The features do though... Also, the way positive dice are added hasd everything to do with the act at hand.

I fire a handgun (+1 positive), I am a crack shot (+1 positive), I am at close range (+1 positive), targett is stationary (+1 positive) all these positive dice come from a physical standpoint and could be used to cancel out the negative dice. It just seems weird to inflict mental stress from this roll.

In fact, it would seem highly detrimental to do so as there would be no way of reversing it. You would never inflict physical stress (or be less inclined to do so) for failing a social or mental test.

In your example, there are no negative dice.

None, that I wrote down. I was just making a point of the amunt of dice that would come from psoitive features that have to do with a characteristic (in this case physical) that might cancel out possible negatives.

As I said, something like this depends on common sense. I've seen people suggest using the Horrifying feature in a physical attack when Horrifying (to me) represents something more mental than physical. So if you do use Horrifying in a physical attack, why couldn't some or one point of stress be mental instead of physical?

I made a seperate roll for the horrifying quality, remeniscent of a fear check. It was rolled on the mental stats.

Was there something in my example which did not make sense?

• Joe is standing in the street when a group of three zombies round a corner and make for him. He pulls his pistol and starts firing. He's got a pistol, is a crack shot, and is aiming, so we will say he has 4 positive dice and a Dex stat of 3. The zombies are shambling, but are unrelenting and horrifying, so they give 2 negative dice. Total roll on positive dice is 5, 2, 2, 1. Total roll on negative dice is 4, 2. The 5 is over the stat so is eliminated. Two 2s from the positive and negative dice cancel each other out. But he does hit for 5 damage (2 successes + 3 pistol damage). But 1 negative die roll (4) is uncancelled. This could be applied as mental stress being that the zombies are still at range and thus described as Joe beginning to freak out as the get closer to him.

As I wouldn't use the horrifying feature as a setback in such a case I guess this example would never work as such in my game.

Next round, Joe (Dex 3) starts running for the door of the mall. Looking back, as he runs, he tries to continue shooting. Not able to aim, Joe is down to three positive dice (1 base, 1 pistol, 1 crack shot). The zombies are still coming (unrelenting) but he is running which will throw off his aim (1 negative die) for a total of 2 negative dice. Rolling he gets a 4 and two 3s on the positive dice and a pair of 4s on the negative dice. The 4s cancel each other out leaving a positive pair of 3s and one negative 4. As to the positive dice, I could run this as a normal hit (5 damage again) or (if using the head shot feature) have him take out a zombie with a head shot. As to the one negative die, it could be described as stumbling over debris while running inflicting a point of physical stress or more mental stress as the other zombies keep coming. Personally I'd go with the former as I think taking out a zombie would reduce the horror of the situation somewhat, but either works.

And here again is why I think this doesn't work. All dice here come from physical activities but the stress could be attributed to mental in this way. While it could be way more elegantly handled. By having the character get physical stress and then having to roll a mental test to see whether the shambling horde will mess him up mentally.

As I said previously, stress inflicted in a test is not tied to the trait being tested

I agree, but the outcome should be on that characteristic though. I might have a character shake and tremble in fear and add a negative dice to his shot because of the larger risk of hurting himself for instance.

My approach would be to roll more tests instead of combining them (which is basically what you are proposing.)

My approach would be to roll more tests instead of combining them (which is basically what you are proposing.)

See I would rather avoid adding more tests. I personally would rather keep things flowing and to a minimum. Rolling a physical attack followed by a mental attack seems like too much work when I can do the whole thing in one roll. But to each their own. As I say the more I delve the more I appreciate the nature of the system and its ability to adapt.

Oh, I agree it is.

Don't get me wrong, I see where you are coming from. I am not suggesting making roll after roll on the same thing. In fact, I had my players roll for the horrifying once and then only had the ones that didn't pass reroll it at the beginning of the next (combat) encounter, I figured that once they were no longer scared they wouldn't be phased by it the next time.

Are you however not scared that the stats for 4 out of 6 attributes will get a lot less millage in this way when you play it in that way Mouthymerc?

Are you however not scared that the stats for 4 out of 6 attributes will get a lot less millage in this way when you play it in that way Mouthymerc?

