Firebreathing Kittens

How To Play Everything’s Going To Crab

How to play Everything’s Going To Crab.
 
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Everything Is Going To Crab. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Everything Is Going To Crab yourselves.
 
The sections I’ll talk about are:
Writing prompt
Character creation
How to use skills
How to attack
 
Writing prompt: The general idea of this system is that you start in your normal forms and must turn into a crab if you want to survive a giant wave that will hit your town in 24 hours. If you can convince a Non Player Character (NPC) that they need to become a crab, too, then they’ll head to the beach and do their best, and will also survive. The more NPCs you can save, the better. How good are you at convincing people of something they don’t want to believe? This games finds out.
 
Character creation: There are three categories of traits: eyes, hands, and feet. Each has analogies in your starting and crab forms. Eyes in your starting form, versus crab eyes stalks. Hands in your starting form, versus crab pincers. Feet in your starting form, versus crab legs. Eyes are used for guessing at how much someone believes you that they need to turn into a crab, or reading a book or a town sign. Crab eyestalks are good at seeing through disguises and spotting hidden predators. Hands are used for repairing broken items and high fiving someone, while crab pincers are good at holding on to someone against the might of the sea or snipping something small. Feet are used for driving a car, walking in high heels, and sneaking, while crab legs are good at climbing up rock walls and for scampering at speed. To create your character, put 100 percentage points each into these three categories. Split the percentage points between your current and crab form. The maximum you can start with is 79 percent crab during character creation. Please start with fewer than 80 on the crab side so you don’t have to explain why you look like a crab at the start of the game. Here is an example. Yolanda puts 70 percent into eyes, and 30 percent into crab eye stalks. She puts 60 percent into hands, and 40 percent into crab pincers. Lastly, she puts 75 percent into feet and 25 percent into crab legs. Yes, you can start with 100 percent in the starting form traits. 
 
How to use skills: Rolling lower than your trait means you succeed in what you try to do. If Jerome wants to spot a hidden lever, he’d roll a d100 and try to roll lower than his crab eyestalks, which are good at spotting things, like hidden levers. With 50 percentage points in eyestalks, a 40 would succeed and a 90 would fail.
As you play, your points will change. After every roll, you can change your ratio from starting body to crab body in one category. 80% will trigger a metamorphoses into that type of form for one limb, 100% will metamorph both limbs. At the end of the game you need to have 80% in all three crab traits to survive the giant wave. For example, Jerome just finished rolling to spot a hidden lever. Because he rolled, he can choose to adjust the percentage points. He’d previously had 50 points in eyestalks. With the end of the game and the giant wave approaching, Jerome decides to bump his eyes up to 80%, triggering a form change and he describes how one eye pops out into a crab eyestalk. Because he’s above 80 in all traits now, he will survive the giant wave. If he wants both eyes to be eye stalks, he could change his number to 100%.
 
How to attack: The wave wasn’t just a naturally occurring event, but a planned apocalypse designed to wipe the town off the face of the earth. Some of the townspeople are imposters, and are secretly crabs. You might find yourself in combat with them. Combat rolls are opposed checks. The enemy has between 40 and 70% in each trait. If both you and your enemy succeed your roll, then the person who rolled closer to their trait’s number wins. Players win ties. Here is an example. JimBob the harbormaster is secretly a crab. You want to spread a rumor about him so that everyone in the town believes the coming wave is JimBob’s fault. Seeing through lies is a starting form eyes trait, so you have to roll a d100 and try to get below your starting form eyes percentage. JimBob still looks human at this point, so he has to roll under a 70 to succeed. He rolls a 20, which is 50 points under, and passes his roll. You’ve been slowly turning into a crab this whole time, and your eyes are mostly eye stalks at this point. You’ve only got 20 point in eyes; it’s 80% eyestalk. You cross your fingers and roll your dice, and you get a 15. That’s a success. It’s five points below its trait number. Both opposed checks succeed, so the one that is closer to its trait number wins. Because you rolled five points below your trait number and JimBob the harbormaster rolled fifty, you are closer, and your rumor is successful. The two NPCs, JimBob’s harbor attendant employees, who had been listening to JimBob’s advice to stay in town, believe your rumor and skedaddle on a boat, escaping the wave.
 
