Firstly, long time lurker, first time long-poster…Howdy!  My name is Kreg and I’ve been playing role-playing games since 1979 when a friend and I pooled our allowances for the old D&D Basic Set box.

I think I’m finally ready to post my draft of the Dead up at the Forge.  I made myself a New Years promise that not only would I finish the game up this year, but that first I’d *gulp* post it to The Forge. 

The Dead is basically a simple game about “killin’ zombies”…it has no grandiose notions of being much else.  However, the one cool little tidbit I wanted the game to absolutely have is the idea of Relationships.  Relationships are what really stuck with me when, during the review of Deadmeat here on the Forge, Ron said:

“I suggest that any further tweaking or work done with Dead Meat rely very heavily on that premise: "Given that all you know about death and life is wrong, and that you are in deadly, gruesome danger, isolated with people you neither trust nor would ordinarily like, what now matters most?"”

man, that struck me hard, and yet It seemed so obvious…what matters most?  The Living!  The people around your character who she does trust and has formed bonds with in this horrible situation!  (or maybe i was completely wrong, but hey that's how my brain operates.)

A year or so later I read Issue #1 of “The Walking Dead” and I KNEW I had to write this game…

SO, here it is:  http://www.mosierworks.com/projects/theDead/theDead010306.pdf

Please (PLEASE) feel free to critique and offer constructive criticism.  I know the game doesn’t add anything to the hobby necessarily, or break any new ground, but I’m perfectly content with that.

The major thing it’s missing is any sort of Reward system.  I haven’t been able to puzzle out what one would be, beyond “well, you get better at killing the Dead. Gain a die in FIGHT.” or whatever.  (…and frankly, I’m of the opinion that if that’s all there is, I’d simply rather not have one.)

It does need more examples and maybe an intro adventure,  but is there anything else it needs? doesn't need? should i just scrap the whole schmeer?!  My eventual goals are to post it for free online as a .pdf, and then later do a comic book-style print run with all the sweet graphics and maybe some additional goodness up for sale.

Thanks in advance for reading!

-kreg

Hi Kreg,

I scanned this very quickly and I must say aesthetically it appealed to me. The tone seems great and obviously a lot of thought and energy went into the flavour of the game. As you say, the mechanics are nothing unusual and I think this is where the game is being let down. Why would one want to play this Zombie game, what makes it exciting?

The whole relationships thing which you pitch well, sounds filled with rich possibilities! Especially because the whole Zombie theme is fraught with the horror of the undead thing which is trying to eat me alive could by my baby brother! Maybe try and find a way in which that becomes the central mechanism through which scenes become resolved. Is it horror survival? or is it horror beat the crap out of the Zombie horde? Maybe its the character drama of a zombie Apocalypse rather than any of these - which sounds like where you are aiming. Maybe look at some games that use relationship driven mechanics to resolve the conflict for inspiration.

I think you have good creative start here, but you can push it up to a whole new level by informing the system mechanics more with some of that creative energy.

Hope that helps,
C

Chad,

Hey, thanks for replying...I was wondering if this thing was on! heh.

Appreciate the comments...and i would definitely say that "the character drama of a zombie Apocalypse" (might have to appropriate that) is much closer to what I'm aiming for than anything.  Not some sort of unplayable dramatic relationship simulator, but something that brings the Survivors personal relationships to the forefront and uses them in a mechanical way. 

I think that one of my original goals was to make a fairly typical survival-horror zombie game, but then completely 'mute' the undead by making them so much window-dressing.  I mean, admittedly...after the first encounter in any game like this, the magic is kinda gone; by the 5th encounter or so, you're just going through the motions.

again, thanks for the comments, and I'll definitely try and check out some relationship-based games.  Someone from rpg.net told me to check out "Thirty" by John Wick, and I seem to remember thinking Paul Czege's Nicotine Girls might be helpful as well...who knows.

Take care,
-kreg