Big Wet Six: Bloody Ballistics

Continued from quite a while ago. 

c/w for violence and gore

I've spent a fair bit of time mulling over how to gun combat in the Big Wet. Here's what I want the system to do:

1. Feel extremely fucking dangerous; a huge commitment. In my view, the Big Wet's not about violence itself so much as it is about the continual threat of violence. It's about tension, slowly building and then releasing all at once. 
2. Feel messy and unpredictable. Things should go wrong in a fight, frequently. I like my apocalyptic games gory, both in literal terms and in the "gory details" sense—a kind of, like, old-school tactility. I want players to feel the fight.
3. Be reasonably tactical: players' moment-to-moment tactics should matter (do I shoot? do I go for cover?) as well as their bigger strategic decisions (which weapons should I bring? how many bullets do I spend?). I don't need full wargame here, but I'd like a layer of depth to it.
4. Not be monstrously crunchy. Ideally, I'd like a single turn of combat—one volley / exchange / shot / etc.—to just take a single dice roll. 

I'm not sure this is all achievable, frankly, but that's not going to stop me trying. Boot Hill, from what I know of it, hits points 1-3 but not 4. Base Mothership hits 1, 3, and 4, but not 2. Apocalypse World hits 1(ish), 2 (assuming you use the harm moves), and 4, but not really 3. 

Here's what I got:

RAINSLICK GUNFIGHTS

This assuming combat's begun and now it's your turn. Here's how it works:

1. Roll your dice to attack: 1d100 under the appropriate stat, plus any skills, but over your Wet score. As normal. Lungs for melee, Nerves for range; Fighting applies to both, CQC to melee and firearms to guns. 
2. If you succeed on the attack, look up the result of your 1d100 attack roll on the wounds table: this is what you do to your opponent. Go look at that chart right now—it will help explain what's actually going on here.
3. The target's Wet score increases by the result of the units die. This is "damage." 

Some modifiers to this:

1. Weapons have long, medium, and close ranges: long gives disadvantage, close gives advantage. Simple, really.
2. Cover blocks the parts of your body that it would actually block. So if your legs are covered and your opponent gets an 06, you simply take no damage. If it's really thin cover like plywood or something, then, I dunno, they get disadvantage on the units die or something.

And here's how different "weapon types" work:

1. Automatic weapons roll one tens die, but then get to roll as many units dice as bullets they fired. Decide how many bullets you're firing before you roll. Each of the results apply on the wounds table, and all of the units get added together to increase the Wet score. This means, basically, that you might still just whiff, but you're much more likely to do lots of serious damage. 
2. Shotguns roll one tens die, then get to roll ~4 units dice, which explode. This means if you get a 10 on one of those unit dice, it goes higher—which makes you more likely to miss with a pellet (as you might over your skill limit), but also means you tend to deal big damage if you roll low.
3. Sniper rifles and their ilk get to roll extra unit dice, and get to pick their favorite. "Extra" is probably based on the amount of time you spend aiming down your scope. Means they tend to deal big damage, and also not miss.

That's combat in a nutshell, I think. (Yes, this requires throwing out the Mosh-esque guns I had before and coming up with some modified versions. A cost I'm willing to live with.)

BIG WET WOUNDS CHART

Here's the wounds chart:

1. Leg: calf gets scratched, basically harmless.
2. Leg: shin gets grazed.
3. Leg: toe gets blown off.
4. Leg: ankle is sprained, possibly dislocated.
5. Leg: thigh takes a bullet in the side.
6. Leg: middle of the foot catches a bullet.
7. Leg: shin is cracked, right in the center.
8. Leg: ankle is shattered. Bone shards everywhere.
9. Leg: knee explodes. Leg may need amputation.
10. Leg: bullet pierces femoral artery. Severe blood loss. Death in minutes.
11. Arm: forearm is grazed, minimal damage.
12. Arm: shoulder is scratched.
13. Arm: pinky or ring finger gets blown off.
14. Arm: elbow gets hit, likely dislocated and sprained.
15. Arm: hand takes a bullet, clean through.
16. Arm: upper arm eats a bullet head-on, right in the beach muscles.
17. Arm: wrist is broken in several places.
18. Arm: index finger and thumb are destroyed.
19. Arm: elbow detonates in a shower of bone.
20. Arm: shoulder and blade shatter. Arm is useless.
21. Torso: waist gets scratched.
22. Torso: an exterior rib is grazed. 
23. Torso: heavy bruising on lower back.
24. Torso: gut wound, shallow but bleeding.
25. Torso: one rib cracks.
26. Torso: liver catches a direct hit.
27. Torso: bullet rips through the ribs and out the other side.
28. Torso: sternum cracks in two.
29. Torso: stomach punctured. Foul smells emerge.
30. Torso: kidneys pierced. Internal bleeding.
31. Torso: multiple broken ribs. Some jut.
32. Torso: spine breaks. Paralysis likely.
33. Torso: lower-torso organs ripped to pieces. 
34. Torso: an aorta is pierced. Death in minutes.
35. Torso: digestive tract riddled with lacerations. Death in minutes.
36. Torso: lungs punctured in a dozen places. Death in less than a minute.
37. Torso: spinal column bursts. Death in less than a minute.
38. Torso: sternum splinters, ribs shatter. Death in seconds.
39. Torso: guts ripped open. Innards spill out. Death in seconds.
40. Torso: heart is torn asunder. Instant death.
41. Head: ear blown off entirely.
42. Head: nose, front teeth shatter. 
43. Head: lower jaw entirely destroyed. 
44. Head: throat hit. Windpipe collapses. Death in minutes.
45. Head: blow to the back of the head. Death in minutes.
46. Head: eye gouged out. Death in less than a minute.
47. Head: jugular spills everywhere. Death in less than a minute.
48. Head: spinal cord detonates. Death in seconds.
49. Head: frontal lobe hit directly. Death in seconds.
50. Head: skull explodes, brain ripped to pieces. Instant death.
51. Dealer's choice. On a 51 or higher, the attacker chooses any lower option above their Wet score.

