A Zombie Game Discussion

[Hopeless]

Just finished posting a thread in media discussion on this and wanted to discuss how this might work.

The game idea is based around the idea that in ancient times a fungal parasitic virus was released on Earth and created the first Zombie outbreak.

It eventually evolved into variant forms with the original lost as it was either destroyed in various natural disasters or sealed deep below the earth unable to reinfect the surface.

This evolved into the standard zombie virus that forced its victims to seek fresh sources of plasma to both maintain itself and infect others eventually causing various extinctions.

Other variations included one that turned the host into a literal mummy more dependent on drawing moisture from a victims blood but in turn left it even more vulnerable to large bodies of water.

Another was more dependent on leeching the heat from a victim's blood to maintain itself this known as the Wendigo variation literally froze both victim and host if they couldn't get access to fresh warm blood.

There is a fifth version but that is intended to be revealed during the game as they would inevitably want to seek out a cure but that's going a little too far at this stage!

What do you think is this doable for a game?

The game's background is that during the collapse of Yugoslavia an ancient burial site was sacked discovering a biological agent that was developed into the zombie virus.

This was released deliberately by forces that sought to seize control of the world by reducing the population to levels they could control.

However the other versions were investigated and inevitably released in the search for a cure leaving much of the world collapsing but in Britain an unexpected discovery leads the various interested parties to try to hunt down a suspected cure.

That's where the game starts society has collapsed but there are still some remaining authority but its dwindling rapidly in the face of the fact they aren't likely to find a cure for the various zombie viruses especially as infighting has left it impossible to discover the truth behind the rumours.

How the players get involved I'm planning on leaving up to them when they create their characters but does that sound good enough to you?

[Anonymouswizard]

It's interesting and I'd certainly play it if anybody I knew ran it, I can see several vectors for PCs easily, either just normal people trying to survive, scientists and mercenaries sent by the government to try and locate and mass produce the suspected cure, capitalists trying to find it to sell it to everyone for lots of money, fatalists trying to disprove the rumoured cure, etc. Which is far ahead of my friend who ran a zombie game where only 'action heroes' was a viable concept.

For some quick advice, if run in Britain handguns will likely be fairly rare with maybe one or two of the group owning one, but post-apocalypse shotguns and hunting rifles should be fairly common.

I'd suggest pushing players towards more investigative characters to make the most of it, it's more interesting when the group scientist manages to put his experiments to use and right 'zombie weaknesses for dummies' then when he's restricted to making Molotov Cocktails (as I was, despite having the knowledge skills required to build a railgun and research skills to discover secondary weaknesses [as it turned out, none, because 'you obviously destroy a zombie with a headshot, I wanted to be able to fry then with several hundred amps of electricity, thanks]).

If you need system advice I have a few ideas that could work well, but it looks like a really good starting point for a game.

[dream]

How long can a virus remain dormant? I'm not sure so I ask and it may have an impact on a player's suspension of disbelief. Many of the newer zombie flicks use the "zombie virus" hook, but it's either a new virus created in a lab, or no one knows where it came from. PCs would wonder where it came from and with PCs who possess medical/scientific expertise, identifying a source/patient "zero"/cure would be paramount.

Personally, "magic zombies" is easier for me to accept without a million questions messing with my immersion. Magic doesn't have the rules that science has. Evolution has rules, like a species only evolves because it needs to. Humans possess all kinds of imperfect adaptations, but they didn't become perfect because perfect wasn't necessary.

I envision the best zombie virus being airborne with an incredibly short incubation (an hour, tops). Plus, the infected only attack as a reaction to being attacked. That makes sense to me, but it wouldn't work for films/books because defeating the virus would be nearly impossible.

This is good though, Hopeless. I'll follow the thread.

[Hopeless]

How long can the virus remain dormant

The original version I figure required some kind of moisture to remain viable.

The Wendigo version is dependent on low temperatures so it would never be encountered outside of such an environment intended to make those discoveries of perfectly frozen corpses from ancient times that much more scarier if you're left wondering are they truly dead?

The Mummy version retains the original versions need for moisture but unlike the Wendigo isn't effected by the heat but rather by large amounts of water or liquids since its usual preferred environment would be the desert which is intended as being a side effect of its presence since it draws upon moisture in the area where its located to sustain itself so imagine that next time you visit an area that's slowly drying out with no evidence as to why!

The Zombie version is the most adaptable, they can survive after being frozen if burnt the virus proliferates making this the easiest way it has to spread rapidly.

All versions when dumped in a large body of water are especially vulnerable to fish and amphibians due to their original nature they're seen as a delicacy to such wildlife where on land they're avoided by any animal life in the sea or lakes they're the prey as far as any sea life is concerned.

