Ok, let's see, fluff.

There are a few basic meta-assumptions about how shit works in the game (and therefore the setting) that aren't really up for discussion for that reason. First, small warbands, whether independent or backed by a larger group, exist, fight each other, and are a viable way of influencing things. I'm justifying this one by saying that alliances are unstable due to prisoners being innately unreliable, overall, so most people see those outside their core group as potential enemies. Loose alliances exist, but only under extremely special circumstances do large groups that aren't confederacies form.

Second, fights happen mostly in melee, often without weapons, despite the scifi-ish setting. I'm justifying this by saying that the island has been cleaned out before the prisoners were released onto it, and also fuck you it's a genre convention.

Third, actual murderings are pretty rare. I'm justifying this with flying, autonomous tazer drones that step in if they see someone about to get killed or escape, and otherwise just hover around making that womwomwom noise.

I'm looking for fluff contributions on pretty much everything else, though, so if it doesn't violate those rules and you write it, it's probably canon. I'll write up what fluff there is so far in a second.

First, the big, outside the prison setting is summarized by this handy, fake history book infographic. The short version: Robocop happens, minus Robocop, OCP therefore becomes one of several hugely powerful megacorp that takes over a bunch of government functions (one of which being prisons).

Second, the list of major players. I've only got two right now, and they're kind of skeletal, but I'm happy with the feel they have.

The first is basically Switzerland. The political prisoners, being horribly outnumbered, unconnected, and often unskilled, banded together to form one group. They're the smallest of the major powers by far, but also the most organized, and by strictly defining and controlling their borders and avoiding agressive policies, they manage to be the most stable as well.

The second is Bartertown mixed with immediate pre-collapse Rome. I named them the Trade Commission, but that's a terrible name. Anyway. The trade commission enforces contracts, makes sure all agreements and exchanges are free from coercion, collects taxes, and does absolutely fuck all else. The vast majority of people within the Trade Commission's (extremely vague) borders are not actual members, but civillian traders or visitors looking to make a deal.

Basically, this faction's territory is where you go to export your shit, load up on useful items, or spend your loot from the previous adventure.

And that's it. So, the immediate task for now is expanding on those, and making two or three more to go with them. I think the other major powers should be more generic and mafiay, but I don't really know how to differentiate between two mafias. Degree of centralized organization, maybe. Resources controlled, too. And of course, ridiculousness of uniforms. Actually that's kind of enough to work with.

Yeah, organization style was enough to set off a chain reaction that gave me a summary.

Group 1: Confederacy, largest territory, tends to fight itself. Ran by a legislature of representatives from its largest gangs, but the exact standards for who gets to send representatives are vague (see: "tends to fight itself"). Has a 40k style I win button that never kicks in consisting of the theoretical scenario where it doesn't fight itself. Occasionally flirts with the idea when threatened, terrifying everyone.

Group 2: Ruled by 1 dictator, who commands 10 lessors, who command 10 lessors, who command 10 lessors, all the way down to the newest recruit. Smaller than the confederacy, bigger than the political prisoners, comparable to the Trade Commission. Tends to make calculated expansionist moves. This one would p probably need to focus on image rather a lot, because you can't have a ridiculous dictator without a ridiculous ego.

Low-content final post of the night, but I should mention that if you're interested in updates or being in the tester squad, my e-mail is in the field.

Tomorrow: I tackle fluff details or possibly start posting about one of the other subjects if people prefer that.

Not much to post right now, but I'm putting fluff details together and I'll post them today at some point.

What are you using for art/illustrations?

>>13240627
The cover (and some other art for the inside in progress) is done by B&hammer. You'd have to ask him.

The pictures I am posting are from the internet.

>>13240637

Nice. As a published illustrator, I will approve of your choice.

Dump. This one was definitely posted in an earlier thread, but here it is again.

Dump2, no idea if this one made it anywhere.

Dumpfinal. This one, along with some others that aren't done, are probably getting inserted into the table of moves.

Actually, I kind of want to take a poke at geography for a minute.

First: Obviously there needs to be a colossal fucking wasteland area. I don't really care if it doesn't make sense; this is Mad Max crossed with The Warriors and dammit there's going to be tumbleweeds and shit.

Second: Even though the basic stuff like food, water, and medical supplies are provided by the prison via supply drop, farmland is still useful to grow stuff like tobacco, weed, boozecrafting plants, cotton, and possibly dyes. The wasteland needs to be short on this stuff. This should cause problems.

Third: Everyone needs to share a border with the trader group for obvious reasons. The dictatorship needs to share a border with the confederacy because that's the most obvious rivalry. I'm undecided on who the political prisoner group needs to (or doesn't need to, or shouldn't) share a border with.

