THE LAST WALK:

The meta game - Project Resources

There are two primary groups that are in this territory that participants can be a part of. The Ossuary Society and the Wells Society. Within each of these groups there are three sub-divisions with different focuses. The Ossuary Society has a Disease Research Division, a Mortis Amaranthine Research Division, and a Containment and Security Division. The Wells Society has a Community Support Division, a Security & Defense Division, and a Containment and Rescue division.

Ossuary Society: Dolores Finiuntur - Investigates diseases, identifies how they spread, and develops preventative measures to protect communities from outbreaks. Biological horror, observational research, and lingering slow horror.

Ossuary Society: Exitus Immortalis - Studies the Mortis Amaranthine, investigating morgue activity and changes in the processes of death and return. High risk, esoteric answers, and psychological and emotional horror.

Ossuary Society: Damnum Praeveni - Isolates and removes biological and necrological threats, securing dangerous sites and stopping practices that endanger the surrounding community. Sacrifice areas for the greater good of society. Moral complexity.

Wells Society: Neighbors’ Compact - Supports residents’ personal needs, strengthens community relationships, and helps people preserve their dignity and way of life through a crisis. First responders, project operations, and personal engagement.

Wells Society: Common Works Cooperative - Maintains essential infrastructure and coordinates supplies, repairs, and medical support to keep settlements functioning during emergencies. Choosing who eats, drinks, and what is prioritized is never an easy position to be in.

Wells Society: Open Route Rescue Corps - ‍Rescues people in danger, defends borders, fights threats to society. The same group that prevent threats from getting inside is the same group that prevents threats from getting outside of lost territories.

All of these groups have projects, emergencies, and opportunities for research. Unlocking these opportunities requires specific resources being turned in at the Weigh Station for those opportunities to be unlocked. At the Weigh Station there are also opportunities to help the settlement as a whole, provide tactical opportunities, or to open chances to earn more resources and supplies. Being able to turn in resources to get more medical binds for the remainder of the event is an option, which could give more of a tactical opportunity during the event, but removing those resources from play does prevent one of the other projects or opportunities from having the resources needed to be achieved.

Example: Looking at the Weigh Station progress boards, the Wells Society Open Route Rescue Corp sees that they need to turn in 5 munitions to make it so that all gunners in the settlement can use an additional 6 shots each during a combat for the rest of the event. This gives a huge advantage to their gunners for potentially taking out threats to get more resources. However, the Ossuary Society Exitus Immortalis need 5 munitions to break open a flesh clot to reach a new research zone. Both groups hear that there is a shipment of munitions going through the area, and have the opportunity to compete in an A/B module to see who gets the supplies. Where they end after may be a different story, but, that is up to the participants to figure out.

Finding Resources

Resources can enter play in many different ways. They may be discovered in Resource Stashes hidden around the site. They may be rewards for completing challenges, surviving journeys, or succeeding during scheduled scenarios. NPCs may offer resources as payment. Characters may negotiate trades. Some resources may simply be sitting somewhere dangerous waiting for someone willing to go get them during a combat.

And, of course, you may steal them. There is no requirement that the person who finds a Resource must be the person who eventually turns it in. Until a Resource reaches the Weigh Station, ownership is a matter of what happens in character.

Physical Resources Are Actually in Play

Every Meta Game Resource has a physical representation marked with an official Resource identification sticker. If you encounter one of these props during play, it is part of the game. You may pick it up. You may carry it away. You may give it to someone else. You may sell it, trade it, hide it, ransom it, or lie about having it.

If nobody is actively holding the Resource, somebody else can take it. If the Resource is in someone’s hands, you cannot force it out of their living hands. Putting a Resource beside your chair does not make it safe. Putting it behind your camp sign does not make it safe. Building an impressive pile of supplies and then walking away from it means that you have built an impressive pile of supplies for whoever finds it next.

Touching one container does not give you magical possession of every Resource sitting around it. If you want to protect your supplies, protect your supplies or turn them in to be safe. Again, if you are holding it, you cannot have it forced out of your hands if you are alive.

Personal Spaces Are Never Part of the Meta Game

Meta Game rules never give another participant permission to enter someone else's personal space. Resources may not be hidden inside tents or buildings, sleeping areas, changing areas, personal luggage, or other locations being used to store real world personal possessions. Other players are not expected to search through someone's belongings to determine whether a game prop is hidden there.

