What is STALCKER? STALCKER is a table-top role playing game, where players assume roles of various specialists facing the dangers of unpredictable Tchernobyl Exclusion Zone. You may lead a team, play as lone wolf, play cooperatively with friends or against an AI or living opponent. Core of the game is based on 12 skirmish missions, but players always have at several options on how to resolve the mission. That involves non-lethal, diplomatic or stealth approaches.
What character's
or roles players will be playing?
Game offers classes based
on real-life emergency services workers, medics, firefighter,
engineers, security specialists and mercenary soldiers. Although It
is possible to learn more than one specialization, those playing as
a team will have much higher rate of survival.
Wait, but
stalcking was illegal? Can I play as a classic stalker, who crawls
through the Zone in order to get rich by selling artefacts?
Of course you can. In
addition to main factions who have legalized their work in the Zone,
pay good and stable money for their contracts you can always go
freelance, or even work for one of several crime syndicates of our
world. You may start as underworld operative, or slowly/drastically
change you position from respected professional to a wanted
criminal. The choice is yours.
By the way, you
made a mistake in writing Stalker with “C”.
Thank you for noticing,
but that “mistake” is totally intentional. If you remember, our
game is RPG, and C stands for one of the character's attributes.
So what does
STALCKER stands for?
- S.T.A.L.C.K.E.R. stands for the following:
- Speed: character's ability to move and react to threats.
- Toughness: raw physical strength, grit and prowess.
- Awareness: observation, perception, and spotting.
- Life: how many wound a character can take before dying
- Courage: natural willpower, resistance to fear and charisma
- Karma: fate, luck and ability to cheat death.
- Education: practical knowledge and intellect
- Resistance: ability to withstand physical and other forms of harm.
So what kind of game system is it? Is it S.P.E.C.I.A.L.?
This game uses home-brew
system tailor made for this game. It has more than one strong
influences in both skirmish and RPG games. The list is rather too
long to bring it here, but you are correct, Fallout 1 and 2 and
XCOM2 were main inspirations for the game system. However, unlike
Fallout where you have to manage your action points pool in combat
and use d10/d100 for the tests STALCKER uses combination of d12 and
up to 6 custom dice, which affect not only success or failure of the
test, but side effects of your actions as well. In addition we
decided to use 2 actions per activation approach, as most flexible
for managing group of 4 or more character's. Similar to XCOM2, our
game offers action economy as well tactical limitations designed to
make each mission tense and unpredictable.
What is your
relation with authors of “Roadside picnic” and “Stalker:
shadow of Chernobyl”?Author is life long fan
of their work. However if you are interested in copyright aspect,
them I'm sorry to inform you, that we take only inspiration in
aforementioned work, and all rights remain under their respective
owners. Our game may share some similarities and subjects, but it
remains a separate universe and product.
How much it cost
to buy your game? What do you offer in the “box”?
Currently the first
iteration of rules is under development, and upon release it will be
free download in pdf form. That document will include additional
print-and-play elements like custom rulers, custom dice markers and
several basic tables with players help (turn order, main test, dice
modifications ext). As it stands now, game is miniatures agnostic,
so you can collect, paint and use any models. Although there is
variety of different miniatures on the market, game is designed with
28-32 mm “heroic” scale in mind. However there will be a
conversion for 1/35 mm scale minis, at some point in development.
Game can be played with both 3d terrain and/or board game style
maps.
There are other
companies and individual authors that have done skirmish games in
similar setting, or even setting free rule sets. Why your is
different?
Although that is true,
there are plenty of pure skirmish games out there, our game is
different because its not a skirmish game. Every mission may be
resolved in variety of ways, each gaining different bonuses to your
team. Not every mission requires an opponent to fight, the very wild
nature will provide plenty of difficulties. For example there is
plenty of firefighting missions or simple convoy security missions,
where just getting to your objective in one piece is challenging. In
addition, in majority of contracts you will be taking, your standing
inside of your chosen organization will make an impact on available
resources to you.
That sounds like
you want me to do a lot of book keeping. What if I just want to
shoot people in the face?
We'll provide campaign
management sheet with all 4 tabs of information that you'd need. But
yes there are pure combat mission which you can play in variety of
terrain, complications and objectives.
So when can I get
my hands on your game?
When its ready. :) We
will keep you posted on our blog.
Sincerely yours,
Star Wolf Studio.