In what way will they get less mileage? Tests can still be made using any attribute for a variety of reasons. Fear checks, resilience, inspiration. Features can play a role in a variety of ways. We, as GMs, try to encourage players to use features in imaginative ways. We should do so as well. With common sense of course.

Unless you mean in some other sense.

Yeah, I do mean in some other sense indeed.

The whole mental capacity and especially the defensive value in the form of willpower is based on the dealing with horrific ****. By moving it over to the physical side of things I don't see any reason for the mental capabilities as a seperate stat any more.

By providing stress because of mental issues that you get from negative dice in a physical challenge you side step something that is way more interesting (at least in my opinion) what does fear, or absolute horror do to you mentally and why. By taking that roll out (as you imply doing yourself by saying "I would rather avoid more tests") and just tagging it onto the physical skillcheck you deprive your players one of the key elements of this game. Actual fear and experiencing it is what makes this game a different experience than most other RPG's if you ask me. "Am I mentally capable of dealing with such a thing?" "Can I stand my ground and shoot when a horde of undead is closing in on me?" "Will shooting an undead kid I used to run into scar me emotionally?"

Now, I know you never implied never rolling a check for these things and I am perhaps not giving you enough slack but it is a slippery slope in my opinion. This game is only 3 characteristics, subdivided into a total of 6 statistics. That's all.

I don't see the need to combine any of those stats.

And besides that the math in your example just doesn't quite work out.

I know a great way of dealing with this! Let's play on online game!

You, me, Venemous Filligree, 2 more from these boards and try each other's way...

I dont like the "take a physical test and suffer mental stress" thing. Ive posted my own example in many other threads "guy runs through building shooting zombies and hits doorpost." to justify giving him physical stress during his rolls.

Im all for rolling multiple willpower checks to see if the person cowers in fear, or is emotionally hurt for killing the zombie baby. But mixing stress and tests, I dont like it.

Not saying you cant do what you want to, but I think its simpler to keep it this way, didnt somebody make a thread about keeping rules simple?

As for using a NPCs positive features to give negative dice to a player. I am fine with this. If Im a kung fu master and you try and throw some punches at me (assuming Ive already made my attack against you and now its your turn) I think you should get negative dice because my own king fu skills. Same thing for zombies. If they are relentless, then they are relentless all the itme, not just when they attack.

Yeah, I do mean in some other sense indeed.

The whole mental capacity and especially the defensive value in the form of willpower is based on the dealing with horrific ****. By moving it over to the physical side of things I don't see any reason for the mental capabilities as a seperate stat any more.

If stress is inflicted and is unaffected by the characteristic, how does it devalue said characteristic?

Maybe show me your example of a Fear test so I can understand better where you are coming from.

And besides that the math in your example just doesn't quite work out.

How so?

I know a great way of dealing with this! Let's play on online game!

You, me, Venemous Filligree, 2 more from these boards and try each other's way...

If only I had the time. Barely have enough for the group I have now.

I know a great way of dealing with this! Let's play on online game!

You, me, Venemous Filligree, 2 more from these boards and try each other's way...

I'd love to play online, however I've no free time at the moment

I'd play online. I've never done it though. I did play by post once, years ago. But that's it.

Yeah, I do mean in some other sense indeed.

The whole mental capacity and especially the defensive value in the form of willpower is based on the dealing with horrific ****. By moving it over to the physical side of things I don't see any reason for the mental capabilities as a seperate stat any more.

If stress is inflicted and is unaffected by the characteristic, how does it devalue said characteristic?

Maybe show me your example of a Fear test so I can understand better where you are coming from.

As I showed earlier in my example if all positive dice come from physical aspects then it seems weird to put the stress from uncancelled dice in the mental field. The game is not just characteristics though it is also "features" which, again, only relate to the roll you make on the accompanying characteristic. Unlike characteristics features add dice (pos/neg) to the pool and are strictly adherent to one of the 3 fields of characteristics.

I could turn the question around. What use is the mental cap in your game?

An example? Okay, but I will keep this extremely 'light' though so not to make it too complicated.

