While I was working the other day I had a game idea jump from my noggin right to paper in no time flat.  It's inspired both by 80's zombie flicks and by modern zombie survival-horror games like Resident Evil.  I intend for it to be a gamist design where the characters work to accumulate the resources that they'll need to get out of the city alive before sunrise.  I expect a group of 4-6 players to be able to play an entire game in maybe 4 hours (give or take) which will include everything from each character meeting their first zombie to the survivors of the night escaping the town at sunrise.  I put up a .doc copy here for you to check out.

I've stolen liberally from The Mountain Witch and The Shab-al-Hiri Roach for tricks and techniques.  Cards and agendas and scene/Act structure all came from those two games.

There's still lots to do to turn what I have into a functional and balanced game, but as what I have came out in less than a 24-hour period I thought that it was worthy of sharing with everyone here.

If I can polish this pile into a fun game then I intend to publish it to a pretty little .pdf for free distribution.  Maybe I'll twist some e-arms to try to get a friend or two to do some zombie doodles to pretty it up some.  I'm really hoping to get this baby done and out of my head in the next week or two.  It's a fairly simple game and there's no reason why it shouldn't be complete and ready to play in that amount of time.

I'm sure that I must have missed some stuff in the translation between the pile of scribbles I made while on the plane and the typing, and there's so much left to flesh out, that I'll greatly appreciate any time you take to look it over.  It's short and, I think, to the point.

-Eric

Eric, this so rules.  I love zombies.

Some random thoughts upon a first reading:

Either set a hard limit (I suggest 2) to the number of PCs who will survive the evening, under any circumstances.  Make this clear and it adds a nice frisson of dog-eat-dog to the whole affair.  Also thematically appropriate.  The other way to do this would be to have the group reach consensus on a number of final survivors, with the stipulation that it can be, at most, n-1 with n being the number of PCs.  Better yet, have them decide in secret on the # of final survivors, and the game continues until all the survivors have a number equal to their remaining population.  Then they narrate their escape.  Game over.  Of course, you can always pick "1" as your secret number...

What's the GM for?  I always ask that.  Strictly necessary?

I love the agendas, very zombie movie, but they need to be written so that it is plausible that they could be kept under wraps - whatsit is problematic (a bit).  You could combine it with still alive! to refer to a precious object (object, in this context, meaning person, pet, launch codes, whatever). 

DEFINITELY go with an ecology of archetypes a la tMW zodiacs.  That will be great and stir up instant conflict.

Act I seems redundant and slows the flow of the game.  Why not require Act II to begin the game, with each survivor recounting their past adventure up to that point? 

Lovin' it,

Jason

Hi Eric --

I'd characterize myself as a burgeoning fan of the genre, but I'll open my fool yap anyway.

I'll more or less add a "me too" to everything that Jason brought up, but will throw in a dissenting voice on one issue:

Agendas.
As it stands, pretty much all of the agendas are "the same thing" -- a reason to take off on your own, maybe bring someone along with you.  It would be nice to mix things up a bit and give them different feels.  Maybe one way is to think about ways that the agendas could affect things other than character choices .

frinst:
"mindlessly competitive"
could be used to gain a mechanical bonus by not mentioning to the other alpha male that the door he's meant to guard hasn't been locked.  In other words, taking a little GM power and narrating in a conflict.

That's the general critique.

The specific critique is for the Hero agenda.  This one's completely dependent on the GM giving you a scene that it'll work with.  Why not include the power to frame such a scene as part of the agenda, thus keeping it in line with "messing with the other characters".

So, in essence, I think that the Agendas work best if they imbue the player with some temporary GM power -- the ability to put something into the SIS with no vetting, no veto, no whining.  Eat it.

Just a thought

Darcy wrote:
Agendas.
As it stands, pretty much all of the agendas are "the same thing" -- a reason to take off on your own, maybe bring someone along with you.  It would be nice to mix things up a bit and give them different feels.  Maybe one way is to think about ways that the agendas could affect things other than character choices .

