The Walking Dead

[jimmifett]

As a huge fan of the comic (the show is slow, unbearably so in season 2, I assemble papercraft dungeons while watching), I can tell you that the others are right in thats it's drama.

Now, your characters actions are perfectly fine given the end of civilization, however, in the light of the comic, characters that shed thier humanity too much end up as the antogonists to the central cast.

Now, if you play your character as having regret and/or emotional shock from having done what he thought was required to survive when things calm down, that could bring him back into line with the party as everyone tries to wrap their heads around the horror around them.

At the same time, every time things try to go the democratic route for every decision, things end up going badly, where those willing do break the societal norms of Pre-Z end up trampling on those trying to be civil, paralisys due to group indecision, internal sabotage from marginalized votes, hoarding and hiding of weapons prevent internal violence right before an unexpected Z attack. Petty jealousies get magnified by the events of post-Z life.

I strongly suggest reading the Walking Dead comics. It's a great read. The show needs to die a flaming death.

 

[NewJeffCT]

There are also differences in the zombies between TV and the comics as well.

On the TV show, they're faster and more threatening. In the comics, as long as you can walk briskly and don't get surrounded, you'll be able to escape, as the zombies are pretty slow. On the TV show, the zombies can move at a brisk walking pace and seem to be able to lunge forward quite often.

Agree that season 2 of the TV show has been very slow at times. I've heard that it really picks up in the second half of the season, but that remains to be seen. I wonder if the well publicized budget cuts to the show affected the season and kept them at the Hershel's farm set for 5-6 episodes instead of 2-3?

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm guessing they just really wanted to split the season at the barn and all that goes with it.

 

[Janx]

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

There's nothing wrong with your character. The problem is you and your player expectations.

You describe a whole bunch of zombie killing high jinx and action hero antics.

The setting the GM is describing is more gritty and "realistic". A survivor story, not a Die Hard story.

A construction worker with vehicular skills (driving, fixing, scavenging) and some experience with explosives is still a good character in this setting. The guy could be a solid rock of confidence on how to survive the zombies. Definitely be inclined to run them down in his BIG vehicle. And when the chance to cluster them together and blow them up, he'll be first to recommend it.

Also realize, the the first stage of ANY zombie outbreak is the running and hiding. It is not about going to war against zombies. Odds are good your PC has been caught with his pants down and needs to escape to a safe spot where he can truly regroup and turn things around.

As for RPing your PC as a "do it my way" guy, you'd be advised to balance that. Perhaps talk him that way, but he actually changes his mind and sides with another PC. That way you aren't actually dictating what your fellow players do.

PS. running to the airport would have been reckless. Airports are plague magnets with all the traffic going through and people rushing to the airport to escape. They also aren't very defensible (go play MW2's airport level).

Your best bet is to get to someplace isolated where you are less likely to run into a horde of zombies so you can rest, recon and then go to war if you so wish.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

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.

To me this is the crux of the issue. It's not that the PC's actions don't fit the genre, it's that they don't work well with a group. Murdering someone for trying to vote on how to deal with the situation at hand? That's the sort of person I would distance myself from--especially in a dangerous, volatile setting.

 

[GameOgre]

I'm going to take a different path on advice.

To me it sounds like the GM is one of those I'm telling a story and not playing a game types. Telling a story as a GM leads to crappy games.

If my players want to sit down and be spoon-feed a story they will go read a book. Instead I come up with as cool adventure idea,fun locations and bad arse villains and situations.

The players are the ones that decide what the (story) is going to be.

Sure I might have a idea of how I would like things to go but I have yet to EVER see them go exactly like I would like.

Most of the time its far far different than i plan on.


There is no reason to not run your character how you see him. No reason to jump in some lame arse plot pit just because its there.

Now I don't mean to imply that its ok to force what you think best on everyone else all the time. RPG's are a group effort and maybe you need to take some other stuff like the other players wants into consideration.




With that said though not everyone is a pacifistic not everyone gets scared and hides under the bed.

Some normal people get scared and start kicking arse! Out of FEAR!

IMHO the best thing about Zombie games(and the only reason to play them) is to see how far people will go to stay alive!

