, highly lethal killing machines with an innately antisocial disposition. Most players will have created at least some characters like this at some point, though for some players this will be more like most if not all of their characters throughout their gaming life. Being a dalek should therefore not be too challenging.
Dalek characters make character design a lot simpler than in most RPGs. Daleks cannot run, climb or swim, so many skills
detailed in other RPGs can be ignored. Since each dalek is in constant high-tech communication contact with all other nearby daleks, the player characters all know what the others are doing, which gets around the problem of metagaming. Also, daleks do not have names, which makes life a lot easier for those players who invariably stall at that particular point of the character design process.
If you thought all daleks were identical, you're wrong. They do vary in their ability at various tasks, and this is reflected in their C.O.D.E. ratings. CODE stands respectively for Compute, Operate, Dominate and, of course, Exterminate.
These four abilities are given the numerical ratings of 1,2,3 and 4, in whichever order the player desires, and that indicates the number of dice you roll whenever you make a CODE check. If you have Exterminate 4, for example, you roll four dice whenever you zap something. If you have Operate 2, you roll two dice to, say, fiddle some quick cash out of an ATM.
Some situations might give you a Bonus Die (or Dice), which simply means you roll an extra die (or dice). Conversely, you might have to suffer a Penalty Die, which means rolling one die less (but never less than one). Most likely, you will get Bonus Dice, by spending Bonus Tokens.
- Compute is used to know stuff, like the quickest route to Canary Wharf or the right bus to catch to get to Harrods. It also covers observation and detection checks.
- Operate covers all use of machinery and technical equipment. Daleks can use just about anything with buttons, knobs, dials, levers etc, though the camera might end up behind them so no one can see just how they are doing this.
- Due to their unique technomorphology, all daleks get a Bonus Die on Operate checks to unblock a sink.
- Dominate is the dalek equivalent of the Charisma skill in other RPGs, and reflects dalek attitudes when it comes to interacting with other life forms. A Dominate check is made to coerce, intimidate, command or threaten sentient life forms.
- Being Nice: Daleks do acknowledge that courtesy and politeness get results, they just don't see the point of bothering when threatening to exterminate people is quicker and easier. Players can, however, declare that their dalek is trying to Be Nice. If their dalek has a Dominate Score of 1 or 2, they get a Bonus Die. If, conversely, their dalek has a Dominate score of 3 or 4, they take a Penalty Die. Success at Being Nice, however, is only possible if the target being is happy to do what is asked of them, whilst routine Domination can work whether the target is happy to do it or not.
- Exterminate is used to vapourise people,creatures, vehicles or indeed anything. Passing an Exterminate check will reduce the target's Lives by one. Most people and creatures only have one Life, as do small vehicles, unarmoured walls, doorways and household appliances. Large vehicles, reinforced walls and big things will have two or more Lives.
Each dalek also has a number of Lives. The default is 3 but it can be more (or less) if that's what people want. (Note that daleks cannot be killed or destroyed, but they can run out of Lives - see below.)
Game Mechanics
Whenever a dalek tries to do something, the Task Difficulty must first be determined by the Doctor. Normally the GM would make a fair and reasonable assessment of the task, taking into account all relevant extraneous factor, but in Exterminate! the GM is anything but fair and reasonable so Task Difficulty is determined by the Doctor rolling a die. This will give a result between 1 and 6.
The player then rolls a number of dice indicated by his or her pertinent CODE rating. If any one die is equal to or higher than Task Difficulty, the check succeeds. Otherwise it fails. If Task Difficulty is 1, success is automatic, but the dice should still be rolled to see if the player gets any Bonus or Story Tokens.
For every Natural 6 rolled by the dalek, its player gets one Bonus Token. For every Natural 1 rolled by the dalek, the player gets one Story Token. Tokens are earned in this way whether the CODE check succeeds or fails.
Combat
Since this might just possibly crop up in the course of play, it needs to be considered.
