No Myth
 
INTRODUCTION

Your team was a contingency against global disaster. You were supposed to survive, and rebuild.
You were put into suspended animation. Technically, you were clinically dead. Then you were revived, brought back to life.
There was no magic here. Your blood was drained and replaced with a coolant, to preserve your body. If it hadn't been done just right, you would have never come back.
The tech-head tells you that that none of what you see out here is really magic either. Rattles off some quote about how any ‘sufficiently advanced’ tech looks like magic. Maybe. But what about ‘sufficiently weird’ tech?
It was hard to predict what the world would be like after the Event; but you didn't expect this, a land of mutants and... things. Hieronymus Bosch on LSD could not have dreamed up this place, a land populated by giant mantises with the faces of human children and sapient chords of sound.

To those that live in this world, your civilization is barely a legend. But you can show them that you are No Myth.

This game is designed to facilitate a collaborative style of short-form storytelling. The premise, and the reason it's called No Myth, is this: Few things outside of that which the players create, exists. No Myth does not have a single player controlling the setting and non-player characters. This role (called the GM’s role in a traditional RPG) will be divided between everyone at the table.
The game focuses on sandbox-style play, where the player characters have a lot of options and can explore at will. The goal is to allow sandbox play in a more improvised style, without quite as much preparation.
Now, there are a few facts established by this text, but we've tried to keep them to a minimum. There are some procedures to follow and choices to make, purely to make it easier to get started and to keep going. As the players become more familiar with No Myth, they can alter (or even ignore) these procedures as they wish.

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Before the game begins the group needs to answer two important questions.

What type of ‘apocalypse’ was your group designed as a contingency against? 
Nuclear war? Global socioeconomic collapse? The end of the world's fossil fuel supply? Alien invasion? The answer to this question will determine many of the specifics about the player characters and their bunker (see below); character equipment, training, etc.

Who prepared/recruited the team?
A national government? A forward-thinking corporation? A religious cult? An eccentric billionaire? This question will have a strong influence on the characters. A military team will have a different set of skills and a different way of interacting with an unfamiliar world than a group who were sent to repopulate the world on behalf of their faith.

These questions should be answered by consensus among the players. Try to ensure that the scenario chosen allows each player to create a character which appeals to them.

It is important to note that whatever the characters were expecting, that isn't what they have found. In fact, at the start of the game, no one knows what ‘actually’ happened.

CHARACTERS 

Each player controls a single character, one member of the team that was chosen to wait out the apocalypse. These characters do not have statistics as such, but players should take some time to decide what skills and traits their character will bring to the group. Having an idea of the character’s personality is essential, especially thinking about how they would react to strange and or stressful events. There are a number of possible character archetypes. A few are listed below, but you should feel free to create your own or modify the ones you see here as you wish. It is recommended that each player choose characters with substantially different skills, so that each can contribute to the story.

●	The Brain: Maybe you're a engineer, a scientist, a doctor, or all three. But the reality you're used to, and the technology needed to support it, is mostly gone. Any way you slice it, you have a lot to learn.
●	The Face: Social reality is your only reality. If anyone can communicate with the inhabitants here, it’s you. Just hope you can find someone willing to talk.
●	The Fist: Whether a trained soldier or an enthusiastic amateur, you have learned to use violence to oppose what was wrong. But everything in this world seems wrong...What happened here?
●	The Head: You were supposed to be in charge. You have access to things the others do not. But does that old authority matter anymore? Are the other members of your team asking themselves the same question?
●	The True Believer: Some might say it was science that saved you and brought you to this… place. But you know it was faith! The fact that none of the beings here share your faith makes your adherence all the more important.
●	The Survivalist: You’ve trained to thrive in every environment on earth. You can find nourishment and create shelter, and survive any weather. Are you up to the challenge of a place where the laws of physics have changed?

