When the world's gone to shit and the dead walk
among the living, the only thing left that matters
is family. Hi, hello everybody. My name is Turk.
Welcome back to the Grouch Couch. And welcome
back to our solo zombie story TTRPG using Mythic
and The Walking Dead. Today is episode 2. You
can catch episode 1 on the channel. I don't know
why you would click on 2 instead of 1, but hey,
here we are. I am really excited. Also really
nervous to be back doing this because I don't
know. There's no way to know what way this story
is going to go. And I like the idea of this story
so much that it makes me nervous to keep moving
forward. But thank you so much for joining me
on the adventure. I do want to say. As a reminder,
you could leave comments for ideas for NPCs or
plot threads or anything else like that. And
I will do my best to incorporate it into the
story. We got a couple comments in the last episode.
A couple really good ones, actually. So hopefully
those will actually come up today. But we will
see how the dice go. All right, so to recap for
myself and for you, we last left off the episode
with Jesse, Jay, of course. He's trying to find
his little brother. He's trying to get back home
to ensure his little brother's safety. Last episode,
not only did we meet one of Jesse's ex -girlfriends,
Vicky, who is currently running with a car gang
or a car faction, we also got his car back, which
is running on fumes. It's kind of sad. So that's
one of our threads now is to get gas for our
car. But in his car, he had a CB radio and he
tried to contact his little brother again. Like,
hey, little bro, you out there? And he didn't
answer. So we don't know what's going on with
Aiden, which ups the stakes. We need to get home
faster now. We need to get back there to see
what's going on. As we return back to our story
today, Jesse's on the road in his car, but his
car is running out of gas. So that is priority
number one. Because when we jacked it, we were
on fumes. Also, we have to imagine that this
car faction is chasing him because he just stole
one of their cars. Technically it was his car
first, but he stole one of their cars. So that
also ups the stakes. We need to get gas and get
out of this town as quickly as possible. For
our first scene, I almost feel like I want to
do a scouting check to see if we can get a success.
Because if Jesse has been in this town before,
because he used to bring cars here to chop shop
them, I want to roll a scout check to see if
he knows where a gas station might be on the
way out of town. So we're going to do that. Now,
as a reminder, we just need a success and you
create a dice pool with this system. So we get
one in scout and three in wits. No. You got no
successes. So he doesn't know where one is. Also,
I kind of want to name this town. And as a disclaimer,
we're not doing like any specific state or city.
I've mentioned that he's trying to get back to
California. But only in a way to think about
how far the distance is. Because you got to get
from one side of the U .S. to the other. So I
kind of want to name this town here that we're
at. Because we might have to come back here in
the future. And it might be cool to add it in.
event meaning miscellaneous names big jim's plan
satisfactory nice jim that's a good game uh event
meaning names da nature da nature what we've
got some nature meanings here and i finally think
it makes sense i think we're gonna go with da
aura because aura Means earth or place. Represents
a bright place in harmony with nature. So it's
going to be. I'll put it in chat here so you
guys can see it. Dahara. So that's where we are.
That's the city that we're in. We're in the city
of Dahara. And we're trying to find a gas station.
So he doesn't know where one is. He has no idea.
But we're going to see something around us as
we're driving down the street. I guess we might
run out of gas before we find one. That's a better
question. We're going to do a fake question.
Do we run out of gas before we reach a gas station?
Yes or no? And we'll call it a 50 -50 here. Yes,
we run out of gas before we reach a gas station.
So we got to look for gas someplace else, which
could be good, could be bad. So where do we break
down at? What is our location? Event meeting
chart locations. Long and extravagant. Aw, man.
Long and extravagant to me. I say aw, man because
I'm picturing that we break down. We're on our
way out of town. And we break down on a long,
simple bridge. Like, actually picture we break
down next to one. Like on the road. And there's
like a bridge. But it's like a bridge for a train
car. And there's a bunch of train cars stacked
up. They're like a big, long, extravagant train
that's running all the way across this bridge.
