Atomic Punk 2160 OSR Playtest #1

Well I have a habit of making projects that seem to come out of nowhere. This time it is a post-apocalyptic OSR game I'm calling, "Atomic Punk 2160". I essentially wanted to run a game of Fallout using old school BX rules. So far the book is 89 pages and has mostly everything you need to run a Fallout-style game at your table. Today, with the help of some friends on my Guilded server, we did a playtest and I thought it would be good to give a play report about this test. Art on this blog post is all art I created for the book.

The Party

The party consisted of the following characters:

"Atomic" Ansen Morgan

Played by Victor Gorchev

Class - Wasteland Warrior Mercenary

Hit Points - 10

Str 14, Int 10, Wis 13, Dex 8, Con 14, Cha 14

"Atomic" Ansen is a former raider who has turned mercenary.

"Big" Billy Mack

Class - Bastard Knave

Hit Points - 5

Str 12, Int 10, Wis 9, Dex 14, Con 13, Cha 8

Back home in Bunker 20XX, "Big" Billy Mack was the leader (so he says) of the notorious Sewer Sharks gang. Upon turning 18 he was offered a choice: leave the bunker or serve ten years' in the bunker brig. He tells people he broke out.

Kaiden Bloodbug

Class - Caravaneer Smuggler

Hit Points - 6

Str 13, Int 13, Wis 12, Dex 9, Con 10, Cha 12

On his first time out smuggling he fell in a pit full of bloodbugs and was so covered it stuck as a name.

Mark Oleson

Class - Bastard Sniper

Hit Points - 4

Str 6, Int 8, Wis 13, Dex 10, Con 11, Cha 10

Mark has kept his past close to his chest (the player didn't really make one since you know, he might die).

Water Troubles in Sand Hollow

The group was in the little town of Sand Hollow (an old world town that existed in the State of Idaho before the bombs fell). Today it's a small community of townsfolk who are just trying to survive and live. The town has encountered some water problems and needs water filters. The mayor, Randall Clunk, saw the PCs in the local watering hole. He asked them, with the promise of 100 Curie-Cola caps each, to investigate an old shipping center from before the bombs fell. His logic is that supplies, including water filters, could probably be found there.

The group accepted the job and headed out the next morning. They followed the highway north for a day and came across a sign from the old world that specified a business park was off the freeway. The group decided this might be the place to find this shipping center and warehouse where supplies could be had.

After veering off the main highway and walking along, the group encountered some giant mutated mantises. One mantis was surprised by the encounter but so was Kaiden. Combat ensued and the giant mantises charged the players. They all had 3 attacks. 2 claws for 1d4 damage and one bite for 1d4 damage. The party stood their ground and fought them off as best as they could. Ansen was able to take one down before he himself was overwhelmed by the mantises. Same with Billy. Billy was actually able to stab a mantis with a switch blade which caused a bleed out effect (something his Bastard Knave class can do). Unfortunately another mantis attacked Billy, taking him down.

Now I run negative hit points where characters bleed out 1 hit point every round. The character has a number of negative hit points equal to half their Constitution score. So with Ansen and Billy down, Mark and Kaiden finished off the bugs. Mark rolled a critical failure. He didn't seat the magazine of his rifle properly and it fell out mid combat. However he grabbed another magazine and fired, killing a bug. Kaiden increased his distance to use his rifle and ended up killing another. After all of this, the party revived their fallen friends. Reviving Billy was close as he almost bled out but after reviving Ansen, Kaiden and him both came over to help Mark who didn't seem to know what he was doing.

The party then harvested the meat of the mantises. Rations are rations even if they taste like rancid mantis. There was a vehicle near the fight and the party searched it and found 200 Curie-Cola caps. Since they were a day out, they elected to camp. Mark used his outdoorsmen skills to find an outcropping of rocks which would hopefully keep them safe from any other wasteland critters. However as they settled in, it began to rain. And rain in the wasteland is not really a good thing. It is acidic and irradiated. The group rushed back to the car they looted and stayed the night in the car to pass the store.

Battered and bruised, the group elected to head back to Sand Hollow to recover before heading out to attempt to find this facility with water filters again.

And that is everything that happened. It seemed like a good time, despite there almost being a few deaths. I'm hoping to do more tests but it seems like the game plays much like how I expected and wanted it too. It was cool to see various classes special abilities shine, like Ansen getting bloodied and having his AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls increase by 2. Or to see Billy's bleed out ability work well. More updates to come hopefully as I test more. The game will probably release very soon so keep an eye out for it.