Zombies! Fast Play!!

Following on from my rant on how slow and pointless the Zombies! game is here are a set of fast play rules that simulate all of the flavour of the game but in a fraction of the time.

Fast Play Zombies!:

• Roll dice to pick half the players - they are out the game because the helipad turned too far away from them.
• Each of the players who are out the game pick a player they don't want to win so that everyone is trying to stop someone. The blocking players now hold their breath. Once one person can't bear it any longer and gives up then the game is over. The person they nominated wins despite their effort to stop them

This looses none of the real gameplay and has the benefit that you have hours of time left to play something else.

There is a slight flaw: if everyone is determined to carry on until they actually die then no one will win. However the real game seems to have the same flaw.

If you want a sensible suggestion for Fast Play Zombies then here is one that contains some reasonable suggestions.

Zombies! Yawn!

Last Saturday was our bimonthly games night; we get together and play board and card games, socialise, have a beer. Like a million other gamers.

We ran through the games wondering what to play. Perhaps one of the regulars: Lunch Money? (an ok game), Settlers? (good game); Cash and Guns? (great game), Dalmutti? (great game). Or perhaps one of the waiting to play games: Junta? (said to be excellent), Credo? (complete unknown). But no, in a moment of madness I hear myself say 'Lets play Zombies!. It sucked last time but loads of people like it. Lets give it another try'.

Last time we played the first half of the game turned out to be pointless as everything that happened before the helicopter pad was located turned out to be pointless except to establish who was near the pad and had some sort of chance and who was too far away and could spend the rest of the game watching to see who would win. So we introduced a house rule to say that the helicopter pad could not be placed closer than three squares from any player or from the town square.

To cut a long (make that very long and dull) story short it sucked again. I have to say I cant believe much thought went into designing and testing this game. There were six of us and the game lasted about 4 mind numbing hours.

The first 2 hours were spent revealing the map and went the same as last time: no one ever got a card that went with a location they could reach because the odds are far too slim. Several people held onto location cards hoping to get lucky until they realised that you move so slowly and take so much damage moving that there's no realistic chance of crossing the map to visit anywhere.

Eventually the helicopter pad turned up and was duly placed in a location that meant half the people would struggle to get there for another hour. Did our house rule help? No. Well sort of... Ok, no. The previous game had finished almost immediately the helicopter was found excluding most players for no reason other than luck, so we had agreed that it could not be placed near to a player or the town square. This did have the intended effect of allowing everyone to have a chance of finishing so it was sort of a success. But it meant we had to play for another two hours which doubled the dullness of the game so no, not a good idea.

During that last 2 hours we all repeatedly attempted to get to the helicopter pad. Cards that create more zombies came up from the deck fast enough that there was always a block of zombies in the way and the odds of getting through unscathed took care of most peoples attempts. When the occasional person had a string of luck there was always someone with a card to scupper their chances, and these cards were coming up fast enough that nothing really changed over the last two hours of play.

In the end we only finished because enough people were tired and bored that they refused to play any cards to stop Martin from winning.

I have to admit we all laughed quite a bit during the game, especially the last hour. However they were all bitter despairing laughs at the games expense. We could not believe that the game was so badly thought out.

Because of the rate at which negative cards came up I suspect that the game can't work with 6 people. But last time we played there were only 4 of us and it sucked then too. I cant think of a part of the game that works satisfactorily.

Oh I forgot - you can also win by amassing 25 killed zombies; though you lose half your stock every time you die. I cant imagine this happens much as the fights are pretty much 50/50 and you start with three lives. Because you lose half your dead zombies on each death you are going to level out in the high teens even if you do well. Given a extensive play time you might eventually get a long string of lucky rolls and reach 25 killed - but frankly your fellow players are never going to let that happen. And forget about wading through the zombies with a chainsaw clocking up kills, there's two butterfingers cards in the deck so someone will soon have that off you.

The physical and graphic design is good. The event cards have clear explanations on the cards which puts it one up on two otherwise good card games: Lunchmoney and Bang. The town tiles look nice but are not well thought out - the location of doors are very important to movement but pretty much require the players to examine the picture under a good light and then take a vote on where they are. My guess would be that this is a game created by a gaming company with good graphic designers but no understanding of what makes a game a game.

The only thing in Zombies! favour is that you get a load of plastic figures and a load of printed town tiles and so its a great start for a DIY game. And the manufacturer has thoughtfully provided a set of rules that are so bad whatever DIY rules you decide on will make you look like a game design genius in comparison.

If I am ever mad enough to waste 4 hours of my life again I will consider some or all of these house rules:

• placing the town square and the helipad first so we can all see where the exit will be.
• dealing out all the tiles to players so they can choose what to play to introduce a bit of control over the map.
• possibly even laying the tiles out first so players can see where the shops are.
• placing the item cards for locations on those locations for characters to search for in that building.
  
