The game system is a combination of freeform and Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying Quickstart free pdf for a minimalistic crunchy skeleton.

http://www.chaosium.com/basic-...ying-quickstart-pdf/

I will handle a lot of game mechanics behind the scenes with a combination of BRP rules from multiple sources, freeform decisions, and totally unjustified GM fiat.  This is to give me the flexibility to cover situations for which there aren't any rules and to help the story along instead of getting mired down by the consequences of dice rolls.

The play of this game will be a work in progress, so be prepared for inconsistencies.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:03, Thu 04 June 2015.

Player Character death may be handled as a 'defeat', according to GM discretion.  This means I may choose to think of a situationally-plausible way the character could survive and continue on in such a way that it contributes to the story.

Examples include lying wounded through a battle instead of being killed outright, getting knocked out and found later, getting captured which creates a rescue-themed mini-adventure, or something even less predictable, like having a floor break away underneath the character when the enemy is closing in for the kill, leading to a short solo adventure.

Having a character be defeated instead of killed is entirely up the the GM's discretion and character death won't be unusual in this dangerous post-apocalyptic setting.

List of House Rules, divided into two sections:  Basic Roleplaying and Freeform.

The purpose of these house rules is to keep a consistent list of ways I come up with to handle situations in play.

BASIC ROLEPLAYING

Character Creation:

Skill: Technology Use - This skill describes your character's familiarity with the technological devices common in the Old World.  It provides a basic understanding of how they work and how to operate them.

Character Starting Skill Limit - 70%, there will be improvement through play.

Character Profession - Pick 10 skills related to your character concept and divide 300 points between them.

Character Skill Freebie Points - Ask me on a case by case basis for freebie points to round out your character concept.

Knowledge Skills - You can have Knowledge skills about places, which represent your character's familiarity with the land, people, and situation in an area.  Examples include Knowledge (Bakersfield), Knowledge (Northern Death Zone), Knowledge (Santa Cruz).  Please make sure you have a sensible in character reason for having esoteric knowledge, because these all create adventure hooks like ripples in a pond.


FREEFORM

None yet.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:45, Tue 02 June 2015.

Work in progress, your patience is appreciated)


The Basics:

1.  Determine the Barter Value of a commodity. Barter Value = Value x Quality x Demand.

2.  Compare the Barter Value the commodities being offered to the Barter Value of the commodities being sold.

3.  If they are equal, or if the people involved agree, then they have a deal (Pass it over! Same time, man, same time!)



Value x quality x demand

Value:  A basic number I assign from my secret GM list, which represents the inherent value in a commodity.  The rarer something is, the more useful something is, and the effort it takes to produce something, the more expensive it is.  I will give PM hints to players when their characters would know something that they don't.  Characters can gain actionable information by asking around about what people or factions need.


Quality:  The usefulness of something.  Pre-war ammunition from a sealed bunker is expensive.  Rusted weathered pre-war ammunition has value only as scrap.  Newly cut lumber from the mountains has a much higher value than 40-year-old sun-bleached 2x4s that scavengers pulled out of a collapsed barn.  I will assign a number based of the PERCEIVED quality of something.  Skill rolls will affect this perception.


Demand:  How much the buyer wants something or how much the seller wants to keep it.  A trader with thousands of rounds of pre-war ammunition won't pay too much to get more.  A settlement with a deep well won't pay anything for water. I will determine how much demand an NPC or settlement has for any particular item.  The PCs of course make that determinations themselves.  Balance plays a big part.  People can't charge too much because then no one will buy.



Barter is the way business gets done from the Northern Death Zone to the ruins of Hell-A, and from the Sea to the Mountains.  There are no standard values or agreed-upon rates of exchange.

How much is a gallon of water worth to a man in the desert?  How much is a gallon of diesel worth to a stranded road warrior?  How much is a 200lb steel gear worth to an oil rig supervisor when he has to wait three months for Bakersfield to forge a new one?

Everything depends on what the buyer is willing to pay, what the seller is willing to accept, and who can kill who if the deal goes bad.  "The exchange of goods is mediated & regulated by violence and/or the threat of violence."
http://eclipsephase.com/running-game-whats-red-market

Many people don't even use standard measures, just something like "I'll give you this much of this for that much of that."



General Value Guidelines:

High Value:

Ammo
Guns
Fuel
Painkillers
Quality medicines, water purification tablets, etc.
Things people can use Right Now and have a need for Right Now.
Skilled trusted doctors
Horses
Trained labor animals
(Horses and labor animals are extremely rare because they died, got eaten or went feral.  Farming is labor intensive and done by people, with correspondingly lower crop yields.)


Pretty High

Manufactured Products (gears, parts, tools, tires, chain, rope, electrical wire, good pre-war clothes, shoes and boots, tech that works or can be easily made to work and is difficult to produce, like oil rig drill bits)
Water (highly situational; most settlements have a source, making the value meh or low)
Viable seeds
Medical services
Mechanical services
Known trusted skilled mercenaries/toughs
Pre-war medical supplies like medic instruments, sealed bandages, disinfectant
Well-made post-war specialty gear like a locally-crafted reproduction chainmail vest
Livestock like goats, pigs and cows
Trained working dogs
Pre-war pristine blank paper
Drinkable pre-war liquor



Valuable

Common pre-war items, like good plastic sheeting, springs, nails, bricks, concrete cut into blocks for use in new construction, empty bottles, and such.
Metal scrap
Animal products (skins, fat, meat, leather, fur/felt)
Personal intimacy services
Tradeskills
Trusted mercenaries/toughs
Well-made post-war gear and products, like a well-forged bowie knife, reproduction machine part, or well-made buckskin clothes.
Post-war paper
Pre-war books and art; things which remind people either what they've lost or what can be regained
Good firewood



Meh

Pre-war clothes with depictions of weird inexplicable characters.
Fruit, nuts, vegetables.
New post-war materials like lumber, nails, stone, textiles/wool/etc. Profitable in volume.
Beer
Useful plastic items (meh because they're so common)


Low

Personal intimacy services featuring Brattie
Unknown, rough looking people volunteering to be mercenaries/toughs
Post-war salvage like the moccasins off a dead vagabond
Wood scrap
Stone/concrete scrap
Rusted junk scrap
Plastic scrap
Pre-war things like plastic combs, knick-knacks and such
Rumors about The Big Score
Small plastic effigies of weird inexplicable characters which are worthless but still burn pretty well on a cold desert night.  Old Worlders must've loved these things because they're all over the place.


The value of scrap comes from the effort in going out and getting it.  The buyer can make a deal with the scavenger who braved danger and deprivation, or he can go out and get it himself.  Most people would rather make a deal.