Very nasty. Lots of options mean death very soon, lots more options mean long slow death instead. Getting hit in combat is very bad.

If you have two of something (ears/eyes/limbs), evens is the right, odd is the left. If you lose your right ear and then get the same result again, now it's the left ear. If you lose both ears then, hey, lucky day, you don't take any new damage.

WET EXAMPLE

Jacobs, a PC, is shooting at an enemy scavenger: Jacobs has an SMG, and is currently at medium range; the scavenger has a shotgun, and is currently at far range. For the sake of convenience, neither is in cover.

Jacobs has a 29 in Nerves (about average), but also has the Firearms skill; her Wet score is currently a 6, as she's spent a few hours tromping through the marshes. This means she needs to roll under a 45 and over a 6—good odds, all things considered. For ease of use, the scavenger has a general Combat score of 30 (good, but not amazing).

Jacobs decides to fire three bullets with her SMG: she rolls the tens die, and gets a 30; she rolls her three units dice, and gets a 3, a 6, and a 7. Her bullets hit the scavenger: their intestines get shredded, their lungs are punctured, and their spine splits in two. The scavenger collapses, instantly out of action, and will be dead in less than a minute. After a few minutes of no shots being exchanged, Jacobs goes to investigate, and finds them dead in the mud. 

---

Lets imagine for a second that Jacobs had made the same decisions, then rolled and gotten a 00, instead of a 30: her 3 and 6 would've missed, due to her Wet score (her fingers, reddened from the cold, were shaking). The 7 would've cracked the scavenger's shin, making it difficult for them to walk.

The scavenger, limping, blasts their shotgun back. They roll with disadvantage due to far range, and get a 20 and a 10—unlucky for Jacobs! 10 being the worst result, the scavenger rolls their four units dice, getting a 4, 7, 8, and 10. The 10 explodes, turning into an 18 (and thus a 28 on the wounds chart): Jacobs' right elbow is dislocated and bent oddly, her left wrist gets cracked, her right thumb and trigger finger get spattered, and her sternum cracks after being hit with buckshot. 4, 7, 8, and 18 added together comes out to 37, bringing Jacobs' Wet score to 43. 

Jacobs collapses: not dead yet, but severely injured, and in so much shock and panic that she's unable to function properly for hours or days. The scavenger hobbles over and, with a nearby lump of rebar, finishes her off. 

If we imagine for a second that the scavenger left her there for dead instead, she might have a slim chance of being able to stagger back to camp, clinging to life. More likely, though, the blood loss would've killed her, or she might've slipped and fallen into the mire, or run afoul of some other danger and been unable to handle it. If she had comrades nearby who could help her, though, to apply first aid and help lug her out, she might have a decent chance of surviving.

---

In the first scenario, Jacobs got reasonably lucky and ended the fight fast. In the second, she was less lucky, and the scavenger had a stroke of good fortune—ending Jacobs' career then and there. There are lots of other ways this fight could've gone: if the scavenger hadn't had a shotgun, if they'd missed, if there was cover, if Jacobs had only fired one shot, and so on.

Just for reference, the first fight was one attack roll. The second was two. A lot goes into and out of those rolls, but it's still just the one roll.

POSTDILUVIAN ANALYSIS

There are a few different Weird Things going on here that help smooth this whole process out:

1. Wounds are almost entirely non-mechanized. I, Sam the designer, trust that you, the GM and players, will be able to come up with interesting consequences for "your liver is punctured" or "your knee's been shattered." This means that the consequences flow diegetically—rather than try to nail down stat mods for every conceivable injury, the pieces just fall where they fall, and it's up to the table to figure out exactly what those mean.
   
