Characters

Attributes and Saves

The non-super traits of your character in Super Dead are represented by four attributes: athleticism, intelligence, personality, and courage.

• Athleticism represents feats of strength, speed, and agility.
• Intelligence represents cunning and knowledge.
• Personality represents your ability to persuade and convince others.
• Courage represents your ability to overcome fear and stress.

When something you do might have a cost to you, you will make a save against the relevant attribute by rolling 1d10. If the roll is under your attribute, you have succeeded and you will avoid all or most of the cost. If the roll is above your attribute, you may succeed, but you will incur a setback or pay a cost.

Because not all tasks are created equal, some saves will be harder than others. When a save is easier than normal, you will subtract a number from your roll; when the save is harder than normal, you will add a number to your roll. These bonuses or penalties are added at the game master's discretion.

Designer's Note: Super Dead is not a "bonus tallying" system. So two things that are hard do not necessarily become very hard, and hard and easy do not necessarily cancel out. The narrative scenario is evaluated in full by the game master and a single bonus is determined for the roll.

Skills

Skills are areas of training where characters have mastered tasks that would ordinarily be challenging or impossible if untrained.

The following tasks are hard, unless trained: fighting, first aid, repair, shooting.

The following tasks are impossible unless trained: engineering, medicine, performance, science.

Most characters are unprepared for the end of days and will not have any skills.

Stress

After avoiding zombies, the next most important thing you can do in the end of days is keep your cool. Your success at keeping your cool is measured by your stress.

As you adventure, you will suffer from the stresses of the end of the world. Each time you incur a point of stress, you must make a courage save. If you fail, you have cracked.

If you have more than four points of stress, you are burdened. At your game masters discretion——and especially during the most important moments——the burdens of your stress catch up to you, making tasks hard.

When you crack, everything you do becomes hard. If you have cracked and you are burdened, everything you do is very hard; If you have cracked and you have more than eight points of stress, everything you do is extremely hard.

Stress Relief

Resting in a safe place provides some relief from stress. If you can manage to find such a place, a successful personality test reduces your stress by 1 point for every 8 hours of rest.

Additionally, you will have a preferred form of stress relief. If you engage in that activity during your rest, you reduce your stress by an additional 1 point.

Stress and Bonds

The characters you have bonds with are especially important. If you engage in your stress release activity with a character you have a bond with, double the amount of stress relieved.

If someone you have a bond with dies, you immediately incur five points of stress.

Background

Even if it's hard to remember now, you were someone before the end of the world.

Every character has a background. This background may allow you to have skills, at the game masters discretion, and may make certain tasks easier for you than others.

Backgrounds are not strictly professions, but rather broad areas of familiarity. You should specify your background as it applies to your character.

Flaws

We are all flawed. And our flaws define us as much as our strengths.

In stressful times, like a zombie apocalypse, these flaws are especially likely to rule our personality.

Once per day, you may succumb to one of your flaws and relieve one point of stress.

If you try to resist your flaws in a pivotal moment, your stress will increase. You may try to resist this by making a courage test. On a successful test, you tame your flaw — for the time being. On a failed test you incur two points of stress and succumb to your flaw.

Improving Your Character

As you strive to survive the end of days, certain activities such as killing zombies, rescuing survivors, gathering supplies, and defeating villains will gain you experience points.

As you gain experience, you will level up. When you have enough XP to reach the next level, you can select one of the following improvements for your character:

Improvements

• Gain a new power (+2)
• Gain two new powers (+1)
• Improve a power (+1)
• Gain a skill
• Grain a trait
• Gain a stunt
• Remove a flaw
• Clear all stress
• Gain a new bond

Once an improvement is selected, you may not select that same upgrade for either of the subsequent two levels.

Advancement Table