Yeah, hmm. I edit out a lot of the ums, buts,
and hmms. But whenever I roll things, sometimes
I sit and I think for a second about what I think
and where things should go. And even the last
episode, I edited out a lot of this bit. Let
me think. Let me brain go for a sec. Okay. That's
it then. So we break up, break down on the side
of the road, out of gas. There's a big train.
big bridge car trains jesse's gonna get out of
the car he knows that these other guys are trying
to chase him down and find him so the first thing
he's gonna do is he's gonna try to push his car
off of the road into like the foresty tree area
to hide his car a little bit while he goes in
search for gas so we're gonna roll a strength
put this bad boy neutral just to see how long
it takes us to get there if we're gonna success
it's an easy go here we're just straight up rolling
strength We could do endure because we're like,
no, it's just strength. Strength force is probably
what it is, but we have a zero in force. So we
need one success. We got no successes. So it's
going to take him a little while to put this
car in neutral and get it off the road, which
makes it worse for us because that means the
other guys have had more time to try and find
us. And we need to keep that in mind. All right.
I knew that he was going to be able to do this,
but my role was to see how long it was going
to take him. It's going to take him a little
while to get it off the street. and into the
trees. And if he does that, he's going to lock
it up. We're going to go over to this train car.
And they want to go over to this train car stealthily
and listening to see if there's any zombies shambling
around. And actually, I want to right away roll
a fake question just to see if there's any stragglers
out here that he can see. Are there any stragglers
or zombies? No. Okay. There's no stragglers.
That's good. So we're going to do a stealth to
get up to this train car. And we got one success.
So we're hidden. We're good. We're going to get
up to the first door. And I feel like he's going
to knock on the first train car door. The one
that's right closest to his car. He's going to
knock on it to see if there's any sounds. If
there's any zombies. Just a couple little taps.
And do we hear any zombies call back? Yes. Okay.
So there's a zombie in this train car. So he
has to think, is it worth it to search the train
car with the zombie in it? I think if all of
them had been looted, there's one locked in there.
If there was people before looting the train
cars, they would skip this one because there's
a zombie in it. So if he can get past this zombie,
there might be more of a chance there actually
being something in there that's useful to him.
Okay, very fun. I just refreshed the rules here
in my head, and it's actually pretty simple.
We roll once, and if we fail, we actually have
to roll on the single walker attack chart here,
which is a D66 chart. So we're going to roll
our close combat and see what we can do here.
So, first let's describe it. Jay slides open
the door. He rolled a one on stealth. He got
a success on stealth. So I'm going to say he
can do it fairly quietly. And just as he gets
the door open enough, this walker just falls
out. Wait, is it just one walker? Hold on. I'm
going to roll. Is it one walker? Fake question.
I'm going to call it likely. yes okay it's only
one walker so as he opens it this gory freshly
dead zombie chatters its teeth and it's got like
guts and stuff coming off of its face and it
like chatters as it falls down out of the door
and falls down onto the rocks and the tracks
and he's gonna try to hit it with his close combat
we need one success here we got two successes
so he Brings down his axe. Takes it out. Easy.
First zombie kill. That was so stressful for
me. Because that could have been horrible. But
we take it out. So now that he's killed the zombie.
He's going to look into the train car. And I
think now's a good time to roll more descriptors.
So let's see what he sees inside of this thing.
Carelessly. Petite. Ceaselessly. Petit. Okay,
so I was originally thinking of this as like
a storage train car, like a cargo train car.
But I think with Ceaselessly Petit, it's actually
like a passenger train car. And I'm thinking
Petit is kind of like claustrophobic. And it's
like ceaselessly claustrophobic. So I'm thinking
there's a bunch of like rows of chairs and there's
luggage that has all fallen down onto the ground.
And all the like racks have fallen over and it's
almost hard to even get inside of here. And I
think maybe this walker was like trapped where
the doorway was because all of this stuff has
just fallen down for some reason. Like almost
maybe someone was running through here previously
and was just knocking things down or something
like that. We don't know why it is this way.
So when he steps up into the train car, he just
sees all of these racks and boxes and things
that have all fallen down. First of all. Not
what we're looking for at all. We need gas for
our car. We need to remember that. That's why
we're here. So this is a passenger car. I thought
it was a cargo car, but now it's not. It's a
passenger car. This is kind of all of this is
useful for us, but we can do a quick little search.
