My First Custom Scenario - A Little Friendly Competition

[StayPuft]

So, now that I have been playing for a bit, and I now have access to the downloads section, I wanted to try out creating my own custom scenarios. I have a few ideas for scenarios in mind, but this one was the first one to fully form in my head. I wanted to share this with everybody to get your input and suggestions. I wanted to make my first custom scenario somewhat simple, but also somewhat unique.

(NOTE: Unfortunately, I do not have Photoshop or anything like that, so I had to do this in Word. So, it isn't perfect, but I think it actually turned out okay.)

Take a look. One thing that popped into mind that we have yet to ever see with any scenarios… The heroes competing against each other as well. So, that is what made me think of my scenario here today. “A Little Friendly Competition.” Here, the heroes are split into two teams of two. The idea is that they are bored and going stir crazy from having to keep finding safehouses and then staying cooped up for long periods of time.

As Zombieland taught us, sometimes you have to take time to enjoy the little things. So, the heroes divide into teams and challenge each other to see which team can be the first to kill 5 zombies. However, remember that this is just friendly competition. In other words, you don’t want to sabotage your opposing heroes. You still want them to survive. In fact, your victory could even depend upon helping them survive. After all, the zombies still win if they kill 4 heroes, or any other standard zombie victory conditions. So, whereas you do want to win, you don’t want to do so by seeing your opposing heroes die, especially since this could lead to your defeat as well.

I’m attaching the scenario itself as well as my brief introduction to it. A few things of which I was not sure for which I would love suggestions:

Do you think 15 turns is good? Or is that too much, or maybe not enough? I wasn’t sure.

Do you think 5 zombies is good? Ot is that too much or not enough?

Another reason this scenario came to me is because I have found nobody seems to like Die Zombies Die. One of the biggest reasons for this seems to be that it gives you 15 rounds to kill 15 zombies, making this seems nearly impossible. So, I thought why not have a similar scenario, but make it not quite so impossible, so it still seems like either side could win. Let me know what you guys think, or what other little details I should maybe fill in on the explanation, or the scenario card itself. I hope you guys like this. It was my first attempt at making my own scenario.

I'm attaching the scenario card, and the explanation below:

   


  Friendly Competition Intro.doc (Size: 24.5 KB / Downloads: 9)

[PJON]

Hi. Nice idea. What if you took DZD scenario and kinda re-wrote it ? Same 15 turns, but the first team to kill 8 Zombies win.

Im actually ok with some PVP action myself. Nobody seems to like that at all

[scarydk]

Nice one, StayPuft. It's quite a novel idea. For me LNoE has always been a survival game. Now it could be part of the Olympics.

Not being a sports fan myself, your idea makes me think about sports in a new perspective. As of to day I may have to take up zombie bowling...

(07-26-2012 08:04 PM)PJON Wrote:  Hi. Nice idea. What if you took DZD scenario and kinda re-wrote it ? Same 15 turns, but the first team to kill 8 Zombies win.

Yup. Sounds like the way DZD should be played.

[LFuzer]

Hey staypuft, nice idea! there should be a better scenario than DZD, which IMHO is a good way to introduce the game to new players, BUT in my experience, when there are other experienced players in the game, the Zeds don't stand a chance in this scenario, specially with the presence of our good fella the Sheriff.

I hope to give your scenario a go when I have the oportunity to teach the game to new players!

[avalanche5160]

Hey man I really like your idea. Another option would be to have each hero fighting on their own to kill 5 zombies. Whoever reaches 5 kills or the most kills once three heroes are killed, wins. Zombies would go after the player or players who are in the lead. Also once a hero is killed, that player gets to choose 3 extra zombies from the pool and one zombie card to play with (totaling 20 zombies). This might be a fun, fast paced, and competitive option.

[PJON]

(07-27-2012 05:17 PM)avalanche5160 Wrote:  Also once a hero is killed, that player gets to choose 3 extra zombies from the pool and one zombie card to play with (totaling 20 zombies). This might be a fun, fast paced, and competitive option.

You must be using that new math i have heard of. Ohhhh my bad. I was not using a RPN calculator.

[StayPuft]

NOTE:

After posting this, I thought of a few things I hadn't before, so I am adding the updated introduction to my scenario so you can use these special rules if you wish.


  Friendly Competition Intro.doc (Size: 26 KB / Downloads: 3)

I hadn't thought of a couple things before. First, the heroes typically take their turns in any order they want. But, if you are competing to be the first to kill X number of zombies, going first could be to your benefit. So, I added a rule that the two teams roll for each Hero Turn to determine which team goes first.