   
2. Wet score increase is a kind of "pseudo-damage." In my mind, a PC's Wet score going up isn't literal damage—we see the literal damage firsthand, from the wounds table. The Wet score going up is shock, panic, loss of focus, dissociation, horror: it's all of the psychological bad shit that goes down after experiencing trauma. Critically, though, it still has an impact: for most PCs, if their Wet score breaks 30, they're hosed. Equally critically, though, is that a high Wet score on its own doesn't actually do anything—it makes checks basically impossible, but checks can be avoided. Likewise, your Wet score's not that hard to get down: even if it hits 100 and literally everything but walking is impossible for you, it only takes a few days to get back to normal. Shock, like moisture, isn't permanent.
   
   
3. Wounds and Wet come from the same sources, but aren't inherently linked. My Wet score can drop in a matter of hours or days: healing wounds happens slowly, diegetically. Because wounds don't have any fixed mechanics are just relying on players' know-how of real world injuries, it avoids the "you go to sleep and are totally fine the next morning" issue: Wet score recovers, because Wet from is mostly psychological (and Wet from being literally damp is easily solved), so it heals quickly. Wounds, however, are much more permanent.
   
   
4. The to-hit roll and the death & dismemberment roll are the same thing. This skips Boot Hill's weird d6 roll for "severity of hit" or whatever and just boils down the whole thing: a good roll does a ton of damage, a bad roll does shit. 
   
   
5. The major downside here, obviously, is that you have to look up the damn wound table every time. My future solution for this is to just print it everywhere I can: on the inside cover of the zine, on the back of the character sheets, maybe even on some kind of handy-dandy player cheat sheet. It also divides nicely (0-10 is legs, 11-20 is arms, 21-40 is torso, 41-50 is head; higher numbers are always better), so even if you don't know the exact gory result, you can get the gist with a look.
   
   
6. Due to sandwich rolls work, two oddities emerge:
1. PCs with poor combat skills can't land headshots. On the one hand, this feels silly: why shouldn't they be able to? On the other hand, it's an extremely convenient way to seriously knock down less-combative PC's combat power, and has a certain amount of sense to it once you think about actual firearms training—headshots are difficult to hit, especially on moving targets. (A possible solution here is to say that doubles are a critical, and thus inflict a severe "death in minutes"-esque wound no matter what, if you really wanna keep crits.)
2. As a PC's Wet score goes up, they are less likely to hit, but the hits they land are more likely to be dangerous. Think about it: if my shooting score is 40 and my Wet is 30, I only hit on a 30-40, but 30-40 does a ton of damage. This is weirdest interaction that comes out of this, but I think I can live with it. There's a certain cinematic quality to it, maybe? "The wounded hero fires once, then twice, missing both! But then the third shot hits the blackhat squarely in the chest, toppling them to the ground!" I dunno. I can't find an easy way around this without making everything crunchier, so I'm resolved to live with it.
   
   
7. Caliber and "big guns do more" doesn't really happen. Like, by these rules as written currently, a .22 pistol and a .45 magnum do the same amount of damage because they're both just rolling their units die, and obviously a .45'll do a hell of a lot more than a .22. Possible solutions to this include:
1. Give bigger guns advantage on their units rolls. So, a .45 rolls 2d10 for its units and takes the highest. This does make them more likely to miss, but it does do more damage. Not a terrible solution? But gets kind of squirrelly if you already have advantage on the overall to-hit roll.
2. Just give them a flat bonus on the to-hit roll but not the associated combat score. Big guns get +5 to-hit; huge guns gets +10. I kind of like this one because it means big guns will always do more, but also will miss way more. If you've got the training (and thus the fat combat scores), they're always worth it: if you don't know what you're doing, you should stick to smaller stuff. Again, crunchy, but interesting.
   
   
8. I don't really know how melee should work. Like, in theory, this all basically works the exact same way (other than the references to bullets in the wound table), but it feels sort of... weird? Like, I feel like I should get more control over where my knife goes compared to my bullet. And it feels like my opponent should be able to defend themselves, somehow. Not sure.

But yeah! Big Wet Guns! They sort-of-kind-of hit all 4 of my criteria!

Big Wet Five: Past Lives, Stats Arrive

This is about the Big Wet, my postdiluvian Mothership hack setting thing.

WET STATS

Mothership has four stats: Speed, Strength, Intellect, and Combat. It also four saves—Body, Fear, Sanity, and Armor.

I'm cutting saves, I think. I'll figure something else out for armor, but the Big Wet is fundamentally less of a horror setting than Mothership, and I prefer to just make stats and saves the same thing anyway. Stress is probably getting slashed, too.

