[Zombies] More Zombies!

WERE YOU AWARE that this past Wednesday was the 75th anniversary of the Mercury Theatre on the Air's War of the Worlds broadcast? That's just one of many date-relevant facts I would've told you if I'd managed to get this posted before Halloween!

Anyway.

So when a zombie bites you, it's bad. We all know this. Any consequence from a Teeth attack will eventually result in the victim becoming a zombie, no two ways about it. It'll worsen from scene to scene, moving from mild to moderate to severe, until the victim is taken out... by becoming a zombie.

There's only one way to "treat" a Bitten consequence, and that's amputation. It's not the hardest surgery in the world, but man, you gotta do it fast. Regardless of the severity of the consequence, the difficulty to treat it is +6, and doing so gives you a severe consequence appropriate to the amputation. (I recommend Dis-Armed. I use it every chance I get.)

If that first attempt fails, no further attempts can be made. You are doomed. And if that Bitten consequence was already severe, then... see the previous sentence.

This is pretty rough, but a zombie can't actually make a Teeth attack without first invoking an aspect. It doesn't get the usual bonus or reroll for invoking this aspect -- all it gets is the opportunity to bite. We used to call this "invoking for effect." The idea is that it'd create an advantage with Claws, like Grabbed, then bite with its next action. Or the victim might be Surrounded, or maybe that Sprained Ankle slows them down. You get the idea.

Miscellany:

• I had this idea that zombies would only roll 2dF. They're reliable, predictable, and experience neither highs nor lows. But I'm uncertain about this one.
• Mobs are important to zombies and their particular brand of horror. Even though they take consequences individually, I'd still mob 'em up whenever possible. So they attack you en masse, but you attack them one-on-one.
• There've been quite a few scenes in The Walking Dead of people just head-stabbing helpless zombies through a chain-link fence. As always, if there's no interesting failure result, don't roll for it; it's just narrative color. "So you're out on fence duty, braining walkers with a crowbar, when all of a sudden...."
• If you need zombies to use a Physique-type overcome action, you could use Body. Or you could use nothing, and rely solely on mob-based gang-up bonuses. This is pretty cool, I think, because it means you can pretty easily keep one zombie at bay with a closed and locked door, but a pile of them will break through, given time.
• Brains. BRAAAIIINS.

[Zombies] Zombies!

I thought up some mechanics for zombies a while ago -- almost two years ago, according to Google Docs -- so I figured I'd post about it on account of it almost being Halloween and all. I'm talking about aim-for-the-head, brain-eating shamblers here, so don't try to apply these to, I dunno, voodoo zombies or 28 Days Later zombies or whatever.

So first of all, zombies don't have the same skills PCs do. Instead, their skills represent body parts: Claws (attack, create advantage), Legs (overcome, create advantage), Teeth (attack), Body (defend), and Head (defend).

The typical zombie might rank them like this:
Fantastic (+6) Head*
Great (+4) Body
Good (+3) Teeth
Fair (+2) Claws
Average (+1) Legs
*I'm fully aware of how dirty this sounds and regret nothing.

When you attack a zombie, you choose how it defends -- Body or Head.

A successful attack on the Body deals a consequence. Zombies don't have stress tracks, but they do have two mild consequences (or Arms consequences) and one moderate consequence (or Legs consequence). When a zombie's taken two Arms consequences, it loses its Claws skill. When it's taken a Legs consequence, it loses its Legs skill. But a consequence is the best you can do when you attack the Body. Well, you can get a boost if you tie or succeed with style, but the point is, even if the zombie's taken all three consequences, even if it's lost its arms and legs, it's still alive.

So, my God, how do you stop it? A successful attack on the Head takes the zombie out. (I'd fluff a tie against the Head as blowing its jaw off or something, thus the boost, but leaving the brain intact. Related: I'd also severely limit, or even eliminate, Weapon ratings, because all it takes is one shift on a headshot to take out a zombie. Like, shotguns and katanas are Weapon:1, but almost everything else is Weapon:0, and I don't mean Wolverine.)

Putting those two things together, obviously no one's going to attack a zombie's Body if it already has three consequences (or even two or probably one), but that's how these things usually work, isn't it? And mechanically, there's no reason to go for the Body once it's taken a consequence, because you can invoke it for free to cancel out the Head's higher skill rating.

It might seem odd for zombies to have a Great (+4) skill for defense, but it's not that they're so great at dodging or anything. On the contrary, they're easy to hit. They're just not necessarily easy to damage in a substantial way. So that's how I'd color that in play. Most failed attacks against their Body are actually going to be "narrative hits," in that I'd describe them as on-target but mostly harmless.

Next time: BRAAAIIINNNSSS...!

Morgan Ellis' The Spirit... of the SHATTERED EARTH!

Back in 2008 -- seriously, 2008! -- I posted this:

Finally played in Morgan Ellis's "Spirit of the Shattered Earth" game -- well, I say "finally," but it's only the second time he's run it at Strategicon -- which was a lot of fun. If you know your post-apoc references, you'll dig this game. Any game that explicitly acknowledges Kamandi and Thundarr is all right in my book. I caused a ruckus as Gorlla, the Mighty Crorc. I've encouraged Morgan a couple of times to get his act together and publish this thing in some form or other, so hopefully he'll do that.

This is sort of him doing that, via this blog.

Behold, the Shattered Earth!

What he's done is organize the scenario builder and the pre-gens he normally uses into a single, Blackbird-esque packet, so you can just download it and play it at a con or something. It's a totally no-prep game (other than all Kamandi reading, but you should be doing that anyway) -- like Danger Patrol and many other games of its ilk, it relies on player input to get the ball living radioactive boulder rolling.

I just love this map.

Here's what Morgan has to say about SotSE (and if you haven't heard this first paragraph delivered in his stentorian Saturday-morning-cartoon announcer voice, you're missing out):

Eons ago the world was sundered in a great cataclysm, the cause of which can never now be known. Humanity’s civilization was cast in ruins. In its place lies The Shattered Earth! A world of savagery, mutation, super science, and sorcery. But a few heroes still fight for freedom and justice against the forces of evil in a world gone mad! 

The Shattered Earth is a gonzo post-apocalyptic setting inspired by all sorts of post-apocalyptic media, the main inspiration is of course Jack Kirby's classic comic book Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth. But there are many other influences as well, like Marvel Comic's Killraven, TV's Thundarr the Barbarian, films like Planet of the Apes and The Road Warrior, and RPGs like After the Bomb and Gamma World. It's all about running fun, over the top, 1970s era comic book style post-apocalyptic adventures. I hope you enjoy it, and don't forget the Kirby dots! 

If you'd like to hear an explanation of how I run The Spirit of The Shattered Earth and FATE convention games in general, you can check out the Actual People, Actual Play Podcast: Episode 44 FATE for Convention Games: Hail to the King Baby.

(Definitely listen to that episode of APAP. It's pretty great.)

So there you go. Download it immediately. The Shattered Earth needs heroes!