Siivola posted:

Take a first aid course or something. Maybe do some martial arts. Learn to read a map and go for a hike. Go shoot a gun. Fix your bicycle and go for a ride.

Stop browsing the internet and get out of your house, for gently caress's sake.

Tulul posted:

I was being more than a little hyperbolic, dude.

MadScientistWorking posted:

have to be a complete and utter moron not to have some rudimentary survival skills.

Error 404 posted:

This checks out tbh.

Tulul posted:

2) If everyone stats themselves accurately, we're still all a bunch of fat loving nerds. I would last approximately two days (an optimistic estimate) in an apocalypse before dying of dysentery. How many of the people at your table have actual, useful skills? How many of the people at your table have maxed out points in Internet Browsing?

Ewen Cluney posted:

I don't fault anyone who likes the idea, but pretty much this. I have a very hard time imagining myself faring well in a zombie apocalypse, and playing out my own death at the hands of the Hungry Dead doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

MadScientistWorking posted:

Considering the fact that a lot of survival skills typically come up in the course of the normal lifetime its really disturbing though.
EDIT:
You know what you are right. After watching what happened during the hurricane that hit New York upon further reflection people really are that dumb.

Error 404 posted:

Yeah, I was 'this' close to becoming an Eagle Scout, I know how to hunt and fish and camp. I have survival skills. But I haven't really used any of them in almost 15 years, and in my current physical condition, even with that knowledge I wouldn't put my survival at more than a week by myself. maybe a month or two if I'm with a group.

Hurricane Sandy, and Katrina are a pretty apt model here.

MadScientistWorking posted:

Hurricane Sandy and Katrina are what changed my mind as I think with Sandy I was watching people purposefully put themselves into a perfect scenario to electrocute themselves to death.

Striking Yak posted:

If nothing else, many goons could be a useful source of food. Roll to overcome the social taboo of cannibalism, and the general unpleasantness of eating someone who has consumed mainly junk food for the past decade.

18 Character Limit posted:

Purpose in life: provide an equipment drop for when the protagonist shows up.

Tulul posted:

Just off the top of my head, problems with the concept:

1) Dunning-Kruger. I mean, come on, everyone overestimates themselves to some extent, but it seems particularly present in nerds. Half of the geeks on the Internet seems to think that when the zombies finally arrive, their spirit animal Vin Diesel will reveal himself and draw out the katana-wielding badass that was within them all along.

2) If everyone stats themselves accurately, we're still all a bunch of fat loving nerds. I would last approximately two days (an optimistic estimate) in an apocalypse before dying of dysentery. How many of the people at your table have actual, useful skills? How many of the people at your table have maxed out points in Internet Browsing?

3) Everyone is going to argue about all of this the entire time and it is going to be awful. Come on.

4) Why would I want to play myself? I play RPGs to get as far away from myself as possible and to do and be interesting things.

I can see the appeal, but I think there are a bunch of problems you need to address. Doing it in a system where things are apparently broken up into the "social, mental, physical" categories also seems like a really bad place to start; play yourself seems like it would work better as a more narrative game.

FMguru posted:

Evacuation orders? Oooh, this must be a big storm! Let's grab the kids and go to the beach to watch the big waves crash in!

Covok posted:

Since this might be fun, my skill list would probably be:

code:

Finance, Accounting, and Management (Decent, judging from my current GPA and experiences in internships)
Wilderness Survival (Decent or slightly above bad, frequent camper, Eagle Scout)
Pistols and Rifles (Slightly above bad, trained in them and I go to shooting ranges, but I'm a poo poo shot)
Cooking (Slightly above bad to, perhaps, decent, I cook alot and I make some mean beef stew, but I anint no chef)
First aid (Slightly above bad, I'm trained in it and certified, but that doesn't mean much)

I think that might be it.

Zurui posted:

I know it's a hilarious stereotype, but some of us are quite athletic and outdoorsy.

Zurui posted:

I know it's a hilarious stereotype, but some of us are quite athletic and outdoorsy.

Davin Valkri posted:

Wait, why would I want to play myself in an RPG? I suck at everything.

18 Character Limit posted:

There are a vanishingly small number of Grow Food skills among the goon population. The most horrifying apocalyptic scenarios to me have always been ones where agriculture just stops and the damage that cascades from that. And if FFG released a design-your-own-apocalypse framework, I'd run one where staple crops just stop being viable (we can assume goons would last into it off of fat reserves alone.)

Ewen Cluney posted:

I don't fault anyone who likes the idea, but pretty much this. I have a very hard time imagining myself faring well in a zombie apocalypse, and playing out my own death at the hands of the Hungry Dead doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

On the other hand I have an even harder time imagining zombies being enough of a threat to actually cause a apocalypse in the first place. (Thanks, Cracked.com!)

fatherdog posted:

I definitely wouldn't want to play myself in an RPG, because it would mean having to find one with coherent grappling rules

Jimbozig posted:

I wonder if stats and/or quantitative analysis would be very useful in the Zombie Apocalypse.

If not, then my only other real skills are rather useless like preventing balls from going in hockey nets, scrabble, and trivia. Also posting .

Yeah, I think I'd be the first to get eaten.

Rulebook Heavily posted:

Effectronica posted:

This discussion is just reminding me of the 2e D&D PHB where they provided examples of the different skills a typical highschooler would have.

And I'm laughing at all the people who are convinced they'd fold in any sort of emergency situation. Yeah, I'm real sure that you've got absolutely no reserves of hidden strength or ability to act under pressure.


Ahahahaha.

Kwyndig posted:

I've got plenty of reserves of strength, but no ability to act well under pressure (anxiety issues, with pills and everything) so in the event of an actual apocalypse I would fall apart as soon as the drugs ran out.

mr.capps posted:

I really think most people would actually do fine in an apocalypse scenario

Effectronica posted:

You actually don't know that, seeing as you've never been in that sort of situation and even if you've been in a similar one like getting lost hiking or biking far from inhabited places, you obviously made it out OK.

fatherdog posted:

If most people would do fine in a scenario it's not really an apocalypse scenario, is it? I mean, that's kind of baked into the definition of apocalypse.

Kwyndig posted:

In those situations I only made it out okay because I had people looking out for me. Those people live far, far away now.

Striking Yak posted:

Are there any mechanics that model PCs having to do immoral/taboo things? Most groups I've seen tend to start murdering inconvenient people at the drop of a hat. I suppose in most settings people don't have great life expectancy, so death is more normalised, but I don't think that accounts for PCs' bloodthirst.

Zurui posted:

I know it's a hilarious stereotype, but some of us are quite athletic and outdoorsy.