Vive la Resistance!: Introducing the Rabbit Resistance

[Jay Turner]

Here's another game I've been working on, and this one's quite different from Better Days. It's nowhere near finished, but it's at least ready for discussion, I think.

Here's the intro from the PDF:

They were once innocent, like you and me. Precious children of Mother Nature, they romped, played, and killed and ate according to their natures without a care in the world. Now they recognize the way they once were when they were the ignorant whelps they now call "Bitches."
To the Resistance, their Bitch days are sources of both nostalgia and anger. Before they knew torture and cruelty, they knew only bliss, existing as part and parcel of Nature's design. That was before they were taken and forced into a life of cruelty in the labs of the evil corporation, Mancorp.

You and your friends take on the role of members of the Rabbit Resistance, bunnies who've become cynical, jaded, and most importantly, sentient. They've traded their romping gaits for automatic weapons and their carefree attitudes with homicidal tendencies. They've been poked, prodded, and tortured all their aware lives, and now they're fed-up and ready to party.

Free the Bitches. Kill the humans. Eff The Man. Do it all, because it's you or them.

The spirit of the game is a mostly Gamist and somewhat competitive (mostly players vs. GM). You and the other players are rabbits who've gained sentience through the cruelty and constant torture you've endured in Mancorp's animal-testing facility. One player takes the role of The Man and is at once the GM and the scapegoat for the corporation. The whole idea is to get rabbits into situations in which they'll want to pull out giant guns or huge bludgeoning weapons and make tons of people, rats, and other stuff go splat while they're on their mission to screw the corporation.

Characters
Characters are made by dividing 12 points among five Traits: Beef, Brains, Grease, Face, and Violence. Those are pretty self-explanatory; Beef is physical strength and toughness, Brains is mental ability, Grease is physical and mental speed and agility, Face is social ability, and Violence is the ability to dish out great heaps of violence.

Once you have your Traits, you must choose Skills. You get 3 Skill points for every point in a Trait (Beef 3 gets you 9 points for Beef-related Skills), and you use those to create your own Skills and rate them. Players may create whatever skills they want, subject to the GM's approval. If you want to have "Kill Everyone In Slow-Motion Like In The Matrix" as a Violence skill, go for it. You may also use Skill points to buy Powerz, which are special abilities your Bunny has as a result of the testing he endured. The trick there is that each power must have a background ("They used me for testing the waterproofness of electrical devices, and so I can hold my breath forever underwater and can charge myself with electricity") and some sort of limitation ("There must be a shaggy rug nearby for me to charge myself up on").

That done, you figure out your Breath (your highest Trait x 10), your Eff Points (always start at 3), and your Awesomeness. The latter is, essentially, a description of how awesome your character is, and it's usually something like, "Can breathe ninjas" or "can tear off girls' clothing by looking at them." These things aren't really true; they're just things other bunnies might say about you, like the legend-montage in Braveheart. You get one sentence describing your Awesomeness at the beginning. Awesomeness really doesn't do much, other than give other rabbits something to say about you when you're not around.

System
To play, you need a ton of d6s. When you make a check, roll a d6 pool equal to your Trait + any relevant Skill you might have, and note any matches. Look for doubles. Doubles of any number 3 and up are successes, with the number on the die counting as the degree of success. Triples count as if it were a double of the next number higher than the number on the dice (a triple 4 counts as a double 5), and quadruples can count as a double two points higher or as two separate sets of doubles (a quad-4 can be either a double 6 or two double 4s). Contested rolls compare the number of doubles, and in a tie, the character with the higher number in the doubles wins.

Combat works in a similar way. You roll a separate Initiative roll, and then roll to hit. You may give up your action to defend, but if you don't, there's no "passive defense." Damage is figured by taking the number on the successful double and multiplying that by the weapon's Damage Rating. That damage comes out of your character's Breath pool, and if that pool drops to 0, you're unconscious. The person taking the damage has the option of taking Trait damage instead of Breath, by losing a point of a Trait for every 10 Breath points he would have taken. If so, he loses points from whatever Trait the attacker used to attack him. Breath damage heals in between scenes, but Trait damage remains until the character learns a point in a Skill relevant to that Trait.

You advance in stats in a few ways. Skills raise through use; When you use a skill, take note of any 6s you roll. If you rolled 6s greater than or equal to (your current level of the skill) + 1, that skill goes up 1 point. This also restores any damage to the relevant Trait by 1 point, too. Skills at 0 (unlisted skills) may rise to 1 if you roll a double 6 in a task for which you have no skill listed.

You improve in Traits by spending 10 Eff Points. More on those below.

Awesomeness improves whenever you do something that makes someone say, "Dude, that was awesome", or when you defeat an opponent, lago y lago, who has an Awesomeness of his own. In such a case, the loser gives up a sentence of Awesomeness to the winner.

Eff Points are the heart of the attitude and competition in the game. They give you the power to veto a single call made by The Man. If The Man makes a decision you don't like, you may spend an Eff Point and say, "Eff that." The Man cannot dispute that, though he can goad you into spending your Eff Points with silly things. For 10 Effs, you can raise a Trait by one or take over the privileges of The Man for a scene by saying, "I'm da Man." You recover Eff Points by sabotaging (or "Effing") the corporation. Destroying a huge computer mainframe, for example, might get the group 10 Eff Points to split up among them.

