Form-Fillable version to come in the following days. The current non-fillable PDF version of this document can be found by clicking this link .

EDIT: The first page is vital to understanding the alterations made to the characteristics, as it details what changes were made and why, as well as offering some suggestions for which tests are governed by which characteristics. While these changes may seem to over-complicate such a simplistic system, it took a player who had never played an RPG before this one less than 5 minutes to understand. Thanks, and if you're interested in playing with this ruleset, Enjoy!

Maybe you're not here to solicit critiques but these are my thoughts...

1. In my experience you don't see that much disparity between players' stats. 3-4 is the only differences I've seen in Agility, and 2-4 for anything else. So there's not really a great power disparity.

2. It increases, and fundamentally changes from vanilla, bookkeeping on what is meant to be a very minimalistic, simple system. For something meant for one-shots, why would 99% of people want to use something more complicated, that no one else is gonna be able to help them on if they want to learn about the system?

3. Making Mental and Social attributes as valuable to the story as Physical is completely within (and incumbent upon) the ZMs control.

4. Movement checks, as defensive/not offensive actions, are just fine being Vitality-linked. Only if you get caught up by semantics is it a problem.

5. The difference in how a melee vs. missile attack plays is represented/accounted for just fine by the risk it exposes you to, and the difficulty of the attack.

Maybe you're not here to solicit critiques but these are my thoughts...

1. In my experience you don't see that much disparity between players' stats. 3-4 is the only differences I've seen in Agility, and 2-4 for anything else. So there's not really a great power disparity.

2. It increases, and fundamentally changes from vanilla, bookkeeping on what is meant to be a very minimalistic, simple system. For something meant for one-shots, why would 99% of people want to use something more complicated, that no one else is gonna be able to help them on if they want to learn about the system?

3. Making Mental and Social attributes as valuable to the story as Physical is completely within (and incumbent upon) the ZMs control.

4. Movement checks, as defensive/not offensive actions, are just fine being Vitality-linked. Only if you get caught up by semantics is it a problem.

5. The difference in how a melee vs. missile attack plays is represented/accounted for just fine by the risk it exposes you to, and the difficulty of the attack.

Always here for critiques! Some responses:

1. True. However, the difference between a 2 and a 4 is a substantial 33% increase, which is made even more monumental when consistently making tests for the most common actions: attacking and moving. The guy who has a very high Dexterity, even after voting, is testament to this. Under the previous mechanics, he was making almost every attack with every weapon and succeeding almost all his movement checks. Under the new system, he may still be better at moving (to make his Agility tests), but also needs to decide whether he is a better overall athlete (to make his Strength tests to attack with heavy weapons) or is more coordinated with his hands (to make his Dexterity tests to attack with light weapons). This change is also not uncommon, as most RPG's have similar diversification for attacks.

2. I have to strongly disagree, it does not make the system substantially more complicated. It does expand on a couple things, sure. It may make the game mildly more advanced and (yes), even somewhat more complex. But all it really does is move a few attacks around so that people with different strengths are not ENTIRELY left in the dust. Yes, it is an apocalypse game. It is also an RPG.

Also, I have a player in my group who's first experience EVER playing an RPG is this game. All the other players are generally range from seasoned player to mildly experienced. The group had unanimously agreed that the characteristics seemed somewhat imbalanced. After these changes, the group unanimously agrees (including the girl who has never played an RPG before) that the changes feel much smoother, and were extremely easy to pick up and play.

3. True. However, unless the campaign being played is strictly a psychological horror of some kind or players are consistently being socially traumatized due to betrayal of some kind, Physical will ALWAYS retain a significantly greater amount of stress and trauma than Social and Mental. Ultimately, the apocalypse does not generally mean the entire population has gone insane or nihilistic, the entire population is physically dead. Merging the Mental and Social means greater stress on the mind and soul together.

4. True. This game is very much written to be open to interpretation, and you could theoretically use willpower to run instead of Vitality, and Dexterity to open locks instead of Logic. However, there is only so much leniency when it comes to realism as a game element, as one cannot pick pockets by persuading the pocket. It is much more believable that Strength might dictate a heavy weapon's sluggish bash, while Dexterity might more accurately portray a light weapons swift strikes.

5. Not really sure what you're saying here. All tests are represented by the risk it exposes you to, via the Negative dice/damage. If you are referring to the melee/missile variation in my revised characteristics, it is simple: heavy melee/ranged weapons require strength, while light melee/ranged weapons require dexterity. Obviously, this is also open to interpretation. You could base them all on Insight since you need to perceive the enemy to hit it. Or maybe make guns based on Agility rather than Dexterity.

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Ultimately, we have found these alterations to work wonders, and EOTW is a simple enough game where changes like these can be implemented without any real issues. The game is still very simple, as even our brand-new-to-RPG's players could understand them almost immediately. If you like them, you are more than welcome to use them! If not, feel free to complain and critique all you like, I definitely take all into consideration.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely get what and why you're doing it. And I've obviously made some significant house-rules myself fort his system, I just think your rules will alienate people because it's not built off the system, it makes a new one.

And that's my main point with #2. It's not that it's particularly more complicated (though it is), but that you're changing the fundamentals of the system. Part of the great thing about RPGs is if you know a rule-set you can go anywhere, join any group, and play with them, seamlessly. Your changes alter the basic structure of multiple aspects of the game, to "fix" things that may not be broken. At least not in the way you're proposing. You've made your houserules incompatible with the way anyone else might play the game. Does that make sense?

Why not keep the same system, just make Melee Vitality linked? No one would have to have anything explained to them about new stats and new stress and new death. Just; "I do melee through VIT." Like you said, I don't have a dog in this race - except - as a member of this systems gaming community, so I do have a stake in how the rest of the community views and implements (or refuses to in your case) the base system.

So ultimately, I guess my posts are more to let any newcomers see that there is much more to this to consider beyond "It needs to be like D&D.", because it doesn't, it plays well IME, as is.