The Walking Dead

Last weekend my group and 1 finished off doing d6 Star Wars. We ran through all the first edition modules and had a blast.

At the end of the game my friend said he was starting a zombie game based on The walking Dead comic and tv series. I have never seen or read this so i just assumed it was a going to be a zombie kill fest.

We all created small town characters as the GM instructed using GURPS 4E.

We played our fist game Tuesday night. Just to get a feel for the game before we play this weekend. I have to say my idea of how to survive in a dystopian world full of zombies is completely different to how the GM forsore how we were going to play.

We all started at the Airport which i thought was a fantastic idea for starting a zombie game. We had no idea about anyone else and all the flights just started getting canceled. Then the military turns up and we have to evacuate to the FEMA camp and they bring in school buses. Everything was going great everyone was getting into it. On the buss ride we used laptops to watch the breaking news of the retro virus thats turning people into zombies. When we get to the FEMA camp everything turns to crap. Zombies everywere. The buss overturns and we have to escape with a bunch of NPC's from the zombies.

From my point of view this is were the game went down hill very quickly. I wanted to head back to the airport and commandeer a plane and get the hell out of dodge. I was out voted and the group decided they were going to head down the highway looking for more people to help. Long story short we end up having a whole bunch of NPC's tagging along with us hardly any surplies only a couple of guns and a handfull of ammo.

We got ambushed at a road side dinner. (i didnt want to go in) The NPC's with the guns (dont ask my why i dont know) drop the weapons and get munched on and the rest of us about 12 now have to lock ourselves in the cool room to avoid getting eaten. At this stage i was not a happy camper so i decleared myself the leader and everyone better toe the line or else. (my character was a construction working built like a tank) One of the NPC's controlled by the GM tried to do the lets be all diplomatic and vote crap so i stamped my displeasure into him with my foot. Everyone at the table is up in arms that i cant do that. I said i had and that i was going to use the unconscious person as a meat shield literally. So i popped the door and threw the guy over the counter. The zombies go after the snack and i get everyone else out the back door. Thats were the session ended.

After the game i was told thats now how the game is going to be played and that i need to watch The walking dead to get a feel of what the game is going to be about. So i borrowed the GM's dvd of the first season.

I dont think i have yelled and been so frustrated with a tv show ever in my life. So today i had to inform my GM if he wants to have a game that runs like the tv show that i will have to decline.

Sorry if this is a kind of a rant but i just had to get this off my chest and into the aether of the Internet.

I just started watching that show. Your character's actions remind me of Dixon from the 2nd episode "Guts".

Your description of how you played seems to be one of the options the television show would consider on the table, though you'd likely die in a few episodes. I'm not sure I see anything wrong with this approach excepting one: As players in an RPG group, no one really has the ability to simply decide that your way or the highway allows them to choose the highway. If the PCs played by everyone else at the table really wanted to disavow themselves from you, in a book or a television show, the writers would simply find a way for you to be gone the next week. Players in a game really cannot do that without alienating one of their friends, namely you. So, at some point, you probably either need to recognize that you are working from an unfair paradigm relative to the genre or you need to find ways to push your agenda that doesn't ruffle too many feathers. If you want to start with a clean slate or continue to be the group bully character, you might convince your GM to allow you to roll up a new character every few weeks and push the limits so you can die spectacularly each time. In that case, though, you might have to find a little more variety in how you go about messing with the status quo with each new character you play.

Before anything else, you really need to know a couple of things about "The Walking Dead".

The most important is that "The Walking Dead" is not about the zombies. It really isn't. They're background, a threat, a situation to react to. "The Walking Dead" comic is a drama and a story. The zombies are not the stars, they're plot devices and scenery.

That isn't just my opinion. They talk in the columns at the back of some of the comics about how it's really not about the zombies, it's about the people.

So, throw most of what you know about zombie movies out the window. This isn't a zombie movie. That logic isn't going to work. It's just not about killing zombies.

Secondly, the TV show is incredibly, boringly slow. I love the comic and looked forward to the next one; the show leaves me doing other things while I watch it. The second season of the TV show start at about the 10th issue of the comic. Like I said, s l o w. The comic is much better.

Thirdly, they don't fight zombies. Yes, they kill them sometimes when they have no choice, but when confronted by zombies the characters run and/or hide. Like most normal people in normal life, they avoid confrontation in any way possible. When they do have to kill zombies, it's generally either because a character got cornered or when it's a lone zombie under circumstances where it's easier to kill that one zombie than run from where they are.