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand combat a bit. And for everyone listening, hopefully now you’re excited to find the Everything Is Going To Crab rule book yourself, and play a game with friends. I’m looking forward to playing Everything Is Going To Crab in an upcoming adventure.

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Trailer for Puzzling Portals

Dimension hopping, bloody trees, and seducing fire giants? Listen at your own risk! Join Arby, Guvo, and Sadie in the episode Puzzling Portals featuring the one-page RPG Sexy Battle Wizards! 

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Trailer for Gifts Of The Past

What can a memory hold? The joy of an old friend? The fear of a nightmare? Perhaps something even more. Join Sadie, Bartholomew, and Armando as they find out! Gifts Of The Past is an actual play of the Mall Zombies TTRPG. 

How To Play Mall Zombies

Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Mall Zombies by W.H Arthur. In this episode, I’ll share my thoughts after reading the rule book. Hopefully this episode will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Mall Zombies yourselves.
Set up
Get a deck of cards, preferable a zombie themed deck for that extra narrative spark
Separate the cards into three piles, all of the number cards, the court cards (aka, j, q k), and the two jokers.
We now shuffle the number cards together and create 7 face down piles of 3 cards by drawing from this deck.
Once we have these 7 face down piles, we turn over the top card in each pile.
Each pile should now have 1 faceup card and two face down cards underneath.
We’ve just created our shops for the players to scavenge from.
The top card number tells us what the Prompt is for that shop. This is a list of names given in the rules. Such as, Wisdom, Luxury, Power, etc. You can come up with the rest of the name of the shop yourself. If one of the piles has 6 as the top visible card the Prompt indicates it is an Eletrical store, so we could call it, Roberts Bits and Bobs. So we know what type of items might be in that store. (We will go into what our players want later on).
We take the remaining cards we didn’t draw and shuffle the two jokers into it that pile to create the “main deck”. The players will be drawing from this Main deck during the game when scavenging through the shops.
The court cards are shuffled and set aside as the Zombie Deck. We draw from this deck when the players are attacked by the zombies.
This completes the set up!
Before we go on, let’s discuss what our players are looking for during the game.
The group first discuss what things the colony needs to survive. (e.g. food, batteries, heating, clothes, medicine, entertainment).
Once they have decided on 5 needs this will be the basis for your players to focus on what they are scavenging for. So lets look now at how to scavenge the mall!
Scavenging examples
During the game the players will be scavenging for supplies by looking through the shops. Mechanically this is by searching through the piles of cards one after another.
Example. Rosie, a widowed survivor of the colony has spotted Roberts Bits and Bobs and decides to scavenge through the shop to find some useful tools for the colony.
Rosie describes how she would find her husband, Barry in the shop every time they went to the mall together thumbing through the bargain bins looking for a great deal on hammers. It would annoy her at the time, but now it just makes her miss him even more.
The more narrative detail the better in this game, encourage your players to really go ham in their descriptions taking as long as they want.
The GM now turns over the related pile of cards with the number 6 on and shows the group what they have found with their initial scavenge.
The cards turned over now read the following. 6 hearts, 6 of spades, and 10 of spades.
So, what are we looking for here?
The players are trying to find one of three outcomes related to a poker hand. This being a “three of a kind”, aka 3x3, or 3, 10’s, etc. A straight flush, aka, 123 of hearts. If this outcome is reached the players “You find more than what you need. Describe how the item fulfils one of the needs, and how it's better than what you expected.” Or, a Straight or flush, this is 123, in any suit or 3 cards all hearts, spades, etc. If they get this outcome, “You find what you need. Describe how the item fulfils one of the needs.” and lastly, a pair, aka, 2x2’s or 2,10s, etc. If this is the outcome, “You find something, but it is either defective or of an inferior quality. Elaborate on the details.”
If none of these outcomes happen, they find nothing of use, aka, it doesn’t match any of the groups needs for the colony.
Push your luck
Now, what happens if the first three cards don’t give them what they want? Well, they can push their luck and draw from the main deck, (the ones with now jokes, aka zombies in..oooooo).
Rosie draws “6 hearts, 6 of spades, and 10 of spades” That’s two spades, with is close to a flush, and two 6’s which is close to a three of kind.
Rosie decides to draw from the main deck and “pushes her luck”.
