Running the SOX!, Survivalist rules, groups, et cet? Options

[Dvalin]

Hey folks;

A still-newbie GM here; just wanted to mine the folk here for resource recommendations. What sorts of ideas have any of you had for running a game in the SOX? Specifically, I'm thinking of a vaguely survivalist in-for-a-while situation -- the group looking to be two sammies, a combat decker and a rigger, and I'm thinking of unpleasant if-you're-not-careful stuff for rad poisoning, ration consumption, extended fatigue...? There are some rules in the Wastelands book covering fatigue, but they are perhaps a tiny bit abstracted. ;)

-Dvalin

P.S. My roommate indicates that I'm being inspired by Stalker: Oblivion Lost, though I was sort of thinking more Fallout. ;)

[Synner]

There's a few references to the players in the SOX including the Ghost Rats and Feuerschwinge in Target: Wastelands which are drawn from the German material in DidS2. Feuerschwinge and her cult also get a mention in DotSW too. Other than that the last big reference to the SOX was in the old Germany sb.

[Dvalin]

Yep; have Target: Wastelands -- but must admit I was hoping for additional rules sets or, hell, even general maps of the area covered by the SOX. ;)

[shadd4d]

The rules for radiation are somewhere, I want to say, from Cannon Compainion or Target: Wastelands.

The most info that you can use is the old Germany Sourcebook. The rules for magic use (it is a mana warp 10 by the way) are in MitS. Getting in will be hard, because there is an enterance authority calling the shots on who gets in.

Surviving might also be a problem. There's no one but the corps in their facilities, the rad rats, and then a few radiated paracritters, like Chimera and Feuerschwinge.

Don

[shadd4d]

It's location is mapped in the old Germany Sourcebook. The area itself was never mapped in detail; you've got a free hand for saying where who is (SK, Ares, Proteus, AG Chemie, Ruhrmetall,...).

It should get mentioned in Shadows of Europe though (I'd be really unhappy if it wasn't).

Don

[TW]

It will be mentioned in SoE, but not as detailed as in T:W.

[Phaeton]

For the sake of my information, what IS the SOX? :?

[Kanada Ten]

Saarland Special Legislative Zone (SOX).

[BitBasher]

Mana warp 10 is more or less "think about something magical and freaking explode" :D

[Nath]

SOX is a shifting acronym standing for Saar-Lorraine-Luxembourg that is supposed to have been in limited use before Cattenom meltdown. IRL you rahter see the expression Saar-Lor-Lux used when speaking about various trans-border issues in this area. After Cattenom disaster, the term SOX obviously only describe the irradiated area the French and German governments established as an emergency zone. The "Saarland Special Legislative Zone" is or was only the German part of the SOX. The "SOX Special Administrative Zone" is the whole area under the responsability of the corporate Kontrollrat/Conseil de Contrôle from 2053.

[Dvalin]

Hm. After rereading the Wastelands book, I located the rad rules easily enough (can't believe I missed them the first time; doh!) -- so that's settled at least reasonably, I guess. ;)

One question, though; does anyone know of an online map illustrating the general size of the irradiated area? I know it must be decently big to have smuggler groups (Geisterratten) operating out of it, in addition to multiple megacorps and various gangs -- but is it of provincial size, the size of a large city, or...? Unfortunately, I don't have access to the Germany sourcebook, and I checked my local games store with no luck. :/

Also -- to illustrate the idea I'm having, for critique or suggestion...

The running group is a bit fighter-happy, but most are new to the game so I thought I'd slant it survivalist instead of slinky -- I can ease them into slinking on that count, after all. What the group looks like is a pair of sammies, a decker and a rigger (probably t-bird). The general plot idea involves Feuerschwinge (big shock, eh?) -- going with the idea that his corpse was recovered by a megacorp and is being researched at nearby facilities (in or near the SOX), the players are used by a competitor in the biotech/metagenics/magic field to confirm the capture of Feuerschwinge and then to systematically retrieve research data and samples. Naturally, what exactly is going on is something I'll try not to reveal until some properly dramatic point, though allusion with a glowpunk gang worshipping Feuerschwinge and a later op retrieving a dragon's claw or scale (or -- hell, eye?) ought to make it -very- edgy, and very clear; especially if I start, say, including mention of S-K uniforms about that time, whereas before it'd be untraceable subsidiaries...

[Nath]

To keep it simple, the SOX is around 100-120km wide, not that much bigger or smaller than Delaware. I think the largest city is Metz in France, which has (or more probably by 2060 had) a sprawl of 300,000 inhabitants.