The current stats I'm think about for the Big Wet are:

• Brain: your intellect, processing power, knowledge. Left and right brain both, really.
• Nerves: your reaction speed, ranged combat abilities, fine motor control. Anything connected to your senses or nervous system.
• Heart: your emotional sway, willpower, tenacity. More metaphorical than physical.
• Lungs: your athletic talents, endurance, melee combat abilities. Anywhere oxygen flows.

I like these because A) they're good fleshy nouns with some zest, and B) they're a little more flexible and metaphorical and thought-provoking than just basic terms. 

They follow the same procedure as Mothership for determining them: roll 6d10 for each stat, down the line. Roll under that stat to succeed on a check. 

Wet, of course, is the fifth stat: it comprises your literal wetness, but also fatigue, weariness, exhaustion, and lack of will. 

(Eyes, Ears, Hands, Fingers, Bones, Face, Tongue, Liver, and Meat were all reject stats. They might get added in later. We'll see.) 

DRY TIMES

Mothership has classes, which give you your starting saves, a couple of skills, and one or two random abilities. I'm not super into them, to be honest, so instead the Big Wet's going to have a giant d100 list of "who you were when it was dry," which gives you some starting skills. Roll one of these at chargen.

Not all of these are equal. The basic weighting is that stats > free skills > selected skills, and a given background should have the equivalent of ~4 free skills, but the balancing is pretty loose. Embrace the inequality, to some degree.

Here's the list:

1. Accountant
   +10 Brain, Mathematics, 2 skills
2. Activist
   +5 Heart, Politics, Tactics, 2 skills
   
3. Actor
   +20 Heart, Art, 2 skills
   
4. Airline Pilot
   Driving, Piloting, Vehicle Specialization, 2 skills
5. Architect
   +5 Brain, 3 skills
   
6. Arms Dealer
   +5 Nerves, Bartering, Economics, Post-Collapse Markets, Fighting, Firearms, Ammunition Recycling
7. Assassin
   +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Fighting, Firearms, Close-Quarters Combat, Weapon Specialization
8. Astronaut
   +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Mathematics, Physics, Diving
9. Author
   Art, 3 skills
10. Banker
    -10 Heart, Mathematics, Economics, 2 skills
    