If you want to keep Resources somewhere, they must remain somewhere other participants can reasonably interact with them. Your personal property is out of play. Official Resource props are not. Do not use one to protect the other.

Stealing Resources

An unattended Resource can be taken. There is no special theft call, skill, timer, or permission required. If an official Resource prop is sitting somewhere that you are allowed to be and nobody is holding it, you may take it.

You may not grab a Resource out of another participant's hands. You may not wrestle over a prop or use physical strength to determine who keeps it. If someone is carrying something, they are carrying it. That does not necessarily mean they are going to keep it. If two people grab a object at the same time, the person who already owned it retains it. If neither had it prior, you cannot pull it out of someone else’s hands while they are alive. While they are on the ground bleeding on the other hand, that is fair game and if you are incapacitated you have to release your resources.

Outside of the downtown area, normal combat rules remain in effect and participants can attack each other. If someone is walking through the woods carrying the Fuel your people desperately need, you are perfectly capable of deciding that their continued possession of that Fuel has become unacceptable. Engage them according to the normal combat rules. If they beat you, congratulations on your educational experience. If you incapacitate them, the Resource is no longer being actively carried and can be taken.

Do Not Play the Border

The ability to attack someone in the field does not mean participants should spend the event camping the entrances to downtown waiting for people carrying Resources. Do not sit at transition points looking for easy victims. Do not hover around the edge of protected areas waiting for someone to cross an invisible line. Do not exploit bathrooms, sleeping areas, medical spaces, parking areas, or other out of character necessities as opportunities to steal Resources.

Go into the world. Follow people. Set ambushes along actual routes. Make deals that become bad deals. Become a highwayman. Become the reason someone suddenly realizes they should have hired guards. Create play. Do not turn the edge of downtown like it was a video game spawn point. Staff may remove Resources from individuals or Factions that repeatedly exploit the boundaries of the system instead of engaging with its intended play. Particularly dedicated offenders may also discover that zombies have strong opinions about rules exploitation.

Trading and Bartering

Resources are fully tradeable until they are turned into the Weigh Station. A organization may trade its extra Fuel for somebody else's Clean Water. A Faction may sell Medical Supplies to another Faction within its own Settlement. Someone may promise five Water tomorrow in exchange for three Foodstuffs today.

The Exchange does not guarantee private agreements. If someone makes a bad deal, that is their problem. If someone breaks an agreement, that may become everybody's problem.

Resources can also be used for story purposes before they are turned in. An NPC may want payment. A scenario may require supplies. A player may decide that handing over desperately needed medicine right now matters more than having that medicine counted at the end of the event. Once spent, traded, stolen, or surrendered, those Resources belong wherever they went next.

The Weigh Station

The Exchange operates the Weigh Station in the center of town. The Weigh Station is where Resources stop being loose supplies and become part of a Society's permanent event total.

When Resources are turned in, the Exchange records which organization and Faction receives credit for them. Once recorded, those Resources are considered spent or packed onto outbound caravans and sent home.

They are gone. They cannot be stolen. They cannot be traded. They cannot be withdrawn because somebody realizes three hours later that they made a terrible decision. Turning something in is permanent. This creates an important choice throughout the event. A Resource sitting in your camp can still be traded or used. It can also be stolen. A Resource turned into the Weigh Station is safe, but it can no longer solve a problem happening in front of you or be used for leverage.

When the Weigh Station Closes

The Weigh Station is not open for the entire event. It opens and closes as it sees fit, and often will close for short periods to cause complexity where resources can’t be removed from play by being turned in. When it closes no additional Resources may be turned in until it reopens. Anything that has already been recorded is safe. Anything that has not been recorded is still in play.

The closed Weigh Station is not a storage area. Leaving six crates outside the door does not count as turning them in and does not make them protected. If you decide to hold Resources overnight, you are accepting the risk that comes with still possessing them. Protect them. Hide them somewhere legal outside of private areas and not in OOC stockpiles. Trade them. Assign someone to watch them. Or wake up the next morning and have an extremely uncomfortable conversation about where all the Foodstuffs went. ‍