13. END GAME.

The End Game.

Loyalty Changes.

Loyalty - A measure (between 1 and 12) of your standing with regard to the City(high) or the Revolution(low). This will affect the EndGame and what the future will be like. Loyalty begins at 9 for all characters, and shifts one way of the other. High loyalty means you support the City and its values, lower loyalty means you support the future, revolution and Hope. When someone’s Loyalty reaches 1 or 12 the GM will look at the Endgame to check what happens.

Generally the GM will NOT know your Loyalty score. The GM, acting as your Commander may discover your Loyalty via Moves they may use, which can result in repercussions for your character, or your team.

Players may chose to modify their Loyalty score toward the City during Downtimes, increasing it or decreasing it one point. You should keep this a secret from the GM unless they perform a Review Move that requires you to reveal it. Players may freely lie to each other about their Loyalty.

The System.

Players begin with a Loyalty of 9. The GM/Commander will not normally know your loyalty, you can keep it a secret. The GM/Commander may discover your loyalty via the profiling tests noted below.

As a result of events you may raise or lower it. Raising it means you support the City, lowering it means you support change, revolution or anarchy.

When your Loyalty is 4 or less you may be discovered by random profiling and sent for re-education, which will add 3 to your current Loyalty. You will also be demoted back to Soldat rank and stripped of all benefits and awards.

When your Loyalty reaches 1 you may announce the beginning of the EndGame phase, see later.

When your Loyalty is 10 or more and this is discovered by profiling, you will be rewarded. This can be in the form of promotion, rewards or awards.

When your Loyalty reaches 12 you may announce the beginning of the EndGame phase, see later.

At the end of every mission, during your Review by your Commander, the mission will be declared:

• a success,
• a stalemate
• a failure.

Players may elect to change their Loyalty 1 pt at this time.

Failed mission: you may automatically chose to lower your Loyalty or remain static, or you may roll to raise your Loyalty (see roll results below).

Stalemate mission: you may remain static, or you may roll to increase or decrease your Loyalty (see roll results below).

Success mission: you may automatically chose to raise your Loyalty or remain static, or you may roll to lower your Loyalty (see roll results below).

Roll+Heart:

10+: you gain what you want.

7-9: you gain what you want but will trigger a profiling test.

-6: GM option.

If your current Loyalty is 3- or 10+ apply -1 to this roll.

You may burn a point of Hope, or create a point of Despair, to apply +1 to this roll.

Profiling:

When your Loyalty is less than 4 you are at risk of discovery by Profiling.

• Your Commander will trigger profiling under specific conditions.
  • After a failed mission the ranking Soldier will be profiled.
  • After a successful mission a random soldier will be profiled.
  • After a stalemate mission two random soldiers will be profiled.
• Your team Capitaine (must be that rank) may request a profiling.
• Your roll to adjust your Loyalty results in profiling.

A profile test will be as follows for you. (roll+FACE)

10+: Chose one of the following.

Your Loyalty is accurately reported, you tell the GM your true loyalty.

Your Loyalty remains unknown and ok.

7-9: The test detects your Loyalty is ‘a risk’ (4-) or ‘solid’ (10+), anything else remains unknown. If they detect risk you are sent off for re-education. If it is solid you are rewarded.

6-: The test accurately detects your Loyalty score.

If all your Team members vouch for you, apply +1 to the roll (secret ballot).

If your Loyalty is currently 10+, apply +1 to the roll.

The Undiscovered Country.

One optional component to this game is the future, can you defeat the aliens and what comes after that. Are the Raised cities overthrown by revolution, or do they descend into a feudal dark age. Is there the possibility of reform without violence. Is there Hope or Despair.

At the very start of the game, after everyone has created their characters and understand the nature of the world they will be playing in, each player selects their desired ‘Future’, in secret. The options are Revolution or Citizenship. This choice is written on a piece of paper with your characters name and all of the choices are placed and sealed inside an envelop. Not even the GM is allowed to see these choices, they will be revealed at the very end of the game and will determine the future of the human race.