11. Barista
    +5 Nerves, +5 Lungs, 3 skills
12. Bartender
    +5 Nerves, +5 Face, Coastwise, 2 skills
13. Bodyguard
    +10 Lungs, Fighting, 2 skills
14. Boxer
    +20 Lungs, Athletics, Fighting, Close-Quarter Combat
15. Bus Driver
    Driving, Coastwise, 3 skills
16. Caregiver
    +10 Heart, +10 Brain, 2 skills
17. Carpenter
    +10 Nerves, +5 Lungs, Mechanical Repair, 1 skill
18. Cashier
    +5 Lungs, +5 Heart, 3 skills
19. Celebrity
    +10 Heart, +10 Lungs, 2 skills
20. Chef
    +10 Nerves, +5 Brain, Agriculture, 1 skill
21. Chemist
    +10 Brain, Chemistry, Explosives, 1 skill 
22. Civil Servant
    +5 Brain, Politics, Administration, Governance, 1 skill
23. Dancer
    +10 Lungs, Athletics, 2 skills
24. Dentist
    +10 Brain, Biology, Medicine, Surgery
25. Dietician
    +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Agriculture, Biology, 1 skill
26. Drug Dealer
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Bartering, Economics, Post-Collapse Markets
27. Ecologist
    +10 Brain, Hydrology, Biology, Botany, Meteorology, Climatology, Neo-Ecology
28. Economist
    +5 Brain, Bartering, Mathematics, Economics, 1 skill
29. Editor
    +5 Brain, -5 Heart, Art, 3 skills
30. Electrician
    +5 Brain, Mechanical Repair, Scavenging, 2 skills
31. Engineer
    +5 Brain, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, 1 skills
32. Farmer
    +10 Brain, Agriculture, Meteorology, Botany, Hunting
33. Fast Food Worker
    +5 Lungs, +5 Heart, 3 skills
34. Film Producer
    -5 Brain, Bartering, Politics, 3 skills
35. Fisher
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, +5 Brain, Biology, Hydrology, 1 skill
36. Flight Attendant
    +5 Heart, +5 Nerves, 3 skills
37. Forester
    +5 Lungs, +5 Brain, Biology, Botany, 2 skills
38. Game Designer
    -5 Brain, -5 Heart, -5 Lungs, -5 Nerves
39. Garbage Worker
    +5 Heart, +5 Lungs, Scavenging, 2 skills
40. Geographer
    +10 Brain, History, Art, Hydrology, 1 skill
41. Hairdresser
    +5 Heart, +5 Nerves, Art, 2 skills
42. Historian
    +5 Brain, History, 2 skills
43. Hunter
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Hunting, Firearms, 1 skill
44. Illustrator
    +10 Nerves, +5 Heart, Art, 1 skills
45. Influencer
    +10 Heart, +5 Lungs, Athletics, 1 skill
46. Insurance Agent
    Bartering, 3 skills
47. IT Tech
    +5 Brain, Mechanical Repair, Computers, 1 skill
48. Jeweler
    +10 Nerves, Art, History, Bartering
49. Journalist
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Coastwise, Art, 1 skill
50. Lawyer
    +10 Brain, -5 Heart, History, Tactics, Philosophy, Ethics
51. Librarian
    +20 Brain, History, Politics, Administration, Governance
52. Linguist
    +10 Brain, 3 skills
53. Locksmith
    +10 Nerves, +5 Brain, Breaking & Entering, Safecracking, 1 skill
54. Magician
    +10 Nerves, 3 skills
55. Marine
    +10 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Fighting, Firearms, Close-Quarters Combat, Amphibious Warfare
56. Marine Biologist
    +10 Brain, Diving, Biology, Hydrology, Scuba, 1 skill
57. Martial Artist
    +10 Lungs, Athletics, Fighting, Spirituality, Close-Quarters Combat, 1 skill
58. Mason
    +5 Lungs, +5 Brain, Scavenging, 2 skills
59. Mathematician
    +10 Brain, Mathematics, 2 skills
60. Mechanic
    +5 Brain, +5 Nerves, Mechanical Repair, Driving, Jury Rigging
61. Miner
    +10 Lungs, Scavenging, Urbex, 1 skill
62. Musician
    +10 Heart, +5 Nerves, Art, 2 skills
63. New-Age Guru
    +10 Heart, Spirituality, Theology, Apocalyptic Mysticism, 1 skill
64. Nurse
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, +Nerves, First Aid, Medicine
65. Organized Criminal
    +5 Lungs, Breaking & Entering, Coastwise, Politics, 1 skill
66. Painter
    +5 Nerves, Art, 3 skills
67. Pharmacist
    +5 Brain, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Pharmacology, 1 skill
68. Police Officer
    -20 Heart, +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Fighting, Firearms, 2 skills
69. Politician
    +5 Heart, +5 Brain, Politics, Tactics, 2 skills
70. Priest
    +5 Heart, +5 Brain, Spirituality, Theology, 2 skills
71. Private Eye
    +5 Nerves, +5 Brain, Fighting, Firearms, Scavenging, Hunting
72. Psychologist
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Biology, Psychiatry, 2 skills
73. Public Health Worker
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Biology, Agriculture, Hydrology, Politics, Administration
74. QA Specialist
    +5 Brain, Mechanical Repair, Scavenging, 2 skills
75. Rancher
    +5 Lungs, Hunting, Agriculture, 2 skills
76. Realtor
    +5 Heart, Bartering, Breaking & Entering, 2 skills
77. Receptionist
    +5 Heart, 3 skills
78. Roustabout
    +5 Lungs, Scavenging, Urbex, 2 skills
79. Sailor
    +5 Lungs, Hydrology, Athletics, Diving, 1 skill
80. Salesperson
    +10 Heart, Bartering, 2 skills
    
81. Sanitation Specialist
    +10 Brain, Biology, Medicine, Sanitation, 1 skill
82. Schoolchild
    Scavenging, Fighting, Coastwise, Diving, 2 skills
83. Sculptor
    +5 Nerves, +5 Lungs, Art, 2 skills
84. Secretary
    +5 Brain, +5 Heart, Politics, Administration, 1 skill
85. Singer
    +5 Lungs, +5 Heart, Art, 2 skills
86. Social Media Manager
    +10 Heart, +5 Brain, Politics, Administration, 1 skill
87. Spy
    +5 Nerves, +5 Heart, +5 Brain, Athletics, Fighting, Coastwise, Politics, Breaking & Entering
88. Stripper
    +10 Lungs, +5 Heart, Art, Athletics, 1 skill
89. Student
    4 skills
90. Surgeon
    +5 Brain, +10 Nerves, First Aid, Medicine, Surgery
91. Tailor
    +5 Nerves, Art, Scavenging, 2 skills
92. Teacher
    +10 Heart, +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Coastwise, Tactics, Command
93. Thief
    +10 Nerves, Breaking & Entering, 2 skills
94. Trucker
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Driving, Coastwise, 2 skills
95. Trust Fund Kid
    -5 Heart, +5 Lungs, 2 skills
96. Undertaker
    +5 Lungs, +5 Brain, Biology, First Aid, Scavenging, 1 skill
97. Veterinarian
    +5 Heart, +5 Brain, +5 Nerves, Biology, First Aid, Medicine
98. Weather Person
    +5 Brain, Hydrology, Meteorology, 2 skills
99. Yoga Instructor
    +5 Lungs, +5 Nerves, Spirituality, Athletics, 1 skill
100. Zoologist
     +5 Brain, +5 Lungs, Biology, Hunting, 1 skill

I'm sure there's a few more in here somewhere that I'm missing. Feel free to make your own, too. 

