Hello!

I'm interested in the series but what has me a little reluctant to pick it up is that it encourages players to play themselves. While that's neat, I kinda feel that's a novelty and also discourages great risk as the players don't want to find themselves unable to paly the game anymore. I know there's an option to play fictional characters but does it play well, or is there something greatly missing in the narrative or mechanics of the story? I think about running this at a convention with pre-mades to move things quickly in the short time allotted, I wonder if this game will suit that well. If not, anyone could suggest something else?

Yeah, don't worry about it, the game works just as well with fictional characters as it does with the setup of playing yourself. Just come up with a few characters, give them positive and negative features, a bit of gear, and you're ready to go.

It sure does. My group's never done it any other way. Since we've done a lot of one-shots, I usually knock out a bunch of scenario-suitable pregenerated characters (which are super easy to create in this game) and let the players choose: 'Who want's to play the guy hiding a zombie bite? How about the woodlands survivalist with a pet wolf? Or the pet wolf?'

For players who want to make their own, I threw together a simple point-based system. But even that's probably more complicated than it needs to be Like Veruca said, just eyeball some stats, features, and gear.