Each player will also gain a Loyalty score of 9 at this time, Loyalty remains a secret from other players. This is the loyalty you have to the City after all the training and education you have received, it assumes you begin moderately loyal. During the game, after each mission, you will have an option to change your Loyalty score, up or down. Your Commander (the GM) will periodically test you via a psychological profiling to judge your Loyalty, most of the time it will not matter unless your Loyalty is 4 or less, or 10 or more. If they discover you have Loyalty of 4 or less you will be demoted and sent off for ‘re-education’, after which it is increased by 3pts. If your Loyalty is discovered to be 10 or more you will most likely be promoted and awarded ‘special services’ and given a medal, all very conspicuously, so your fellow players will know.

Loyalty is a value that is used to trigger the ‘EndGame’, where the future is decided, whether you live or die, and what happens to Humanity. Hope & Despair also play a role in this but via a separate mechanism. Idealist revolutionaries can win but despair at what will now come, sometimes over throwing the old just brings you something worse.

The intent of the Loyalty value is to allow players to chose between ‘revolution’ (where the ruling order is overthrown, in this case the City), or Citizenship, where the player joins the City elite, or at least that’s what they think.

The other score that the game will use is Hope & Despair. Players will accumulate Hope points and Despair points, again secretly. During the EndGame the totality of all the players Hope and all their Despair will be compared and the future determined. If Hope dominates than the Aliens are defeated and the future is rosy. If Despair dominates than the Aliens win and humanity is extinct. Anything in the middle means the future is an ‘undiscovered country’.

The future MIGHT be good with The City, small chance of technological breakthroughs that make a time of plenty occurs and the City has no reason to remain separate.

ENDGAME.

Players who have a character with a Loyalty of 1 or 12 may call for the EndGame, optionally.

When a player has announced they are calling for the EndGame we go through a process of determining where everyone stands and if any one stance has a majority, Revolution or Citizenship.

If there is no one on an opposing side then that side loses and everyone must join the winner, who is declared Glorious Leader.

An initial poll is conducted and everyone with 4- Loyalty must declare support for a Revolution. Everyone with 10+ Loyalty must declare support for Citizenship. The remainder (those with loyalty 5-9) will then be swayed by both sides to try to get them to support their side. This is done with a series of Persuasions.

The Caller (of the EndGame) starts with the first Persuasion test, selecting an uncommitted player.

Persuasion: (Roll+History)

6- You insult them, they may elect to move their Loyalty 1pt away from you.

7-9 They remain uncommitted

10+ Pick one of the following

They are removed from the game, they have been purged, create 1 Despair.

They must move their Loyalty 1pt toward yours.

One player from the opposing side then gets to make a test. Repeat with each side, as long as they have a player left who has not yet rolled. This means one side may get more rolls than the other.

When an uncommitted player gets to 4 or 10 on their loyalty they must declare for that side.

As an option to a Persuasion test, a player who has declared for one side may elect to move their Loyalty 1pt toward their side (toward 1 or 12).

As soon as TWO players reach Loyalty of 1 or 12 they announce this and the Persuading is over.

All remaining unallocated players are allocated by their current Loyalty, which ever side they are closest to. If anyone has 7 Loyalty they are killed, create 1 Despair.

If one side has a clear majority of players then they win. If there is an exact draw then the status quo is maintained.

Contacts and The Revolution.

The number and quality of your contacts may be used to modify the future.

???

The Envelope Please.

At the very start of the game you selected your preferred option, Revolution or Citizenship, and sealed it away. The GM now takes out these and announces them all.

If you are on the losing side and your secret nomination is for the winning side you may announce you are a Double Agent and convert to the winning side. You create 1 Desapir if you do this, but you are on the winner side!

If your choice matches your Loyalty you gain 1 Hope.

The Future.

Now we have a winning side, or a status quo, we find out what sort of future they will have.

Tally all the Hope of the winning side and compare it to all of the Despair (of everyone).

Consult the following:

Hope is 2x Despair or more: the struggle continues and new technologies slowly emerge to allow humans to defeat the aliens. With time the Rifts reseal themselves and the aliens are beaten. The people of Earth repair their society as each side realises they need to co-operate, a new Renaissance is begun.