When a player pushes their luck, they must describe what they’re doing to do this. e.g. breaking down a locked door, removing rubble from a blocked corridor, etc).Rosie breaks through the employees only door at the back of the shop.
The GM draws this card from the main deck and adds it to the pile. It’s a 6 of clubs.
This gives Rosie 3, 6’s and a three of a kind. This means “You find more than what you need. Describe how the item fulfils one of the needs, and how it's better than what you expected”.
Rosie describes finding a pile of brand-new tools from saws, hammers, and hand drills, perfect for fixing and building a better shelter for the colony.
These cards are not placed back into the main deck once an area has been scavenged, they stay out in their respective shop piles.
Zombies!
What if Rosie drew a Joker card from the main deck. Well, this is where the brutality of the game comes into play.
Rosie draws a Joker and the GM indicates she stumbled into a zombie attack!
The gm draws a card from the “zombie deck” aka the deck of court cards and tells Rosie what she is facing.
J : You survive by fighting or escaping from the zombies. How did you do it?
Q : You are attacked by an infected survivor (an NPC). Tell us whether you noticed their strange behaviours recently. You are dead.
K: You are attacked by a swarm of zombies. Tell us how you die.
The zombie deck is reshuffled afterwards with the court card being placed back, and the joker is then shuffled back into the main deck.
So how can you mitigate these effects? To have a little more sway or edge over the randomness of the decks?
Character creation:
Creating a character is very simple, each player takes control of a survivor in the zombie apocalypse giving their name, pronouns, and choosing one “special ability”.
These special abilities give the players tools to look through the main deck before drawing from it.
Careful : Look at the top card of the main deck in secret. You may put it at the bottom of the deck.
Daring : Look at the top two cards of the main deck in secret. You may shuffle the deck.
Wise : Look at the top three cards of the main deck in secret. You may put them back in any order.
Scavenging with Special abilities.
Let’s now rewind time and figure out how Rosie could have mitigated the zombie attack!
Rosie has the ability “wise” which means, Look at the top three cards of the main deck in secret. You may put them back in any order.”
She enters Robers bits and bobs, does her description, looks at the cards, “6 hearts, 6 of spades, and 10 of spades”.
She can now use her special ability to look at the top three cards of the main deck in secret. She draws three cards in order, Joker, 6 clubs, 8 spades.
It’s a good thing she checked as she would have drawn a joker. She now puts them back in this order, joker, 8 spades, 6 clubs. So, the next card drawn will be the 6 of clubs.
Escaping
Once the PCs have found all they need, it is time to leave the mall.
Or, if they are dying out too quickly, it’s time to escape and take what they can with them.
Of the remaining surviving characters, a leader is chosen from them who will be drawing from a new set of cards created by the gm.
The leader and push their luck as normal and if a joker is revealed standard zombie attack rules proceed.
Three of a kind / Straight Flush : All remaining PCs escape. Describe how the group outsmart the zombie horde.
Straight / Flush : One PC sacrifices themselves to allow the others to escape. Narrate their sacrifice.
Pair (Only works if you have 1+ remaining PC): The leader can choose a single PC to escape. Describe what happens. (The remaining PCs can find an alternative exit by drawing a new set of three cards.)
None of the above: You cannot escape.
The ending
If the scavenged supplies fulfil all of your needs (with less than half of them defective), and at least one PC is alive. : Your colony thrives. Describe how the living condition improves.
If the scavenged supplies fulfil only some of your needs, and at least one PC is alive: Your colony survives. Describe how the colony aces setbacks from the unfulfilled needs.
If all PCs are dead: Decide as a group if the scavenged supplies reach back to the colony. If so, apply the above ending that fits. If not, apply the ending below.
If you fail to scavenge any items: Your colony collapses. Is there anything left?
and epilogues
surviving players now describe what happened after in the colony, and dead players can describe their after life as a zombie.
Get this game for “pay what you want” on drivethru RPG.

Jan 2024 Rules Feedback Chat

We discuss our thoughts about the rules for the tabletop roleplaying games we played in the past few weeks:  Resolute 2e, Root Quick Start, Christmas Capers, The Witch Is Dead, Adventure Dice, LURPS, Desperado Quickdraw Edition, Dicing With Death, and New Edo.

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Trailer for Rolls Off The Tongue

Zidane, now slightly seasoned, leads newcomers Nugh and Sadie through an alternate version of Niqamui to save reality. Rolls off the Tongue is an actual play podcast of the system "New Edo". 

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