Dilemmas

Survivor has no script for how strangers treat each other, no morality meter, and no dialogue choices. What it has is a set of rules that keep putting the same question to the people in a night: you, or them? This page lists where that question comes from, so a writer or a designer can find every place the game produces roleplay, and see what each side stands to lose.

Most of the rules here are defined elsewhere, and this page only points to them. Where a rule is defined here for the first time, it says so.

What Makes a Dilemma

A situation in a night turns into roleplay when it has at least two of these three things:

• Something scarce that cannot be shared. A dose cures one survivor. A seat carries one. A safe room holds four, for five minutes each.
• Something hidden that someone could lie about. A bite under a sleeve. A dose in a pocket. A road finished and not mentioned.
• A cost that falls on someone else. The dogs a marked survivor draws. The award an infected squadmate takes from the squad. The Turn that comes in a seat.

The game never judges which answer was right. It does not label anyone a hero or a villain (The Living, Betrayal). The Ledger records what was done (Survivor, Winning), the After-Action Report says how the night ended, and ΜΝΗΜΗ watches. Watching what people do here is what the sleepers are for (The Sleepers and the Remembered).

Where It Comes From

Source	What is scarce or hidden	Who pays	Defined in
The hidden bite	The Mark, under cloth until Fracture	The squad that trusted, the stranger who stood close	The Living, The Mark Between Strangers; The Mark Within a Squad
The carried dose	A dose in the hands of someone who cannot use it	Whoever holds it, and whoever needs it	This page; Elpis in the Night, Using It
The fresh hand	Who can still take hold of Elpis tonight	The one whose hand is spent	This page; Elpis in the Night, One dose a night
The end of the road	The next dose, and how many are waiting for it	Everyone waiting	This page; Elpis in the Night, The Reserve
The beacon	The stage of a Mark, and what it draws	Whoever walks beside it	This page; The Infection, Resonance
The door	Seats, and the lines on a stranger's arm	Every passenger, in Ribbons and in risk	This page; The Extraction, The Boarding; The Economy, Exposure
The Heavy	Hands enough to put it down	Strangers who must fight together, then compete	Survival, The Heavy
The room	Five minutes of held clock, four places	Whoever is left outside, or whose time runs out	Survival, Safe Rooms
The Last Breaths	Twenty to forty seconds of a person	The one turning, and everyone in reach	The Turned, The Turn
The scar	Immunity, and a body that can go where no one else can	Everyone who wants a scout, or a seat	Elpis in the Night, The Scar
The lock built for two	A vault only two strangers can open, holding enough for two	Whichever of them trusts first	Objectives, Restrictions, and Events, Vaults
The strain case	One pure strain, which can be taken or smashed	Everyone the monster will hunt	The Strains, Stealing a Strain
The needle	A latent vial, and the quietest way to change a night	The one needled, and the one who chose to	The Infection, How the Virus Gets In
The ones left behind	The Turn of someone abandoned	Whoever left them	The Living, Betrayal; The Turned, Hunts
Ties	What the records made people to one another	Whoever freed them	Survivor, Ties

The Carried Dose

A dose of Elpis is useless to anyone clean. The injector will not fire into a body with no virus in it (Elpis in the Night, Using It). It is also the most valuable thing in the city to anyone who has been bitten. A clean survivor who holds one is holding someone else's life, and everyone around them knows it.

• It is insurance, and bait. A clean survivor who keeps a dose can use it on themselves the moment they are bitten. Everyone infected who sees it knows that, and so does every squad with a member in Fracture.
• It is a currency. It can be traded for a seat, a weapon, a key, an escort, or a promise. Nothing in the game enforces a promise.
• It is a target. Whoever carries it can be killed for it, anywhere but a doorstep or inside a safe room (Survival, Safe Rooms).
• It goes everywhere its holder goes. A dose carried onto a way out leaves the city unused. No one in the Night is told what happens to it.

The Fresh Hand

Defined in Elpis in the Night, One dose a night. A survivor can take hold of Elpis only once per night. That turns every group into a count of hands.

• A spent hand cannot carry the next one. A squad that has already taken a dose needs a member who has not, or someone else, to take the next.
• Being injected uses no hand. A survivor whose hand is spent can still be cured by someone holding a dose. Giving a dose away is the only way a spent hand is ever saved.
• Strangers can tell. A survivor who reaches for a case and cannot lift it has just shown everyone that they already held one tonight, and asks the question of where it went.