BIG WET FUTURE V

My semester is starting back up, so my time is reduced, but next on the docket are things like:

• Dry Wonders, all of the artifacts and strange devices that you, as scavengers, are hunting for
• Wet Vehicles, for land and sea (and both), and all of their stats and stuff
• Flooded Wastes, and how you might run the over-land/sea procedures of the game
• Wet Gear revised, since the last listing were slightly suspect

But yeah. Keep an eye out.

Big Wet Four: Skills Galore

I made a skill list for the Big Wet, my flooded (post?) apocalyptic Mothership hack thing. 

If you're unfamiliar with Mothership skills, they add to your d100 rolls, increasing your stat by 10-20%; if you had a 35 in Intellect but can apply a +15% skill, you now succeed if you roll under a 50. 

I don't think I'm going to have classes in the same way Mothership does, so I don't quite know how these skills will be acquired, but here's the list:

Here's a link to the PDF. You can also click on this image to expand it.

Most of these skills should be relatively self-explanatory, I think. Weapon and vehicle specializations mean you pick one single vehicle or weapon, and get +20% with just that one. 

This list is slightly more filled-in than the stock Mothership one, but I think that's okay; the Big Wet's a more-defined setting than the default Mothership, and the specific scientific sub-disciplines matter more.

BIG WET FUTURE IV

My next thing to do for the Big Wet is to make a giant d100 table of "What you did before the world ended," which give you some starting skills and probably a piece of gear or two. 

I also think I'm going to change up the stats. Not quite sure what they're going to be, but I find the Mothership stats slightly too narrow and slightly bland for my tastes. 

Keep an eye out. 

Big Wet Three: d100 Trinkets, Yes-Sir-ee!

I love trinkets lists. This one's for the Big Wet. 

1. Tin of spam
2. "Flooding Procedures and You" government pamphlet
3. Old-fashioned spyglass
4. Disposable camera and enough film for 25 photos
5. High-grade nautical chart, now 100% useless
6. Manual of sailor tattoos
7. A cool geode
8. Four caffeine tablets
9. Half-dozen glo-sticks
10. Bandana
11. Rubber duck
12. A single glow-in-the-dark condom
13. Denim jacket, sleeves optional
14. Barber's razor, battery-powered
15. Tourniquet
16. Nose ring
17. Tattoo gun, no ink
18. Doc Martens
19. Wallet full of mostly-useless cash
20. One wedding ring for each finger
21. Excised tumor in a little jar
22. Bright blue jerry can, reads "potable water"
23. Spare tire
24. Fingerless black leather gloves
25. Matched spiked bracelets
26. Twister, but missing the spinner
27. Pack of cigarettes
28. Dog tags
29. Pack of balloons
30. Surfboard, tie-dye colors
31. A hefty canoe oar
32. 12 oz can of Coca-Cola
33. Bottle of extremely old codeine
34. Ice axe
35. Chocolate bar
36. Set of allen wrenches, missing two
37. Palm-sized wad of sticky-tack
38. CD jukebox, battery-powered
39. Shemagh scarf, like the cool military bros have
40. A bullet with "BASTERD" poorly carved into it
41. Diver's wristwatch
42. Wraparound shades
43. Four-pack of twinkies
44. Complete Yahtzee! set, no scorecards
45. Basic travel-sized makeup kit
46. Male enhancement pills, questionable efficacy
47. Trusty beanie, slouch-able or ear-covering as needs be
48. Sharktooth necklace
49. Inner tube
50. Staple gun, no staples
51. Roll of scotch tape
52. MRE: fettuccini alfredo
53. A weird scary bug in a jar
54. Acoustic guitar, missing a string
55. BB Gun
56. Matched shot glasses
57. Super high-end hydroflask
58. A pouchful of dry earth
59. Rubik's cube
60. A packet of Lisa Frank stickers
61. Nokia phone, still working, no signal
62. Baseball cap, Boston Red Sox
63. Cowboy hat
64. Growler of moonshine, mostly empty
65. Lobster cage
66. 10' of barbed wire in a little sack
67. Rubber-band ball, 6" across
68. Hard hat with "expendable" stamped across it
69. Snorkel
70. Really fancy switchblade with an in-laid handle and everything
71. Lock of red hair
72. Bowling ball
73. 6-months sober token
74. A random major arcana card
75. Ushanka
76. Compass
77. Bundle of coat hangers
78. Dozen permanent markers, in full rainbow bright colors
79. Bottle of hand sanitizer
80. Raggedy-Anne doll
81. Big, powerful magnet
82. Harmonica
83. Stack of Playboys, waterlogged and blurry
84. Black eyepatch, medical-grade
85. Super high-grade tactical cargo pants
86. Roll of paper towels, dry
87. A weird skull
88. Love letter
89. Windchimes
90. Pack of poker cards
91. REI gift card, $100
92. Six feet of 0.75" PVC pipe
93. Crucifix on a necklace
94. Sixer of light beer
95. Three $10,000 poker chips on a string
96. Small desk fan
97. A fucking sword
98. Athletic elbow- and knee-guards
99. A dozen granola bars
100. A strange radio that beeps out a single Morse code letter every dawn

Some entries (lovingly) stolen from Mothership, KISHU, and the Face gang. 