Mary is in the middle of the street at a T-crossing. A group of 7 zombies shamble towards her and she lifts her pistol to shoot. The zombies are still at quite a distance away from her but she knows that nothing short of a headshot will stop them.

Her dice pool is made up of 1 standard positive die, +1 for her pistol, +1 for her crackshot feature making for a total of 3 positive dice. It is dark outside so that adds 1 negative die to the pool. She rolls against her dex (4) and the results are 2, 2, 5 postive dice and a 5 for the negative one. the negative one is cancelled out, leaving two two's and one zombie goes down with a giant hole in her head.

The horde however shambles onward and mary quickly reaims but before she lets of a shot she sees from the corner of her eyes that her shot has attracted another group of zombies from the side street. She is now set upon by a total of 12 zombies and they are edging ever closer. She feels her pulse rise and her DM tells her to roll for fear. Her dice pool is one positive (standard) and one negative from her feature of "responding badly to pressure" her GM gives her an extra positive for the headshot she just pulled off saying that "that must have boosted your confidence a bit."

She rolls on her Willpower (3) and the results are (pos) 1, 6 and her negative die comes up a 1 as well. She fails.

She doesn't dare stand her ground and shoot or if she does she adds more negative dice (depending on situation.)

She decides to stand and shoot but once she lines up her gun she recognizes one of the zombies as her cousin. I make her roll a social check, 1 positive, 1 negative for her feature "close family ties" and she rolls (empathy 2) her positive is a failure and her negative is a 4. She takes a hit to her social stress.

She aims the gun at the approaching zombies, 1 standard positive, 1 for the pistol, 1 for the crackshot and a negative for darkness and a negative for her trembling hands due to her failed fear check.

Her roll is; positive 2, 3 and 6 negative 5, 6

She injures one zombie but gets a point of stress from the recoil of the gun (her trembling hands were not up to the task of absorbing the .44.)

She turns and runs, the zombies following her in one large group now.

DanteRotterdam, on 26 Feb 2015 - 3:38 PM, said:

And besides that the math in your example just doesn't quite work out.

How so?

As I said the game works with 6 characteristics and is also heavily dependend on features. Now your dicepool doesn't hinge on how high your characteristics, as you said, but the dice that you adjucate to the roll do. They come from features and are situational (or should be) to the act at hand.

Therefor the higher the number of positive dice you might be granted from the pool they should be coming from the fact that has to do with the task at hand and thus the higher that number the more likely they are to cancel out any negative ones. Thus the actually roll you make on a check to, for instance, shoot a gun has a direct physical link to how many negative dice you might cancel out and thus increase (or decrease) the chances of you receiving stress.

It is a weird game in that way, I agree but it works really well if you keep it as simple as you can.

Hmmm, I see. I don't feel features are so definitely tied to the characteristics they are under. Some features I feel have broader applications and I want my players to be able to use their imagination when creating positive dice pools just as I will with negative dice. I like the fact that features on NPCs are just considered as positive or negative. May have to consider this for player characters (although I already do somewhat). This all swings back to some of the questions I was asking back when the game first came out. This would make a good discussion as well. I just don't see the need to tie stress to one characteristic. Even in your own example you took a mental result (from the failed fear check) and applied it as physical negative (shaking hands) in the next action (totally agree with it though as it works).

An idea like this may not be for everyone. And certainly I am not saying this is what is intended. I just don't agree that all stress is tied to certain characteristics in all situations. You can only stub your toe or bump into walls so much without looking like an idiot. If there is one thing that disappoints me in so much horror are the amount of clumsy people.

And out of curiousity...

She feels her pulse rise and her DM tells her to roll for fear. Her dice pool is one positive (standard) and one negative from her feature of "responding badly to pressure" her GM gives her an extra positive for the headshot she just pulled off saying that "that must have boosted your confidence a bit."

She rolls on her Willpower (3) and the results are (pos) 1, 6 and her negative die comes up a 1 as well. She fails.

She doesn't dare stand her ground and shoot or if she does she adds more negative dice (depending on situation.)

How would have adjudicated it if the negative die had come up a 4 instead? Successful with a point of stress but no shaking hands negative die? And how long does the negative die for shaking hands stay in place? A temporary negative feature?

