Extinction Dev-log & Thoughts

Hello all! 

I wanted to go over the thought process of why I chose to go with “dice rolled stat generation” instead of the “point buy/bonus damage system” I had used previously & that was used in 1st edition Realms of Elghrune.

I have spent quite a lot of time with the Realms systems & the Extinction system. While they are not exact 1:1 copies of each other, they were definitely neighbors. Maybe even closer, maybe they were room mates. However, with an epic fantasy game it works exceptionally well. In my future games I choose to develop using this system there’s actually not much that I’ll change.

When it came to Extinction, it’s designed for conventions & one-shots. Maaaaaybe limited run play. Something akin to Mothership or Mork Borg, or even early D&D. The point buy just felt kinda…flat for it. Especially knowing that it wasn’t really going anywhere in a long-term play scenario. While I admire early D&D as well as Mork Borg, I just wasn’t 100% sold on making it a straight rip off of those either. 

So I took what I liked & attempted to make it simple to explain. I came up with a way I thought would work, and then began playtesting it & compared it to what kinds of characters that players have made at my table in the past. It felt better nearly immediately. I also think introducing the possibility of negative modifiers makes for interesting gameplay in a brutal game like Extinction.

And then I began to look at the perk system. One thing I had began to develop earlier this year was Backgrounds for Survivors to help encourage roleplay. That being said, the way it originally worked was that players would pick a perk & “maybe” they would get to use it. This often just ended up getting overlooked by players and was barely used in-game. After much thought I decided to merge them & edit them to have more synergy with the other when originally they were two different systems.

So I made the backgrounds have abilities that would actually get used in the course of a one-shot, and then put it on a random roll table. I mean honestly, wouldn’t a zombie apocalypse culminate into super diverse groups of people trying to use their skills from the “world before” to survive? 

So far I’m enjoying the changes & would love to know your thoughts! 

Remember, we’re all edible in the Extinction. Until next time!

Cory, Gridlock Studios