Big Wet Two: Equipment Boogaloo

 Continued from the first post.

This post is about stuff. Mostly gear. 

Remember that bullets are currency. I'll do an actual inventory rules-post at some point, but for now, assume the standard 10-12ish slots per person.

GIANT LIST OF WET WEAPONS

As we all know, blogger hates tables, so here's the table instead:

Here's the link to the PDF.

If you're unfamiliar with Mothership, here's a brief overview of the bits you might not understand:

• Underlined numbers are multiplied by 10. 2d10 has a range between 20 and 200. 
• Short range suffers no ill effects; medium range imposes a -10 penalty; long range imposes disadvantage
• [+] means advantage, [-] means disadvantage
• Crits are any double (11, 22, etc.)
• Automatic weapons fire in bursts. If you're trained in firearms, you get to use the (parenthesized) number, otherwise it's spray and pray. 
• An average person has about 60 health, give or take. That might go down for Big Wet.

Everything else on this table should be relatively self-explanatory. 

Some rules and stuff about guns:

1. Shooting a gun is a regular combat action.
2. Reloading is a regular combat action.
3. If you spend 30 seconds lying or kneeling down with your gun braced on something, taking careful aim, you can give yourself advantage on the next shot you take.
4. As established previously, guns generally don't mind getting wet, but firing underwater is essentially impossible.
5. Remember that bullets are currency, so all the costs listed are in bullets.

Some notes and thoughts about this table:

• Melee weapons are very cheap, and deliberately so. Fighting in melee is a messy, dangerous gamble, and in the Big Wet, there's no guarantee you can make it to your opponents without having to swim or wade through muck. 
• It lacks a lot of the common "improvised weapons" you see in apocalyptic settings (bricks, screwdrivers, bicycle chains, etc.), mostly because there are too many to list. If you need rules for those, I'd have them deal 1d10 by default, +1d10 if they take two hands, +1d10 if they have sharp or exposed edges. 
• Guns get pricey fast. This is also deliberate: post-apocalyptic settings don't often have much to work towards, and so I think having some visible-but-not-available rewards for players is a good thing. Also, they can just fucking shred people (and things...?), so they shouldn't be cheap.

GIANT LIST OF WET GEAR

And here's a big list of gear and equipment that you might use:

This is only the first page!

Most of this gear should be pretty self-explanatory. 

Tracking bullets, batteries, and slots I realize is extremely fiddly, but at the same time, this is a survival game: those kinds of small details really, really matter. You could maybe hack in Usage Dice (a la the Black Hack) for batteries and gasoline and stuff, but because bullets are currency, you really do have to track them. (On the flipside, you'll never have that many, so there's isn't much to track anyway!)

BIG WET FUTURE II

That's all I've got for now. Next time, I'll hopefully get to vehicles, food, and armor, all of which I have a few ideas for, but nothing 100% certain yet. 

Also, if there's interest, I might outsource some of this, and run a Big Wet Challenge for the good folks over on the spillway, in true GLOG style. 

Let me know, in any case. 

The Big Wet, a (post?) apocalyptic hack setting thing

Inspired by STALKER, Metro, Waterworld, that one BehindTheScreen post, some discussions on #glog-spillway, and a handful of other post-apocalyptic media. The phrase "the Big Wet" comes from the Wasteland graphic novel, which I know almost nothing about otherwise. The official soundtrack is anything by Protomartyr.

Also, I'm writing this on my old laptop, which likes to skip H's and add extra S's. So forgive that, please.

"Strange Places" by Artem Chebokha

THE BIG WET

About ten years ago, maybe fifteen or twenty, the world went to shit. Temperatures climbed higher, the ice caps melted, the sea levels, and the weather lost its head. Crops failed, coastlines flooded, cities were abandoned. At some point, the US of A invaded some country less than half its size, a missile or two got fired, and well, you know how that goes.

The important takeaways are this: most governments and nations are fragmented and gone. Lots and lots of valuable stuff is half-submerged in the ruins of the coastal cities. It never stops raining, and everything is always very wet.

WET WORLD

I'm working off of the rough assumption that the global average temperature rose about 4° C (which, relatively speaking, is a shitton), and essentially all of the ice caps have melted. Water levels rose about 30 meters, give or take. Plug that into floodmap.net, and choose a favorite coastal city: that's the main setting of your game. Use google maps to fill in the details.