Setting:
The game takes place in the animal testing facility of the infinitely large teracorp, Mancorp, Inc. The facility tests everything you'd imagine possible, from anti-aging creams to the effects of the Wild West on nail polish. Since the place is infinitely large, setting can range from your average lab to Outer Space, as long as that setting can be said to be actually testing something on animals. The Rabbit Resistance exists to sabotage the company and to free imprisoned animals, but what most of them really want is to create huge amounts of violence and gore and pain.

Humans are ignorant, for the most part, of the Resistance, and they're mostly made up of security guards, scientists, janitors, etc. Other animals tend to be non-sentient as a rule, and include guard dogs and other animals used in testing. Some animals have also been made sentient, though, mostly rabbits and rats. Rats work on the side of The Man, and while a horde of non-sentient rats will fall to a single Bunny with an AK-47, the average Rat (capital "R") would possibly take out five or six Bunnies at once.

Since the company is infinitely huge, there's no hope of escape for our heroes. They must find some other drive for their mission, and that's usually simply to commit huge amounts of violence.


I have posted a PDF of the game here. The PDF is quie unfinished, and right now it includes the Bunny Clans, an idea I'm considering tossing out completely. The setting info is also incomplete, and I'm missing a table for weapon damage ratings.

Please, feel free to download the PDF if you like. Any and all feedback on the game is welcome.

Thanks!

[Fallen_Icarus]

I love it!

I must admit though, the idea of a sentient rabbit being able to rip the clothes off of girls by looking at them is mildly disturbing.

EVH

[ethan_greer]

I like the flavor and tone.  Well done there.  The system kinda leaves me with no impression.  It seems like it would work, but nothing really grabs me about it.  I do like your chosen stats.

One question:  Do you read Sluggy Freelance?  If not, why not?  Specifically, there's a badass rabbit in it named Bun Bun.  This game reminds me of him.

P.S. I don't like the clans, and I doubt the game would suffer from their absence.

[Jay Turner]

I love it!

I must admit though, the idea of a sentient rabbit being able to rip the clothes off of girls by looking at them is mildly disturbing.

EVH

Thanks!

The "ripping clothes off" thing isn't so much a power as an explanation of how "awesome" the Bunny is. As in, "Dude, you're so awesome you shoot staples from your eyes." Dumb stuff people will say they heard about you, even though it isn't true, just because you're so damn awesome. :)

I like the flavor and tone. Well done there. The system kinda leaves me with no impression. It seems like it would work, but nothing really grabs me about it. I do like your chosen stats.

One question: Do you read Sluggy Freelance? If not, why not? Specifically, there's a badass rabbit in it named Bun Bun. This game reminds me of him.

P.S. I don't like the clans, and I doubt the game would suffer from their absence.

I was really hoping the flavor/tone would go over. I never know if I've gone too flavor-y in the system text or not.

The system is one I like, because it works. I really want a system that has big dice pools and big damage numbers, and one that handles multiple attacks fairly well, without being too hard to explain. This game just wouldn't feel right with a roll-one-die-over-a-stat system, for example. I want players to feel "awesome" when they get ready to roll dice, and dice pools always seem to do that for me--especially great big dice pools. I'm hoping that the flavor and the subversive tone of the game might excuse the huge dice pools that you'll eventually end up with.

That said, the system can certainly change. If I can find some way to simply approximate the amount of sheer violence in the average VLR fight and have it work better, then I'll use that. Maybe I'll start another thread for system advice. :)

Oh, and I don't like the Clans, either. Originally they were a dish on White Wolf, and a bit of a template system, but I could never make them work. Unless someone speaks in their favor in the next couple days, I'm gonna kill them.

Any other feedback on the PDF?

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings Jay Turner,

Initial impressions are hard to summarize for this one.  The premise is, well, hard to phathom.  At some points I was expecting the text to go one way but it took a short walk off a long pier into an maelstrom of churning chainsaw confusion.  As a parody, the game needs work.  Otherwise there is also potential to turn this into the poster RPG game-child for PETA, or something, maybe.  *nervous laughter*

At times I was reminded of a bit of farce you can find in a search here posted a while back but mostly your choice of terms for the Traits kept grating on me.  They just don't evokve "rabid bunnies wielding weapons of mass destruction" like they. . .  should?  could?

Also, at times, I found myself wishing I had a copy of Bunnies & Burrows to compare this to.  But I don't, so that's that.

To summarize: whatever direction you decide to take this project in I'd suggest that you consider renaming the Traits to terms more evocative of who and what the characters are.  (If that is even possible.)

Any other feedback on the PDF?

Yes.

Portions of it do not match up with the text that you posted.  (viz. Brains/Noggin?)

The "clans" idea is. . . well. . . . . egads!

