Zombies Ate My Gamemaster!

[Zachary_Wolf]

I watched Day of the Dead a few days ago, and after watching it, I had a few dreams about zombies running wild in my home town of Coconut Creek/Boca Raton. That got me thinking, "What would I do if there was a zombie outbreak?" From that thought, I began to think about how it could be translated into a game. What I came up with, is this...

Zombies Ate My Gamemaster!

In Zombies Ate My Gamemaster, the players portray themselves. The game takes place in the group's home town, and basically revolves around their attempt to survive a horrific, nation-wide zombie outbreak. The basic scenario (from which the name of the game is derived) sets the scene on a Saturday night, as the group sits down to play their favorite RPG, when suddenly, a horde of ravenous zombies burst into the house and devour the GM (hence why everyone else is present during the majority of the game-session, and not the GM). The players manage to escape, but what now? Where do they go? Do they take shelter? Do they try to help their friends and family? Do they go zombie hunting? The players' main goals are to survive the brutal onslaught of zombies, save any friends and relatives they care to, and make it to the next morning alive and kickin'. While it is meant to be a "one-shot" game, it could easily turn into an entire campaign with a little creativity.

The Setting:
By default, the game is set in the real-life locale where all the players live. This means the setting essentially exists in the minds of all the players. That said, the backdrop will be unique for pretty much every group out there. Think about your home town. Is there a mall? A school? A hospital? Is it rural, or urban? Is it a quiet, backwoods village, or a bustling, lively city? Picture your home town as it is now, then picture it a few hours into a violent, uncontrollable zombie outbreak. That's the setting for this game.

The Players:
As said before, each of the players actually portrays themselves. This wouldn't be set in stone, and people would be free to make up new characters if they wish, but the standard scenario has the players "role-playing" themselves. There are no skills or abilities; each player is essentially equal, and this is explained by the fact that you never know how someone will perform when faced with a zombie outbreak (the skinny, weak kid in the group may end up being the most level-headed of the bunch, and big burly jock in the group might be too scared to effectively escape or fight). In other words, the dice always decide success or failure, not a person's theoretical-ability. With that said, I think character sheets would be unnecessary, aside from maybe a place to record injuries and items picked up along the way.

The Gamemaster:
As the first member of the in-game group to get "The Bite", the Gamemaster assumes control of the zombie hordes and orchestrates the events that take place throughout the gaming session. He's most certainly not "against" the players, but rather he works with them to help weave the story. Since the setting is familiar to everyone in the game, this off-loads some of the traditional GM preparation work and the responsibility to describe locations in detail. He can simply refer to a place around town that is familiar to everyone, and the only thing that needs to be described (for the most part) is how the place looks during the zombie outbreak. In addition, while the GM is in charge of running the game logistics, the task of assigning difficulty modifiers is shared by the entire group; in other words, when someone is trying something risky or important, group consensus decides whether or not the player gets a positive or negative modifier.

The Walking Dead:
One of the things I've just begun to ponder on is what type of zombies we're dealing with. At the most basic level, there are two types of zombies: Fast, erratic ravagers (think 28 Days Later/Day of the Dead), and slow, brain-eating shamblers (think Shaun of the Dead, hehe). After reading a few debates online, I think the shamblers are the way to go. One person on convinceme.net makes a few really good points:

First: The slow Zombie provides for the ultimate cinematic experience. A buildup involving increasing masses of the undead, who are slowly but surely surrounding you is superior to out of nowhere attacks by raging lunatic zombies. The slow Zombie is also cinematically superior with the use of the Zombie walk. Seeing a few slow Zombies marching towards you allows for you to see their features. This makes you scared stiff, not because they're going to "get you", but because you can see the hideousness of what might get you!

Second: It gives you a chance to escape. Running away from lumbering crowds of Zombies is the greatest adrenaline rush one can experience. If there's still hope, there's still a reason to have a movie.

