First Responders, a prequel to The Division

#1

This is a little something I made to help edge my wife into RPGs. She is more into real-life scenarios over fantasy and sci-fi, plus she’s a nurse, so I took my “Tom Clancy’s The Division” setting and revamped it. This setting takes place earlier, before the SHD Agents are activated which strips away the gun mods, fancy tech, and combat training.

Instead, you play as a First Responder, a humanitarian who jumps in to help save the injured and sick, immediately following a virus outbreak. These are normal people, not elite soldiers; 2 big focus points are Stealth and Nerves (read New Rules).

I kept the story inline so that players could easily jump into The Division after finishing this setting.

Disclaimer: This is still being slowly playtested so tweaks may come down the road.
Link: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnfnHpdtXMH-hypzdV4-9smD3k93?e=6YMWdK

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#2

That sounds cool. Love your output

#3

My wife is exactly the same. Need to give her a contemporary, real-world setting and she gets invested. Thanks for working on this.

#4

@mageyourday, Exactly! It’s hard sometimes not having a gamer wife LOL, but stuff like this got my wife more interested so I hope it helps you too.

#5

I’m definitely biased, but I love this. Job well done, man.

#6

Thanks for the comment and thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you yet again LOL

#7

Thank you for sharing this, @Kindred. Man, it looks great! I’m back in the saddle tonight, running for 2 or more at my FLGS in what I hope to be the start of a pretty long-legged regular Friday night campaign that starts and spends the first couple big arcs at least in the modern world.

Going to use the character creation and a lot of other pieces from here as the ultimate labor saver. I will be wrapping up a big honkin’ Modern Loot Table soon that I will try to make pretty before I share, but I suspect it will pair well with this set when I get done.

ETA Oh! Wanted to add, that I love the addition of DISTANT to the Close/Near/Far standard! Brill!

#8

@Lon, thanks for the humbling words man! I’m happy for any part of it you find useful. I hope your games go smoothly and I can’t wait to see the loot table you develop.

#9

I know it’s been an entire year, but I finally incorporated some of our playtesting changes. First Responders is now easier to read with a font change, more Character Creation options, 2 added Classes, Specializations (work like Milestone Paths), more Loot and Craftable ideas, and it now uses the DEF system from Quickstart 2E. The biggest change is going from having a 2nd HEART to track FEAR to the concept of FEAR starting and zero and Intimidation rolls add FEAR points: if your current FEAR is ever greater than your current HP, you are TERRIFIED and just about useless. There’s less emphasis on guns and more on healing (it’s about first responders after all). If you’re interested, check out the free link below:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnfnHpdtXMH-mSvamhPvJh-sdMjp?e=De4z2p

#10

Just glancing through it now, but I LOVE your The Division supplement. I haven’t had the chance to play it yet but am using the loot and the enemy stats in my Altered State game. This should go nicely with that! Thanks for sharing all the hard work!

#11

Awesome! I’m glad you’re finding some use from it. I’d like to eventually make similar changes to The Division too LOL.

#12

This is sooooo cool keep up the good work.

#13

I know it’s been another entire year but I wanted to let you know that this and the original Division ruleset are amazing. I am just getting into ICRPG and my kids and wife (my PCs) really like the setting and time you took with how the mechanics worked out.

So I wanted to say thank you!

#14

Very cool! I love that cover! :metal::sunglasses:

#15

Well thank you so much, that means a lot! I’m so glad you enjoyed it and it’s working out for you and your family. It was a lot of fun to work on what could easily be a real-life scenario LOL. Let me know if there’s anything you wish was added. I’m currently revisiting some of my older works, looking for things that need revised or added to continue the fun!

#16

Absolutely. Well-deserved compliment.

I love the Skills (Tags) and the Crafting from First Responders - makes finding even random “useless” loot super fun so I will absolutely be using those. I also like the Character Creation from FRs better. I was honestly going to print out the two PDFs and have them made into one book for personal use. I think they are the best Modern rules for ICRPG.

If you want some feedback I guess I can just let you know what I’m doing with the stuff you already have.

  1. Right now I am taking out all of the SHD Tech abilities to make the game even more realistic. I am trying to combine elements from Free League’s Twilight 2000 4e, but I don’t want it to loose too much Division flavor. It looks like it really only affects a few pieces of loot and a few abilities. If you want to go full Division 2 all of the Skill abilities have potential for Milestone-like progression. I am only taking out the SHD tech stuff since my wife prefers a more realistic apocalyptic environment haha, this really only affects Armor Healing etc. The rest of the TECH abilities seem to make sense. The skills from the games are actually really neat and the only one that seems a little farfetchd are the healing ones.

  2. Examples for all of the Efforts that makes sense within the World. I have a hard time knowing when to roll Science vs Tech vs Tools sometimes. I’m trying to think of a use for d10s but I think just keeping them for LOOT is a good solution too. I like the weapon categories from The Division PDF and think something like RPGs or C-4 could be with d10 or d12 damage. But having a list of examples is always helpful either way. I am trying to combine the rulesets into one.

  3. On the subject of lists…I am trying to work out all of the “conditions” and special effects for some of the Skills or Abilities you have listed. Maybe they are found in CORE, and I know a few things are from Blood and Snow but even just having a list of them somewhere would be helpful. Examples include: STUN, KNOCKBACK, POISON etc. Most are self-explanatory but not always.

  4. All of the tables are great. I have printed them out already and have been going through them line by line. I am trying to figure out how to compile them.

That’s what I’m working on but honestly if I went out and printed them both I would be super happy. These are just the tweaks I’m doing. Thanks again!

#17

Awesome, Sounds like you’re sinking your teeth in and going to work on this! I will agree that FR probably has more refined points throughout as I made it after Division and learned a few things LOL.

  1. Yeah the tech or skills can be used or dropped as desired, that’s just about with any supplement books but I agree losing the SHD tech will definitely help you ground the realism.

  2. I wouldn’t mind adding some effort examples to help readers out, I can see how that may be tough to understand at first. I’ll look into that.

  3. I intentionally leave these statuses unexplained in my supplements because I know most GMs have an idea of what they like to do for each and i didn’t want to add an explanation that people would feel obligated to follow. However I’ll consider adding an area that lists them as “this is how I use them” for examples.

  4. I’ll read through it again and see what I had for tables. I may compile/condense them to fit on a few single sheets. I actually just did this for my World of Aurora setting, calling them Quick Sheets. Basically removed fluff text and resized things to make all the enemies fit on a front/back sheet and then did the same for other aspects too.

Thanks for the feedback, I’ll let you know if I make any progress on this soon!

#18

That all makes a lot of sense to me. Making up the statuses isn’t too hard.

I’m having a fun time making up mechanics for how I want to handle the gadgets (turret, pulse, mobile cover etc). Lots of ways to do it so I’ll be testing it out. I’ll post a snippet of what I got soon.

Since I’m new I had no idea about your other stuff will be grabbing a few things! Happy to support. If your other stuff is anything like your Division stuff I know it will be great.