The question pretty much apply to all of them. Zombies have:

+ horrifying

+ unyielding

- mindless

- shambling

What features do you use:

1) When a zombie attacks physically? - Sounds like all could apply.

2) When a PC attacks a zombie physically? Again, seems like all would apply.

I am curious because based on a game last night, I tend to like a lot of dice in the pool, but then stress can goes up fast. It however keep seems interesting.

It's all about the narrative. If you can make it sound reasonable, then it should apply. I think that it is about having fun, so if you are then you are doing it right.

I agree, however I am curious how people play it and how they use those features?

By the end of the game, I found myself not relying on the NPC blocks, and simply adding black or white for the situation, making up features that seemed appropriate.

I would also like some clearer examples for this. They're quite ambiguous words and it's hard to figure out sensible uses for them.

The first thing that jumped to mind is that the ghouls are so "horrifying" that it makes insanity tests harder but thats simply not how the system works right? Features, positive or negative only add dice to the tests of the character in question. So no matter how horrifying the zombie is because of this feature it won't add negative dice to my roll if we take the rules as written. Trying to think of actions the zombie could do that would involve adding positive dice for horrifying.

The others are somewhat easier - zombie tries to climb stairs, add 1 neg dice due to shambling.

Well, that's part of what makes it difficult. I believe it is ok to use a positive or negative feature of an npc in the test made by a PC, and vice versa. Thus that's why I am throwing all zombies features into the attack roll of PC.

However, if I was then going to do the zombie attack roll vs the same PC, it would just be the mirror opposite of dice (minus the auto positive dice granted to who rolls). It's kind of repetitive. For now, I settled with adding all features on both sides but one roll by the PC represents both the attack and counter attack.

Yeah I think the whole thing needs a bit more clarification. It's awesome that features can be basically whatever you want - me and my friends are already thinking of some interesting and somewhat comical ones for each other (e.g. friend has a penchant for red headed women - add one negative dice to all attacks against red heads)

It's frustrating however that the book mentions features and gives no reasoning for when and where they would be used. It's made doubly more frustrating when for NPCs these features aren't even put into any categories. The book makes a point of saying that most of the time you will only use features in the category that you are currently testing e.g. being a good runner would be used on physical tests that involve running (obviously....). Some of the NPC traits are easy to fit, like Fast on the zombie dogs for example but some of them less so.

One way I'm thinking of dealing with some of them is through a liberal use of opposed tests. As many of you might be aware the Star Wars rpgs use opposed tests in a way pretty much described in this forum. You create one dice pool with the negative dice coming from the skills and stats of the person(s) you're opposing. In EOTW opposed tests work different but it can be a similar way to use the positive and negative dice of NPCs in a clever way.

EXAMPLE

You are confronted by two zombie dogs and a human zombie (Night of the Meteor zombies). You decide to run away and the zombies give chase. Each character creates their dice pool gaining positives from some features, maybe a positive for already being quite far away and negatives for features, the innate difficulty of the task and traumas etc. This is then done as an opposed test against the group of zombies. They each build their own dice pool perhaps gaining positives for unyielding and the dogs also for fast. The normal ghouls would gain a negative for shambling and also the usual innate difficulty stuff. Here in this situation you're not just giving yourself a negative dice because the zombie dog is fast you're.....I guess sticking closer to the rules as written and only awarding positive and negative dice to the NPC who is rolling.

NOTE - I am a massive rules pedant. Please forgive me!

I think it is left open so you can use features as they seem appropriate. Not all attacks need to be physical. Maybe a group of zombies round a corner moaning and shambling towards you. As s GM I could make an intellect test to attack the pcs. Modifiers could be the Horrifying feature plus whatever seems appropriate culminating in possible Mental stress.

Do you all add Horrifying and sometimes Unyielding to your zombie dice pools when attacking in your games?

Literally just replied to you in another post daddystabz so you know I haven't played but I'm really unsure what do with this. I reckon horrifying could be used in some sort of insanity or spook test. Zombie jumps out from nowhere and gets a bonus positive because it's horrifying.

Unyielding seems more applicable to combat with them gaining bonuses to attacks.

My main issue is the ruling on adding dice to player rolls based on the features of NPCs. Should I give my players a negative dice because the zombie is horrifying? Should they get negative dice because it's unyielding too? The rules seems to suggest that features only apply to the character in questions dice pool but a lot of these features seem to work better when applied to the players tests. Again - the rules are loose and I can sort of do what I want but this whole thing seems quite vague

Like you said, it's up to you. We don't have a specific ruling in the same way we do Skills and Talents in other games.

If the zombie is making a physical attack I may opt to include Horrifying when it makes an attack because perhaps the disturbing nature of the rotting, hungry, former human coming at them would - at the very least, early on - give even the most jaded of people at least a flicker of pause of fear, that split second being enough to allow the zombie to cause an extra bit of harm- stress, whatever

With regards to the PC making an action, again, having to concentrate on attacking that same creature, with lips that have been brutally torn clean off, strips of scarlet flesh hanging loosely, blood leaking from diseased, rotting orifices as it shambles even closer with that disturbing moan... it's likely to influence why a person might be thrown off, especially if the person has to get in close with it, or several of them. Maybe later on during the post-apocalypse I might start mitigating some of those disadvantages but by that point I'd have expected them to have picked up being pretty hardened by the horror of zombies as Positive Features.