Rad Zone Totality - A Print and Play RPG Game

The world faces a terrible apocalypse. Without warning, the sun’s radiation spiked to alarming levels, and under this relentless and deadly barrage, humanity succumbed. People fell ill and millions died. Populations moved underground into fortified Rad Bunkers as the sun pushed people deeper into the darkness. Many plants and animals perished, and society collapsed. Food and clean water were rationed until people began to starve, and martial law was replaced by irradiated outlaws and bandits who roamed the surface, looking for some means of survival.

Rad Zone Totality is a roll and write, print and play game for 1-2 players set in a harsh future where you manage a group of survivors. They live in a Rad Bunker and strive to keep their home stocked with food, water, medical supplies, fuel, equipment, and raw materials. Those survivors who are more capable must go on dangerous missions and salvage these much-needed items from nearby locations, at the same time evading bandits who roam the land in their radiation-induced craze. On top of this, survivors must be careful to avoid taking a dangerous dose of radiation.

Rad Zone Totality is the expanded version of the original game Rad Zone and includes many new rules. Both versions are compatible with the game sheets. All the map expansions, apart from the christmas expansion, are included in Rad Zone Totality.

What you need in order to play

Rad Zone Totality uses a D6 (six-sided dice) system. You need at least three dice of three different colours in order to play. You will also need a pencil and eraser and to print out the sheets to play (or copy them from the rule book). These include the Rad Bunker Roster, an Episode Sheet, Character Cards, Journey Charts and Location Sheets. Books of episode sheets can be picked up on our website.

Gameplay

Rad Zone Totality was originally designed as a solo player game, which revolves around a series of printable sheets (two-player rules have been added after the solo player rules, but you will need to read these core rules first). These sheets are adjusted and updated while your characters are on missions. A mission sees one of your people head out to salvage resources for their bunker.

A game session is played using a new character or one selected from the Rad Bunker Roster.  This roster will contain previously played characters who survived their mission: they will be experienced and consequently will have additional useful traits. The usual policy of the bunker is to send one person at a time in order to limit the level of radiation poisoning within the survivor population, as well as reduce casualties.

The order of play is as follows:

1)      Select or generate a character.

2)      Fill out your Episode Sheet.

3)      Journey to the city.

4)      Explore as many locations as you need to or can.

5)      Journey back to the bunker.

We will run through the solo player rules first.

Your Aim and Victory Conditions

Rad Zone is split up into campaigns representing a period of time. You play out a campaign that can have up to ten episodes, as shown on the Rad Bunker Roster. Episodes are designed to be spread out as separate sessions at the tabletop. You, in effect, return to a group of hardy survivors to continue their story, like turning on an episode of a good TV show set in a harsh post-apocalyptic future.

There are two ways to win a campaign: you can either increase your survivor count to twenty or survive ten episodes. Surviving the campaign means the number of survivors in your bunker never reaching zero. You can gain survivors while on missions or lose them by failing missions. You can also pick up survivors while on the journey to or from the city.

There is a clear divide between survivors and characters, explained in more detail later. Characters are more durable but less dependable and, if the bunker fails, will move on to another.