Should we? Those guys are on our trail. Okay,
well, he knows they're on our trail. So actually,
since it took us a while to push our car up,
we need to remember that. He sees all this. We're
thinking there could be some snacks and food
and stuff in here if it hasn't been searched
yet. So he's actually going to jump back out
of the train car. He's going to shut and he's
going to lock the door. We're going to look around
actually to see if there's some way we can like
lock this thing, like put a pole through the
door handles or something like that. So someone
doesn't come walking around and take anything.
So is there anything around we can use to lock
this bad boy? Um, shit. We got 44, which is a
yes, but we got doubles. So we got unexpected
random event, volatile environment. I might cut
this back. Looking at it now, I realize that
it says NPC action, but I just did environment.
So it's fine. Imagine that an NPC did this to
the bridge. All right, so it's volatile environment.
I think this has to be due to something that
we just did. And I'm thinking about what we just
did, and we just... got in the train car looked
and seen and jumped back out of it and shut the
door and it said yes so there's probably like
a pole right there we're just going to grab a
pole off the ground and put it to the door handles
to keep it shut and as we do that volatile environment
my first thought is that the weight from him
jumping in and out of the train car throws the
train car off weight because it's been sitting
here for a while on this old rickety bridge it's
an extreme bridge right bringing us back to our
descriptors i think he rocks it a little bit
and he hears the bridge crack a little bit like
and as we look up volatile environment i think
one of these train cars or even like the very
front of the train car is going to fall off like
start to fall off into the water and jesse's
gonna back up looking at it and it rotates and
the bridge cracks and crumbles and the train
car goes down into the water making this huge
noise and his first thought is oh okay they definitely
know where i am now i need to get out of here
i mean none of this has gone our way we just
need gas well first of all we need to get off
this bridge because if that happened then more
train cars could start falling and that's not
good we're at the front of it So we're not in
deep yet. So we're not going to go in more deep
on this bridge because if this bridge continues
to collapse and train cars continue to fall into
the water, we don't want to be anywhere near
any of that stuff. So we're going to get off
the bridge and I guess we're going to look up
the road. Is there any other cars on the road?
Fake question. I mean, this is a car. Who would
say it likely? No. Okay. Road's completely empty.
So that means we're going to have to travel on
foot. So that means we're going to have to cover
up our car now and hide it so we can come back
for it. Gosh, that sucks. Jesse's going to use
his survival skill to pull off branches off of
the trees and collect some bushes and stuff and
just cover up his car. We're going to use our
survival just to see how well we can do this.
We got five dice. We have three in wits and two
in survival. Zero successes. All right, so it's
not very well hidden, but he does his best. Okay,
so we need to search another location. He's going
to go back out to the road. We have this train
car thing going on, but that's over with. So
is there any other locations nearby this bridge?
Yes. Okay, good. So as he looks up down the road.
Picture this is a small town, so I don't think
it's like compact, you know, urban, but there
has to be something. So as he looks up the road,
what does he see? I rolled element meaning locations
and we got small constructive. So easy enough
to me. Sounds like a small construction site.
There's something being built here. I don't know
what that is, but he's definitely going to start
hoofing it that way. It's going to start running
up the street towards whatever's being built.
And I think as it gets closer, I mean, we're
talking classic construction site. There's like
gating around it. Probably some porta potties,
you know, from where the construction guys used
to do their business. And as we get closer, what
else does it look like? What do we got going
on here? Discover meaning descriptions. Cooly
mysterious. Cooly mysterious. Descriptions. It's
a construction site. It's abandoned. It's got
like a skeletal framework of like steel beams
and scaffolding. It's an unfinished kind of monument,
you know. But who knows what they were building
here. Obviously they didn't get very far. If
it's just, it's a mystery as to what they were
building. That's what I'm thinking this says
here, to me. It was a complete mystery. So, as
we get closer, he's gonna... Get in through this
gate. Are there any zombie stragglers? First,
I'm going to roll scout to see if there is any,
if you can see them. There's two successes. Ooh,
so he's looking real good here. Are there any
zombie stragglers? Caught 50 -50. Yes. Alright.
