DEGRADER is a weird little play-by-post wargame by the wonderful Louis, who is great. It is stealth-based - player characters assemble webs of interlocking sensors in order to pin down opposing Degraders and, once they are affixed, kill them instantly at any range and through walls with a shot from their Superlative Rifle.
The first round was a pure deathmatch - but that premise, a game of creeping, of hoping you are unnoticed, of unknown hazards, reminded me more of something like Marathon. So, here are some additions and a new map for an extraction shooter run of DEGRADER.
I am absolutely certain that any amount of testing would force me to rewrite this post - neat!
Scorekeeping
Each enemy Degrader killed is worth 5 points. Recovery of Degrader neural drives after a kill is worth another 5 - this is done instantly (and messily) but requires you to physically reach the corpse. (Kills are only confirmed after extraction - you are not told whether Superlative Rifle shots hit a target.)
Intel recovery from the site of interest is worth 1 point per piece of intel. Intel can also be retrieved from dead Degraders.
Sites of interest may have other objectives worth high point values - for the example map there are two. Disabling the site reactor is worth 10 points. Doing so is extremely loud and will send all Degraders a message saying that the reactor has been destroyed. Opening the Server Vault is worth 15 points. This requires the Server Keycard, and will send all Degraders a message saying that the servers have been accessed.
All points are lost upon death. (This might be overly harsh but it's genre-standard.)
PvE? Maybe?
On-site security remains active. Noncombatants produce heat, movement, heartbeat, and sound pings. On contact with a Degrader they are killed instantly and no longer do so. Combatants produce heat, movement, heartbeat, and sound pings. Upon contact, players choose to use their handgun (expending one round per combatant) or their knife (killing all combatants and then rolling 1d6 for each combatant - on any result of 1 the Degrader is forced to loudly retreat at least 30 and at most 60 feet). Elite combatants produce heat, movement, sound, heartbeat, and electrical pings. On contact with a Degrader they are dueled as an opposing player is.
The Site of Interest
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| fortunately the map did upload at full size so you can open it in a new tab and look around |
- Blue "T"s are teleports - while Degraders can begin the game at any point they wish they must activate one of these and wait a turn in order to extract.
- Yellow "i"s are Intel - collecting them adds to the score of a Degrader.
- Black grids of lines are interference - in Loading Dock this interference pings on motion, heat, sound, and electrical scanners, in Cycler Cells it pings on electrical and sound sensors, in Heatsink it pings heat and sound sensors, in Reactor it pings heat and electrical, and in Vents it pings motion and sound.
- Green Cs are noncombatants, red Cs are combatants, and golden Cs are elites. These will move during the course of the game.
- The green ! marks where a Degrader must go to disable the site reactor. The blue ! in Cycler Cells is the keycard to Server Vault, and the blue ! in Server Vault is where a Degrader must go to access the servers.
- Note that, as is standard for Degrader maps, this entire site is dark except for the flashlights of facility staff.
(This map was made with Dungeonscrawl - just in case someone chooses to run this, I have uploaded the .ds file for the map here so they can move the civilians around and put little Degrader tiles on it.)
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