That makes doing things like knocking someone out and using them for bait a interesting thing but I do have to admit doing so right out of the gate and not after a prolonged period of stress and under massive threat spoils the effect.

In effect your character comes across as evil, who would be more likely being the villain.

On second thought a villain pc and how the party dealt with him could be cool in itself but only with the actual player realizing that he is playing a character that needs to be overcome.

 

[NewJeffCT]

That makes doing things like knocking someone out and using them for bait a interesting thing but I do have to admit doing so right out of the gate and not after a prolonged period of stress and under massive threat spoils the effect.

In effect your character comes across as evil, who would be more likely being the villain.

On second thought a villain pc and how the party dealt with him could be cool in itself but only with the actual player realizing that he is playing a character that needs to be overcome.

I think I agree with this - you're still in the early stages of the outbreak. For all the players know, there could be a cure or vaccine right around the corner. Heck, there could already be a vaccine, but they just don't have enough of it, or can't get it to where the players are now. (Just because one FEMA camp was overrun doesn't mean they all are/were)

I think tossing an unconscious person to the zombies as bait so quickly is rather extreme - I'd say that another PC and/or NPC should have tried to stop you, despite your size. Why not just send a fast runner out as bait? (Assuming they're slow-ish zombies - it's not The Running Dead or Trotting Dead after all...)

 

[jimmifett]

I think it's a perfectly rational thing for a terrified person to do in that situation, who thinks someone else is going to get him killed by doing stupid things. You just have to roleplay it that way.

Have the character confront the group being all pissed off, poking chests and yelling:

"I'm not going to die here because you idjits want to act out Survivor: Apocolypse while we're surround by these walkers. If you come up with a good idea that doesn't end up with my brains being eaten, fine, I'll listen, but the longer you flap your pie holes and can't decide, the more of THEM surround us and we're all dead. D-E-D dead! After years of zombie flicks on T.V., I can tell you one thing about surviving the end of the world: I don't have to be faster than THEM, just faster than all of you. Now lets get our butts in gear and find supplies and a safer location."

 

[NewJeffCT]

I think it's a perfectly rational thing for a terrified person to do in that situation, who thinks someone else is going to get him killed by doing stupid things. You just have to roleplay it that way.

Have the character confront the group being all pissed off, poking chests and yelling:

"I'm not going to die here because you idjits want to act out Survivor: Apocolypse while we're surround by these walkers. If you come up with a good idea that doesn't end up with my brains being eaten, fine, I'll listen, but the longer you flap your pie holes and can't decide, the more of THEM surround us and we're all dead. D-E-D dead! After years of zombie flicks on T.V., I can tell you one thing about surviving the end of the world: I don't have to be faster than THEM, just faster than all of you. Now lets get our butts in gear and find supplies and a safer location."

It depends - a lot of zombie apocalypse scenarios play out that the world has no history or knowledge of zombies/walkers and that it's new to everybody. Nobody in the Walking Dead comic or TV show use the world "zombie" because it's an unknown concept in that alternative universe.

 

[jimmifett]

It depends - a lot of zombie apocalypse scenarios play out that the world has no history or knowledge of zombies/walkers and that it's new to everybody. Nobody in the Walking Dead comic or TV show use the world "zombie" because it's an unknown concept in that alternative universe.

Doesn't have to be a zombie apocalypse to make it a rational action. Could simply be trying to escape/hide from an army/militia know for being vicious, trying to outrun a nasty plague being spread by perfectly function carriers, running from That which man was not meant to know, trying to survive stranded on an alien world with hostile flora and fauna (think Predators or other sci-fi).

All have the same underlying threat, something scary wants to kill you. You know you need to act to outrun it. Someone is preventing you from acting. Do you try to negotiate with what you instinctively feel is a fatally flawed premise in a life or death secnario, or do you remove said obstacle to your survival.

This is all good drama and story. You can roleplay the psychological aspect of having to make these kinds of choices, and I personally think a Walking Dead game would be a great place to have a sanity/humanity mechanic, like the Jenga Tower thing. As you shed your humanity, you get closer to going over the edge. Once you've gone so far over (your Jenga tower falls), your character is now an NPC, whether psychologically broken and useless and traumatized, or becomes an antognist.

Naturally, it'd take a consistent pattern of tossing aside humanity to completely lose it.