Alright, so we rolled on the... random threat
level table and we got a two which is one of
the things that comes with the walking dead rpg
core rule set which is nice um there are walkers
close by but they're not aware of you yet i could
draw a map of the area and point out exactly
where they are but i think we see a couple stragglers
around like the gate on the other side There's
like one, you could hear one coming from the
echoes of the inside of the steel beams in the
construction. There's one in there somewhere.
But as we look around, we've got a two -armed
scout. I think the first thing he's going to
think, is there any construction equipment like
a tractor or a forklift or anything like that
around here? Is there vehicle construction equipment?
exceptional yes that's a 10 exciting okay so
he sees a tractor and like a bulldozer i imagine
they're out parked by like a like a little shed
like a warehouse place for everyone to like keep
their tools and stuff and so he's gonna go over
and first off see if this shed is unlocked He's
going to sneak right over there past all these
walkers. Just quickly walking through here. Is
this shed unlocked? If we're moving across the
construction site, we have to roll stealth. We
can't skip that. We got one success. Okay. Beautiful.
So we're sneaking across this valley. Is it unlocked?
Is the door just open? Yes. Okay. So he's going
to open it up. And on the inside here. Okay.
Whoa. He's going to look in here. I guess we
can roll on the NPC gear chart to see if there's
anything in here. He finds, it makes sense to
me, a melee weapon, D6 rations, and one item.
For example, binoculars, tent, or bicycle. Being
that this is a construction site, what would
he find? First off, D6 rations. Two rations.
Very good. I don't know what kind of food you
might find in a... What can I find in here? Maybe
like some construction workers like would take
their lunch breaks, you know, out here. And so
they had stored away some things. I'm going to
say two unidentified canned foods is what he's
going to find. So that makes sense to me. I'm
going to add it to his inventory. And then I
think we're going to go with the hammer because
it's a construction site. That makes sense. We'll
drop a hammer in there. It's always good to have
an extra, you know, put it on his belt. And I
think we'll go with something random, like maybe
a hose. He finds like a hose, you know, small
green hose. Now we can actually add a vehicle
to our inventory. That's kind of cool. Let's
do that. Here we go. And I'm giving myself the
hose because now what we're going to do. Is we're
going to go over to the two vehicles that are
here. I just said two. So I guess we're just
going to go with two. There's like a tractor
and a bulldozer here. And he's going to go over
to them. And we're going to see if either of
them have gas in them. And there is actually
a roll chart for vehicle fuel. So we're going
to roll on the first one to see if it has anything
in it. Half full. Sick. That's good news. And
the other one. Half full. So both of these tanks
are half full. And he's got this hose, but he
needs something to put the gas in. I mean, we're
looking for a bucket. We're looking for anything
like that. Look towards the center of the construction
site. Do we see anything that we could put gas
inside of? I'm going to call it real likely.
Yes. Okay. What is this thing? Destroy value.
Okay. So it's something that if he takes it.
It'll destroy it's value. If he puts gas in this
thing. It will not be useful for any other reason.
What exactly would that be? Maybe it's something
that has value to Jay. So maybe like. It's something
he hadn't had in a long time. Maybe he sees a
bottle. Like a big, it's like a 40, something
a construction worker would drink. It's like
a full 40, just sitting on the concrete up by
where they're building. And he sees it and he
thinks, oh man, it's good beer in there. He's
like, but I need the gas now. I can't, I can't
sit and just drink all this beer right now. I
gotta be able to drive. Man. this like sucks
for him he's gonna have to pour out a full 40
and replace it with gas so we're gonna go over
to the center of this area now we heard earlier
echoes coming from this little zombie area so
i think as he gets closer he sees a walker on
the inside and do we have like walker descriptions
walker past May help us with descriptions of
this walker that we see. A police officer. Oh
man, why was there a police officer here? But
that's kind of cool. So as he gets closer, he
sees a police officer. But it's in this construction
zone. And I'm almost wondering and thinking.
