Redesign And: Tweaking Dead Meaty Guys

I redesigned my blog today, which is something you certainly do not care about, but it is a thing that I care deeply about. The header had been bugging me for a long time, but today's the day I did something about it. Now the blog's sporting a regal dark purple and yellow look. It's like the blog of kings. Except better. You dig?

Anyways. I've been peeking around the corners of my blog (nearly spring cleaning, you know) and I've spotted some old, dusty games that don't seem to have gotten much attention. One of those things, as you know, is AIM FOR THE HEAD.

Now, I believe that AFTH is a decent game. Oh no, not perfect by a long shot, but it reminds me of Dead Meat, which is probably the only zombie game that you can read through in one sitting without your eyes glazing with the remnants of some awful d20 hack that's never been playtested and contains almost no interesting rules. Sorry, let me reel myself in. I like AFTH- it's fresh and easy to play. But it needs some love.

The way zombie infection is handled is great- when you're infected but not killed, you halve your attributes and you're pretty much doomed. And the three stat system (Fight, Flight, and Toughness) means that characters get created in the blink of an eye and when they die, that's ok, because here comes another one. Besides, because in the apocalypse, those three things are pretty much what matters. The pseudo-FUDGE task resolution system set in place is good (but for the next edition, I'm turning it into 1-3 is bad and 4-6 is good, to make it more equivalent to FUDGE and leave out the "on a 2-5, nothing important happens" thing that I forget to deal with), but ultimately flawed. I'll probably replace it with a One-Roll Engine inspired idea if I don't go with pseudo-FUDGE.

The way that Stuff is as abstracted as it is doesn't work for me; I believe the game would be better served by more concrete examples for each category of things that are useful. The fact that I neglected things that help you Flee (bikes, cars, helicopters) is nearly criminal. The fact that there aren't any good rules for "don't make noise or you're boned" is bad. The non-existence of rules for battling hordes is nearly as bad. Something as easy as "when there are multiple zombies, add together their Fight and Toughness and roll it as one enormous organism," and bam, you have zombies that are pathetic one on one and nigh-lethal as a horde.

What few bits of setting information are there would have been better left out, so as to give more of a framework for the game, and I think that the PDF deserves to be expanded to five or six pages. What the game really needs is a section on stuff the GM can do to ramp up tension, because that's completely missing anywhere. The bit about not trusting other survivors? There's absolutely no in-game reason to betray anybody else, and there's no hint of even being able to fuck with the other players. There has to be a bit of tension, and I think a better design than the blank floorplan I came up with would highlight that. Things like in The Walking Dead video game- you have six pieces of food, so who do you give them to? Or even something as simple as: one of the people in your party's been grabbed through the window and is going to be bitten. Do you save them and possibly die yourself, or do you leave them?

That's what's important about a zombie game, not some half-assed hints about Other Survivors or A Cure or Destroying Zombies. The game needs a section about Death, Difficult Choices, and Inevitable Death. The tone should be grim, because there's nothing shittier than being in a world where everybody you know is probably dead.

Still, it's good that it was released even in a half-playable state; even in the resounding silence that followed, it's been just long enough that the faults are clear. It's not what I'd want to play, so why should anybody else want to play it?

Hopefully the next revision is better.

Shaun of the Dead: Not Gameable.

Hey Shaun, look who it is!
Well fuck-a-doodle-doo!

I know the quote doesn't match the picture, but I've always liked the quote.

Somehow, I need to channel more Shaun of the Dead from my zombie game Aim For The Head, and I have no idea whatsoever how I'd go about doing that. Seriously, no idea at all. This has been a dry period for the part of my brain that usually is pretty good at generating novel ideas, so I'm content to put it here and maybe come back to it someday.

Maybe some sort of mechanic promoting teamplay, interpersonal relationships, that sort of deal would help out. But the thing is, Shaun of the Dead isn't really a zombie movie, it's a bromance movie in zombie clothing. The crux of the movie is the semi-dysfunctional relationship between Shaun and his buddy Ed, and how it resolves in the end. It's also a little sad- Shaun never does manage to reconcile his laziness with Liz, nor his relationship with Ed. Instead, the world changes around him to his benefit. Apparently zombie apocalypses have a way of making adventurous, lively women want to settle down with the slightly sad everman Shaun, and letting you get rid of your best friend by turning him into a zombie that just plays video games all day.

It's a lot deeper than what it lets on, is what I'm trying to say, and even though it's an awful prototype for a game, there's still something about it I'd like to capture.

Mall of the Dead

Honestly, I'm tired of having this in the back of my head, bothering me- so I'm putting it out for everybody to see.

It's a system built around AIM FOR THE HEAD, but I'm not picky and it's pretty system neutral. Since it's one page, you're treated to, basically, a couple of set pieces with a lot of room for improvisation. If you haven't figured it out by now, that's pretty much all I need to get a game going, and that should be enough for you.