The characters are not adventurers. They're "regular" people trying to stay alive.


Now as far as your reaction: Giving orders, feeding a dissenting NPC to the zombies, going all gung-ho, just may not be appropriate to the game. Yes, people will do that kind of thing under this sort of circumstance, but those are also people that everyone else is probably going to leave behind to get eaten by the zombies. It works fine for a one-shot "kill all the zombies till I get eaten" type of game, which is what most zombie movies really are, but just isn't going to work with most groups of players I've known. (And it sounds like it's not going to fly with your group either.)

Assuming you're ready to take a breath and decide that playing with your friends is more important than playing your personal type of zombie apocalypse game, I think you need to sit down with the GM and the other players and talk about what they expect out of this game.

This really sounds like a case of misunderstanding what was being played. I've seen it in other games over the years with various groups. It may be no different than a situation with playing Shadowrun where most of the players are playing it as a, "Sneak in, do the job, get out clean," type of game and one person is playing it as a, "Kill anyone on the premises or any witness that may have seen anything," type of game. If you talk about what's expected of the game, it can help smooth things out.


Good luck.

SiderisAnon said:

Now as far as your reaction: Giving orders, feeding a dissenting NPC to the zombies, going all gung-ho, just may not be appropriate to the game.

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Yet, all of this has happened in the show, and with some characters that are still part of the show. That said, I agree with the truth that the show isn't about the zombies and that they are a plot catalyst but except for what I said above about a game being a group effort I don't really see that Ringlerun has done anything too far from what the show depicts (though they perhaps agonize for a full episode before throwing someone under a bus, and try to do it regretfully or secretly ). And speaking of gung-ho, . Actually, Ringlerun's character has a bit of a vibe.

I will be talking to the GM this Saturday. I really dont want to miss out on his game. He is the type of GM that loves the crunch and background. He has probably written half a novel on different places and what the players can achieve.

When he first said its zombies my head went straight to Resident evil, day of the dead, evil dead and other zombie type movies. He did explaine that it was about the survival of normal people. So the construction worker i created has no combat skills but he can drive most vehicles, play around with explosives, weld stuff together.

I was even planing on driving a huge combine harvester into a huge mass of zombies. Or doing a fast and furious 5 with the chain between 2 cars but i would have had razor wire. But i can see that my play style would be detrimental to the group. The other players have enjoyed what has happened so far and i dont wont to cheapen their experience buy having a character that is not going to mesh well in the group.

And i know that even if i took a character to fit i will end up stacking a huge amount of dynamite to a dog and throwing a stick into a yard full of zombies and telling fido to fetch. So its better for me to sit this one out. It will give me time to work on my next project

See, I don't find "The Walking Dead" boring at all. It's drama, not action, and I happen to think it does zombies right. This is the initial Romero zombies, "Night of the Living Dead" style, and I think it's brilliant.

Comparing it to the pacing of the comic books should show that it moves at about the same pace. Each book is about one episode of the movie (although there are significant differences), and all told, there have been exactly 19 episodes of the show so far and they're at issue 12 of the book, but enough has been changed and added that I think they've managed to keep the pacing about the same.

That said, I can see how it would be frustrating to play a social game when zombie apocalypse portrayals have become action focused. "Walking Dead" is a soap opera during the end of the world, and the title, "Walking Dead" applies as much to the group that's alive as it does to the zombies. The show seems to take cues from the bleak desperation of "The Road" as well as its comic book inspiration.

So, yeah, kicking down doors and actively sacrificing people to zombies isn't going to mesh well with a group. That's not to say it's not possible. You could play a Shane-like character who goes along most of the time, but argues vehemently against the group and every once in awhile flips his lid.

SiderisAnon said:

Now as far as your reaction: Giving orders, feeding a dissenting NPC to the zombies, going all gung-ho, just may not be appropriate to the game.

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I think it's fine - provided that it's also fine for the other PCs to shoot you in the head and throw your bleeding corpse to the zombies.

If this is a "no PVP" game then yes, playing the psycho jerk PC is probably unacceptable.

Stormonu said:

I just started watching that show. Your character's actions remind me of Dixon from the 2nd episode "Guts".

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That was the only episode I watched, and yes I feel the same way!

To me, its basically that the game has alignment restrictions that your not game for.

The GM assumed premise is a "good" game. The characters are going to help each other, and people they see to survive.

Your alignment is much more about survival. Your willing to do whatever needs to be done to survive. Nothing wrong with that, but as you said its not jiving with the GMs desire for the game.