Let's take some descriptions here. Active and
emotional. So maybe it died in a real kind of
emotional way. Maybe it died while the construction
site was still active. Like it was one of the
first ones to go. You know what I mean? Maybe
there was an accident. And a bunch of stuff like
fell off of the second floor of this construction
area. Like off of a shelf just like fell down
on top of him. And so he's got like buckets of
concrete like smashed into his chest. And his
like body is like stuck. and he's just like like
yelling and it's just like echoing throughout
this whole little construction site because he's
like stuck and he's like reaching out with his
one hand jess is gonna look at it we're gonna
think that's a police officer might have something
on him if we hop up in there we might risk it
take it out and we might be able to search it
so this is like big time loot area right now
So we're going to close combat this thing, see
if we can kill it. That's zero successes. Okay,
so then we're going to do a walker attack. So
as we get closer, something happens when we go
to swing our axe at it. Maybe we like step on
a board that lodges it free. And so we try to
jump away. make a mobility roll and if you fail
you fall and take one point of damage okay mobility
zero successes ah we shouldn't have gotten greedy
that means we take one point of damage so we
go from unharmed to bruised so what happens i
think we go to hit it and it lunges out it scares
us and we try to jump backwards and we fall off
of like this concrete platform down onto the
rocks, like right onto our back. And we're just
like, Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. We're not getting
greedy. So we grabbed the 40 and as it gets the
cops crawling closer, we're going to pour it
out on the concrete. He's going to say sad, but
we can't drink anymore. Anyway, it's not good
for us. We're staying good. He tells himself,
Jesse, we're staying good. As the 40 alcohol
just pours out. I think it's all at this zombie.
All this police zombie. Just kind of like, you
know, something to this. Pouring out a 40 on
a police zombie as it crawls towards you. And
he puts the cap back on it. And he's going to
go over to the bulldozer. And he's going to siphon
gas out using his hose and the 40 bottle to get
himself a little bit of gas, get him to the next
town. And he might even be able to go back and
forth and back and forth since it's right there.
So he can siphon and go and siphon and go. But
as he's done, this took a little while. And those
people are searching for us. So question I have,
have they caught up to us? Do we, as we're leaving.
To go back to our car with this gas full of 40.
It's 40 full of gas. Do we see cars coming up
the road? Do we hear anything? I'm going to say
likely. Because it's been a little while. Exceptional
no. We got a 100. But there's an unexpected random
event. That is. Choose a thread. Waste and hope.
Close a thread. What thread is it? Contact Aiden.
Oh, God. Waste and hope. Close a thread. Contact
Aiden. So as Jay's going back and forth, he's
filling up his car with these 40 bottles. He
finished off the bulldozer and he goes over to
the tractor. And he sees in the tractor. There's
a CB radio. And he gets excited. Maybe waste
means that when he gets excited about this thing,
he drops the 40 bottle and it smashes on the
ground. So he can't get any more gas. He's only
gotten half a tank from this bulldozer. And he
goes, crap. It fell on the ground. It's waste.
And the other one is hope. And this is also close
the thread, which means we're going to contact
Aiden because we're closing it. He flips it on
and he calls out to him. I have this in my head
and it's not good that it's in my head, but I'm
almost like, is it Aiden that calls back? Also,
this could literally be anything. Who knows who
calls back, right? But this is close the thread.
So we've got to learn something about Aiden.
And so what I'm going to say then, is this good?
Or is this bad? And I'm just going to roll, and
obviously no is bad. Good close of thread or
bad close of thread? 50 -50. Yes, so this is
good close of thread, but it's doubles again.
Introduce new NPC, antagonize elements. What?
So this is good. So Aiden answers back. He says,
little bro. It's been two days. You still there?
Yeah, I'm still here. Where were you? He's like,
I tried to call you on my car. I found my car.
I tried to call you. He's like, I didn't hear
anything from you. It was all maybe maybe in
the mix up. I hit the wrong channel. And then
unexpected random event introduced new NPC. A
new voice comes into the CB radio. Let's roll
conversation because we're talking here. So conversation
element table. Trust. Antagonize elements. Playful.
Trust. So a voice is going to come through the
CB radio. As soon as he says that. And it's going
to be a playful voice. Someone trustworthy. And
it's going to be a female. Because shout out
to the comment section. BK. This could be our
introduction of our new character. And she says,
Uh, hello? Guys? Are you friendly? And Jessica
goes, Who is this? This is a secure line. Um,
well, my name is Cece. And I could use some help.
