[Stalker RPG] The English translation is out!

[NiTessine]

The Stalker roleplaying game has finally been released in English.

Originally written in Finnish and released in 2008 by Ville Vuorela, the game is based on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's classic science fiction novel Roadside Picnic and published by Burger Games. It is the first game to feature the diceless Flow system. Helsingin Sanomat, the largest daily newspaper in Finland, hailed Stalker as the best Finnish RPG of all time.

Though science fiction, the game is set now, today. Thirteen years ago, the Visitation created six Zones around the world. They are areas where the laws of nature no longer apply. The very chains of causality may be broken. Gravity and temperatures fluctuate, poisonous gases float over the landscape, and strange, unearthly creatures wander the land. They are watched over by the Institute, which is responsible for researching the Zones and guarding them, keeping the curious, the foolhardy and the criminal out. It is corrupt and its guard shoot first and ask questions later.

Despite the danger, some do go into the Zones. There is treasure to be had - the artifacts of the Zones are strange and alien, but possess powers that in a less enlightened age would have been called magic. There is a bustling black market in these items, and where there is demand, there is supply - the stalkers. Some do it out of greed, some because of thrills, a few because of a mystical affinity to the Zones. Romanticized in fiction and hunted by the law, they explore the Zones and discover their secrets. They are modern-day outlaws, living on the edge. Most die young.

Stalker presents Zone France, an urban desolation located in what used to be the city of Toulouse. Weird creatures and mutated beasts stalk the ruins, and what remains of the city is inhabited by the disenfranchised and the impoverished. Crime is rampant. The Institute patrols the border, but the border is long, the guards are few, and a determined team can easily get through into the Zone. In the end, the Zone is its own best guard.

The English translation also contains details on Zone Japan, originally released in the Burger Games designer blog.

Buy the PDF at DriveThruRPG and join our Facebook group to talk about it!

Burger Games is currently investigating print on demand options.

(Hi. I'm the translator. It feels terribly awkward posting what is essentially a press release in the general forum, but if that's the way it has to be, perhaps we can have a conversation about this? Though I was not involved in the design process, I can try to answer whatever questions you have.)

 

[Piratecat]

I've heard amazing things about this game. That said, diceless systems make me cautious! How does Flow work?

 

[NiTessine]

There are two parts to any task, be it winning a firefight or getting through a locked door. These are the idea and roleplaying. The idea part is where the player describes how their character will go about the task, and the roleplaying is in how well this fits their character and how the player narrates it.

Take the door, for a really simple example. The GM describes a heavy wooden door that bars the character's way. It's locked. The metal parts have a veneer of rust on them, the wooden surface is weather-beaten but not rotten. The GM has decided that whoever owned the house took his security and privacy seriously - the Difficulty Level for getting through the door is Difficult (15).

Let's say the character is Jacques, a heavyset former weightlifter and occasional barroom brawler (he has the abilities Strong and Melee, both of them Fitness abilities). Jacques' player decides he will kick down the door, aiming near the lock and describes the character's actions to the GM.

The GM figures that as far as plans go, it's pretty straightforward but there's a certain charming pragmatic quality to it. He ranks the idea a 3 (with 5 being the maximum). It's also something Jacques, a straightforward and impatient kind of guy, would go for. In addition, he's kinda violent and the solution fits his toolbox of abilities. The GM ranks the roleplaying also 3. In addition, because of Jacques has the Strong ability, appropriate for the job, both scores are raised to 4. Then one is multiplied with the other, for a total score of 16, above the Difficulty Level. The lock gives way beneath Jacques' combat boot, and the door swings open.

Now, it could be that Jacques had tried to pick the lock. Even if he had a set of lockpicks, without the appropriate ability he would have been unlikely to succeed, especially because it requires patience and dexterity, neither traits that he has demonstrated in the past or supported by his character sheet. Jacques' nimble friend Fritz, a former cat burglar, would have had more luck with that approach.

It could also have been that the door opened in the other direction, making straight-up violence a harder approach than, say, picking the lock. In such a case, the Difficulty could be 20, and Jacques unable to kick it down just like that. He could, if he wished, still burn a point of Fitness (with his abilities Strong and Melee, his Fitness is 1) to ask for a favour from the GM related to the challenge - say, to crash his entire meaty frame at the door in frustration, breaking it down but suffering the reduced Fitness score for the rest of the session, because even a man built like a Mack Truck doesn't go through a door without suffering bruises, sprains or scratches.

That's the basic mechanic. Of course, unless there's an interesting story reason for the door to be a challenge, Jacques' Strong attribute would probably be sufficient to declare success outright.