Hmmm, I see. I don't feel features are so definitely tied to the characteristics they are under. Some features I feel have broader applications and I want my players to be able to use their imagination when creating positive dice pools just as I will with negative dice.

All good and well but that is definitely not how the game works and as I said before I appreciate the simplicity of the system to such an extend that I wouldn't cross over features and stats. Sure it might be realistic and even if something might add a positive die out of the Original characteristic at some point I would still only roll the stress on the characteristic it is rolled for, which imho further underlines my point that adjucating stress outside of the characterisitc rolled for seems unfair and convoluted.

Even in your own example you took a mental result (from the failed fear check) and applied it as physical negative (shaking hands) in the next action (totally agree with it though as it works).

Yeah, I did and think that is only natural to do. I however would have had stress adjucated to the mental aspect there and that was what we were talking about...

An idea like this may not be for everyone. And certainly I am not saying this is what is intended. I just don't agree that all stress is tied to certain characteristics in all situations. You can only stub your toe or bump into walls so much without looking like an idiot. If there is one thing that disappoints me in so much horror are the amount of clumsy people.

But isn't that exactly why those tiers are in place? You can stump your toe three times and after that it won't affect you and you only succumb to the really heavy stuff...

DanteRotterdam, on 27 Feb 2015 - 10:28 AM, said:

She feels her pulse rise and her DM tells her to roll for fear. Her dice pool is one positive (standard) and one negative from her feature of "responding badly to pressure" her GM gives her an extra positive for the headshot she just pulled off saying that "that must have boosted your confidence a bit."

She rolls on her Willpower (3) and the results are (pos) 1, 6 and her negative die comes up a 1 as well. She fails.

She doesn't dare stand her ground and shoot or if she does she adds more negative dice (depending on situation.)

How would have adjudicated it if the negative die had come up a 4 instead? Successful with a point of stress but no shaking hands negative die? And how long does the negative die for shaking hands stay in place? A temporary negative feature?

In the case of a stress but passing the test I would have had her take a point of stress from the horrific sight but not have her abilities of shooting a gun be impaired by it. She hardens up and loses a little bit of her humanity, her mental capacities left somewhat scarred. Simple and elegant as far as I'm concerned (it is not EotE where I have to come up with a threat/advantage every roll of course so that helps).

I would have fear be an issue for a long as the encounter lasted or if she would have scored another kill perhaps have her roll again with an added positive for her being more sure of herself after seeing she is able to pop those walkers. Don't forget we are GM's we make up **** on the fly all the time.

All good and well but that is definitely not how the game works and as I said before I appreciate the simplicity of the system to such an extend that I wouldn't cross over features and stats. Sure it might be realistic and even if something might add a positive die out of the Original characteristic at some point I would still only roll the stress on the characteristic it is rolled for, which imho further underlines my point that adjudicating stress outside of the characteristic rolled for seems unfair and convoluted.

I did say that I realize this may not be as intended. I don't see it as unfair or convoluted though. Just the natural result of certain conditions. I like fear checks. They wouldn't disappear because someone took some mental stress instead of physical.

But isn't that exactly why those tiers are in place? You can stump your toe three times and after that it won't affect you and you only succumb to the really heavy stuff...

Depends on how people play and adjudicate negative dice. Someone can still take 2 points of physical stress and have 1 point physical resistance and still stub their toe or can't handle the recoil. Sometimes I will adjudicate stress based on the situation. Just gives me more tools in my belt.

All good and well but that is definitely not how the game works and as I said before I appreciate the simplicity of the system to such an extend that I wouldn't cross over features and stats. Sure it might be realistic and even if something might add a positive die out of the Original characteristic at some point I would still only roll the stress on the characteristic it is rolled for, which imho further underlines my point that adjudicating stress outside of the characteristic rolled for seems unfair and convoluted.

I did say that I realize this may not be as intended. I don't see it as unfair or convoluted though. Just the natural result of certain conditions. I like fear checks. They wouldn't disappear because someone took some mental stress instead of physical.

Yeah, we will never get to see eye to eye on this. That much is true... I as a player however would very much feel like my GM "was doing it wrong" and I am pretty sure I would not enjoy playing the game in that way.