The more degenerated the body the more likely such sea-life will react to them like a piranha to blood!

The Fifth Version the idea so far...
I'm considering turning this into the Apex Predator of the Zombie Viruses it literally feeds off of the other Zombie Viruses and is otherwise harmless.

It cannot be used to render other people immune to the other versions but if introduced to a subject already infected it will effectively factory reset them so it will cure their existing infection but then die off as it can't be sustained outside of its preferred environment.

However since its still a benevolent virus the human body can render itself immune to it so eventually with enough repeated exposure to the zombie virus it will eventually be unable to work on that host making it of limited usefulness and it really isn't a cure just a delaying tactic barring one exception.

That preferred environment will eventually be revealed to be a limited number of people most of whom by this point have all been killed trying to prevent the release of the zombie virus by the start of the game

[Knaight]

How long can a virus remain dormant? I'm not sure so I ask and it may have an impact on a player's suspension of disbelief. Many of the newer zombie flicks use the "zombie virus" hook, but it's either a new virus created in a lab, or no one knows where it came from. PCs would wonder where it came from and with PCs who possess medical/scientific expertise, identifying a source/patient "zero"/cure would be paramount.

There's real concern about viruses that have been in permafrost getting released due to warming, so it's clearly a good long time.

As far as the setting goes, from an immersion perspective the zombie viruses working is a core buy-in. If the game is a go at all, the players need to accept that. What's less of a core buy-in is the subsequent collapse, so it might help to have that explained. Maybe the virus initially infected lots of people directly, instead of the typical "patient zero" of zombie fiction. Maybe the virus infected multiple species, and while militaries initially had human zombies under easy control, the combination of zombified mosquitoes and biting flies pretty much broke quarantine.

[Hopeless]

There's real concern about viruses that have been in permafrost getting released due to warming, so it's clearly a good long time.

As far as the setting goes, from an immersion perspective the zombie viruses working is a core buy-in. If the game is a go at all, the players need to accept that. What's less of a core buy-in is the subsequent collapse, so it might help to have that explained. Maybe the virus initially infected lots of people directly, instead of the typical "patient zero" of zombie fiction. Maybe the virus infected multiple species, and while militaries initially had human zombies under easy control, the combination of zombified mosquitoes and biting flies pretty much broke quarantine.

So it might work better if various countries began closing their borders in an attempt to isolate the spreading infection?

I was wondering if the revelation that setting the infected on fire actually made it far worse because it allowed the virus to go airborne long enough to spread even further?

As for the Wendigo version I figured that would be very rare and intended to only be discovered once the search for a cure uncovered its existence and made matters worse because the one known means of slowing the infection involved moving to colder climates which slowed the infection.

I can't help feeling the Wendigo would be an occasional one off story whenever the players decide to stick to the frozen north or south whilst the Mummy version would rear its head once they head to the desert regions why do I get that flashback from the Transformers movie (First Michael Bay one) where the US Military base was taken out and the platoon was being chased across the desert?

Of course in this version they'd be lucky to reach that town provided that wasn't where the Mummy infected were lurking!:smalleek:

Gods more I think of this the more I get a vibe that they start off trying to survive and a few sessions in they start building a reputation for solving zombie problems and start getting called in to help the Russians and the Egyptians... might even end up running a game where they're aboard a liner sailing through the Mediterranean and they end up having to survive as the infection spreads aboard!

Don't even get me started on the Orient Express!:smallsmile:

[dream]

Would some people have a natural immunity to the virus(es)? A certain blood type, maybe? That could add a level of "plot armor" for some PCs, while creating paranoia among PCs who realize they aren't immune.

This virus is going viral!:smalltongue:

[Hopeless]

Would some people have a natural immunity to the virus(es)? A certain blood type, maybe? That could add a level of "plot armor" for some PCs, while creating paranoia among PCs who realize they aren't immune.

This virus is going viral!:smalltongue:

Was thinking there's a version of the virus that feeds on the other zombie viruses but when used as part of a vaccine it becomes very short lived because its actually benevolent and unlike the other viruses the human can develop an immunity to it even though that would make it unable to counteract any further infections with that particular person.

As for how many people possess it I was going with the specific blood line was based near the site where the biological agent was recovered from because their purpose was to defend humanity from the scourge.

Unfortunately that had to be kept secret even more than the zombie virus itself which is why almost all members of that family were killed in the process of acquiring that biological agent.

I was thinking of revealing there may be as many as five survivors from that village, naturally all of them would rather die than risk any of the others now the virus has been released since from their viewpoint they are humanity's only hope.

The irony is that only one of them actually knows if they have the anti-zombie virus, but as a plot point it will make an interesting revelation.