• not allowing the sadistic card that sends a potential winner back to the start to be used after the helipad is found/connected.
• making movement d6 plus life counters instead of just d6.
• or taking the randomness out by making movement 2 + life counters.
• allowing a player to get a bullet from any zombie killed with a 5 or 6.
• a card that is played is out the game, only discarded cards go in the discard pile to be reshuffled.
• or once the helipad appears no more cards can be drawn.
  
• if you are killed once the helipad is placed you are don't respawn and are out the game.
  
• when a character is killed only max (say) 6 zombies are lost not half.
  

These are just ideas that have popped into my head. I have no idea if any of these would make for a good game. I do know that the existing rules don't.

Why players should let NPC live to appear again

Here's some advice that I posted years back. It was on a Heroquest forum but it relates to rpgs generally. I'm putting it here for my own benefit if not anyone else's:

Stephen Rennell said:
> I've had the reverse problem - they assume that they can kill
> all the opposition after they've defeated them, and it's very
> hard to get them to be happy with their enemies not being all
> dead. (Especially bandits when their clan hates Gagarthi, and
> broo who they also hate.)

I echo what Mike Holmes said, plus...

First - in the before game chat discuss the nature of opponents in an RPG. They are always going to have opposition to fight one way or another, otherwise the game would be dull. Players want their PCs to have opponents. So the only question is which ones they want. The Pool had some good advice: players should kill off npcs when they dont want them in the story anymore and conversely allow the coolest ones to live to appear another day. Later, during the game, remind them to think about retaining and discarding npcs depending on their potential to make things entertaining to the group.

Second - there is a difference between the PCs wanting someone dead and the players wanting them dead. The players are not the PCs and should not be trying to be. This is a different approach to the way games are often played. In HQ everyone should be helping to direct the story. This requires the players to be able to seperate themselves from the PCs. The PCs should want the broos all dead and should be p1ssed when they cant kill them all. The players on the other hand should be making a decision about what would be the best way of making todays game and the games to come as enjoyable as possible.

If the opponents are nameless minions the decision is moot; theres nothing of interest to save, and no penalties for slaughtering broos or gargathi, and the PCs hate them intensely, so they are bound to kill them off. Let them enjoy it.

Third - if you want to change the way they kill of everyone regardless of who they are: involve them in deciding the consequences. If they kill off the tax collector ask the players to suggest what the authorities do next. This will help make the point that they must deal with the consequences of their actions - the victims are not faceless, they are just one part of a group. Its rarely possible to fight an individual, what you are actually doing is involving yourself in ongoing conflict with a much larger entity. This is the way it works in real life too; you dont need to make up rules to force their behaviour to conform to what seems realistic - just make the results of their actions happen the way they realistically would. But do it in the open so they can make an informed choice and be part of the decision about whether things escalate.

Fourth - and this is really really important if not vital - make sure they are tied securely into a bigger group. Under no circumstances allow a wandering party of PCs with no relationships to worry about. The PCs should be part of a clan or similar and the clan should suffer the results of their actions. They should have family and friends to worry about. This is how the decisions about how to treat enemies become interesting for the players.

Theres a quote (but I forget who said it) 'He who takes a wife and a family has given hostages to fortune'.

When the victims friends retaliate have them target the PCs nieghbours and kin. Involve the PCs in deciding how this happens. There doesn't even have to have been a retaliation yet for the nieghours and kin to start getting jumpy and putting he presure on the PCs.

Cheers,
Nick.

Story Games in Birmingham? Step forward!

I've been trying to find people into story games in Birmingham (UK) for some time. Seems like their a rare breed or their hiding really well. Any of you out there please add a comment to this post and let the rest of us know.

Concrete Cow

It's Concrete Cow in a few hours. Its a gaming convention in Milton Keynes with a track history of indie and story games, so I'm looking forward to playing something cool.

DIY Lighting

I'd been intending to buckle down and learn to use a flash by following the assignments on the Strobist site. But now that he's started a new series of articles called Lighting 102 it seems like its now or never. So I'm all excited and I've bought the book he's going to complement the course with - Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting.

One of the things the Strobist site has encouraged is a DIY attitude and a try it and see approach. So I'm going to post links to any DIY stuff I see for my own benefit in the future.

Theres a number of DIY Lighting suggestions and some plans in the DPReview Lighting Technique Forum including this thread on DIY Lighting Kit.

A similar design here at DIY-Reflector-Diffuser.

Birmingham Music Festivals

While stumbling round the web trying to find out if Birmingham's The Courtesy Group still gig I stumbled onto a post listing hods of mini-festivals in and around Brum this summer. It reminds me; I should take advantage of not being dead at the moment and get out and do stuff. Probably.