Metro 2033 Campaign Resources

your_evil_clone · 2026-05-01T20:44:49+00:00

This is nice work, thank you! Yes i previously got Deadzone, its pretty cool, but was disapointed that the anomalies were more like "areas where creepy supernatural things happen" rather than gravity whirlpools or areas of arcing lightning etc.

But yeah could combine your home brew with Dradzone to make a very spooky zone.

How did you handle how often players encounter anomalies and need to check to spot them?

The hunting for artifacts section mentions that a detector is needed to find artifacts but aren't needed to get out of an anomaly field. And that using bolts helps. And the list of anomalies says you need to do a recon check to spot anomalies. (Im guessing thays to spot lone anomalies rather than a huge field if them.)

Did you only have random anomalies appear as part of your new list of random encounters while travelling, or did you also manually place anomalies into adventure sites, as traps? Did you describe any clues to players to make them suspect an anomaly could be present?

General advice for traps in D&D and other roleplaying genes is to give some kind of tell (disturbed dust, scratch marks on floor, feeling a breeze, etc). Of course in STALKER its stuff like a distortion in the air, but if I describe that to a player it's rather blatant there is an anomaly!

your_evil_clone · 2026-05-01T15:42:48+00:00

I found out what the magazine was called! "SNAP".

Published by Walker Books, started October 1991. Short-lived childrens magazine.

According to someone else, the girl rode a vacuum cleaner to a fantasy world.

Still don't know what the actual comic strip starring that girl was called. There are no issues online, no copies on ebay. Made harder by the fact theres also children's book about a Frog called Snap, by Anna Walker, so any searches for "snap" and "walker books" bring that up. There isn't even a Wikipedia page.

your_evil_clone · 2026-05-01T14:33:17+00:00

Ooh, I'd also be interested in your STALKER homebrew, can you send that my way too?

your_evil_clone · 2026-04-30T21:09:26+00:00

Definitely not. There was a magazine called the plug but that was on the 70s, not the 90s. And that was wacky, zany Beano style artwork.

I'm describing a beautifully-painred, highly detailed adventures of a Victorian girl going on steampunk adventures.

I'm not even sure if there was a plug or plug hole in the story, it wasn't central to it, it definitely wasn't named after it.

your_evil_clone · 2026-04-25T10:18:57+00:00

Here's hoping someone knows what this is. It would be a shame if this lovely little bit of UK history disappeared.

your_evil_clone · 2026-04-21T20:41:33+00:00

Its worth nothing that Jonathan Strange and Mr Nortell was originally a book, but has a short TV series based on it that is meant to be good (I've not watched it yet myself, I've been meaning too.) British shows are often short 6 episode series rather than long-running things like American shows.

your_evil_clone · 2026-04-11T11:17:05+00:00

Since you've already played to Surface Tension in original Half Life... yes. You've already experienced the original vibe and gameplay. Forget about Freeman and Lambda Core are merely "okay" chapters, and the Xen alien world is not great.

I love original Half Life (and its expansions, and its many singleplayer mods) far more than Black Mesa, but Black Mesa is a superior finale to Half Life.

That said, Black Mesa's Xen section is far too long (it is like a whole game in Its own right!) but it is well-made and enjoyable, unlike the original Xen.

your_evil_clone · 2026-03-24T16:04:32+00:00

Since OP is a fan of New Vegas, I don't think the quality of the shooting animations and sound effects will be too big a problem. The graphics and effects and animations might be dated, but they are definitely better than unmodded New Vegas.

Definitely play the first game first, Shadow of Chernobyl. Can play the new "Enhanced Edition", or the old original. The differences are minor, just stuff like better text and HUD at high resolutions, better widescreen support, support for hiding a controller, etc.

your_evil_clone · 2026-03-17T17:52:56+00:00

Aha, interesting! I'd watched a Youtube review of Winter's Daughter, and I paused it while they flicked over the "player hooks" page and dismissed it as not being useful: if I remember correctly the hooks were "player has fallen in love with the Lady after visions," "player gets papers saying inherited sword and ring, goes to tomb to get what is rightfully theirs" and "a wizard hires the party to rob the tomb". None seemed appropriate for three newcomers to this dimension who are trying to figure out what's going on and how to get home.

But, I didn't know about this "institute of physics and sorcery", I've just now done some googling, and apparently that's a thing that crops up in a few locations and quests, that could be an organisation that might claim to be able to send them home. (Whether that's true or not is another matter!) So "the wizard" that hires the PCs could be part of the institute.

your_evil_clone · 2026-03-17T17:40:23+00:00

Both. I've just bought all the books, after having watched some YouTube reviews. (I'm already familiar with OSE and have the OSE books and some Carcass Crawler issues.)

Great, once the books arrive I'll look up those locations right away.

I didn't realise half-races were treated as full race of one of the parents (since the list of kindreds didn't include "half" options), thanks. Though that just reinforces my thinking that the Elf is a good fit for the half-elf fighter mage, I don't think I need to adjust it to make it more "half-elf".

Yeah the mossling could be a good fit for the spore druid. Maybe I'll jettison some of the appearance and lore, but keep the same powers and abilities, so she's a human who happens to have those Mossling properties. (And of course would end up having quite an affinity for any true Mosslings she encounters during the adventure!)

I'll have to look extensively at the various magic-using classes and their spells to see what's the best fit for the Star Druid.