Fourth: It makes sense for the trader group to be in the wasteland area, because they don't actually produce anything, and being in an area that few people want makes life a lot easier. It makes sense for the political prisoners, being tiny, to either be self sufficient or to produce one specialty export and use it to get everything they need from the traders. It doesn't make sense for the confederacy to be in the wasteland in particular but it is awesome. It makes (thematic, at least) sense for the dictatorship to have efficiently run plantations and factories.

Well this is getting a little bit less sketchy. Is anyone good at the character bio side of things? Most of these factions are starting to imply big empty spaces where characters need to go, and I'm drawing a blank.

Ok, so because I'm low on character ideas, I'm just going to make a list of locations that have to exist within each major group's territory.

Traders:
-Thunderdome, only bigger, dumber, more extravagant, and modular, so it can hold naval battles one week and Running Man ripoffs the next.
-An archive of who owes who what, centrally controlled, possibly doubling as a bank and/or capital. This isn't very exciting, but I really like the whole improvised reproduction of the outside world thing, so I'll just have to find a way to ridiculous it up a bit.
-A giant market full of stalls and people yelling, though it's sort of a waste of time actually typing these words out because come on, what did you expect?

Confederacy:
-A neutral-ish meeting area.
-A lot of small to medium sized camps, permanency varying by importance.

Dictatorship:
-A really over-the-top palace.
-One or more plantations or factories, staffed by serfs and operated by a gang that either isn't very ambitious, or couldn't get assigned to something more promotion-worthy (ie front line stuff).
-A location where it would make sense to have posters of Glorious Leader and the viewer fighting side by side against that bitch who wants to take your cigs (possible location: everywhere)

Political Prisoners:
-A start-to-finish, very specialized luxury good production district, staffed by a few skilled workers and a bunch of grunts. I'm leaning towards alcohol but I know next to nothing useful about alcoholcrafting so I'm kind of putting off specifics.
-A central message relay office/war room, with a network of smaller stations radiating out from it, allowing very fast low-tech communication between different areas, as well as up-to-date information for those making decisions.
-Probably separate facilities for a civilian type of government and a theoretically subordinate department of defense type group, leading to moderate internal conflicts.

I guess the politicals and the confederates are looking the dullest at the moment, which is pretty surprising, but whatever.

I'm a little bit worried that this is losing the feel of being a place where everyone has ridiculous themed uniforms, so I'm probably going to pick a specific place and flesh it out a bit next. Then again, I should probably figure out the format that this will take. I was leaning towards having a fluff intro and epilogue, each of which potentially quite long, with an easy to reference rule set in the middle. Regardless, I think the fake history approach isn't going to work at this point, so I'll probably have to figure out another framing device.

Well, I accomplished nothing, but I ruled out single narrator (annoying, wouldn't make sense for one person to see all of the stuff necessary) and story telling via official documents (too many factions would have such shitty documentation of events that it wouldn't really work). That leaves short stories (hard to communicate all of the necessary stuff) and inexplicably knowledgeable omniscient bland narrator (boring). Maybe the intro could be inexplicably omniscient bland narrator and the epilogue could be short stories with the odd stat block thrown in.

...so, who is a brilliant writer.

Might as well post the new post-combat sequence I wrote up. It's an attempt to add the feel of having some territory and managing a blob of serfs that aren't actually core gang members. This replaces the post-combat sequence in the .pdf, except for the bits on healing and the list of purchasables, which stays the same.

Collect Resources
Check your gang sheet. For each territory you control, collect the listed amount of LP and Reputation. If this is the first fight, you control all territories on your sheet other than the one labelled "contested." Mark them down as such, and set the strength of each territory as 10.

Build
At this time you may purchase upgrades from the following list (not resposting, it's long and the only edit is taking out build points and making them loot points. Oh, and I'm going to put in a hideout facility that characters who lost can use to gain XP, what's a good idea for the fluff behind that? What do genre-obeying gang girls do when they lose?). If they are hideout upgrades, take note of them and place them on a hex map of your hideout, which you will play on if you roll the hideout defense scenario.

Declare Actions
Characters that meet the listed prerequisites can declare one of these actions in their post-combat phase. Do so secretly, then reveal them simultaneously and resolve them for all players.

Recruit:
Prerequisite: Not Out
Action: Choose a territory you control. The character spends the post-combat phase in this territory.
Effect: Add d6 strength to the territory for every 50 XP of recruiting characters present (for multiple recruiting characters, add their XP values and base the number of d6s on the total value), with a minimum of 1d6.

