So just as a thought excercise....

'Zombie apocalypse starts with people dying of the infection and then a couple minutes later rising from the dead. Driver dies at wheel of 18 wheeler truck. This careens off the road into the house your playing RP at. Causes massive damage. In the collison, carnage etc you break both your legs, your friends are unhurt but there is a fire and gasoline is spilling into the front room...There's not too long before the whole place goes up. At this stage there aren't actually any zombies. What's the plan?'

Euh die? With my gm we'd be rolling to see if the truck blows up and if the house collapses. (and probably increasing chance each round aswell) Starting the game with two broken legs does up the dificulty level so to speak. Hell i can't even eb an effective zombie if i should ever get bit.

That was in reply to where's the fun in seeing if you've thought of everything through plans and backup plans.

Personally I don't have a plan, I have a set of rules I plan on enacting on myself and anyone I travel with (up to just leaving if they refuse, not forcing them on anyone). That's just me. Plans fall apart to real life far too easily in my experience.

1. Plan for everything, that way all surprises will be good ones.

2: No plan survives contact with the enemy.

So just as a thought excercise....

'Zombie apocalypse starts with people dying of the infection and then a couple minutes later rising from the dead. Driver dies at wheel of 18 wheeler truck. This careens off the road into the house your playing RP at. Causes massive damage. In the collison, carnage etc you break both your legs, your friends are unhurt but there is a fire and gasoline is spilling into the front room...There's not too long before the whole place goes up. At this stage there aren't actually any zombies. What's the plan?'

Euh die? With my gm we'd be rolling to see if the truck blows up and if the house collapses. (and probably increasing chance each round aswell) Starting the game with two broken legs does up the dificulty level so to speak. Hell i can't even eb an effective zombie if i should ever get bit.

This might be more of a question for the Gm:

How will mankind win the zombie war?

WILL mankind win the zombie war, or is it truly a zombie apocalypse?

That really really depends on the zombies, and how bad the world lets the outbreak get.

The zombie survival guide has a classification system that pretty well describes it.

It just depends on how the world governments react to the situation.

I wouldn't really call it a war though.

Good point about the zombie types. (I was thinking class 2-3, Night of the living dead type zombies)

I had an idea about crushing hordes of the slow shambling zombies with tanks and (armored) buldozers/ steamroller. Ofcourse this will only work in outside areas with a large concentration of zombies where they are packed close together so they have no room to get out of the way and would get ground to a pulp by the vehicle's enormous weight.

That still leaves the horror of close combat in buildings and urban enviroments.

One theory i bounced at my gaming group was the possibility of mankind having an (unknown) collective phobia of zombies. That is: a complete panic attack when comming near a zombie. That the very existence of something that is dead still moves triggers an accute and overwhelming fear responce in a human's subconcious.

Admitedly I only came up with it as a counter to large groups of armed humans just shooting down zombies in open terrain from fortified positions. You know, less "Hey ahm gunna shoot me sum zombies, sheriff! Yuk Yuk!" and more like "... the...no, no oh god no that cant be real, aaaah!"

Hmm It appears i've fallen in the (American) habbit of calling things the War On Something Something.

@ ThenDoctor: You obviously have read the zombie survival guide.

Did you have any chance to read/check out World War Z (the book)?

The issue with your rolling plan is fuel. That and why waste a resource like a tank on rolling zombies when you might have to take out a raider militia?

The fear thing is really closer than you'd think. If you present the zombies as something of an uncanny valley effect. They're so close to normal, but just different enough that it puts humans off. We naturally have a fear of things that are similar but not.

As for World War Z, no I haven't. Wasn't interested in actual zombie fiction, the survival guide is a good book because it's a decent guide for a relatively realistic portrayal of how zombies would likely be. The fungus concept makes sense when you think about it and how almost all cultures have zombies in them for some reason. Last of Us aren't really zombies to me, they're just infected individuals, much like 28 days/weeks later "zombies" aren't really zombies to me. WWZ just sounded very silly all things considered. I don't like zombie stories where humanity lives. Sure people survive, but a zombie outbreak, unless it's a curable infection, is basically a one way ticket for the human race.

It's a matter of what people decide to do when they realize that. Some turn to religion, others focus purely on the next generation having a chance. Some say screw it and start being a cannibal.

Thats the achilles heel, tanks use up a lot of fuel, but it's not a weakness that cannot be overcome. Also doesn't have to be tanks. How about a big dumptruck ( the 2004 remake of DotD showed a clip like that in the opening title sequence.) with some gunners in the back and maybe a mortar team or extra fuel cans?

still think it's the best way to deal with large concentrations of zombies, rather than infantry (they get eaten and zombie arithmatic sets in) or artillery/airstrikes: HE ammunition doesn't work well against zombies (Max Brooks explains it in WWZ, sorry to bring that book up again)

About the raider militia, thats where i would use the SWAT:special forces/ equivalent for, maybe in a helicopter for rapid response. They should be able to deal with them. Also If you roll into an infested area with a goresplattered tank, your average raider won't be so eager to pick a fight.