The basic flow goes like this (and this is going to end up being longer than the pdf itself, if I'm not careful):
1) The players' survivors are in a department store where they've been hiding out- the zombie apocalypse happened while they were shopping, and naturally nobody bothers to tell the people at the mall, so they're stuck. The players can hear a helicopter going overhead at roughly the same time each day. Might as well try that, there's shit else to do.
2)The players emerge and the mall's nearest entrance has been smashed to shit by somebody driving a truck through the mall. Near the smashed wall is a horde of zombies, who are prevented from rushing in by the wreckage. Bad idea to try and go through, but if the players can swing it somehow, their car could be out there.
3) The only safe option is through the mall. There are lots of little stores which could have something, but they could also be time-wasters with nothing but zombies and gore. Its up to the players.
4) The players get to the food court, where it's open enough that there are way too many zombies. Zombies eventually fall from the enormous skylight, raising one hell of a racket. That's bad.
5) The players are left with a choice- try and go out to the other parking lot and escape via car, or try and hail the helicopter. Up to them, really.
6a) If they try the helicopter, there are still more zombies up here, as well as a firearm. If the players brought something to get the helicopter's attention, the chopper can rescue them if they're not being eaten alive. The pilots aren't going to fire their weapons, in case they crash somewhere horrible, they're going to need the ammo. The players might escape at this point.
6b) The players go to the parking lot. There are a whole lot of zombies out here, as well as zombies in cars and a pileup. The players' cars might be wrecked up, but if they aren't, they can escape- provided the roads are clear.

And that's the Mall of the Dead. It feels like it's missing something, but honestly, I could care less because I think that's all you need to get your creative juices flowing at the table. I'll probably go back and add more later, but don't count on it ;)

Here's the link, my friends.

Mall of the Living Dead

Continuing my enjoyment of not only zombie games but of writing things for them, I'm writing up a one-page "module" for AIM FOR THE HEAD, my zombie roleplaying game, wherein I intend to subject my players to the delights of a mall full of zombies.

I know, right? It's a cliche for a reason. In a world where you're one of a handful of survivors in a sea of grey shambling flesh (talk about special snowflakes!), there's a certain appeal to mowing down the inane, mindless hordes of consumers like you always fantasize doing on the rare occasions you're forced to go inside of a mall. It's a beautiful thing, and it even does a couple of things for a module design that I think are really nifty.

1) It lets you confine the area very naturally. Malls are built like ye olde castle, in that you're designed to stay in. It's absolutely intentional- they're supposed to be nearly self sufficient, easy to get in, and difficult to get out. For all of the spacious courtyards and high ceilings, there are naturally a tiny number of semi-hidden, chokepoint-styled exits. When the living dead are all around you, chokepoints are a horrible thing, meaning that once you get in a mall, you're going to need another way out. This very naturally creates drama, because
2) For all of the junk inside of a mall, very little of it is useful in guaranteeing your survival. This means that your players aren't finding rocket launchers or chainsaws (well, maybe chainsaws, but there's not really any gas to power them), which would ruin the feeling of "holy shit, zombie apocalypse." More pertinently, the players aren't going to find much in the way of food or water, except in the Food Court, and the great majority of that is going to spoil very, very quickly and probably be entirely uncooked. Mall food is pretty unpalatable even when cooked fresh, and a couple of days with no power and no new shipments of food is going to leave a horrible place.
3) A mall is a place you visit, not a place you stay. This ties into 2, but in a totally different way. In daily life, you don't stay because you have a home to go to, the crowds are tiring, and the security guards will yell at you when you try to sleep there anyways. In a zombie apocalypse, you can't stay because there's nothing to eat, there's almost no real defense, and there are a hell of a lot of zombies around already, between the people that died there, the other people that thought it'd be a good idea to hide there, and the zombies that wander inside periodically and can't get out again.
4) It ties into the Dawn of the Dead-styled "zombies as consumerist allegory." The less said about that, the better, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not a philosophy blog and I'm certain you expect only those philosophies here which pertain to gaming.
5) It makes sense to get caught there. It almost feels like you're stuck there on a normal day, so getting caught there when everything is zombies? Totally plausible. Furthermore, it's very diverse. Pretty much anybody can be at a mall, meaning that characters can be literally anybody- a vacationing family man, a down on his luck homeless man, a security guard, a trucker just there on a pickup, a UPS guy, anybody.

All of these things are pretty easy to get across, I think, although in a one-page design I'm a bit more brief.

Watch this space- it's on its way soon.

AIM FOR THE HEAD

I'm releasing it here first for feedback from the five or so people who read and comment here.

It's a one-page zombie RPG. I actually had space to devote to setting, because the core mechanic is so damn simple and after that, it's all about setting anyways.

Zombie games are the ideal in designing a short roleplaying game, because so little can (and should) be expressed via rules. There shouldn't be hard and fast rules for what you find, what survivors are like, or what zombies can do. It's not important, and it shifts the game from "oh shit, what'll happen next" to "oh, whatever, that zombie has six movement and does 1d6 damage, that's not even a threat."

It's why fighting a zombie in D&D isn't scary, but it can be in Aim For The Head. One zombie can kill you if you get a bad roll in AFTH. Trying to run away can kill you. The only way to be safe is to not roll, which means playing carefully, keeping quiet, and avoiding attracting attention. In other words, the only time you're rolling in AFTH is when you're potentially screwed, and that's exactly the kind of on-edge feeling that a game should provide. I haven't playtested it yet, unfortunately, so there are likely some rough patches out of the bat.

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that I'll likely change is that the Fight roll doesn't explicitly limit how many zombies you take down (I was thinking one zombie per 6), but intentionally left it blank for the moment.

Let me know if Aim For The Head provides that. I'll be taking all criticism into account, and changing the document to suit it.



Here's the rapidshare link, and here's the mediafire one.