Each character has a QCB loaded with 5 minutes of conversation given to them by the church for undertaking this dangerous journey. One end is meant to be given to family, friends or close organization, but can be kept and used or given away later. The Teutonic Knight also has a 10 minute QCB connecting the players to Joshua.
The GM must track the time used and remaining on these boxes. When they run out, no more communication can be made between the connected parties. The church will provide instructions to the players about how to obtain a new box that will connect them to Joshua before the time on that box runs out.

Overview of Playing
The game is played with a game master and players. The game master’s job is to track time, track the QCB, and to provide imagined situations to share with the players. These imagined situations may have obstacles that the player’s characters must overcoming using their connections, skills, or traits, or they may serve other purpose of the GM’s desire. All situations should help the characters move further along in their journey to deliver the wild child to Vatican, or the situations should allow the players to feel their character’s connection to mortality through the aging of their friends, family, and contacts. Use the Undead to press the possibility of living forever. The GM is also responsible for changing the imagined situations when the rolls go wrong.
The player’s job is to tell the GM how their characters respond to the imagined situations the GM shares with them. It is also their job to decide which connections, skills, or traits that they will use to overcome obstacles in the imagined situations. When using connections, skills, or traits to overcome the obstacles, the players must state what they wish to happen then roll the dice. The dice will determine the outcome. Occasionally, with the right dice roll, the players will be able to put their characters into a imagined situation of their own design.

Obstacles

Obstacles are cool situations that characters must overcome to advance to the next situation and get closer to their goal of delivering the wild child to Vatican. GMs make up the situations. Players use their connections, skills, or traits to overcome a situation, and they tell the GM what they want to happen if they win within the confines of the current situation. (I.e. If the characters are in a tough negation for hidden passage on a freighter, they can’t learn the location of Vatican from the captain, because he doesn’t know.) If they win, what they wanted happens.
If they lose, roll on the Changing Situation table.
Sometimes, when they win, the players will be able to come up with the next situation in a Reward Situation.

Reward Situation

A reward situation is a situation that the players make up together based on the special success against an obstacle. It can be anything that flows from the winning against an obstacle. A reward situation can never revel the location of Vatican.

Changing Situation Table

1d8	What happens
1	Escalate
2	Reverse Reward
3	Wipes Clean
4	Changes Completely
5	Conditioned
6	Lost Cause
7	It Worked, but…
8	Complete Escalation

]]> http://www.emptygamebox.com/basic-system-for-the-undead-vs-church-in-space-escape-game-thingy-for-game-chef/feed 0 http://www.emptygamebox.com/passing-of-time-during-star-travel http://www.emptygamebox.com/passing-of-time-during-star-travel#comments Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:04:01 +0000 Bryan http://www.emptygamebox.com/?p=59 The passage of time leads to death. Death leads to dust or eternal life as an Undead. Time passes.

-From Chant of the King

Time

The GM tracks the time passed. She does so both for starship days and planetside days. One day on a starship equals five days planetside.

As time passes traveling on a starship, the character’s contacts age. Any family or friend will be getting older and closer to death (average life expectancy is 190), and the GM played Operation Handler (Joshua), already elder, statistically gets closer to death. For each year, Joshua has an additional 10% chance of death. Who will handle the escape when he dies?

As time passes events happen. For each week, month, and year passed, roll on the following tables. The GM decides how these events are incorporated into the game.