Third: Slow Zombies allow for more comical opportunities. We all know the classic "confuse the Zombie for a drunk guy" routine. Let's face the facts here folks, slow, immobile and stupid is the perfect combination for comedy.

Fourth: Slow Zombies allow for more creative kills. It's nearly impossible to take a lawnmower into a crowd of Olympic speed Zombies, and even harder to have a good shotgun kill when the Zombie is flying at you breaking the sound barrier.

Fifth: Nothing will ever defeat the Zombie moan. These fast Zombies sound like dying cattle, which is all good in my book, if they are of course cattle Zombies. Insane high pitched screams do not belong in the decaying vocal chords of a Zombie.

Sixth: Fast Zombies destroy the ability for there to be super Zombies. If every single Zombie can run a four minute mile, what's the chances that one of them will be muscular and invincible? Slow Zombies allow for that "crap-your-pants" moment when you see a massive behemoth Zombie stumble around the corner dragging an elephant by its trunk.

Seventh: Zombies are made of decaying flesh people. It's idiotic to think that deteriorating tissue can hold up to that much pressure. Fast Zombies are not anatomically possible.

With those points said, the walking dead make up the primary source of suspense, horror, and action in the game. However, zombies aren't the only thing the group has to worry about. There are enough psychos and criminals out there to give zombies a run for their money, so naturally the group may run into some less the friendly human adversaries.

One more thing about zombies: getting infected. Every time someone is attacked by a zombie, there's a chance he/she might get bitten. If someone is bitten, they'll slowly (over the course of a few hours) deteriorate, then die, then reanimate into a zombie. To reflect this, every time a zombie successfully attacks a character, the GM draws a card. The card determines two things: Did the person get bitten, and if so, did anyone in the group see the person get bitten. If the player was bitten, and the group notices it, he must now inform the group that one of the members has just been infected. Otherwise, the GM then hands the card to the player in question, who is the only player aloud to look at it. Now the player can see if he's been bitten, but no one else in the group is sure. This adds an element of mistrust and paranoia to the group.


I have yet to really sit down and think about rule mechanics, but I was thinking something simple like every time your character tries something risky or difficult, he rolls 2D6 (plus modifiers determined by group consensus) and must get a 7 or higher to succeed. This is just an idea, and I'm very open to other ones.

Questions for the Forge:
1) Has this been done before? I know there's a zombie game called All Flesh Must Be Eaten, but I haven't had a chance to play it so I'm unfamiliar with how it works.
2) Does it sound like fun? My buddies seem to think so, but again, if it's been done before I don't want to spend much more time thinking about it.
3) Do you foresee problems arising out of playing yourself? How about the fact that it takes place in your home town?
4) Is the basic goal of survival enough to drive a night's worth of play, or does there need to be something more significant?

I'm also open to any general feedback or questions. I know there's probably alot of holes in the idea, so let me know if you think something else might work better, or if I'm forgetting something. Thanks for your time!

Z. Wolf

[Eero Tuovinen]

To answer your questions:

• Yeah, I'd say that the pertinent points have been done before. There are at least two games about zombies in the works in the indie scene by my count. My own, Zombies at the Door!, will premiere at Gencon if I can find somebody to print me a f***ing game board.
• The game seems funny enough. I'm a bit burned out on zombies myself after playing 40 sessions of zombie apocalypse during the last year, though. The bit about being bitten or not is funny, but you might wish to have more tricks up your sleeve as well.
• The default setting of my game is your home town, and there are other games where it's likewise. Never been a problem. There are a couple of games where you play yourself as well, and those seem to work just fine. Not a barrier to functionality, although might be a barrier to play for folks who don't like themselves or their friends.
• In my game survival has been plenty enough motivation, although it's often not your own survival we're really interested in: my game is pretty much a drama game akin to a Romero movie, so the characters often have friends and family they're trying to save as well as themselves. Pure zombie-bashing is pretty dull from that perspective, and it's usually not done that much in my game anyway, as the rules for that are really dull.