Revolution:

Status Quo:

Citizenship:

Hope is more than Despair: the struggle continues with time the Rifts begin to fade and re-seal, allowing humanity to begin a long struggle back to enlightenment. Your opponents fade into obscurity.

Revolution:

Status Quo:

Citizenship:

Despair is more than Hope: anarchy and despair. The aliens become a permanent feature of the landscape, humans slowly devolve into a tribal existence, a delicate balance is maintained for many years until both sides simply fade away.

Revolution:

Status Quo:

Citizenship:

Despair is 2x Hope: Humanity as a cohesive force is lost, the aliens settle in and create permanent enclaves from which they hunt and feed on humans until their numbers dwindle and finally only small remote communities of mostly animal form humans remain in isolated packets that the aliens cannot be bothered to enter.

Revolution:

Status Quo:

Citizenship:

Despair is 3x Hope: the aliens win, all human life is wiped out.

Revolution:

Status Quo:

Citizenship:

Despair is 4x Hope: the human race dies, the planet becomes a barren lifeless rock, the oceans dry up, the atmosphere is stripped by massive solar winds, all signs of human existence turn to dust and are forgotten. Not even the aliens want this place, they return to their own world.

Revolution:

Status Quo:

Citizenship:

Hope & Despair.

Fallen Cities is about Hope or Despair for the future of humanity.

With Hope humanity will defeat the Aliens and overcome their difficulties.

With Despair they will succumb to the Aliens and fight each other bitterly until they are extinct.

But its not all that easy to seek Hope, especially when Despair offers you temptations that will allow you to survive now. Hope is for the future, you will probably never see the result of Hope. Hope however is what the game is all about, if you don’t seek Hope then you and your team all die horrible deaths and humanity itself turns into even greater monsters than the Aliens will ever be. This may be your wish of course.

The System.

Hope & Despair play an integral part of the story of the Fallen Cities.

Player characters will want to seek Hope at all times, the more Hope they can find the better the future will be that they are creating.

The GM on the other hand, will be creating Despair, acting as the dark future.

Each session, the players will be offered scenes or opportunities to create Hope, and to banish Despair. This can occur through narrative imagery, or through heroic actions.

The Narrative.

The narrative Hope view of the scene must offer up an image or event that instills Hope in the players, and makes them feel that there is a chance of victory or salvation. Get your sunlamps out and your silk screens and add plenty of white, construct a scene that palpably oozes niceness, richness, and happiness.

The Despair view of the same scene must offer up an image or event that instills despair, dread, fear and decay. It should suck the life out of your characters and leave them pointing a gun into their mouths. It should be dark, vicious, cruel and compelling.

Eg: The City offers a Health Clinic to the surface people every month. A mobile bus travels around and trained doctors and nurses tend to the sick, in all its forms. The characters are assigned to protect the bus from crazies and aliens. During their latest tour the GM offers the players the following two scenes of Hope and Despair.

An emaciated mother has carried her sick child to the bus and seeks help. The nurse takes details and runs tests on her and the child. The Doctor comes back with the results and says that they can treat the mother but the child is terminal as the treatment is more than the service is funded for. He injects the mother and turns to the next patient. Whilst he is looking away a young nurse comes over nervously to the mother, she watches to make sure the doctor is busy and then quickly reveals a syringe and injects the baby with it. She gives the mother a bag of food bars and whispers to her that the child will live but that she must eat more to make sure she can look after it.

An emaciated mother has carried her sick child to the bus and seeks help. The nurse takes details and runs test on her and the child. The Doctor comes back with the results and says that they can treat the mother but the child is terminal. He injects the mother with a sedative and takes the baby from her and carries it inside the bus. You move to watch the doctor from a small window looking into the bus. He inspects the child like he is examining a carcass, then picks up a cradle that looks like an incubator and places the baby inside. The incubator fogs up as cold air enters the system. The doctor slaps a sticker on the side of the machine that says “Harvesting approved, Cat B”, and passes it to a nurse who places it in a large storage cabinet. You can see several others already stored inside.

