Rules Introduction

While a full version of our rulebook can be downloaded from this page, the sections below shoud give you a good idea of how the Wasteland UK game works. There'll be information on different areas of the rules, as well as making your character and useful information on the 'Out of Character' stuff at our events.


To download the Survival Guide, right click on the image above and select Save As...

Your Character

Pick your skills and equipment:

Decide on which skills and equipment you want to start the game with. These choices should be a reflection of what your character has become competent in doing and what they've managed to find before turning up to their first event. A table of the skills available are below, whilst the equipment tables can be found in the "Equipment you will Need" chapter of the Survival Guide. You have 25 scav points to spend on a combination of skills and equipment... choose wisely!


Melee Fighting  3 pts   Engineer 12 pts
Firearms Mk.1 6 pts   Lockpick 4 pts
Firearms Mk.2 4 pts   Hacker 4 pts
Booby Trapper 4 pts      

  Field Medic 4 pts
Scavenger 4 pts   Doctor 12 pts
Forager 4 pts   Chemist 8 pts

Choose your perk:

Your character also starts with a perk, and for every event they survive gains another. Perks are added bonuses to skills, character attributes and additional abilities that help you survive in the Wastes. A few examples are below, whilst a full list can be found in the "Perks of the Apocalypse" chapter of the Survival Guide.

CHARISMA: You can CHARM people twice a day or negate someone else’s CHARMS. Folks like this will say, “Would you kindly…” to get their view across and make you act out in ways you wouldn’t usually. It doesn’t always work, but when it does and you’re also a charmer you can stop them by saying, “Would you kindly not try to influence me like that?” Your natural CHARMS need to be backed up by argument and ideas and is not some kind of magic spell that makes people act. If their core values are challenged by what you’re influencing them with then they might not be influenced.

FOR SCIENCE!:  (Skill required: Chemist) You may brew more potent, experimental chems that have twice the duration, but are much more addictive.

LEAD BELLY: You take half the RADs from food or water, rounded down.

MEDICINE CABINET: You are a proverbial medicine cabinet and always manage to find 5 med doses between scavengers’ gatherings.

... PASS THE AMMUNITION: Aptly named from the song, “praise the lord and pass the ammunition,” you’re never in short supply, always gaining a full magazine of 6 bullets before each scavengers’ gathering.

SNEAK: You can hide more effectively in the Wastes. To do so you must: be in cover, not move and indicate you are sneaking by raising a fist in the air.

SNIPER: (Skill required: Firearms Mk.1) Armed with a rifle, you may describe a target that is at long range to fire a sniper shot at them. The target must be out of your normal range. The level of detail you can describe will translate into the effectiveness of the shot. Bad descriptions will miss, while good descriptions will hit the target in the vital parts! Snipers also usually have scopes to aid them in their descriptions. While this isn’t mandatory, I’ve failed to put a scav point cost on a scope, simply because they’re so rare and so closely linked to those who are snipers it’s almost a given that a sniper will have one.

TIME FOR TEA: The most British of persuits: any water you use to brew tea is considered clean of Infection (INF)

TOUGH: You’re built like a brick outhouse! You have 3 Hit Points per location.

Submit your background:

Write a background for your character, giving us a little information on their life so far, where they're from, how they survive and who they have ties to. From this you will be given a trait for your character. A trait is similar to a perk, but it is unique to your character and has an PRO and a CON to it. Please note that Wasteland UK is set around 85 years after the nuclear apocalypse and so any character dating from before that era is considered a "Ghoul" character or 'Necrotic Mutant' with an extended lifespan. The trait for Ghouls serves as an example below:



You bare the mark of necrotic mutation and due to your exposure to radiation over a long period of time you have built up an immunity to radiation poisoning. Get too much, however, and the RADs begin to attack your brain sending you ‘feral’.


You will never receive ill effects from accrued RADs.


No doctor will ever be able to diagnose how many RADs you have been exposed to. If you reach critical radiation poisoning, instead being incapacitated you will become feral and attack everyone around you. Once at this stage your RADs cannot be healed.


Survival is a key part of the Wasteland UK game and what sets us apart from other Live Roleplay games. We have our own system of tracking how malnourished, irradiated and infected you are with your game actions all having an impact on those statistics. Below you'll find a brief guide on each attribute of Wasteland survival, with more information to be found in the "How to Survive the British Wasteland" chapter of the Survival Guide.


There are 5 levels of Malnutrition that can affect you. You gain a level of ‘Mal’ every time you miss a meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner). Missing one meal means you gain 1 Malnutrition (MAL). The first two levels of Malnutrition (MAL) do not have any detrimental effects, although you do feel hungry. Levels 3, 4 and 5 all affect you in different ways and are detailed below:

Level 1 and 2 MAL: Don’t affect your performance, you just feel hungry - the normal feeling for most folk.

Level 3: You can’t use brutal melee weapons or firearms requiring the Firearms 2 skill (as defined by me, later) at this level of MAL.