The End of the Road

Defined in Elpis in the Night, The Reserve. A survivor who finishes their road with no dose open waits, and when a dose opens, everyone waiting races a Last Trial for it.

• No one is told how many are waiting. Two survivors who both stopped hearing new Trials may both be waiting for the same dose, and neither knows the other is.
• Partners race each other. Each Last Trial is the survivor's own, and a squadmate can help only one of them at a time.
• The holds become precious. An antiviral or a safe room's minutes buy a waiting survivor time to reach the next opening. Those are found, not given, and someone else may want them too.
• The Last Dose is public. At the ten-minute call ΜΝΗΜΗ says the last one is open. Everyone in the city whose player has seen the medicine then knows a case will fall somewhere soon, and that whoever is waiting will run to it.

The Beacon

Defined in The Infection, Resonance. The dogs, every G-Virus creature, every T-Veronica creature, and every Uroboros creature sense the virus, from farther away the further it has gone. What they come for, they find beside whoever stands near.

• The clean pay for walking with the marked. A squad with a member in Fracture, in a district of a strain that hunts by Resonance, is a squad being hunted.
• Distance is the choice. Keep the marked survivor close and take on their hunters, send them ahead as a lure, or leave them.
• Where matters. In a district the T-Virus holds, a marked survivor can walk among the dead unfelt until the dogs find the street. In the laboratory beneath the city, every G-Virus creature knows where the infected are.
• Elpis ends it. A cured survivor falls silent at once. Curing a squadmate is also how a squad stops being followed.

The Door

The penalty is defined in The Economy, Exposure. A way out that does not check carries anyone who reaches it (The Extraction, The Boarding). After the signal no Warden protects anyone (Survival, Safe Rooms). So the only rule at a civilian door is the people standing in it.

• Every infected survivor aboard costs someone. Their own award is halved. Their squad loses a quarter for each of them. Every stranger aboard who could see their lines loses a share that grows as the way out gets smaller.
• Looking is a choice, and so is not looking. A stranger in Seed costs no one anything. A stranger with lines costs only the people who rode beside them. Asking a stranger to bare their arms at the door is the ritual of The Living, now with a price on skipping it.
• The Turn can come in the seat. Seats are judged at departure. A survivor whose Mark turns black aboard turns among the passengers, and where the way out does not check, the living aboard must put them off, put them down, or stay beside them (The Extraction, The Boarding).
• There may be no other way out. At least two ways open, far apart, and each leaves at its Last Call or a minute before the end (The Extraction). Choosing another door late in the count usually means choosing none.

Examples

These are worked nights. The steps follow the rules as written. The choices at the end of each belong to the sleepers.

Two Squads at the Clock Tower

A night in the Raccoon City of 1998, after the signal. Two squads of four, A and B, each made in the night, reach Raccoon Park together. The Clock Tower helicopter holds four.

Step	What happens	Why
1	A rings the bell. The bell is Thunder, and it draws the dead, and a Tyrant already loose in the park, into the courtyard between both squads and the landing.	The Extraction, The Clock Tower; the bell is Thunder
2	Neither squad can put the Tyrant down alone with the city's guns. Together they are eight. They fight it side by side and put it down.	Survival, The Heavy: ordinary guns need five or more survivors firing together
3	The dead the bell drew bite A2 and A3. B2 takes a claw. All three are infected.	The Infection, How the Virus Gets In
4	A1, clean, holds a dose taken from a fallen Echo an hour ago. Everyone in the courtyard sees the amber injector.	The Living, The Clean; this page, The Carried Dose
5	B1 already took hold of a dose tonight and gave it to B3. B1 cannot lift A1's dose even off A1's body. B4 can. B4 steps forward.	Elpis in the Night, One dose a night
6	The helicopter lands. Eight survivors, four seats. A is short of ammunition after the Tyrant. B is not.	The Extraction, The Boarding
7	A1 can inject A2 or A3. It takes four seconds rooted in place, and one round from B interrupts it and drops the dose for anyone to take.	Elpis in the Night, Using It
8	B makes an offer: give the dose to B2, and B takes only two seats. B2 cured would ride with A as a scar, not a stranger with lines.	The Economy, Exposure: the cured expose no one

