Main Page

Deutsche Website

Die deutsche Website kann hier gefunden werden.

The German language website can be found here

Foreword:

What you read here is an introduction and explanation to a project that started in the summer of 2009. In this summer I spoke often and long about Pen and Paper role playing games and tabletop strategy games with a buddy of mine.

Instead of doing a small LAN party, we developed the first, simple rules that partly still are the base of this game. We created meeples with the Hero Machine and played these rules. But I wanted more than a senseless battle between NCR Rangers and Raiders.

Soon after, the tabletop strategy game became a simple PNP RPG. It was tested and refined. Since I fell in love with the world of Fallout in 1997, I kept using the award-winning, multifaceted world of Fallout, expanded it here and there and changed it up a bit.

The playable area of this role playing game is by and large the geographic area, in which Fallout 1 and 2 are placed, that is: California and the not too far away areas of Nevada. The game year is defined as 2247, in other words, 5 years after the events of Fallout 2.

The world was logically thought further, but also changed in some ways. For example, many towns and cities became much larger, so that city adventures are easier to play. Below you will find an overview of the world, the rules and everything else that was created by me in the last 10 years.

Last Updates:

The Updates are now found here.

Character creation:

The character creation is basically like that of Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics. Characters consist of their SPECIAL values, with one value, courage, added. They further consist of skills (of which the PNP has many more), traits and later also of perks.

Newly added are the so called classes: basically classes are occupations or similar life experiences that your character has learned before the first adventure. These serve as a starting bonus and they also exist for role playing reasons. As you will no doubt notice soon, they are relatively few. If you wish to play a character that does not conform to one of these classes, feel free to create a new one or to modify one of the existing classes.

You wish to play a chef? Take any roughly similar class and consult with your dungeon master for the skills, extraordinary skills and the starting equipment.

Also new are so called extraordinary skills: these give certain bonuses to characters, that have learned these skills. But only for certain aspects of a skill. A character with the extraordinary skill “Boxing” has advantages when fighting with fists, but not kicking. A “Cowboy” has advantages with typical cowboy weapons, but not with highly modern assault rifles. Those who speak Chinese do not necessarily understand Spanish, a blacksmith can not build better furniture made from wood …

Combat rules and weapons:

The combat rules are very much based on Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics. In fact, they are still table top rules. That is why all ranges are given in centimeter. The whole affair basically plays like the combat in the PC games, round based and with a similar use of action points.

As for weapons a new player will quickly note, that there is a large arsenal available, but damage is directly dependent of ammunition, while the weapon only determines the range. This is not fully realistic from a ballistic point of view, but it keeps the one, very common weapon from making nearly no damage, but another weapon, using the same ammunition is the Super-Blaster 9000 that kills with every hit.

Furthermore, bows and arrows were added to the arsenal.

The weapons themselves are mostly old, familiar weapons from the Fallout games and several others that fit in well.

Animals:

I always found it stupid, that there are no horses in the Fallout universe, but everywhere one can find mutated cows, despite those theoretically all stemming from a single farm. For that reason I built in horses. Before other Hardcore Fans now get a fit of raving madness: I took great pains to make them optional. They can be thought away quite easily.

Apart from that one can find the old and known animals here as well: dogs and brahmin, as well as radscorpions, rats and many more. Even the bighorner of New Vegas make an appearance.These animals can also be trained, thanks to a new skill.

World:

The geographic area is basically the US state of California and bordering areas. Some details were however changed. Let’s take a look from the North to the South:

The Abbey: A settlement that, thanks to the Fallout 2 Restoration Project Mod is now also available in the games and should’ve been in the game from the start. Since I liked it in the mod, it was covered in this PNP as well.

The Den: The Slaver's Guild in the Den is now a lot larger and involved into much more than just human trafficking.

Vault-City: Vault-City is now a lot larger, with a lot more citizens. This way, Vault-City is at least a rudimentary counter weight to the much too powerful NCR.

Redding: Redding is still undecided between the NCR, New Reno and Vault-City, so that the players of this PNP still have something to do.

New Reno: Similar to Redding, the Chosen One has done little in the world’s largest little city. The city also grew by a number of people.

San Francisco: The Hubologists are exterminated, with exception of some survivors that either were somewhere else or fled. The Shi are the only rulers over San Francisco, since the tanker vagabonds have left as well.

Shady Sands: The capital of the NCR has it’s original name back and is a larger center of government and generally of democracy.

The Squat: (still being fully developed): The settlement above Vault 15 has grown a lot in the five years since the events of Fallout 2.

Brotherhood of Steel (Lost Hills Bunker): The Brotherhood did not join the NCR, no matter what that one holodisc in Fallout 2 implied. They are still independent but surrounded by the NCR. There exists a rather brittle peace between them and their large neighbor.

NCR Rangers: The NCR Ranger are, unlike in New Vegas, not the special forces of the NCR military, they are the NCR military. Like many other changes too, this is inspired by Fallout 2. Whenever one encountered a patrol near Shady Sands, it was a patrol of Rangers. So I added an explanation on how the Rangers became the military.

Vehicles: There are about a dozen vehicles in the PNP that are fitted with rules as well as three engine types. This allows the players to create new vehicles, since there is a basic vehicle in every size.

The map: On the map one can find numerous settlements that are yet to be explained. These will be added in the future.

Combat rules:

Combat is still like a table top game. I personally suggest using meeples. When we play here, we create those in the Hero Machine (just Google it, you’ll find it quickly) and print those out, so that a meeple is about 5-6 cm high (I further suggest giving the meeple a stable base of cardboard or maybe even a bottle cap).

The combat rules are complex and complicated. If one wishes to make things easier at the start, I suggest only using armed and ranged combat and then not using all or none of the optional rules.

Special rules:

The rules for poison and radiation, as I well know, are sub-optimal. I hope that I will get reports and suggestions from players in the future, on how that whole thing can be improved. The current rules are at least playable.

Plans for the Future:

After 10 years of work, even the perfectionist in me, is content with the result. But, if there is interest, I will keep on working on it. And maybe add some things, too. The other towns and settlements on the map for example.

Furthermore there are, as already mentioned in this text, some things left to do in the special rules.

I also have ideas for new combat rules, for example bayonet fighting and much more.

Furthermore there are many, many things for character creation that can be added: new classes, new extraordinary skills and much more. Here, too, I ask for help by the players: write me and tell me what can or should be added.