The Foreboding Green

The basic idea behind this game is that it is Cadillacs & Dinosaurs/Xenozoic Tales crossed with a stoner metal/70s hippy psychedelic vibe. Similar set up of a post-apocalpse, and people re-emerging into a world that is lush and retaken over by nature of all kinds. Themes have to do with rationalists vs. romantics, individual vs. collective, etc. etc. There are mystics who engage with "The Foreboding Green", and old school "rugged man of action" types. Domination vs. cooperation. You have trippy mystics, people who work with technology, people who work with people, and people who work with their own hands. Try to inject some philosophical bits into it.

As for rules, I'm thinking a system that is similar to the GDW House System that produced Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Dark Conspiracy and Twilight: 2000 2e, but using a modified die mechanic that draws some inspirations from James Bond: 007. One thing I definitely want to keep from Cadillacs & Dinosaurs is the time-keeping, travel and random encounter system.

Rules Ruminations

Here are some ideas about the revised core mechanic and its possible uses.

• Unlike the GDW House system (try to roll equal to or under your skill on a d10), in this system you roll 1d10 + Skill + Modifiers, attempting to beat a target number. Currently, the default Target Number is 11.
• Roll a d10. If the die comes up 2 - 9, take the result rolled.
• If the d10 roll is a 10, roll the die again, adding 5 to the result and keeping the highest roll.
• If the d10 roll is a 10 a second time, roll the die again, adding 10 to the result and keeping the highest roll.
• If the d10 roll is a 1, roll the die again, subtracting 5 from the result and keeping the lowest roll.
• If the d10 roll is a 1 a second time, roll the die again, subtracting 10 from the result and keeping the lowest roll.
• This results in rolls ranging from -9 through +20, 30 total results.
• Results of 2 - 9 each have a 10% chance of occurring (80% of all possible results), Results of 1 or 10 each have a 5% chance of occurring (10% of all possible results), Results of -3 - 0 or 11 - 14 each have a 1% chance of occurring (8% of all possible results), Results of -4 or 15 each have a 0.5% chance of occurring (1% of all possible results), and Results of -5 - -9 or 16 - 20 each have a 0.1% chance of occurring (1% of all possible results).
• This mechanic is taken from an RPGPub forum post regarding a game called "Foresight" that is considering this mechanic as a way to replace the system used in James Bond: 007.
• The GDW system has you halving or doubling your skill to reflect levels of difficulty. I think this could be replicated in this mechanic reasonably similarly with a +3 or -3 to the target number per level of difficulty. If, instead, I cared more about emulating James Bond: 007 Ease Factors, I'd have to take a closer look at the math, even though I think it is basically "Ease Factor 5 is an unmodified roll, each +/- 1 from there represents a change in Ease factor by that amount".
• Another aim of this mechanic was to provide for varying levels of success, much like the Quality Rating of rolls in James Bond: 007. Currently proposed, hitting the target number exactly would be considered a bare success, and each 5 in either direction increases the quality of the success/failure. Higher quality successes allow for tasks to be completed in less time, or to produce a better yield in some way. Details would need to be provided.
• Overall, I would like to keep the game from getting too complicated. It'll be interesting to see what I would pull from the GDW system vs. what I would pull from James Bond: 007 (vs. whatever other ideas I may come up with that may be independent of either).