There are still people around. Lots of them died, from dehydration or filthy water or being killed, but lots of them are still alive. They live in inland communes, overcrowded and more than a little lawless, but still very much kicking. Most towns and villages have kept their names; lots of infrastructure has failed (power grid, internet, most indoor plumbing), but the buildings are still there. Most cities are ruled by a combination of their pre-apocalyptic administrators, newly-risen leaders, and good old-fashioned warlords. 

(Way, way inland, up in the mountains, there are whole cities, fueled with coal and dams. They're where new manufactured goods come from, and it's where lucky people end up. You aren't one of those lucky ones, though, so those distant mountain cities are mere backdrop to the main game.)

Most crops do not very grow when it's raining all the time; all bodies of water have grown, reducing available arable land significantly. Fungi, insects, fruit that grow in wetlands, weird trash-fish—all staples of the modern diet. Water is harder to come by; most reservoirs are contaminated, and most rainfall is toxic. Communes either keep purifiers running around the clock, hoard well-water carefully and ration it, or risk disease and drink from the poisoned seas.

GETTIN' WET

(I'm hacking Mothership here; it's my go-to for more modern/non-fantasy systems, it's free, and I like the d100 for some of the stuff here. Most of these rules should translate relatively cleanly over to other OSR stuff, though.)

You have the same stats as normal. Roll-under. 

When you get wet, you add to your Wet score. When you roll the dice, you want to roll under your stat, but over your Wet score. If, say, your Strength is 35 and your Wet is (currently) 7, you would need to roll between an 8 and a 34 to succeed. Roll a 35 or higher and you fail, or roll a 7 lower and you fail. 

There are three basic states of "wetness:" damp, dripping, and drenched, from least-wet to most-wet. 

Being damp is just a little wet: standing in a drizzle with no overcoat, brushing across some waterlogged plants, getting sprayed with mist.

Being dripping is rather wet: falling into a puddle, standing in the rain in just your shirt and pants, getting water poured on you, catching some spray from a hose.

Being drenched is quite wet: swimming underwater, getting caught naked in a downpour, having a bucket of water dumped onto you, lying facedown in a deep puddle.

(You can also use these as a rough percentage: if your boots are full of water but the rest of you is dry, call that damp. If you wade waist-deep but your arms, head, and shoulders are totally dry, called that dripping. These are flexible categories.)

You don't need to track your gear to the same level of detail, but consider: if you spend several hours handling wet bags, rope, guns, and gear, you're going to get at least a bit damp yourself. Keeping your gear as dry as possible is important.

To add to your Wet score:

• For every hour spent damp, add +1 Wet
• For every hour spent dripping, add +2 Wet
• For every hour spent drenched, add +3 Wet

For every hour you spend completely, entirely dry, subtract 3 Wet. 

Generally speaking, clothes take about an hour per level of Wet to dry: damp takes an hour to dry, dripping takes two hours, drenched takes three. The exceptions to this are shoes, boots, and socks, which take two or three times that long (unless you take them off and let them hang, when socks go a bit quicker). If you strip down, you'll dry off in about half an hour. If you have a heat source, it takes ten minutes or less.

(If you're on a d20 system, gain Wet every 4-hour watch or maybe every day, rather than every hour. Everything else should carry over fine.)

WET GUNS, WET BULLETS

Bullets are currency. Paper money has long since rotted away, and you can't eat or drink with gold or jewels. The old world left behind lots of guns and plenty of bullets, though, so they have become the new de facto currency. 

All bullets, regardless of caliber or make, are worth the same. The deadlier bullets might seem more valuable, but A) their guns are rarer and harder to use, and B) deadlier isn't always more useful.

Exactly how into-detail you want to get with tracking and comparing calibers is up to you. If you want total realism you can use the big list; I personally will probably track 5-8 of the most common calibers and call it a day. You honestly don't even have to track caliber, if you don't want, and just hand-wave it to say that bullets are universal. This system will work fine regardless.

Point is, every shot counts. If you get in a gunfight, you're burning cash—both your own and your enemies'. Bullets are currency.

As for actual, like, gun stats, I'd just steal them from Mothership. Add in some more, if you need them, but they provide a good enough framework to be going on. (If you're on a d20, use Vayra's, or whatever else you want.)

Do guns work underwater? No, not really. It's not that the guns themselves don't work, just that the water resistance is too high. You can stick a gun in water and pull it out again and it will shoot fine, but literally shooting underwater is basically impossible.

BIG WET FUTURE

For the time being, that's everything I've got. In later installments (which are hopefully forthcoming), I'll dig into wet gear, wet vehicles, swimming wet, skills for wetness, and maybe some wet classes or strange wet artifacts.

If you were part of the discussions when I first was talking about this—or if it's caught your attention—feel free to come up with your own stuff.  

"Post-apocalyptic River" by Leo Nuutinen