RODENT

Idea: D&D style game played with a GM. 3 basic rodent classes (House Mouse, Roof Rat, Norway Rat) each rat has different advantages and disadvantages. The basic idea is running a campaign that consists of advance rodent civilizations living in real world conditions. Farms, houses, buildings, swears, and cities. So rodents living in human locations; for example. A small colony of mice has moved into a suburban detached garage. The colony consist of only a dozen rodents, each rodent has its own trade skill. Hunters, gathers, builders’ etcetera… The rodents construct small personal dwellings and trade with one another to get items they need. It could range from food to tools to weapons. Some rodents specialize in these trades and become shop keeps. A currency could be used to simplify worth of an object. To make it interesting the currency could be editable, for instance small roily polis.

Players start out in the world right at around 3 weeks of age, at this age the rodents are expect to already be self sufficient and be capable of taking care of themselves. Most young males are disowned so that they would move on and not cause problems with the current alpha male. This is where the adventure begins, not knowing what to do the adventures have to squander around in search of small jobs that they can accomplish. Since they were disowned they were not given any parting gifts. So the only weapons they have are their teeth (1D4). Players could wonder around the colony performing small jobs and earning currency. Once they have some funds they can start building up their arsenals of tools, weapons and armor. Since these rodents have higher scenes of things they can use tools to build objects. These objects could range from traps, weapons, tools, armor all the way up to explosives and poisons. The more tricks the player has up his sleeve the higher the probably that they will do better in life and obtain the riches they crave.

Since the campaign takes place in modern times, many of the human technologies are available to the rodents. The rodents must have a way to operate and manage the equipment, a single rodent couldn’t operate a vehicle unless it had some sort of pulley system setup so that it could reach and operate all the controls. Multiple rodents working together could mange the operation of a vehicle.

For a rodent to construct a weapon or object they must have the right tools. Tool can be anything from paper clips to some tape. Paper clips are some of the most versatile tools in the world. They could be bent into shape with extreme force, and still be sturdy enough to be used as levers, wrenches, and pliers. Paper clips are small and light; this helps to keep our rodent fast on his feet. Other tools like tape could be used for all sorts of things. Tap can be used to hold items together temporally or permanently. Tap could be applied to bottom of the rodent’s feet and hands to allow him to climb almost un-climbable objects like a refrigerator panel. With tools like these a rodent could create simple weapons, like a spring loaded tooth pick shooter, or rubber band slingshot, maybe even aerosol powered grappling hook. The numbers of inventions are limitless. Building items will require the proper tools and materials along with some successful building rolls.

Example:         Aerosol powered grappling hook.
To build this object the rodent will need the following objects.

Aerosol Cam:   This could be anything from hairspray to breathe mint spray, pretty much anything that is under pressure.
Straw:              The star will be used as a barrow to house the grappling hook and line, it will also be used a stabilizer to amen the device.
String:               Twine or anything that could be used as a rope. Dental floss would be good.
Paper clip:        This will be bent into shape to construct the hook that will be tied with the string and stuffed into the straw.
Tape:                This could be used to attach the straw to the aerosol so that it doesn’t blow off during launch.

Once all the tools are gathered together the player will roll an intelligence roll for every major task.
Paper Clip would be a major task. Since a paper clip is pretty durable your chances of destroying it are close to none unless you are cutting or melting the item. Once something is bent it can never be bent back into its previous exact shape. So re bending this paper click to create a spear would not be a great idea.
The rest of the assembly is pretty simple and only one additional roll will be used to complete the assembly.

You will have to roll your ballistics skills to aim the device successfully.

 Rodents are not at the top of the food chain, humans are. So rodents have many natural enemies and allies. A rodent must be able to defend it self it the need arises. Say a young adventure is on mission to gather food for the colony. The rodent wonders into the house and into the kitchen. He locates a loaf of bread and begins help him self to a slice. Suddenly you hear a quick pitter patter and thump followed by the chime of a bell. OH SHITS ITS FLUFFY. This Persian cat is going to nom nom nom your ass all night if you don’t do something quick. Rodents can choose to run or fight. A single rodent is no match for a cat; this is where weapons come into play. Let’s say our young friend is armed with a booger laced fire cracker, NOW IT’S ON BITCH! The rodent lights the firework and rolls his ballistics skill successfully (01) and tosses the explosive on to the cats face, right between the eyes. Since the rodent rolled a critical (01) this pretty kitty is soon going to be a dead kitty. The booger laced fire work attaches itself the Fluffy beautiful white fur. Fluffy is unstable to remove it in time. BOOM!!! Goes the dynamite! Fluffys’ fucken face is no more. You gained experience, with a epic win. Oh snap the human is getting up and coming to investigate the boom. Quick grab your shit and run.

