Resilience

Resilience is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game where the action revolves around a community adapting to a changing world. Players take on the role of community members who face both personal danger and ongoing threats to their way of life. Beyond mere survival, communities can become more sustainable as they adapt to these challenges.

Resilience requires a game master (GM) and several players. This game can be easy to GM because it does not require a lot of preparation. Players can help design the community and the events that threaten the community are selected randomly.

Create Your Characters

Each player creates a player-character (PC) using the Scratch Role-Playing System. Each PC has 10 CP and a maximum level of 4. Consider playing a character based on yourself. Each PC is a member of the same community, but each PC should have a different career so that their interests sometimes conflict with each other.

TODO: career format

• career name
• description? optional?
• combat role (attack, defense, support, strategy)? optional?
• required abilities
  • attack abilities (fighting, wrestling, knockout, shooting or blasting)
  • defense abilities (toughness, quickness, acrobatics)
  • support abilities (healing, command, craftsmanship)
  • usually one of each type (attack, defense support), but sometimes 0 or 2
  • sometimes multiple choice (fighting or wrestling, command or craftsmanship)
  • only 1 level of each ability is required by any career
  • description? optional?
• community project(s)?

TODO: list of careers

• farmer
• business owner
• landlord
• doctor
• parent
• soldier
• engineer
• teacher
• builder
• sheriff
• wealthy investor
• mechanic
• entertainer

Create Your Community

The success of a resilient community can be measured by how well it maintains the three pillars of sustainability ("the three E's") as the future unfolds: a prosperous Economy, healthy Environment, and social Equity. Each of these is represented as a defense number. Attacks that threaten the economic, environmental or social health of your community must roll equal to or greater than that number to succeed.

The players have 30 points to divide between the community's economy, environment and equity. All of the defenses must be at least 5, and none can be more than 15. An average, well-balanced community has 10 economy, 10 environment, and 10 equity.

Consider modeling your the community after the real place where the players live.

If you have time, let players propose and discuss what the community's defenses should be. This can be an opportunity for the players to view the community from the perspective of their PC persona and his or her career. If you are in a hurry, the GM should decide what the three defenses should be, or just start with the average 10 for each defense.

Economy

A community with a prosperous economy is flexible, connected and launches projects quickly. This is your community's defense against emergencies, breakdowns, sabotage and bankruptcy.

Environment

A community with a healthy environment can provide for itself while guaranteeing the same advantages to future generations. This is your community's defense against attrition, biological hazards and sieges.

Equity

A community with social equity enjoys fairness and respect between community members of all classes. This is your community's defense against demoralization, propaganda and psy-ops.

Example Communities

New Manchester

15 economy: factories

5 environment: pollution

10 equity: uncomfortable tension between unions and management

Happy Bunny Commune

3 economy: struggling to stay afloat

20 environment: perfect harmony with the Earth

7 equity: constant bickering between vegans and vegetarians

Events

Randomly select an event which challenges your community this year. Events can affect everything else that happens during the year. They can also have permanent effects on a community.

TODO: event format

• permanent effects (economy, environment, equity damage)
• temporary effects (combat, ability and project modifiers)
• story, roleplaying and description
• decision trees
• GM rolls against the community's defenses
• PC rolls against the event

TODO: list of events

Encounters

During the event or it's aftermath, the PCs participate in an encounter which can involve action and combat. The outcome of the encounter will have a bigger effect on the individual PCs than their community.

TODO: encounter format

TODO: list of encounters

Character Development

PCs who survive the encounter have an opportunity to improve themselves with greater status, resources, experience and training if the encounter has a favorable outcome. Players who lost their PCs can now replace them with new PCs.

TODO: character development options

Community Development

After the encounter and character development, the community responds to the event confronting them this year. Using their PCs as personas, the players decide how the community responds.

Players take turns talking. Players should not talk unless it is their turn. If players ask other players questions, the answers to those questions should wait until the other players turns.

Projects

After each player has had at least 1 turn to talk, any player can start a project on his turn. After a player starts a project, every player must do a project on his turn until all of the players have finished their projects.