Edit: oh, soddit, I misremembered how attribute scores work. Having two abilities from a single attribute are worth only one ability point. A third (say, Throwing Arm) would push Jacques' Fitness over to 2. This is the result of ten months between me turning in the translation and the finished work coming out. Head like a sieve, nowadays...

 

[Piratecat]

Okay, that's fascinating. Could you possibly describe how a fight might work? Is combat handled the same way?

 

[NiTessine]

More or less. Here's a short example of how a fight might go. There are no set combat rounds as such - the challenges change as a fight progresses, and most fights will probably be over with a single challenge, which may take anything from three seconds to several minutes. Enemies that are hit are usually taken out immediately, player characters get to burn Fitness points (which they'll usually have from 1-3, depending on how many Fitness abilities they have picked) to remain standing. If there are no more Fitness points, they're out and it depends on the enemy's weapon how badly they're hurt. If it was a fistfight, he'll just be KO'd and will be back in action soonish, but if someone came at him with a fire axe, he's gonna need medical help, like, now.

You begin by determining the base Enemy's Toughness - 10 for your average person, 15 for a cop, 20 for a professional soldier, as examples. Then you calculate the balance of power. This is stuff like positioning, who has the better gear for the circumstances (the guy up in the tower 300 feet away with a sniper rifle has a certain advantage over the knifefighter in the open field, but if the fight occurs in a space the size of a bathroom stall, that gun is only going to get in the way), numbers, surprise, fear and other limitations.

The advantages are tallied up, and the Difficulty Level of the situation is adjusted accordingly - say, four gang members (Enemy Toughness 10) are waiting for Fritz and Jacques behind that door. They have the advantage in numbers, but Jacques barging in was quite unexpected and the two stalkers have the element of surprise on their side. The gang members have pistols, though, while the stalkers are unarmed. This is two notches against and one in favour of the stalkers, which ups the Difficulty Level of the challenge to 15.

Jacques decides to charge in screaming, grabbing a chair and swinging around wildly, trying to knock out the enemies and get in their middle so they can't fire their guns without hitting their friends. This, the GM figures, is a pretty good idea under the circumstances. Perhaps leniently, he gives it a 4.

Fritz follows right behind to try and disarm one of the gangbangers. Trying to grapple with a pistol doesn't sound so smart to the GM, so he gives this idea only a 2.

Jacques also describes his screaming and mad swinging in such a characterful and lively fashion that the GM gives him a 4 for his roleplaying. Fritz isn't quite so entertaining, but his actions do reflect his Firearms ability and inexperience in close combat that he still gets a 3.

Additionally, Jacques has the Melee ability, so both his Idea and Roleplay get +1, for a total of 5x5=25. This is two levels of success above the Difficulty Level, and so his wild swinging drops three of the gangbangers in a few, chaotic seconds of swearing, screaming, and breaking furniture.

Fritz, on the other hand, is screwed, because he's not anywhere near the target number. He grabs the gangbanger's gun, they struggle for a moment, and it goes off. He screams in pain and his player screams "I burn a Fitness point!", turning the shot from a life-threatening and incapacitating wound into something that still needs to be treated and hurts like a mother.

Now, there's one gangbanger left with his gun out but badly rattled by the surprise and suddenly being all alone, versus an angry Jacques holding the remnants of a chair he broke on a man's face and a Fritz down on the floor, bleeding but operational, with quite a few guns now lying around...

 

[Piratecat]

Sold. I'm not so sure about all the math, but I need to see this.

 

[NiTessine]

Excellent! I hope you will not be disappointed.

Also, there's a version of Flow with dice on the Burger Games design blog. summer09

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

Cool idea, that's probably one of the best diceless systems I've ever seen.

 

[Water Bob]

I loved the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. PC game. I played the heck out of the first one (have the other two but haven't played them yet).

I like the setting. I like the story. I think it would make for a fantastic RPG.

I can't stand what I've heard here about the diceless system. I've seen other RPGs go non-traditional and use a regular deck of playing cards or other such systems. I've never seen one that I liked, and hearing about the Flow system is a deal breaker for me.

 

[NiTessine]

I loved the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. PC game. I played the heck out of the first one (have the other two but haven't played them yet).

I like the setting. I like the story. I think it would make for a fantastic RPG.

I can't stand what I've heard here about the diceless system. I've seen other RPGs go non-traditional and use a regular deck of playing cards or other such systems. I've never seen one that I liked, and hearing about the Flow system is a deal breaker for me.

I recommend you take a look at the Flow with dice in the design blog, if that's more to your liking: summer09

Of the rulebook's 244 pages, system, including character generation, combat rules, experience and task resolution, takes up about 45 pages. The rest is setting and some tremendously good GMing advice.