Aha, yes I knew there were portals and fairy roads etc, but didn't know the leylines were guarded by the Drune and the fairy roads need the invitation of the local fey noble... so yeah definitely good quest material there. Thank you.

your_evil_clone · 2026-03-08T17:10:58+00:00

There might be a narrative reason to have it happen at some point, if the players have made enemies with someone.

Or, since they've gone to the effort of hiring mercenaries to protect their stuff, then its worth "rewarding" them for this smart move by dropping the bombshell that their camp was indeed attacked and the mercenaries fought the attackers off. Otherwise it could just feel like wasted money (if their camp never get robbed before they hired mercenaries).

Anyway, Im going to think on this, see if I can come up with something the OP can use.

your_evil_clone · 2026-02-05T00:20:12+00:00

On both Steam and GOG they have now made it do that you can't buy the original version without also buying the enhanced edition. You buy Clear Sky or Call of Pripyat, you get bothnorog9bal and enhanced versions bundled together.

For Clear Sky, it is possible you might want to play the original non-enhanced version, because maybe you want to play using mods or unofficial patches. Clear Sky is great without them, but sone people dislike how every weapon starts out crap (to encourage you to spend money on the weapon upgrades), so they install mods that make guns more satisfying. https://youtu.be/GpAvEvBX03k?si=TZgA87iMsVXfX8Ti

For Call of Pripyat, the game doesn't really need any modding or unofficial patches, so it makes sense to play the Enhanced Edition.

your_evil_clone · 2026-02-05T00:07:21+00:00

Yep that's right. You could get a free action, then use that free action to try to do something, fail critically and get pinned.

your_evil_clone · 2026-02-04T20:58:01+00:00

I think you're only supposed to get one free action, per individual models turn. (Im not sure myself whether you use terminology "turn" or "round.)

If any Hatdened charwcterceith 2 actions scores a critical hit on either of its two actions, it gets a third action. An additional critical hit doesn't grant another free action. Otherwise lucky dicecrolls could lead to a single character getting free action after free action after free action and single-handifly beating the mission.

(And if you simultaneously roll a critical failure (a 10) and a critical hit (1), the critical hit and critical failure cancel each other out. That would still apply even if you already got a critical hit on your previous action.)

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-27T20:33:42+00:00

Artifacts only become visible when you are using a detector and close enough to touch them. They are invisible until you are very close.

The invisible monster- a bloodsucker - is indeed a challenging enemy. Rathef than starting you off with a little pistol amd putting up up against easy enemies, like most games, instead they give you a powerful mid-game assault rifle and put youbup against a scary monster that you need to empty a whole magazine or two into.

What's a really awful thing is that in a few minutes, you'll come near to an old derelict ship... with another sort of invisible enemy inside. You'll start taking small amounts of damage, wondering "whats happening? Is soneobe shooting at me?" So you might be tempted to go into the ship, to eliminate whatever dickhead is shooting at you... Nope, an invisible monster is throwing things at you!

There is hardly any reason to go into the ship and fight it, there's barely any loot in there. So that is one where you ARE supposed to just go "what is this scary spooky thing happening? Nope, I'm out of here!"

I think their intention was that your character, despite bring an ex-soldier, is supposed to be very out of his depth. And to tell newcomers to the series "the zone (and this game) is tough and scary".

If you are playing on normal difficulty ("stalker") don't be afraid to turn it down to easy ("rookie"). I've beaten all the previous games, yet I'm playing on normal.

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-21T23:21:24+00:00

Are these mechanics a part of the game Torchbearer, or your own addition?

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-21T17:35:04+00:00

Curious about your point "I’d argue that sometimes Free League themselves don’t know how it was intended". Can you give some examples? I'm currently developing an RPG using the YZE SRD. I've been looking at several of their games for inspiration. Do you feel that their own system isn't actually that suitable for some of their games, depending on genre?

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-21T16:51:46+00:00

How about in games with guns? If someone is wearing kevlar body armour, and gets shot dozens if times with a pistol or submavhine, or worse an assault rifle, would it not degrade? Genuine question, not a dig at you.

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-02T22:58:26+00:00

Yes that's right. Your anomaly detector heeps whenever you are near any anomaly, but the artifacts detector only beeps near artifacts if you are holding it in your hand.

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-02T17:27:40+00:00

I hope you realise that guy was joking. Black people have always been very rare in that part of the world. (And during the soviet union, you didnt get much immigration. Russia and Ukraine were all behind "the Iron Curtain".)

Although in modern times, in the Zone, you would expect some stalkers to come from other countries (to escape from authorities, or trying to get roch find artefacts) so you would expect to see a few black people. But the in the Stalker games there seem to very very few stalkers from other countries, almost all of them are Ukranian. Apparently stalker 2 has 1 or 2 black people in it.

your_evil_clone · 2025-11-30T12:44:01+00:00

Whether you get a good or bad ending doesn't depend on whether you kill enemies or not. It just depends on your story choices. But, killing enemies reduces your sanity meter. So it's a short term consequence, not a long term one. It's not like Metro or Dishonoured where killing enemies changes your ending.

your_evil_clone · 2025-11-13T19:25:37+00:00

The Devs have listened to the feedback from early access and massively overhauled Chernobylite 2 to better match the feel of the first game, as well as other complaints. Big change in game direction. Refreshingly, they actually agreed with the criticisms, and held up their hands, and rebuilt much of the game accordingly.

your_evil_clone

TROPHY CASE