If I could edit my posts I'd say that the character of CJ in the Dawn of the Dead remake is a great example of martyrdom in action - you're really rooting for him until the bitter end, but he's just not fated to make it.  Finally he's like "fuck it, this is where I go down", and he saves everybody's bacon as he gets eaten.  Your game has to encourage that sort of thing and make it fun as hell, because it is an absolute staple. 

Jason --

The martyrdom thing sounds like a great idea, simply because it is such a good element of the genre (I particularly like Ed's end in Shaun of the Dead -- also some good martyrdom, but without the "leadup").

But here's the tough question:
how do you make it worth it to the player -- what's the payoff after the character is dead?

in other words, how do they keep their fingers in the pie?

You could take a page from the Mountain Witch there, but I think it would also be cool to have them join the GM, perhaps bringing back their now-zombified PC as an NPC badass. 

There are is an FPS mod for Half-Life (http://www.zombiepanic.org/site/index.php) that operates on this principle - play starts with n humans and 1 zombie, but every time a human dies, he respawns as a zombie.  Eventually it is 1 human and n zombies, and then it is all zombies and you re-start. 

Jason wrote:
You could take a page from the Mountain Witch there, but I think it would also be cool to have them join the GM, perhaps bringing back their now-zombified PC as an NPC badass. 

Yay!  Zombie fans!

Lemmie hit your specific feedback points first, then I'll get my ass up out of this uncomfortable hotel bed to grab my notes and I can talk about what I wrote last night.

Jason wrote: Either set a hard limit (I suggest 2) to the number of PCs who will survive the evening, under any circumstances.  Make this clear and it adds a nice frisson of dog-eat-dog to the whole affair.  Also thematically appropriate.  The other way to do this would be to have the group reach consensus on a number of final survivors, with the stipulation that it can be, at most, n-1 with n being the number of PCs.  Better yet, have them decide in secret on the # of final survivors, and the game continues until all the survivors have a number equal to their remaining population.  Then they narrate their escape.  Game over.  Of course, you can always pick "1" as your secret number...

Jason wrote: What's the GM for?  I always ask that.  Strictly necessary?

Jason wrote: Act I seems redundant and slows the flow of the game.  Why not require Act II to begin the game, with each survivor recounting their past adventure up to that point? 

Darcy wrote: Agendas.
As it stands, pretty much all of the agendas are "the same thing" -- a reason to take off on your own, maybe bring someone along with you.  It would be nice to mix things up a bit and give them different feels.  Maybe one way is to think about ways that the agendas could affect things other than character choices .

Darcy wrote: The specific critique is for the Hero agenda.  This one's completely dependent on the GM giving you a scene that it'll work with.  Why not include the power to frame such a scene as part of the agenda, thus keeping it in line with "messing with the other characters".

Jason wrote: I think it would also be smart for you to decide what this genre is about to you, you know?

Jason wrote: The game needs to reward martyrdom.

...but I think it would also be cool to have them join the GM, perhaps bringing back their now-zombified PC as an NPC badass.

Eric wrote: Well, here's the thing;  The genre is about a whole bunch of things to me.  This game can only be about one of those things.  In this particular instance it's about answering the question "Am I going to be one of the people that gets another day of life, or do I get my flesh consumed in a horribly disgusting manner?"  It's further about the balance between teamwork and selfishness.  Will you help the group get out alive or will you help yourself get out alive?

I agree, it is a staple.  But I don't think that addressing it directly will be the most satisfying solution.

I only kinda hinted at it in the text, but PCs will only be able to be killed in Act V.  It's a bit anti-genre, but I'm not willing to compromise on this point.  In earlier acts the characters may be mauled and taken out of the act, but not yet out of the game.

Jason wrote: For me zombie stories are about survival like Dogs is about battlin' demons.

Jason wrote: That's cool.  For the record I think you are short-changing your potential design by choosing "do you survive another day?" as your core theme.

I did see the 'Gamist' appellation, so maybe we're not on the same page regarding definitions.  Looking forward to seeing more as you develop this!  Let me know if you want to borrow a stack of DVDs. 