Lead:
Prerequisite: Not Out
Action: Choose a territory you control. The character spends the post-combat phase in this territory.
Effect: Move an amount of strength of your choice from the territory to an adjacent one. If this takes them into territory you do not control, add d6 to the amount of strength moved (for multiple leading characters, add their XP values and base the number of d6s on the total value) for the duration of the attack.

Patrol:
Prerequisite: Not Out
Action: Choose a territory you control. The character spends the post-combat phase in this territory.
Effect: If the territory is attacked, add d6 to the territory's strength for every 50XP of patrolling characters present (for multiple patrolling characters, add their XP values and base the number of d6s on the total value) for the duration of the attack.

Use Facility:
Prerequisite: None
Action: Choose a facility you have installed in your hideout. The character spends the post-combat phase in this facility.
Effect: Varies. See the hideout facility list for specific effects.

Resolve Attacks
If any territory contains strength from multiple gangs (including the starting neutral strength of contested territories), resolve the attack accordingly. Take away one strength from each gang present. Repeat until one gang has at least double the combined strength of all opponents present. This gang captures all strength present and adds it to its total for the territory, and captures the territory as well.

Any territories at 0 strength become neutral and do not provide LP or Rep.

If any territory has more than 20 strength, reduce its strength to 20.

So, to sum up: After every combat of the campaign, the players tally up their loot and play one round of Risk: Asia Only Edition: Your Armies Don't Do Anything Unless Your Heroes Yell At Them Expansion. The goal isn't really to take over the entire map but rather to have an above average amount of territory consistently, bumping up your rep score until you have enough to win the campaign.

I have no idea if this is too much complexity or work.

Oh, one last thing. To the copyeditorfag from the previous threads: I managed to lose your last set of comments. If you happen to see this and remember them, please repost.

Morning bump. I think I have the beginnings of a few ideas that I'll put down in a little bit.

Instead of doing that I banged together the new gang sheet. I'm also fiddling with the post-combat rules. I'm leaning towards simplifying rep rewards a bit, either making it a flat reward to whoever has the most territory, or only giving out rewards for holding contested territories.

And I'm pretty dumb. Correct image attached.

>Players control a small number of units that level up and screw around between fights.

I read "level up and screw each other between fights" at first, for some reason.

>>13249113
>...so, who is a brilliant writer.

I could try, though I'm notoriously unreliable and slow. I'd need more detail than you've provided so far though, it's all still a bit to vague to me.

>>13255776
This seems like a good idea, and then suddenly everyone is mad at everyone and the gang falls apart. Trust me, I've seen it happen.

Tangentially related note: with how the post-combat phase works now, there really needs to be a hideout upgrade that gives (limited) XP to members rendered Out, or losing teams will end up too far behind on usable resources. Can anybody think of a fluff justification? What do gang girls do after getting beat up?

>>13255830
>I'd need more detail
What kind of detail? Do you mean in terms of what finished product I'm looking for, or in terms of what the setting is like?

>>13255859
Both, yeah. I'm not sure if you have more details about the history of the setting that you haven't gone into detail yet.

I think I got the general mood you're going for based on the genre, though I'm not sure whether you're going to go grimdark, play up the ridiculousness for fun, or just do things straightforward.

I'm about to go out and do some Xmas shopping, but I will take a slower, deeper read of the thread when I come back. In case of 404, my e-mail's in the field.

>>13255919
>Both, yeah. I'm not sure if you have more details about the history of the setting that you haven't gone into detail yet.
If it's not in the thread, it doesn't exist. Everything is pretty open right now for two reasons. First, I'm bad at details. Second, everything has to be a little bit open so people can plug their personalized gangs into the setting without fucking anything up. There's never going to be a full list of available character types, just information on the most important ones in the setting, and some general cliches for players to base their own on.

>general mood
I guess the closest thing to the grimdark-level is that episode of Twilight Zone where the gold thieves put themselves into suspended animation to throw the police off of their trail. They wake up in the future, in the middle of a giant god damn desert. Their car is completely busted, so they make a long journey back to civilization with their gold. They backstab the fuck out of each other, and almost all of them die. When the survivor finally drags his ass to a highway and flags down a car, it turns out that in the future, gold can be mass produced, and is therefore completely worthless.

Basically, everything is horrible for the characters, the bad guys win (but ultimately everything is still horrible for them), and everyone is the butt of the joke at one point.

But yeah, thanks a bunch for taking a look at this. Let me know if you want me to attempt to expand on something, or if you want a specific prompt to help kick start your creative bits or anything.