Each player will be allowed to do this once per session.

The Action.

This is simply a mechanistic option, and there are several ways it can work.

• Anytime a character rolls 13+ on a Move that can be construed to have Heroic implications (wouldn’t be cut from the movie), the character may elect to take the bonus as a Hope token.
• Any time a character generates 3 History they may take a Hope token rather than the experience point they would normally gain.

GM Created Despair.

There can be no Hope without Despair, so everytime a player creates a Hope token and there is currently no Despair, the GM may assign a Despair token.

Hope&Despair Options.

Hope&Despair Effects.

A character with a Hope token gains +1 Onward to all actions.

A character with a Despair token gains -1 Onward to all actions.

Opposing tokens on the same character result in both of them being removed.

A character that gains a second

HOPE & DESPAIR (roll+??Opinion)

During the game players may search for a few precious moments that show that humanity is not lost and that hope for the future, acts of kindness and selflessness, sacrifice for the greater good, are all still possible.

The modifiers for this Move is as follows (they stack):

+1 if it is the first use of the Move for this session.

+1 if everyone at the game agrees this imagery is better than the last.

+1 if you burn a Resource.

Once per session each player may call for a Moment of Hope.

10+ You witness/create a moment of amazing beauty, you gain +1 Hope, and +1 Forward.

7-9 You find Hope but are afflicted with distraction, gain +1 Hope and -1 Forward.

6- Your vision is broken by doubters and distractors.

Optionally a player may find a Moment of Despair.

10+ You find despair and more, gain +1 Despair and 1 of the following.

You find an stash: +2 Resources.

You harden your mind: +1 Ongoing for Mind based rolls till Downtime.

You learn to control your Calm: +1 Ongoing for Calm based rolls till Downtime.

7-9 You find despair, gain +1 Despair and harden your resolve, gain +1 Forward.

6- You find utter despair, gain +2 Despair.

Benefits.

The immediate benefits of adding Hope are as follows:

Select 1:

• The GM adds a point of Hope to the Future Bag.
• One character may recover 2 boxes from their Wound Chart.
• An unconscious character will suddenly recover and be mobile for a few minutes, they can do nothing other than stagger toward the Far Block and safety.

The other uses of Hope are:

• At anytime a character may request a re-roll of the last roll that was made. They must accept the new roll. The GM will remove one point of Hope from the Future Bag, or if their is no Hope left, they will add an extra point of Despair.
• At anytime a character may NOT die by taking a point of Hope from the bag. Instead they will drop unconscious for the remainder of the scene, short of medical recovery. Move their token to the Far Block, they are assumed to crawl there during the following events.

The immediate benefits of Despair are as follows:

The GM adds a point of Despair to the Future Bag.

One character may also select 1.

• +1 Ongoing for the remainder of the session (non-stacking).
• You may select 2 units of ‘Resources’ to be found nearby.
• You may select 4 units of ‘Ammo’ to be found nearby.
• The character removes 3 boxes from their Wound Chart.
• An unconscious character will wake up long enough to evacuate the scene.

EndGame.

When the game is ending the last determination to be made is whether humanity survives. The GM will examine the contents of the Future Bag and compare the amount of Hope to the amount of Despair. Details can be found in the EndGame section.

Optional HOPE.

GMs may allow the death of a character to generate HOPE. The survivors must each spend 1 Resource per dead character to conduct a fitting funeral, and tell one story each of something that character did (times when they generated Hope are perfect, so it might be a good idea to write the events down so they can be recalled later) that generated Hope for the future.

Characters may generate HOPE by spending 10 Resources, putting up a soup kitchen or some such community spirited charitable action. Every character must agree to partake of this activity.

Characters may generate HOPE by having a Workshop with an Artizan and spending 20 Salvage, creating some device that improves the life of the community on the ground (a clean water pump etc). Every character must agree to partake of this activity.

A character may take the Choose Your Own Exit Move and generate a point of Hope.

Debt & Obligations (optional)