Anyone ever played a modern zombie survival rpg? I just picked up Outbreak: Undead. it looks like garbage, how do i make it better?
any experiences? and ideas or suggestions?
>>46565600
When you say "picked up", do you mean "purchased"? Because that was dumb. I read the pdf and was thoroughly disappointed.
>>46565634
yeah, i do mean purchased. I make enough to throw away 40 bucks now and again.
>>46565600
Zombies: AFMBE
Generic modern crunch: Nemesis or WT
Handouts: Streetview
Go!
>>46565664
So do I but I would never buy an RPG without reading it first.
>>46565846
AFMBE is good for one shots.
Take it from me, long term campaigns in it are like grinding down your teeth with a belt sander.
>>46565877
AFMBE's mechanics are pretty dated, which is why I suggested the ORE games. But the zombie creation chapter is a must read.
>>46565868
Quality games have free quickstart rules.
If your game doesn't it's probably just a pretty cover.
campaign ideas?
things to absolutely avoid?
>>46566191
Avoid so called fast zombies, but tool (guns etc.) using zombies are good to make things interesting when campaign goes to that point that basic shambling zombies give players no challenge.
>>46566191
Avoid anything after season 3 of the walking dead.
Do not make intelligent zombies common, if they exist at all.
No Umbrella Co. superzombie npcs that have superpowers if the party does not have any.
>>46566191
>Things to absolutely avoid?
Infected animals
Think it through. It's a non starter. Where do you draw the line? Are the e.coli in my guts undead now? Do they eat me? No - at most only dogs can also get infected, or only lab animals that can't infect other animals.
>Campaign ideas?
Anything goes really. It's the most open genre there is. Keep it simple! Focus on the essentials. The whole apocalypse is really just a narrative device to put the characters in cool situations and let them shine. This doesn't necessarily mean with heroics, it can be very gritty, even introspective. But it means give them the stage and use the apocalypse to make it exciting. Don't try to be realistic. It isn't. Just maintain suspension of disbelief.
Focus on pace and present more hooks than the party can follow up on. Make the world create dilemmas that play into the character tension between the PCs. But proclaim before the game whether you want PvP or not. If betrayal is an option everyone must make characters with secrets accordingly, and keep those secrets. If it isn't everyone must know and understand to avoid 'it's just what my character would do' bullshit.
>>46566191
Always have useful things lying around. It makes the players curious and empowers them. If some resource is scarce just say it isn't there, but other stuff still is. Give them options and empower them. Make their decisions matter for the story progress. In survival horror this means letting them find a lot of cool stuff.
Hell, let them make Innawoods sheets.
was thinking of having the players play themselves as characters and using the local area as the game map. all kinds of potential for zombie scenarios in my town
>>46566423
>Are the e.coli in my guts undead now?
Did they get bitten by undead e.coli?Because if not, I wouldn't expect them to spontaneously become zombified.
>>46566639
So it's not an infection, it's a magic bite?
>>46566696
Depends; can people in your setting get infected just by standing near zombies?
>>46566742
And how about food that zombie fluids were splashed across? What about airborne dispersal? Waterborne? And what happens with mosquitoes? Can UV light or heat destroy the infection? Does burning corpses destroy it or spread it?
Do you die when you become a zombie, or do you become a zombie when you die?
>>46566696
It could be infection spread by blood and bodily fluids like AIDS. That would explain why bite will infect you, but being just near to zombies doesn't.
>>46566971
So it's a virus?
Viruses mutate all the time.
The common cold is also a virus.
God bless you!
>>46566850
Well, if I had my way, it would be:
>And how about food that zombie fluids were splashed across?
You would get infected if you ate them, but it would be delayed a couple hours
>What about airborne dispersal?
Only if you were caught in a cloud of pureed zombie that was flung out of a woodchipper or something
>Waterborne?
If you get it in your mouth and swallow
>And what happens with mosquitoes?
They avoid zombie blood and zombies in general
>Can UV light or heat destroy the infection?
If it vaporizers the physical matter, sure
>Does burning corpses destroy it or spread it?
Destroys it
>Do you die when you become a zombie, or do you become a zombie when you die?
I'm a fan of the dead rising, but that would invalidate all the other stuff I just said so I'll say it only happens to humans.
>>46567008
If all viruses would mutate so fast how come we don't have airborne HIV?
>>46566850
>>46566639
>>46566423
I personally do not care for infected animals much cause it rarely is handled properly imo if they don't state things like 'this is a very rare exception' and leaves too many implications if not properly explained that I forever ponder about. It pretty much says to me 'ok time to just off myself the entire planet's ecosystem is FUBAR, no hope for survival of even a legacy.'
but if it is going to be done at all, at the very effing least explain it away as 'zombification is completely reliant on a central nervous system thus only vertebrates are subject.'
going once...
>>46567758
>infected animals
Not in the wild, no. Zomboid lab specimens are another matter -
Daylight searches for an "antidote" for family members or "vital records" for a hopeful, if barricaded, uni science team, might first encounter smashed cages and bloody pawprints, in the med center; the rent remains of uninfected lab animals, etc. Who knows WHAT lies beyond?
Everyone stay sharp, I've got a bad feeling about this ...
I'm not really seeing how AFMBE is dated or grinds teeth if played long. Can someone inform me why?
>>46567580
We might not have airborne HIV, but we do have text-carried cancer.
>>46572894
You spend a lot of time resolving a simple stat+skill whittling down of HP. Modern crunch resolves faster and has a better dynamic. It also includes better systems for damage, sanity, relationships, even ethics. It mods easier so it's harder to destroy the balance by coming up with stats on the spot. Not to mention things like Fate that apply rules to the meta level of the story structure.