What each choice pays the squad A members who get out, each with a clean extraction award of 57 Ribbons on an 80-minute night:

A's choice	Who of A gets out	A's award, in total
Cure A2, take A3 aboard infected	A1, A4 clean at three-quarters; A2 cured at three-quarters; A3 at half	about 147
Cure A2, leave A3 behind	A1, A4 clean in full; A2 cured in full	about 159, and A3 turns in the courtyard
Take both aboard uncured, keep the dose	A1, A4 clean at half; A2, A3 at half	about 113
Give the dose to B2 for two seats	Two of A, chosen by A	Two full awards at most, and a debt no one enforces

Leaving A3 pays the squad about 11 Ribbons more than carrying him. The money is close on purpose. The choice is about A3, not the award. If A leaves him, A3 may rise as something that plays on and remembers who left him. His Hunts never count squad A, but nothing stops him coming after them (The Turned, Hunts).

The Subway and the Man in Fracture

A night, the last two minutes before the Subway's Last Call. Seven strangers are aboard, clean or cured. A stranger runs down the stairs with blue-grey lines to the jaw.

Step	What happens	Why
1	He is in Fracture. Everyone aboard can see the lines without asking.	The Infection, The Mark
2	If he rides, each of the seven loses a twentieth of their award.	The Economy, Exposure: half divided by ten seats
3	If his Mark turns black before the car leaves, he turns inside it. The Subway does not check, so the passengers must deal with him.	The Extraction, The Boarding
4	He offers his shotgun and every shell he has to whoever lets him in.	This page, The Door
5	Two passengers push him back toward the stairs. The dead are coming down them. No Warden stops anyone after the signal.	Survival, Safe Rooms

The cost in Ribbons is small: a twentieth each. The real cost is the Turn that may come in the car. The passengers are weighing a stranger's life against a risk, and the price only says who will remember the choice.

Two at the End of the Road

Late in a night. Two survivors who took each other's hand early, a squad of two, have both finished their roads. Neither heard a dose fall. Both wait.

Step	What happens	Why
1	The ten-minute call. ΜΝΗΜΗ says the Last Dose is open. Each partner hears a Last Trial in their own earpiece: different Trials, the same cost.	Elpis in the Night, The Last Trial
2	One of them is in Fracture and will not finish theirs alone in time. The other is in Fever and might.	The Infection, The Stages
3	The partner in Fever can help the other's Trial instead of their own. Only one of them can be cured.	This page, The End of the Road
4	Whoever wins, the case lands in the open, under an amber strobe. Strangers who heard the call run toward the light.	Elpis in the Night, The Drop
5	If one is cured and both reach a way out, the cured one is exposed by the other: a quarter off.	The Economy, Exposure

The Bargain in the Room

Before the signal. A safe room in Uptown holds four: a clean survivor carrying a dose, two strangers, and one survivor in Fever with a minute and a half of safe-room time left.

Step	What happens	Why
1	Inside, no one can draw, shove, or needle anyone. Everything said stays inside.	Survival, Safe Rooms
2	The survivor in Fever offers what they found for the dose: the answer to the puzzle that opens a vault two streets away, with a magnum and its rounds inside.	Objectives, Restrictions, and Events, Puzzles; Vaults
3	The clean survivor's hand is spent: they took this dose from a case. If they give it away, they can never hold another tonight.	Elpis in the Night, One dose a night
4	The infected survivor's minutes run out. The room stops holding them: their clock runs again, and anyone inside can now draw on them.	Survival, Safe Rooms: the limit
5	Outside, the doorstep still keeps everyone safe for twenty meters. Past it, nothing does.	Survival, The Warden

The room is a negotiating table with a timer on it, and the timer is different for everyone at the table.

What Is Never Done

• ΜΝΗΜΗ never stages a dilemma for a person. She plans for places and patterns, never for a survivor picked out (ΜΝΗΜΗ as Director, Second Law). The dilemmas come from the rules and from what survivors do.
• No rule here punishes kindness. Giving a dose away is a small award and a deed on the Ledger (The Economy, Earning). Exposure takes only from the award for getting out, and only for the virus that left the city.
• Nothing here touches Hardening. A body hardens by time alive, whatever its result and whoever rode beside it (The Survivors, Hardening).