I'd link you to my own game, but I can't be bothered to see if it's even online right this moment. PM me your email if you think you might gain some use from it, and I'll send it to you when I have a minute. Your goals seem pretty similar to what my game does on the surface - you could do that specific scenario with the gaming group and a bitten GM in it without any particular trouble. The biggest mechanical leap is probably the fact that my game doesn't have a GM, it all works by rotating scene framing.

[Krippler]

As the first member of the in-game group to get "The Bite", the Gamemaster assumes control of the zombie hordes and orchestrates the events that take place throughout the gaming session.

I take this as when another person has turned into a zombie he gets to be a GM too? I suggested this idea in the comedy/horror-game thread, having the number of designated narrators increase as the number of players decrease makes for more focused situations, at least I think it'd be cooler if the two GMs didn't have any plan they cook up together but rather just throw things at the players.

GM1: There's 1000 zombies pouring out from the library,
Remaining player: Oh shit I start my bike and start riding towards the harbour!
GM2: There's another 1000 zombies wading towards the shore.
Remaining player: Oh shit I turn 90 degrees and start speeding down 11th lane instead!
GM3: Roll avoid fucking it up and falling off your bike.
GM1: Yeah there's a gust of wind, -2 difficulty.

[Child Progeny]

Nice! I can't wait to see how it works out; let us know!

[Zachary_Wolf]

Thanks for the feedback guys! I appreciate it.

I'd link you to my own game, but I can't be bothered to see if it's even online right this moment. PM me your email if you think you might gain some use from it, and I'll send it to you when I have a minute. Your goals seem pretty similar to what my game does on the surface - you could do that specific scenario with the gaming group and a bitten GM in it without any particular trouble. The biggest mechanical leap is probably the fact that my game doesn't have a GM, it all works by rotating scene framing.

I'll admit it's kind of discouraging to hear that everything mentioned has more or less been done before. Then again, I sort of guessed it had, only because of the sheer volume of quality indie RPGs out there.

I take this as when another person has turned into a zombie he gets to be a GM too?

That's a good idea! Though, I'm afraid "dead" players who become GM's may be a little bitter after their alter-ego gets the zombie bite, and in turn they could end up making it their personal goal to see that everyone else is killed and turned into a zombie as well. I guess there would just have to be a limit to what secondary GM's can do.

Nice! I can't wait to see how it works out; let us know!

If I can get my buddies to give it a try one of these weekends, I'll definitely make a post in Actual Play to let you guys know how it went. But, as I said in the original post, since most of the stuff has been done before, I don't want to spend too much time and effort on it. I might just make a one-page write-up of the rules, hand it out to the players, and see how it goes. Either way, I'll keep you updated.

Thanks again guys!
Z. Wolf

[Eero Tuovinen]

My game has bitten players turning into pseudo-gamemasters as well. You're not completely off-base in predicting bitterness: many players will have an instinctual preference for the zombies to "win", perhaps because they've been schooled to think like that by other games or perhaps because they misunderstand their roles being advocates for the zombie cause, instead of being adversity for the protagonists that are left. Luckily my rules are pretty good at not only constraining GM powers, but also at encouraging zombie players to play in a meaningful manner.

[JB Mannon]

I like what you have so far I am going to try it out this weekend.  I am also planing on adding some changes to the cards to make them a bigger part of the mechanics.  Heres what I worked out.

Hearts #   - Remove zombification
Diamonds #   - +1 to player roll
Spades   #   - Zombification in card # rounds (open)
Clubs #      - Zombification in card # rounds (hidden)

Face Hearts   - Give your zombification to another player (hidden only)
Face Diamonds   - +2 to player roll
Face Spades   - Automaticly win a scene (become a zombie now)
Face Clubs   - Automaticly win a scene (reveal that you are zombifying)