At some points it seemed like you were attempting to link them directly to Traits, at others I detected a bit of tongue-n-cheek.  You may want to block copy (IE: cut & paste) it out to a work file and concentrate on the rest of the material.  Then, rather than go back to the file, start over.  I've found that problem sections of games, if you just start over, then compare what your second attempt has with your original effort, tends to 1) help you see which ideas were solid and, 2) make for a more fully developed final premise.  More or less.

Much luck!


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[Mike Holmes]

Also, at times, I found myself wishing I had a copy of Bunnies & Burrows to compare this to.  

Yeah, seems to me to be something like B&B meets The Rats of NIMH, mixed with the themes from the game Zero.

Mike

[Jay Turner]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Kester, this is a very early PDF I put together so I'd have something to refer people to when I bring up the system or some other aspect for discussion. The tone/text flow/etc. aren't final, but I definitely would like to know what you thought worked and didn't work about it. At the risk of inviting the circling sharks of criticism, what do you mean by "it took a short walk off a long pier into an maelstrom of churning chainsaw confusion"? Which way were you expecting the text to go, and how did you get that expectation? I ask because I'd like to get ideas on the best way to aim the text when I do finally rewrite it for presentation.

As for the "hard-to-phathom" premise, I'm not sure how you mean. You're rabbits granted self-awareness by cruelty, and so you're turning that cruelty against the corporation that gave it to you. At the surface, the Resistance is a heroic revolution, saving others from the torture the Bunnies endured. Deeper, though, they're fuzzy animals with a big, floppy sadistic side. In my mind, the premise is simple, but perhaps I haven't communicated it well enough.

What would you suggest for Traits that would work better in your mind? The ones I have work well for what I had in mind, but if I'm not properly communicating my goals, that could be why they didn't work so well for you.

Thanks for pointing out the discrepancies between the post and the PDF. That's a pitfall of the early stage the text is in, and I'll go back and change it in the post.

Oh, and never fear: The Clans are history, like I said before. I apologize for any pain/discomfort they may have caused.

Mike:

Yeah, seems to me to be something like B&B meets The Rats of NIMH, mixed with the themes from the game Zero.

Is that a good or bad thing?

Thanks,

[Mike Holmes]

Is that a good or bad thing?

Yes, definitely.

Mike

[Jay Turner]

Is that a good or bad thing?

Yes, definitely.

Mike

Zen lessons aside, anyone have any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

[Kester Pelagius]

Howdy,

Kester, this is a very early PDF I put together so I'd have something to refer people to when I bring up the system or some other aspect for discussion. The tone/text flow/etc. aren't final, but I definitely would like to know what you thought worked and didn't work about it. At the risk of inviting the circling sharks of criticism, what do you mean by "it took a short walk off a long pier into an maelstrom of churning chainsaw confusion"? Which way were you expecting the text to go, and how did you get that expectation?

Well, not to sound harsh, but frankly there were moments that the flow of text. . . didn't.  You'd be reading along then, wham, slam, vroom vroom, it seemed like you were using chainsaws to cut the bree, if you know what I mean.  (see my comments below)

As for the "hard-to-phathom" premise, I'm not sure how you mean. You're rabbits granted self-awareness by cruelty, and so you're turning that cruelty against the corporation that gave it to you. At the surface, the Resistance is a heroic revolution, saving others from the torture the Bunnies endured. Deeper, though, they're fuzzy animals with a big, floppy sadistic side. In my mind, the premise is simple, but perhaps I haven't communicated it well enough.

Do you see the part I underlined?

It's brilliant in its simplicity!  Tells you straight up what's up, no two ways to sunday about it.  I would suggest applying the 2x4 of KISS to your work.  Like I said this has potential, but it *seems* like you were caught between two or three ideas about the *direction* you want the game to go.

Might be a good idea to identify them all and write them up seperately, or not.  It's really up to you.  I am just a voice on the wind... er... bits and bytes of data resolving themselves into a illusion of a voice on the wind.  I know it can be frustrating at times, especially when you just know you could explain everything better in person, right?

Well, think that way when you write and you'll get it right.  (And always try to come back and proof your work to remove errors so others don't see how horrible your grammar and syntax really be.. er.. are, uhm..  is! :) )  I know, it's good advice, and you're probably wondering why those of us who come up with such wonderful advice don't seem to always be able to follow it.  Simple.  Others can sometimes see the path before you far more clearly, but only because you've seen the path so much it fades into the background.  Familiarity and all that rot, wot!  :)

Keep dreaming!


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

lord love a duck my syntax sucks

[Jay Turner]

Well, not to sound harsh, but frankly there were moments that the flow of text. . . didn't.  

*snip!*

Familiarity and all that rot, wot!  :)

Thanks for the reply, Kester. Very helpful. :)

You didn't come across as harsh. That's more of what I needed. Hearing, "It didn't work" isn't nearly as helpful as, "It didn't work for this reason." I'll go back through the text and see that it flows better.

I suffer from a lack of good, objective voices around me, so I appreciate your look at the work. My solution is usually to let it sit and work on something else, then come back to it after some time away. It's why I have so many fledgeling games floating about in my head.

Anyway, thanks again for the input. I'll put that to work.

Anyone else have any input? Specifically on the premise of the game (is it playable? Interesting?) and the system (pointers on invoking the kill-em-all video game violence feel?)?