Same problem. Dump trucks take an insane amount of fuel. a few extra cans will be next to useless.

Again depends on the zombies for what weapons works best.

You're still expecting the government to be standing and actually have a helicopter. Even then what if the militia gets lucky and takes out those valuable resources?

The zombies in the zombie outbreak aren't necessarily the problem. The problem is how the infection is spread in the first place and how long it takes to incubate.

28 Days Later kind of worked because it spreads so **** quickly and the flash point was a major urban area.

A secondary problem is also how quickly the government reacts.

You will notice that most Zombie Apocalypse movies (and I do use the word most) rely on either the movie begining part way through the Apocalypse or having the government act very slowly to combat the problem.

For a Zombie Apocalypse to work in a feasible way and not rely on the conceit of a sluggish government response then you would probably also need some kind of additional host animal, likes flies or fleas who can spread the disease independantly of a zombie biting you.

In short zombies and particularly of the Walking Dead variety in and of themselves are not massively dangerous, it is the surrounding 'handicaps' that are inflicted on society that makes them so dangerous.

As with any RPG... you do not have to do anything. You can do what you want.

How about playing as the zombies? You start with yourself as a zombie and by attacking and killing npc's you become a zombie mob. For each npc infected you gain a zombie( life) for each headshot the npcs inflict on you(r mob) you lose a zombie (life) when you run out of zombies you are out of the game.

I think that it's a GREAT IDEA to play yourself. I think just about anyone would have more skill points and abilities that would match a low level character.

For those that don't want to play themselves.... don't.

For those that do... Write your own history and survive!.

How about everybody makes his own character based on him/herself and then hands it to the person to the left.

So now you are playing as someone else. This probably will only work with groups of (close) friends, and even then there will probably be cries "i wouldn't do that!" or people playing their best buddy in silly ways.

From the new article:

What if I don't want to play as myself?

The character creation rules in Zombie Apocalypse and the rest of The End of the World roleplaying line allow you to create characters very unlike yourself. Instead of creating stats based on your own characteristics, you can simply envision a different person and create a character who embodies the traits and abilities of that person.

I even suggested you could play as celebrities, make up some stats and see how long Vin Diesel, Bill Clinton and Lady Gaga survive the apocalypse! Great for a rpg session in wich you want to unwind!

Weird, it's exactly what I said, fancy that.

I even suggested you could play as celebrities, make up some stats and see how long Vin Diesel, Bill Clinton and Lady Gaga survive the apocalypse! Great for a rpg session in wich you want to unwind!

Or perhaps you could play Bill Murray, although better to keep the "I'm a zombie pranks to a minimum though....." ;-)

No, I'm ok with mundane. The boring part was that very moment you face your mom as a zombie and try to blow her brains out and someone says: Man it's your mom, you wouldn't do it. This kind of thing bothered me, at least that time it bothered me, nowadays I cannot tell.

The thing is the background says you are playing yourself and as a roleplayer you are used to zombie stories where you might face your zombie mom. A survivor who was a roleplayer can meta the drek out of the apocalypse. I can even see myself going "You have been bit, Mom. You are going to have to die or you might turn on someone else."

The thing is the background says you are playing yourself and as a roleplayer you are used to zombie stories where you might face your zombie mom. A survivor who was a roleplayer can meta the drek out of the apocalypse. I can even see myself going "You have been bit, Mom. You are going to have to die or you might turn on someone else."

I guess it depends how much empathy you have in the situation, I know some that would stop viewing someone as a person as soon as they were bit. They're a time bomb at that point. That's an extreme example to be fair.

Well this gets to the heart of roleplaying really. There isn't actually a competitive 'win condition'. So yes you could meta game it but then you could meta game your character creation to say that you know kung fu and how to make a tent out of twigs and moss even though you don't.

This isn't dismissing your point (tone is difficult on the internet ) your point is a real and practical one that addresses a problem that probably will occur but some problems can't really be fixed via rules but rather by engagement with the group as a whole.

That said an individuals ability to survive is probably predicated on their initial ability to make difficult decisions (to say the least) although paradoxically the long term survivibaility of a group makes empathy and alturisim as if not more important

Actually you can't meta game character creation there's a group veto system if you work off of yourself, at least if they kept it in from the Spanish version.

It seems they have some kind of group vote:

"After I create the initial characteristics for my character, the group has the chance to vote on the accuracy of the result. For each category, the group secretly votes whether a characteristic should be raised or lowered."

Naw... I've already got my Navy SEAL concept worked out. He's a veteran SEAL that happens to be the son of Superman and Storm. I wanted to do bionic arms, but the GM had to draw the line somewhere... right?