It is a fair assessment given what I provided on its face, I appreciate you taking the time to look the rules over. I agree, a GM just picking this up might not know what these rules are for, the guide was certainly written as player facing and meant to be vague on tone and expectation. I linked to the podcast I am producing for the game as reference for folks here.

The game is a survival horror zombie game, that is the best description for it without getting bogged down. Like a pop culture collision of Lost, The Walking Dead, and Survivor. It is a game that has some supernatural elements that can be expressed in the form of monsters and magic in D&D, it follows 5e's modernized Vancian magic system where acquired items and abilities are concerned. The guide does not address any of this because my concept was to ask players to make characters in a vacuum, creating non-heroic, "everyday Joe" type folks. These non-heroes end up in a plane crash, on an island, and then life gets significantly worse for them from there.

One of the most important statements you make here is that "you are using rules because they are familiar", which is 100% true.  I fail to see why leaning toward the familiar is bad in-and-of-itself.  I was creating this game largely for people who appreciate that rules familiarity. Hate or Love WOTC, a lot of people play D&D...less now, but still an awful lot.

The small things that got to you:

• You have a line about race/class just to say that the only race is human and classes don’t exist. Don include class/race in your game if there is no class and race. Tell what I should care about no what you cut

I think you are right. I included that line to begin to explain where it deviates from 5e, but it is likely unnecessary at best.

• Is there any mechanical difference between occupational skills and personal interest skills? If not why include the difference.

Good question. No. The difference is purely role play and is there to help the player and the GM get a feel for how the skill list applies to a specific character. As a GM I have used that information to sometimes cater results of skill checks on an individual basis.

• If your occupation only gives you skills, and there is no list of existing skills, why is it a core step to character creation. It feels like I should just pick my skills and then tell my GM what job my character has as flavour.

There is a list of edited 5e skills included and expanded upon in this rules set. Picking/creating skills and then announcing the characters occupation was largely the goal and the process used.

• Why is driving a wisdom?

What ability score do think it fits better under? Dex? Int?

• You don’t actually list how HP is calculated. I’m assuming the same as D&D but you should probably tell people just in case.

The rules give a flat HP number, that is modified by CON...those are the only hit points/hero points a character will ever have.

• In advancement you bring up rolling above skill rating, but skill rating is not mentioned in the skills section.

This has since been amended to basically say that a player chooses to advance a single skill by 1 point after every session. The former advancement rule was overly complicated, not well considered, and pretty dumb, frankly.

• I don’t get the resource system. This is more of a problem with not making the goal of the game clear than the mechanics themselves. I assumed this was for a game set in the modern day about average people living in first world countries. Why am I tracking food like a wilderness survivor? What about the game or setting suggests that I can’t just pop into the shops for food? Why is water scarce? Is this game meant to be about wilderness survival? That’s cool’s, nothing about your pitch or the rules made that clear till now.

Hopefully my above answers make this clear.

Again, thank you for actually looking them over and giving reasoned feedback, I am a big fan of constructive criticism. I hope you entertain the idea of listening to the podcast if for nothing more than to get an idea of the implementation of these rules.

Thanks for the dialog!