On top of that I'm also watching a lot of Monty Python (up to Season 3, Episode 10 as of right now).
So Dying Light is another open world zombie hacking/slashing game but with some tweaks over that of the Dead Island series. The big one being that you can free run/climb across your environment. Its like a first person version of Assassin's Creed so to speak. And watching the game play makes me wish that someone had thought of putting the mechanic into Dead Island, or at least Dead Island Riptide.
Now I haven't played Dead Island Riptide yet, but I've heard that there were a number of improvements but it was also much the same game.
In table top RPG's you typically have just one type of Zombie. Their not too tough and are slow moving. But in modern culture the slow moving zombie is a thing of the past. Things like rigor mortis and the decay of muscle and tissue are forgotten in favor of a more dangerous zombies.
While some zombies are slow moving there are faster more active ones that are smarter than the others that can climb up obstacles that you try and use for cover that the slower ones can't climb on.
Now table top games typically don't go into varieties of zombies that have come to exist in video games. This of course started in the Resident Evil games were mutations could occur with the undead. From there things have progressed to where now in many zombie based video games there are now a multitude of different types of zombies that can exist that includes mutated types.
The one thing that has bothered me is that there is never an explanation as to why or how you get the different types of mutations.
But its also gotten me thinking about doing up a zombie survival game for my group. Now we have done a zombie survival game in the past but it was just normal folks vs. zombies. Its never anything along the lines of these video games.
So what types of zombies would you add? Well you can add them all.
- Normal: A normal zombie is one that is slow moving often due to damage to its body, decay, or rigor mortis. They are easy to dodge, but can be dangerous if they get their hands on you or are able to swarm you.
- Fast: A fast zombie is a zombie that has recently turned. They are unharmed and remain fresh so to speak until physically damage or after an extended period of time has occurred. They are often a bit smarter than a normal zombie to some degree.
- Spitter: This is a zombie that is able to produce a noxious amount of acid from its body. Now normally stomach acid wouldn't really harm a person, but the idea behind the zombie is that they can not only regurgitate their stomach acid, but can produce it in obnoxious quantities. This is one of the first examples of a mutation type of zombie. Typically the body is altered so as to allow the zombie to be able to produce a viscus acid which they can then spit out at a decent range.
- Bricks: Typically this would be just a zombie of someone who was in extremely good shape. But in some games a brick is also a mutation. In this case they are often strong, tough, over sized and tend to charge their opponents with decent speed. Getting hit often is very damaging as well. Sometimes there can be multiple variations of this.
- Exploders: These are generally zombies that detonate like a bomb. They are gross but can kill a person or group of people quite easily. Shooting them often causes them to explode further away from the group. Their blast force is often like a grenade in video games, but would need to be upped in a table top game.
- Berserkers: One of the more dangerous zombies, they are fast and often either possess claws or use the jagged bones of their forearms to slash and cut people. They are often deadly hunters and attack swiftly and relentlessly. There are a number of variations on this type as well.
There are other possible types of zombies as well that video games will come up with. But another thing to keep in mind is game setting.
- Standard Survival: This is where its just normal people vs. normal zombies. Zombies don't fare well in the cold or heat, but last long in tropic or temperate climates. Equipment typically does not deteriorate quickly like in real life with some exceptions. A machete for example won't bend and break down after smacking zombies around a few hundred times. The same can be said for modern sledge hammers and such which are used to smash walls and concrete with little wear. No exotic zombie types exist in this sort of setting
- Fantasy Survival: This would make a zombie survival game that has exotic zombies, but would also allow for players to be able to find or craft exotic weapons. The possibility of players developing some sort of special powers would not be untoward, but these are often with in some degree of reason as a development of an exceptional talent related to the skills one possesses. Note that with this setting I'm not inferring to an actual fantasy setting of swords and magic.
- Heroic Survival: This game setting is similar to the fantasy setting but throws in magic and/or superpowers to some degree, or ridiculous tech. A game like Sunset Overdrive fits into this category where players aren't meant to really take too much in the setting seriously and are just looking to have fun rather than analyzing how things work.
Item wear an tear in table top games should be overlooked as it bogs the game down. Typically an items should take some wear if a critical failure for a roll is made while using the item, in which case the item either breaks or is just that much closer to being broken. But if the GM is wanting to track a condition then it would do them well to assign a number of uses similar to a number of shots, only that a use is expended only when the item strikes a solid object.
- For Example - In Hero System you would figure out the item's body and possibly multiply it by 5 or 10 to determine its number of uses. So if an item had 6 Body then it could be used either 30 or 60 times before breaking or being rendered too damaged to be used.
So what else is there to know about zombies? Just the anatomy of a zombie in table top games.
First off a zombie feels no pain. A resistance to pain can be put down as either resistance to damage, or immunity to pain, or immunity to a particular type of damage (like STUN damage in Hero System).
Strength of a zombie is often fairly normal with the exception that they can exert their full strength constantly unlike with a normal human who has mental limits on their strength. How this is handled depends on the GM. A slight boost in strength to represent this capability would be appropriate, or a bonus to damage, grappling, and certain skill rolls or ability checks.
Zombies are also immune to mental attacks.
Zombies are affected by fire and do burn but cannot be killed with fire alone.
They can be killed either with a direct blow to the head, or by dealing a large amount of damage that results in the body just not being able to hold up anymore. But this depends on just how you want the zombie to work in your game. In some cases you may force the player to dismember a zombie to stop them permanently. Cutting off the head or destroying it makes the body fairly safe to deal with but it will keep moving on its own. Body parts cut off will keep moving on their own, but will have no direction from the head.
In this case a player will have to make more precision attacks, but the GM may wish to make the zombies easier to deal with since it takes more effort to take one down.
The other option for a GM is to make rather ordinary zombies easy to take down, where the player needs only land a hit that does damage to take them down. But by this token more serious zombies should be present, such as the various mutate types of zombies.
In other news, I have gotten a job though its not what I was hoping for it is what I have gotten. I'm working 10hrs a week doing janitorial work for just $10 an hour. So yes its not glamorous and won't do alot for paying bills, but its all I got at the moment. I'm thinking of going back to school but I'm only interested in doing online classes since I don't have the time or desire to be in a classroom for any length of time. And once I get my first paycheck I'll have to let the state know, which will likely mean my food stamps will go away. The money we get from that is already not enough so now we're going to be left in a lurch.
Also both my kids are sick too, so I feel like a zombie since I (and my wife) didn't get enough sleep last night.
Hope everyone else is having a great day.
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