DanteRotterdam, on 27 Feb 2015 - 1:10 PM, said:

But isn't that exactly why those tiers are in place? You can stump your toe three times and after that it won't affect you and you only succumb to the really heavy stuff...

Depends on how people play and adjudicate negative dice. Someone can still take 2 points of physical stress and have 1 point physical resistance and still stub their toe or can't handle the recoil. Sometimes I will adjudicate stress based on the situation. Just gives me more tools in my belt.

Yeah, but I'd still rather pound a nail with hammer then with an iPod. Like I said we will never see eye to eye on this.

To me it just seems like a game of D&D where I fail a social check and lose hit points because of it.

On the other point, to me dice giving stress in the second tier will always be way more than 'stubbing a toe' it would be more like breaking one. That is the whole point of the tier system, you can neglect the smaller injuries and get into bigger problems. Heck, there is even a table in the book about this...

I guess it really comes down to how OFTEN you do the cross characteristic assigning of stress. While I do advocate for being able to cross assign stress, I am by no means saying that it has to be prevalent or even common. I'd reserve the right to do it at a climactic or thematic moment in the narrative.

For example, the team is standing in the mouth of an alley, having prepped a few rolling trash bins to form a shield wall, call over the zombies and as the zombies bump up against the makeshift barrier, the characters stab them in the head with knives paracorded to broom handles.... if a negative come here, then on of the knives comes undo and a character gets cut.

If, however, the players are rolling very poorly and it's time to up the RUN factor... the zombie hoard gets too big and starts to press through barrier. The characters now have to run to the far end of the dead end alley and climb their way out over slipper rain slicked brick wall. If they experience stress on the climb, I could easily say "you skinned a knee or cut an arm on the climb"... but if there are three characters and one is pretty banged up, I might want to throw them a bone and say "Charles, due to your already weakened physical state the climb is extremely taxing and as the first zombie arrives to grab your pants leg, the give one final grunt of effort. Take 1 physical from the climb, but also take one mental from the emotional strain of the almost being eaten alive".

Like I said, I can get behind doing it, but I by no means support it as a practice to be implemented regularly.

I can see where you are coming from (of course, I could also see where mouthymerc was coming from) and I guess it boils down to an to each his own cop-out.

In your example I don't think it is fair at all to hand out a mental strain when you don't allow a character to actively roll for it using the mental scores and features he made an effort to adjucate for himself. Why not have him roll one seperate test to see whether his mind could cope with it? I mean that is what he made those scores for, didn't he?

Let me make an example of how I went about such a situation.

My group of PC's were on their mopeds crossing a bridge into the city. Since the traffic coming out of the city totally jammed the other side of the bridge they were all of a sudden confronted by a car traveling straight at them driving extremely eratic and at high speed. The players rolled test trying to get out of the way of the car and eventhough all of them succeeded in escaping a crash one of them did fall down and rip up his leg quite a bit.

The car meanwhile plowed into one of the pillars of the bridge.

The player dusting off his clothes limped to the car and heared loud screams coming from inside the now burning vehicle. He dragged a woman from the car who was set upon be her now undead six-year old daughter still being restrained by her seatbelt. He passed all test to do so I made him roll a social check which succeeded with stress so he kept the woman in place but got stress watching her freak out when her zombie daughter burnt to a crisp in the car. A secundairy test will only add to the situation if done right, if you ask me.

Features can be used from different categories, that's up to the GM, RAW.

That is correct, but only if they impose an influence on the test at hand, which is based on one of the six capabilities.

I've been thinking this one through a bit. My current thought is to let players put the stress where they want, but if any stress is put into a different characteristic than the one being tested they must stop and convert all the stress (including accumulated stress from before) in that characteristic immediately into trauma. This trauma must otherwise fit the rules, e.g. it has to make narrative sense, and if the player can't come up with something on the spot then they can't do it.

So a person in a big argument with a lot of mental stress may take a point and put it into physical, narrating that they get so angry they punch a wall, spraining their wrist. That sort of thing.

-Jeff

If I needed another reason not to agree with the proposed ideas then Jaif's post nailed it.

Stop trying to fix something that isn't broken....