As our adventures quest and battle enemies they gain experience. These points are used to purchase new skills. The skills can range from bending to hand & hand combat. The more skills you have the better chance you have at surviving. Once the adventure acuminates enough experience points the adventure will gain a new level. When a new level is obtained the level threshold is increased and so are some of the rodents’ stats. Some rodents might get smarter, while others might get stronger. All in all leveling up is a good thing.

The rodent world is huge. You could start off in a barn then move on to accommodate a field then maybe a farmhouse, then after that a neighbor block, then a city, perhaps the state, maybe the country and then the world. But that’s not all folks, obtain space technologies and blast your furry ass into outer space! But that would just be silly, if they took over the world; who would be around to make me a sandwich. Balance must be maintained to avoid a pandemic. Humans are crazy fuckers and they are quick to press the big red button if something is threatening their way of life.

Allies can be found all over the world. Any where from other rodents like squirrels to humans. But don’t be fooled, not everything will be your friend. Most creatures will tolerate you until they get hungry. A squirrel jacked up on red bull could snap at any moment triggering a whirl wind of super sonic thumb tack stabs to your face. This would not be good, so keep on your toes. Some animals might be able to offer you a service like air transport or sear transport or hell even take out pizza. Money makes the world go round. And food is not always the price, consider other objects that they might want but have a difficult time obtaining them. Fido might just want a fucken tennis ball but he can’t get one because his owner is a tennis freak and only buys the expensive shit and would beat the living crap out of Fido if he was caught chewing on his balls. In return Fido might give you a lift to the nearest radio shack.

Another thing to notice is that while a 1.5v AA battery might not do much to humans this kind of direct current could wreak havoc on a smaller creature. With only a CMOS battery some tape and a chewing gum wrapper you could create an electro shock stun mine. The larger the creature the lesser the effect, but its nothing a chewed up extension cord couldn’t handle.

“Rodent”

Fate Points:
In this game there will be times when the ability to survive a situation like getting stepped on by a larger animal is possible, for these instances the rodent of your choice will have fate points to use. When you run out of fate points and need to survive getting stepped on again or a rodent trap the players’ rodent will cease to exist in the world. Each rodent starts the game with fate points and is the only time the player is able to roll for them. Listed below is the chart with the proper rolls for calculating fate points.

Statistics:
All players starting the game are required to create a character to play. The use of statistics is a required part of game play and should be noted that each rodent type is different then other rodents in the game. Basic stats consist of the following Attributes:

 Attributes
(M)      Movement        – spaces of move per combat turn, and speed of travel
(WS)    Weapon Skill    – Effectiveness of hitting a target in hand to hand combat
(BS)     Ballistics Skill    – Effectiveness of hitting a target in ranged combat
(S)       Strength            – This tells you how strong your rodent is, and affects the damage done to a target in hand to hand combat
(T)       Toughness        – This tells you how much damage you can take before losing a wound, as well as how many rounds of combat you last before fatigued.
(W)      Wounds           – the amount of damage you can take before death
(A)       Attacks            – attacks per combat round
(DEX)  Dexterity          – how agile and coordinated your character is
(I)        Initiative            - tells you how fast your react to immediate danger, also is an indicator of who is the leader or the follower.
(INT)   Intelligence       – how smart the players’ character is
(WP)    Willpower        – tells you how much inner strength you have.

Basic statistics are generated at the beginning of the game and character creation. Listed below is a table with the basic stat rolls, during game play you may not re-roll your basic statistics or change them.

BASIC STATS

Level Bonus
(Level * Bonus) 16 point system Level cap 5

Level Guide

This is still a work in progress; this by no means a fully operational game yet. This is merely a concept idea, and hopefully I can get other people that are interested in the project to pitch in and help this project grow. Thank you for reading and yes I know, it’s not finished.

If you’re interested in the project jump on the forums I’ll have a section dedicated to this project.
And if you can’t register for some odd reason its not working email me my information is on the main page under contact us.

Esteban Lorenzi