>>13235994
will read these rules and feedback, gotta an email, i have a wargame in basic stages mabye we could converse, i would also feature this on my webby in production

>>13256463
Here's my contact info. Link me to your thing, if it exists in some kind of published format?

>>13256484
where is it sorry and email me at

tactica.d12@gmail.com

>>13256525
In the e-mail field. I'm sending you mail now, though, so you'll have it in a minute.

Ok, I'm just going to brainstorm gang ideas and figure out what slots to put them into later.

Chelsea P. had a lot of debt to pay off, and not a lot of time to pay it off in. Chelsea was unwilling to accept indentured servitude (the standard agreement covering loan defaults in [trader group]) until her debt was paid. With no other options available, she volunteered for a pit fight - one with odds heavily stacked against her. However, when the dust settled - partially thanks to her fighting experience as a hired thug, but even more thanks to luck - Chelsea was standing and her opponents weren't. The thoroughly memorable finisher she gave to her final opponent earned her a nickname ("Chelsea Punt," "Cunt P.," and other variations on the theme), as well as more than enough money to pay off her debt.

Chelsea invested the remainder in pit fighters of her own, who she trained and managed very carefully in the hope of one day being able to hire enough help to carve out her own piece of the wastes. Unfortunately, the process is slow, and Chelsea Punt isn't getting any younger. With each passing day, less legitimate sources of cash look more and more inviting.

/tg/, you should also do this, because it's what you're actually good at.

>>13257939
Continued a bit, since there's an obvious angle here.

So, frustrated by her slow accumulation of power, Chelsea and her crew of trained pit fighters took to holding up traveling caravans. While the pay was better, her last job made her an enemy too powerful to deal with, and now C. Punt and her crew drift, unable to sleep soundly in one place for too long.

See, this is good in that Chelsea Punt is a decent model for players to base generic mercenary/thug characters on. She has a back story, and a reason to be in charge of a small adventurer crew. But it's also bad, both because I'm the dullest writer on the planet, and because it doesn't imply a shitload about the setting as a whole (which is really the best way to squeeze in a bunch of information in an entertaining way, I think).

Yeah, I think starting at the top levels was kind of a mistake, actually. Bottom up should work better. I mean, I'm hesitant to throw out all of the existing setting, so hopefully some of it will be salvagable, but we'll see.

Next: writing about the biggest arena in more detail. I have some done, but I don't know if I'll be back in time with a bump. Thread is still open to any miscellaneous brainstormed material anyone comes up with, though.

Actually, scratch that, all I'm doing is coming up with framing devices and rejecting them one by one. How the fuck does anything get written ever.

So, given that I'm obviously going to have to mostly delegate the fluff to others, I made some edits to the post-game sequence again.

Edits:
-took out the cell upgrade and captive holding rules. I like it flavorwise, but it goes against the basic assumptions of how the game works (gangs don't get rendered unplayable).
-2 reputation for each contested territory held. 10+d6 LP per territory held. Much simpler, shrinks the size of the table on the gang sheet by taking out worthless information.
-Fixed up the gang sheet to match, as well as adding a hideout territory. I don't know if I want to allow entire gangs to get KOed during the post-combat phase by conquering the hideout, but maybe I'll add a set of rules for absorbing gangs as vassals or something, provided I can keep it from being boring for any of the players.
-Decided to have the limited XP generator for the losers be a 1 time use purchasable rather than a permanent upgrade. I'm not sure if I should make it a fluff neutral "generic luxury item" or make it something along the lines of "cigarettes: smoke these while leaning against a wall and complaining. you gain +4 grizzled, +7 cynicism, and 1 XP."

Thread: Live while I sleep until those other people get back.

These threads are about the only reason I go to /tg/ instead of browsing the archives.

>>13250605

Not sure if I can remember them or not, but I can probably recreate them.
Or find them on easymodo or whatever.

I think you mean this stuff (Thread 12973764, post 13027356):

Looking at the gang sheet and the post-combat rules, I'd remove the Status section and replace it with an Out/not Out check box for gang members and a Won/Lost check box for the team.

Should hopefully speed things up (put markers on the appropriate boxes rather than writing stuff out).
___

Loot: Gain 2d6+INT-7 loot points (+1 if your team won), minimum 1. Loot points carry over between fights.

Build: Gain 2d6+PHY-7 build points (+1 if your team won), minimum 1. Build points are lost between fights.
___

Get in touch if you need me.

>>13264663
Yeah, that's it, thanks. And yeah, posting threads and hoping someone sees is pretty much the worst way to keep in contact, so I'll make a note of your e-mail.