Should a dalek come under attack, it gets to shoot first because it's a dalek. The only exception is on failing a Compute roll against a sneak attack. Since this necessarily involves failing a check, the dalek attacked in this way automatically shuts down while its player becomes the Doctor. The outcome of the sneak attack isn't resolved until someone else becomes the Doctor. Just savour the tension while it lasts.
Successfully passing an Exterminate check will rob a target of one Life, which in most cases will probably kill or destroy the target.
If a dalek is attacked, a number of Damage Dice are rolled (by the Doctor) according to the severity of the weapon used. This is judged on how it might affect a human, viz:
- 0 - Something that might hurt a bit, like being poked with an umbrella. Atacks of this kind don't need to be rolled, they automatically fail.
- 1 - Something that could hurt quite a lot, like being hit with a frying pan or a baseball bat, or maybe a slow-moving vehicle, or kicked by a mounted policeman's horse.
- 2 - Something that might prove fatal, like being stabbed with a breadknife, shot with a low calibre bullet, or hit by a vehicle observing speed limits.
- 3 - Something that would probably be fatal, like bashed with a sledgehammer, blasted by both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun, or smashed into by a speeding vehicle.
- 4 - Something you'd be really unlikely to survive.
- 5 - Something that wouldn't just kill you, but totally obliterate you, like getting squashed under a steamroller, or hit by a bazooka shell.
Every Damage Die that rolls a Natural 6 will rob the target dalek of one life, down to a limit of 0 Lives. The dalek must then shut down as its player takes over as the Doctor.
Note, however, that daleks are immune to many things that would kill a human. Daleks can't drown, for example, or
asphyxiate. They are effectively immune to fire, which might amuse any pyromaniac players at the table.
It is not impossible that a dalek might come under attack from multiple attackers. If a full platoon of SAS open up on a dalek, don't take each bullet individually in turn, just treat it as a single attack, probably of 5 Damage Dice. Likewise a gang of builders clobbering a dalek with crowbars and lead pipes would be a 2 Dice attack rather than 1 Die.
Recovery
Once the Doctor has regenerated again, you go back to being a dalek with one Life. To replenish further lost lives, you must plug yourself into any suitable energy source. If you're using the default setting (modern day London) these are everywhere, any mains socket will do. Also street lights, electricity substations, hybrid car recharge points, etc. You must, however, pass an Operate check for each Life you replenish.
Bonus Tokens
Every Natural 6 you roll in a CODE check earns you a Bonus Token, whether you passed or failed the check. You need to have more Bonus Tokens than any other dalek to win the game. However, you can spend them to give you Bonus Dice in your CODE checks. Each Bonus Token you spend lets you roll an extra die in the check, increasing your chances of success.
You get Bonus Tokens whenever you complete an Objective. When you complete an Objective, reveal it to the other players (to confirm that you have indeed completed it). If it was one you set for yourself, you get four Bonus Tokens. If it was one set by another player, you get two Bonus Tokens, and that other player also gets two.
Story Tokens
You get a Story Token for every Natural 1 you roll in a CODE check, whether you pass or fail the check. You can use a Story Token to countermand a call by the Doctor, so long as your alternative is at least as feasible or reasonable. This need not be a call against your own dalek - you can use a Story Token to make things harder (or easier) for another dalek.
You can also spend a Story Token to create events. If, for example, one of your Objectives is to get Boris Johnson's autograph, you can spend a Story Token to have Boris Johnson conveniently walk by (a Compute check might be needed to confirm that it is indeed him). However, another player who knows what you're up to can then spend a Story Token to declare that Boris Johnson is actually cycling by, not walking, so there's no opportunity to accost him. But that's okay, you can just Exterminate the car in front of him to make him stop.
You can also spend a Story Token to reset the Task Difficulty against a CODE check. Again, this need not be a CODE check for your own dalek. However, the reroll stands, so if you tried to make a task easier for yourself but end up making it harder, you just have to live with it.
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So, there you have it. It should be pretty clear how you're supposed to win this game - don't complete your second Objective until you've got the most Bonus Tokens. Which means thinking up interesting (and hopefully amusing) ways to prevent the rest of the players completing their own Objectives. Whether or not that will generate the kind of chaos and mayhem I was aiming for...