Use some help? How do I know this isn't a trap?
Well, it's just me here. Me and my dog. If you
could help me, that'd be great. You don't have
to trust me, but if you do trust me, I'm right
next to Dahara, and I'm stuck. Is she stuck?
Hold on, let's roll motivation here. Yeah, in
prison, anxious. She is in prison, so she's stuck.
She is stuck. So she says, I'm stuck. I'm kind
of anxious. Me and my dog have been stuck here
for a little while. I just heard you guys come
through the radio. I could really use your help.
i don't know how i'm gonna get out of here whoa
where are you stuck at how i mean i could i could
take a look i don't know if i trust you but i'll
think about it where is she stuck there is a
ruins roll chart here that comes with the walking
dead rpg county fair my goodness okay she's like
well i'm stuck at the county fair there are like
walker clowns everywhere and guests and zombies
with their faces painted as kittens and spider
-man god i hate clowns you went to the dahara
county fair at a time like this why why would
you do that and why would she be there so maybe
she's like i can't i can't give you too many
details but i'm a graduated biologist i was building
something and i needed parts from here i know
you're trying to help your brother i've been
listening but i could just really use your help
all right county fair is another day out what
do you think aiden should i help her would aiden
want him to help her we're gonna call it nearly
certain yes all right yeah aiden's like you got
this brother i believe in you get her first And
then come home and help me. I guess we're going
to help out CC. I don't know what's wrong with
the CB radio in the car, but I'll try to fix
it so we can stay in contact. Sounds good, brother.
Over and out. And he puts the CB radio down.
He goes across the street to his car. We got
an exceptional no, so they didn't catch up to
us. He's got a half tank of gas. We are headed
to the fair. But we have a new thread. Oh, so
we need to do that. person cc we know she's a
biologist that's all we know cc i'm gonna update
that also threads list we contacted aiden so
we can close that we got gas for the car so we
can close that but now we need to try and save
cc all right he's gonna go back over to his car
get all the branches off of it he's got half
a tank gas in that bad boy and we're gonna start
it up and we're gonna go over the bridge next
to the train bridge i'm sure there's another
bridge like goes over this river or something
because yeah there's a train car in it now and
we're heading east to the next city lee and core
name of the city got dahara And licor, licor.
We'll add a ia on the end of it. We're going
to go with licoria. That works for me. So we're
heading off to licoria. And it's going to be
about a day's drive or something. So we're going
to eat one of our rations so we can recover our
health. Very good. So we're going to be back
to unharmed. We're going to eat one of these
unidentified canned goods in here. I want to
do a fake question just to see if it's something
that's good just to eat by itself or it's something
weird and random. So let's just go 50 -50. No,
that's a 69, which isn't an extreme no. So I'm
going to say it's like something not good when
it's warm and he's just eating it out of the
can. When it's cold, I mean, he's eating it out
of the can. Maybe it's like canned yams. He's
eating like canned yams out of the camel. He's
driving his car. I think that's exactly what's
happening. Okay. That's what we're going to end
this episode. Really, it's not a lot happened.
But some stuff did happen. Closed some leads.
Got some more leads. We got some gas. That was
the main thing. It was the main part of this
episode. We got gas. So we can keep moving forward.
Yeah. I like the way this story is going. I'm
still so enthralled with this world and these
characters, and I'm excited to learn more about
CC. Really good that Aiden's still alive. I was
worried the last episode that he wasn't. So very
good that we closed that thread. I think this
episode was a little bit all over the place,
but we did learn more about the Walking Dead
rule set while we were playing today. So hopefully
things will go smoother next time. But I'm just,
I love this. Thank you for joining me on this
adventure. Do subscribe if you do not want to
miss a next episode. All right. And hit the like
button because then it'll actually recommend
it to you on your feed or whatever. So you don't
miss it. And yeah, thank you so much for joining
me. I have been Turk. Thank you. And for now,
take a seat on the couch, my friends, and roll
initiative. Also, don't forget, comment section,
NPC ideas, threat ideas. What do you think is
going to happen with Jesse and Aiden and now
Cece? Let's see.