It’s Halloween right now, and people are dressed up as all sorts of monsters. I’ve seen some pretty scary costumes and some excellent garden displays.
But, do you know what might be the scariest thing of all?
People.
At least, that’s the premise of Xero Sum Games’ Fractured RPG.
It’s a post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG without zombies, or mutants, or lasers and magic.
The game picks up a year after a virus has taken out almost all of humanity. As author Tony Bushell puts it;
Polite society left with the 6 billion who died, and it took all the old rules with it.
In just 12 months, population and technology levels have been set back to the 19th century. There are no effective laws or justice. In the Fractured future, there’s no help and no compassion.
It’s a bleak game. There’s gnawing cold, hunger and the ultimate monsters of the game – other people.
The sandbox RPG is due out later this year, and there is already a quickstart adventure called Chased.
The quickstart core rules offer a collaborative storytelling system that focuses on narrative but not at the expense of crunch. Fractured is a game where people count food and ammo.
Different groups are outlined; survivors, migrators, nomads, survivalists, bandits, warlords, zealots and even cannibals. These groups are even coordinated into factions such as The Church of the Unclean or Judge Rudy.
The system is called RAPID, and with it, GMs get NPC design and motivation tables, group generation, encounter and road-trip rules.
The quickstart is free.
Chased
Chased is a 34-page adventure designed to get gaming groups into the game swiftly. It provides a location, some pre-genned characters, NPCs and a story. The core rules quickstart offers world-building advice.
The roadmap for Fractured has a sourcebook, the first one in the line, called Crossroads Chronicles, slated for 2022. Chased is intended to be the lead-in prequel to that.
Chased is a Pay What You Want, with a suggested price of $0.
Quick Links
- Xero Sum Games’ Fractured quickstart.
- The adventure Chased.
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