That's ok. I wasn't trying to convince anyone, just discuss it.

Then he/she overcomes this paralyses, turns and flees (something I as a GM would never do is force my player to move as you do in your example.

Interestingly it looks like the rules endorse this sort of behaviour:

With a failure, however, a PC might immediately run screaming, collapse into a quivering ball, or vomit in fear. In instances of mortal terror such as this, it is ok to narrate some involuntary actions the PC is taking, as temporary loss of control can be one of the results.

An example? Okay, but I will keep this extremely 'light' though so not to make it too complicated.

Mary is in the middle of the street at a T-crossing. A group of 7 zombies shamble towards her and she lifts her pistol to shoot. The zombies are still at quite a distance away from her but she knows that nothing short of a headshot will stop them.

Her dice pool is made up of 1 standard positive die, +1 for her pistol, +1 for her crackshot feature making for a total of 3 positive dice. It is dark outside so that adds 1 negative die to the pool. She rolls against her dex (4) and the results are 2, 2, 5 postive dice and a 5 for the negative one. the negative one is cancelled out, leaving two two's and one zombie goes down with a giant hole in her head.

The horde however shambles onward and mary quickly reaims but before she lets of a shot she sees from the corner of her eyes that her shot has attracted another group of zombies from the side street. She is now set upon by a total of 12 zombies and they are edging ever closer. She feels her pulse rise and her DM tells her to roll for fear. Her dice pool is one positive (standard) and one negative from her feature of "responding badly to pressure" her GM gives her an extra positive for the headshot she just pulled off saying that "that must have boosted your confidence a bit."

She rolls on her Willpower (3) and the results are (pos) 1, 6 and her negative die comes up a 1 as well. She fails.

She doesn't dare stand her ground and shoot or if she does she adds more negative dice (depending on situation.)

She decides to stand and shoot but once she lines up her gun she recognizes one of the zombies as her cousin. I make her roll a social check, 1 positive, 1 negative for her feature "close family ties" and she rolls (empathy 2) her positive is a failure and her negative is a 4. She takes a hit to her social stress.

She aims the gun at the approaching zombies, 1 standard positive, 1 for the pistol, 1 for the crackshot and a negative for darkness and a negative for her trembling hands due to her failed fear check.

Her roll is; positive 2, 3 and 6 negative 5, 6

She injures one zombie but gets a point of stress from the recoil of the gun (her trembling hands were not up to the task of absorbing the .44.)

She turns and runs, the zombies following her in one large group now.

OK, I agree with this example, as far as it goes. Now here is where I think Dante and I part company, let us suppose that Mary decides to shoot at her now zombie cousin. 1 positive base, +1 for pistol, +1 for crack shot. -1 for darkness, -1 for shaking hands (due to failed fear check, but could just as well be responding poorly to pressure), -1 for strong family ties (she has to shoot her cousin). 3 positive dice and 3 negative dice. I probably would not have her roll the social check on recognizing her cousin.

"Strong family ties" could easily be a positive feature in other circumstances. Mary has an uncle who lives nearby and will take the group in and give them support. +1 positive die for trying to bargain with him for supplies.

-1 for strong family ties (she has to shoot her cousin). 3 positive dice and 3 negative dice. I probably would not have her roll the social check on recognizing her cousin.

"Wrong" use of the feature.

"Strong family ties" could easily be a positive feature in other circumstances. Mary has an uncle who lives nearby and will take the group in and give them support. +1 positive die for trying to bargain with him for supplies.

"Right" use of the feature.

You gave her a negative die for this feature and required a Social check when seeing her zombie cousin, but you are saying the same feature gives a possitive die for bargaining with her uncle. Can the same feature be both positive and negative for the same character?

As for telling me I am playing the game "wrong" did you write it? Do you have a direct line to the developer? I have been playing and GMing since the 70s, I consider that extensive experience with RPGs. I am also a published (as in for money) RPG author and artist. My players enjoy my games. In the case of Zombie Apocalypse I think we are both working off the same rulebook. To say that I am playing it "wrong", well cite me some pages... Otherwise it is "different" but not a priori "wrong". The RAW seem to be quite vague and open to widely varying interpretations. When they are even cited in these discussions.