• If there is only one player, he does four large projects.
• If there are two players, each player does two large projects.
• If there are three players, each player does two small projects.
• If there are four players, each player does one large project.
• If there are five players, each player does one medium project.
• If there are six or seven players, each player does one small project

Each project can develop or sacrifice levels of economy, environment or equity. A project cannot develop and sacrifice the same defense. If a project develops the community's economy, it cannot also sacrifice the community's economy. If a project sacrifices the communities equity it cannot also develop the community's equity. Each project must develop at least 1 level of a defense. Projects do not have to sacrifice any defense. Projects cannot sacrifice more levels of any defense than the current value of that defense.

• Large projects can develop up to 5 total levels of defense.
• Medium projects can develop up to 4 total levels of defense.
• Small projects can develop up to 3 total levels of defense.
• Projects cannot sacrifice more total levels than they develop.

The difficulty of a project is 7 + 2 × the number of levels developed - 5 × the number of levels sacrificed. When a project succeeds the development levels are added to the defenses developed and the sacrifice levels are subtracted from the defenses sacrificed. When a project fails, the sacrifice levels are subtracted from the defenses sacrificed but no defense levels are gained.

TODO: project ideas - post-apocalyptic industrialization, DIY, low tech, old tech, human power, steam power, aerial rope transport...

Evaluation

If the players worked together and developed creative projects that could work, the GM gives their community 2 bonus levels of one defense or 1 bonus level of two defenses. If the players did not communicate well or had trouble coming up with good projects, the GM gives their community 1 bonus level of one defense.

The GM should assign the bonus levels to the defense that reflects the players behavior and the design of their project. If the players demonstrate a lot of concern for their community's environment, give them a bonus to their environment defense. If the projects are all designed to make money, give them a bonus to the community's economy. If the players work well together and show concern for the people of their community, give them an equity bonus.

Community Development Example

Adam, Brian, Cynthia and David take turns discussing their community's needs. On Adam's second turn, Adam discusses some concerns that Brian brought up on his turn. On Brian's second turn, Brian says that he is still trying to think of a good project.

On Cynthia's second turn she decides to cut down all the trees on her property. This will provide her with clear fields of fire if raiders attack, and she can sell the wood, benefiting the community's economy. Four players can do large projects that develop and sacrifice up to 5 levels of defense, so Cynthia sacrifices 4 levels of environment to develop 5 levels of economy. The difficulty of this project is -3 (7 + 2 × 5 developed - 5 × 4 sacrificed.) Cynthia cannot roll less than 1, so the project is automatically successful. The community gains 5 levels of economy and loses 4 levels of environment.

Now that one of the players has started a project, each player must do a project on their turn until each player has finished their projects.

On David's second turn he decides to plant some trees to protect the town from the erosion and flooding that will surely result from Cynthia's clear-cutting. David decides to rely on volunteer labor so he does not need to sacrifice any economy or equity. He plans to develop 5 levels of environment. The difficulty is 17 (7 + 2 × 5 developed - 5 × 0 sacrificed.) David rolls 14, which is not enough. "I guess no one wants to help me plant trees." The community does not lose anything because nothing was sacrificed, but the community does not gain anything because the project was not successful.

On Adam's third turn, he decides to salvage David's tree-planting project by selling rights to eventually harvest the trees to wealthy investors, sacrificing 1 level of equity to develop 2 levels of environment and 1 level of economy. The difficulty is 8 (7 + 2 × 3 developed - 5 × 1 sacrificed.) Adam rolls 8, which is just barely enough to succeed. The community loses 1 level of equity and gains 1 level of economy and 2 levels of environment.

Brian decides the town lacks community spirit because everyone is unemployed and rich "fat cats" are sitting on the community's wealth. On his third turn, Brian takes over an abandoned factory and runs it as a worker cooperative with other people who used to work at the factory. To make sure the business is successful the workers contribute all of their personal savings and equipment to the new business. He sacrifices 1 level of environment and 2 levels of economy to develop 4 levels of equity. The difficulty is 0 (7 + 2 × 4 developed - 5 × 3 sacrificed.) Brian cannot roll less than 1, so the factory takeover is successful. The community loses 2 economy and 1 environment and gains 4 equity.

After Brian's third turn, every player has completed their projects. The GM likes the way the players worked together to limit the environmental impact of Cynthia's project and used the resulting economic recovery to re-open the factory, so he awards the community 1 level of equity and 1 level of environment.

Success

Choose a new event and a new encounter for each year, followed by the year's character development and community projects. The game is finished when time runs out, the community reaches a sustainability goal (at least 15 economy, 15 environment and 15 equity?) or the community fails (hitting 0 economy, environment or equity?)