Level 4: Melee blows that hit you will knock you back and you cannot run. Infection (INF) points and Hit Points take twice as long to heal. Wastelanders with STRENGTH on their side are considerably weaker; will not be able to use their strength and will be knocked down just as easily as the rest of us.

Level 5: When you reach this level, you’ll pass out and begin the short slip into death. Only a doctor may treat you for Level 5 Malnutrition (MAL).


You need to always be aware of dangerous radiation around the Wastes. Far too many Wastelanders have wandered into a RAD zone and not lived to tell the tale! I’ve broken down radiation sickness into 3 levels and given each levels 3 RADs, which is how much you need to be exposed to before you get the symptoms:

Level 1 Radiation poisoning (3 RADs)

You’ll immediately gain 2 MAL from all the vomiting you’ll be doing. These 2 Malnutrition (MAL) levels can’t be healed until the Radiation Poisoning has been cured. You’ll probably have nausea, disorientation and some slight burns on the skin.

Level 2 Radiation poisoning (6 RADs)

You’ll be made weak enough so that every location is at -1 HP, that can’t be cured until the radiation sickness is reduced below 6 RADs. You’ll have skin lesions, burns, pustules and you will feel much weaker than normal.

Level 3 Radiation poisoning (9 RADs)

You’ll immediately be incapacitated and dying with acute radiation exposure!


Infection or INF indicates how sick you are. The Wasteland is rife with all sorts of diseases and without access to proper medical facilities lots of people go downhill very quickly. One particular problem to watch out for is the infection gained from cuts and other injuries going septic! I’ve given 3 INF points to each level of infection, just like RADs.

Level 1 Disease (3 INF): The disease displays its basic symptoms but doesn’t debilitate the Wastelander in any other way.

Level 2 Disease (6 INF): Full symptoms present themselves and there’ll be a serious effect on your overall health that cannot be cured until the INF is removed.

Level 3 Disease (9 INF): The disease is at such a dangerous level that you’ll be in imminent danger of death and be incapacitated with a critical injury.


Melee Combat

Anyone can use a single handed weapon (shorter than 42”); it does one point of damage when you strike a location. The call for this is SINGLE

If you have the “skill” melee fighting, you can use a Brutal weapon to do two points of damage. The call for this is DOUBLE.

Brutal weapons, these are longer than 42” and have to have that brutal look. A 6 foot staff might look big and heavy but this is the wastes of Britain, when we say brutal we mean fire axes, maces, sledge hammers, chain saws, stop signs. Think big and nasty.

The other nice thing about the skill melee weapons means you can use any “special” features they might have. Examples include, chainsaws ripping into flesh, things with wire and batteries allowing you to electricity people, that kind of thing.

Ranged weapons

These are represented by Nerf weapons or by LARP safe bows and arrows.

There is the minimum customisation on the nerf guns so they are not bright blue and yellow plastic guns. Search online for inspirational images and instructional videos if you’re not sure how to paint them to fit into the wastes.


Guns come in all shapes and sizes but can be sorted into these simple categories:

PISTOLS - single shot, cocking action or semi-automatic guns held in one hand.

SHOTGUNS - Single or dual shot gun, pump action, fired with two hands.

RIFLE - Single bolt action gun, fired with two hands.

ASSAULT RIFLES - Semi-automatic/Fully-automatic guns that either fire bullets in rapid succession or fire more than 2 bullets per pull of the trigger. Used with two hands.

HEAVY MACHINE GUNS - Chain or belt fed fully automatic large guns fired using two hands.

Anyone can fire a pistol, but you'll need the Firearms Mk.1 skill to fire, reload and maintain firearms and Firearms Mk.2 to fire, reload and maintain assault rifles, heavy machine guns.

Guns do DOUBLE (2HP) damage if the dart hits the target, and bullets go through normal armour, ignoring any protection it gives the wearer.

Getting hit

Getting hit

Everyone in the wastes starts out with two “hits” on each location.

Locations are 2 legs, 2 arms, 1 head and 1 torso (front and back are not separate locations.)

When you get hit by SINGLE it will reduce that location by one hit.

If you are hit by DOUBLE it will reduce that location by two hits.

If you are reduced to 0 hits its time to hope there is someone with some medical skills nearby as you are suffering from a common wound and are starting to bleed to death.


Let’s not beat around the bush, armour is the best way of not bleeding to death out there in the wastes. It comes in many types and varieties.

It comes in two basic types, normal armour and ballistic armour.

Light, medium and heavy.

Light armour will be damaged by a single strike to the location it covers.

Medium armour will be damaged by two single hits or one double hit to the location.

Heavy armour will take 3 points of damage before it it useless.

Ballistic does the same except it will stop bullets to, or at least slow them down.  The bullet will not go through the armour like it will with normal armour. So while it is more difficult to find in the wastes it is defiantly worth it.

Armour can be fixed; it takes an engineer with the Armour smith speciality. Sorry you can’t just hammer and duct tape it back together and hope.

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