--Jason

Ok, so forget the 'gamist' thing.  I never know if I'm using any of the terminology properly for conveying what's in my head anyway.  Instead, I'll say that the game in my head is about adressing the challenge of surviving the night the world turns to zombies.  One of the strategic choices that you're continually presented is the choice beteen cooperation and solo work.

If there's another potential theme to the game, I can't see it.  But that's probably just because of how the game came to me.  If you've got something to suggest, I'll be glad to hear it.  A fresh angle certainly can't hurt.

And I'd love to borrow a stack of DVDs. 

-Eric

I guess I'm thinking about the Roach, which has a "gamey" if not gamist component - explicit victory condition, resources you are trying to gain, tactical decisions to be made.  But that stuff is supposed to be in the service of something else, you know?

When I think zombies I think riot-in-the-IKEA alienation, personally.  Maybe everybody should write a zombie heartbreaker.  Mine would be very formalized and procedural about who dies and when, and your fate would be based on what society thinks of you, and there would not be anything you could do to prevent it. 

I've got NotLD, DotD, the DotD remake, and 28 Days Later on hand.  I'll bring them to MACE if I remember! 

--Jason

I'll read the doc to see if I can come up with some comments. Expect some feedback later. I just wanted to pop up and say two things: a) I can do zombie drawings if you want, now that I'm free, and b) I think you need some dials. Straight up, the first question I have is whether its old-school zombies (grawr...shamble/moan/drag foot. Eat) or new-school zombies (Y'know, the fast fuckers. Pretty much Aliens, but with zombies). So maybe you give players the option to do that. Alternately you could have different breeds of zombies, but that seems too much like a computer game rather than a movie. Or you've already done something and my input is completely invalidated, but that's cool.

<goes out and watches Resident Evil>

Kirk

Kirk wrote: Straight up, the first question I have is whether its old-school zombies (grawr...shamble/moan/drag foot. Eat) or new-school zombies (Y'know, the fast fuckers. Pretty much Aliens, but with zombies).

Kirk wrote: I can do zombie drawings if you want...

Kirk wrote: Alternately you could have different breeds of zombies...

Wow.  Crazy week.  Kinda like winning the lottery and being stuck by lightning in the same afternoon.  My old Yahoo account is frozen/dead.  Some kind of glitch caused me to loose my password and my old account information no longer matches, so they won't let me back into it.  So, I've had to start from scratch, which includes making a new Geocities account.  The old links still work, but I can't update them.

Despite the crazyness I managed to update Shamble a bit more.  I didn't really address the Agendas very much, except to list 8 new ideas for things that might eventually become Agendas.  I think that the 'resolution' bonus from each Agenda might be streamlined to always be gaining a Will To Live point, but I'm not married to the idea yet.

Major updates from the first version to the current version include;

Weapon Dice
Originally I'd assumed that once you had a particular category of weapon at your disposal you'd have it 'till the end of the game.  Now Weapon Dice are expendable and require a player to use a Move to replenish.

Moves
I've begun defining each of the things that a player may do in the game in order to increase their character's chance for survival.  Or, in the case of the GM, things that can be done to reduce the PCs' chances for survival.  Detailing and defining each of the Moves is well is going to be vital.

Places
It was just a proto-idea in my head when I first penned the game.  But where the PCs are at during any particular scene is important to their strategy.  Chilling at the mall is different from running through the graveyard which is different from stocking up on ammunition at K-Mart.  Players (including the GM) will be authoring the attributes of different places they'd like to visit during the game.  I'm hoping that this will not only set up an interesting strategic choice for each of the players, but also mean that every session will have a severly different flavor as different locations are introduced.

There's still lots to polish, but even after some time-delaying setbacks I still feel like I'm on track for getting this sucker finished by the end of the month.

-Eric

Still haven't had a chance to do any sketches or even peek at the text yet, its been crazy due to exams. But now that they are over... I've got about three hours of doing straight nothing planned tomorrow. You'll get some sketches in the next day or so. I'll try and read the text quick-soon.

Luck
Kirk