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!The Setting:<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:<The Walking Dead:<

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.

[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]

	Logged

[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)