But just keeping up the pace would be the main thing for me.
>>46572894
Oh and the problem with playing long is character progression.
going twice...
>>46575747
Go to a Left 4 Dead wiki and read up. The developers really hit a lot of the high spots of the genre - CoOp, Objectives, Rewards, Dim, shambling hordes, Triggers, Specials, Resource management, Safe houses and a Promised Land final destination light-at-the-end resolution to keep the party motivated.
Give it a try.
I'd like to see a zombie game where body armor was a fucking thing for once
>>46572936
I was going to say how stupid your post was, but it gave me cancer
Zombification via virus or other science-related matter seems to be the norm, these days; nobody seems to mention a zombie apocalypse caused by dark magic.
>The necromancers won, but got more than what they bargained for, as their puppets soon overwhelmed them.
>Player characters are limited in what they can do; if caster, only simple wards and missile spells, with buffs and heals instead coming from hard to get/make medicine.
>Instead of "finding a cure" the objective is to dispel the dark magic and curses set in place, and/or to destroy the demon-possessed necromancers.
>>46565600
>Playing game that was created as a zombie apocalypse game
Shit taste detected.
They are ALL absolutely atrocious, because people writing them were fucking morons trying to cash-on morons riding the wave of zombie hype
>>46577493
What's she got in between those magnificent breasts?
>>46565600
If you're planning to run a zombie game you need to have a good understanding with your players and be able to handle them well.
It's too easy for them to just go tribal and turtle up, hoarding resources and killing other survivors on sight. While this may be valid from an RP perspective it will get boring REALLY fast.
You need a method in play to keep them moving to some sort of vague goal. And you need your players to understand that you want the game to keep moving. It requires more cooperation than other RPs I'd say, since there's generally no quest givers in a zombie outbreak.The archetypical "I hear there's a place up north where survivors are gathering" could work, even if it's extremely cliched, it gives the party some motivation to move on.
Also keep in mind that the mere HINT of guns will have your players swarming all over that shit. Abandoned humvee on the road? We search it for guns and ammo! What do you mean there's no ammo? Soldiers always keep spare ammo in their humvees! (This will probably come from the fattest guy in your group who's just come off a CoD binge). They will pester you endlessly until they get that ultimate prize, guns! Don't let the quest for guns derail your campaign.
If you're a player rather than a GM, well keep in mind everything I just said but from the other side of the table. If your GM keeps asking what your group is planning to do, it's probably because he wants you to move on before the game becomes stale. If he says a military warehouse has been stripped clean, it's probably because he doesn't want the party to have fifty bazookas.
And as I touched on when talking about guns, there will almost always be one player who insists that thins actually work in this specific way. Police ALWAYS keep a spare handgun under the seat. Bollards are extremely effective anti zombie weapons. Zombies are too stupid to get past mesh fences, etc. If you have one of these players, well, just take charge or tell your GM to do so
>>46587546
>there will almost always be one player who insists that thins actually work in this specific way
God yes! And he pouts for hours if he doesn't get his way.
>>46587546
You know what guns mean in zombie scenarios?
It means the single zombies that jump out from dark corners become deadly flavor while the real challenge to face is now hordes.
Ammo is always low. Roll for malfunction when the shot really matters. A rocket propelled grenade takes out 3 zombies and a wall. Behind the wall there's at least 5 zombies.
It is always more efficient to take them out one by one with a baseball bat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQDWrQ285IM
>>46587837
Yeah I mean guns aren't going to make the party invincible, I'm more talking about the single minded obsession that seems to overtake players whenever guns become a possibility in a zombie game, and I've played in and run zombie games with about three different groups so it's not just isolated to one batch of players it seems. It can really throw a session off balance.
>>46587546
One neat flavor trick is to always narrate found ammo and weapons as compromised. They were exposed to the elements and picked up a little rust, the box they were in fell off a truck and everything got a little bent out of specification, a soda spill has made them sticky. This will warn your players that the weapons will malfunction eventually, and it drives home the gritty premise.
Another thing you can do is to fashion cardboard cutout tokens of weapons, or get toy guns with limited caps, if you're in the US I'm sure you can get spent casings. Use them as props to introduce newly found weapons, to always know which character has which weapon, to take away when the story does, and to count down ammo. Players will hold on to their bullets if they have to hand one over for each attack they want to roll.
Age some snack packs with bleach and sand paper and search YT for some z-day apocalypse news bulletins and emergency broadcast system clips.
>>46588023
Grenades are the best.
You let the group find exactly one and see them argue about when to use it.
>AFMBE crunch definitively picked apart for flaws
>no mention of Savage Worlds as an alternative
Oh come on. Uses wound levels instead of HP, easy to tweak zombies to how you like them (smart enough to use weapons, gas-filled, loaded with high explosives, only truly dying to the classic headshot, you name it you can do it), it's really easy for the GM to run a regular combat encounter with a truly insane amount of zombies and not have it slow down too much.
I still have fond memories of running a short-lived Resident Evil game with it. The players had just started, just escaped a subway train only to discover the street they'd walked out onto was packed with zeds.
One was a plumber with a Glock, who let fly with shots and took a couple of zombies down. Neither had played the Resident Evil remake, so they were gloriously unprepared for the rules I'd made up for Crimson Heads.
Cue the players screaming "nope" and running for the nearest vehicle, panicking as they tried to hotwire it and nearly leaving the NPC priest with a bum leg to die
>>46588677
Name one kind of game that you wouldn't come into a thread and suggest savage worlds for.
>>46590197
Snakes & Ladders!
>>46590407
Meh.
Now Snakes and Foxes we can think about...
>>46590197
Fighter combat. Mostly because there is no system that adequately does that.
