Untitled Plague TTRPG

Background:

In 2019, I played Pathologic 2 and was totally blown away. The tension of trying to scramble to survive in a plague-ridden town as resources become scarce, the decision-making of what to do with your limited time, and how thinly to stretch yourself helping others, it's very compelling. I highly recommend it (with the caveat that it is in many ways not an enjoyable game in many ways).

I immediately started imagining translating the experience into a tabletop roleplaying game. The different healer characters seemed a natural fit for PbtA playbooks. I wrote up some initial mechanics and did an initial playtest by myself, thinking I'd iron out some of the more obvious problems before testing it with other people.

Then COVID-19 happened.

These days, I don't particularly want to spend a my leisure time thinking about death and plagues. Plus finishing it and releasing it would feel kinda weird, like trying to profit off of a global pandemic (and yes, I know there are plenty of people and companies out there doing that).

I think there are some interesting mechanics in the game though, and I did put a lot of work into it, so I'm releasing it as-is for others to check out. I may revisit some of the ideas in a different setting.

Game Description:

Technically the game should be totally playable, but balance is probably pretty wonky, and there's definitely some rough edges that need to be rounded off.

It's GMless, and uses mechanics from Powered by the Apocalypse games (specific moves, roll 2d6+Stat, good/medium/bad results from rolls). It's fairly mechanically driven rather than narrative driven; it will probably feel more like a board game than a lot of RPGs.

The game is divided into Days; every player has a limited number of actions they can take during each Day, and has to strike a balance between getting the resources they need to survive and helping treat and/or cure the Plague. When each player is out of moves for the day, the Plague gets a turn where it spreads, kills people, and possibly mutates to become more dangerous.

There are 5 different character playbooks, each with some pretty unique mechanics and abilities.