SITUATIONS

Each player also controls a Situation, a part of the world, and the NPCs associated with it, if any. Whenever the characters encounter or are involved in a Situation, the controlling player is the one to describe the scene and control the actions of the NPCs. If all players agree, a given player may be assigned more than one Situation to control. If there is a conflict about which Situation is most applicable at a given time, control goes to the smallest scale Situation. For example, if a group of Awakened are in the Bunker, the controller of the Awakened Situation is in control. Not every Situation below needs to be part of the game, although the Bunker and the Map are usually indispensable.

●	The Descendents: So, it turns out there humans left, though their society has been twisted by this new world. The players may not share much in common with these distant relatives, but they at least they are people. The characters will need to decide if they have any responsibility to these people (and visa-versa). Can the player characters help them find their way? 
●	The Awakened: What sort of sapient beings exist in this world? How do they react to the player characters? If the world has been theirs for a time, what place do you (or humanity as whole) have in it? 
●	The Bunker: This is the player character's home base. It contains all the gear that the designers thought would be needed to survive after The End. Of course, that End wasn’t the one that came. After all this time, some of the systems and equipment might not even be functioning. The place in which the team wake up might not even be the only bunker… 
●	The End: You control a great secret: What really happened to the world. You get to interject hints as the game goes on, no matter how strange or contradictory. You might not even know yourself what the secret is, to start. The controller of this Situation is rarely in charge of scene, but exerts a more subtle influence on all of the other Situations.
●	The Map: You are the land. Plants, animals, weather, the very air. The laws of physics, twisted though they may have become. Don't think you don't get to play anything with a personality. Something is different about the world, and it has a will all its own.

BASIC PLAY

Players take turns framing scenes. Each scene you frame must contain your character, your Situation, or both. Describe what's going on and what happens in the first few moments, then let the other players take charge of their characters. Always remember – the player characters are the stars of the show. Having any of them die or be severely impaired should be a major event. If a player does lose their character, the group should try to make sure that player’s Situation comes into play more often.

Roleplay in a freeform manner. Each player can introduce NPCs or other elements as appropriate for their Situation, or ask others to play NPCs. The scene framer can also ask that bit roles be played.

If you feel the Situation has changed to one which falls under your control, simply raise a hand. The other players will give you a quick thumbs-up or thumbs-down to let you know whether a new Situation is dominant. 

At some point, something in the scene will come to a head. A conflict / argument / etc. will break out. Roll a die (d6) to pick a player. That player becomes the lead for the scene, and gains temporary control of all the Situations in the scene. That player decides the result of any conflict.

Any player whose Situation has been temporarily usurped can challenge the rulings of the lead as it relates to that Situation. Each player rolls 2d6. Higher total wins. On the first such challenge in a scene, the original Situation owner wins ties. After that, the lead wins all ties.

While players can of course choose their own scenes, below are some typical ideas that can be used as building-blocks for your story:

•	Emergence: The characters wake up. They may be in the Bunker, or they may have been moved. How much of their equipment survived? How much time has passed? How will everyone deal with the reality that everyone they knew is gone? Can the characters even get out?

•	First-steps: This is the first time the characters see the new, changed world into which they have been dropped. First impressions are important, but they can also be deceiving. This scene is about setting the tone of the world – awe, terror, hope, utter confusion or any combination of emotions you wish the setting to invoke.

•	Harsh realities: Characters won’t necessarily know what kinds of dangers and challenges this new world brings. The world is bound to teach them a lesson. This can be as simple as ‘don’t eat the green fruits’ to strange events such as storm-clouds under which gravity is increased threefold.

•	Close encounters: This is when the characters get to meet others. Whether they are other people or just other thinking beings, there will be challenges to overcome. Can these others be communicated with? Would you want to? Even if you can communicate, can they be trusted?

•	Where do we go from here?: This scene is about reconciling the characters original mission with the realities of the world in which they find themselves. Conflict in this type of scene is as likely to come from within the group as from outside of it.

•	Making our mark: Whatever course the characters decide to pursue, there will be obstacles to their achieving it. How much are they willing to give to make their vision come true?

•	Epilogue: This scene is one of the few that may not even contain any of the characters. It shows the lasting changes that the characters have made on the world, for good or for ill.