Also, there is the problem of several heroes being in the same space when zombies then come to fight them during the Zombie Turn. Typically, if you have multiple heroes in one space, and enough zombies that you cannot divide them evenly, the heroes agree who takes the extra zombie. (Ex: Two heroes in one space with three zombies. Each hero takes one fight, then you decide who takes a second.)

However, obviously in my scenario, taking the extra zombie, again, could work to your benefit, and against your opposing hero team. So, I also added a rule where you roll to decide who will get to fight that zombie first. Yes, I did say FIRST. I thought it would be kind of neat, given the uniqueness of my scenario, to do something unique here too. So, unlike in a typical game, one zombie could actually wind up in two fights in the same round. If it happens that the heroes had an extra zombie, and it survives the fight with the person who won the dice roll, that gives the other hero the option to take a swing at it and see if they can steal the point away from the opponent.

(07-26-2012 08:04 PM)PJON Wrote:  Hi. Nice idea. What if you took DZD scenario and kinda re-wrote it ? Same 15 turns, but the first team to kill 8 Zombies win.

Im actually ok with some PVP action myself. Nobody seems to like that at all

Yeah, that is kind of the idea I had. Basically, I thought it would be a cool way to take a new twist on DZD and make it a little more balanced. I'm actually concerned 8 would be too many to expect one team to kill, but if others get a chance to play test my scenario (or if I do) we can certainly test out how 5 goes, and maybe see if we do need to bump it up some.

(07-27-2012 01:32 PM)scarydk Wrote:  Nice one, StayPuft. It's quite a novel idea. For me LNoE has always been a survival game. Now it could be part of the Olympics.

Not being a sports fan myself, your idea makes me think about sports in a new perspective. As of to day I may have to take up zombie bowling...

Thank you! Glad you liked it! I definitely agree that it is typically a survival game. That is part of why I really loved my idea here. I thought this was something a little different. Plus, it is actually kind of fits thematically in a fun/funny kind of way. Think of Zombieland and how they would brag about creative zombie kills and talk about "The zombie kill of the week."

But, at the same time, it is still a zombie apocalypse. So, you would probably still tend to try not to go after zombies until you have a few helpful weapons, and even then you'd probably try to fight them one on one here and there.

(07-27-2012 02:07 PM)LFuzer Wrote:  Hey staypuft, nice idea! there should be a better scenario than DZD, which IMHO is a good way to introduce the game to new players, BUT in my experience, when there are other experienced players in the game, the Zeds don't stand a chance in this scenario, specially with the presence of our good fella the Sheriff.

I hope to give your scenario a go when I have the oportunity to teach the game to new players!

If you do try it out, please definitely let me know how it went. Let me know, as well, if you have any suggestions. I want to try to perfect this a bit before I officially submit it to the downloads section. So, I would want to test a few things out. For example, as I said earlier, whether 5 zombies is too many or too few to expect a team of two heroes to kill, or whether 15 turns is too many or too few to give.

(07-27-2012 05:17 PM)avalanche5160 Wrote:  Hey man I really like your idea. Another option would be to have each hero fighting on their own to kill 5 zombies. Whoever reaches 5 kills or the most kills once three heroes are killed, wins. Zombies would go after the player or players who are in the lead. Also once a hero is killed, that player gets to choose 3 extra zombies from the pool and one zombie card to play with (totaling 20 zombies). This might be a fun, fast paced, and competitive option.

Thanks! Glad you like it as well. That could be really cool too, to split the heroes all up and they fight on their own. I wonder if 5 might be too many to expect one hero to kill on their own, though, since I'm giving a team of two a goal of 5. But, again, if anybody gets a chance to play test it, maybe try that too.

I'm also not quite sure what you mean by your idea for once a hero is killed. So, are you saying that when the hero is killed, the idea is that they are out of the game, but then get to continue as zombies? Would they then become a zombie player (in other words, spawning zombies, getting cards, etc) or do they just get the three zombies and that is it? So, once those three are dead, they are done? Also, are you saying they get just one card entirely, or they get to have a hand of one card, meaning if they use it, they pick up another card when they next get to that part of the zombie turn?

Just trying to get an idea of what you had in mind, especially because it sounds like a pretty cool idea. I may want to actually try creating a new scenario to include it.

Anyways, I appreciate everybody's feedback! I'm glad you all seem to like it! I hope somebody gets a chance to actually play test it soon (and I hope to try to myself soon). I'd love to finalize the details and get it up submitted for the downloads section so people can actually use it! :-D

[Zombotanist]

I love this idea. I'm trying to adapt it for two players. Do you think there could be too much mayhem on-board if I tried a two v. two approach? As in, each player controls half of the Zombie horde, and their Heroes, pitting their Zombies solely against their opposing Heroes, and their Heroes against their opposing Zombies. That way, their is no need for a ZM, and players are given two chances to win the game.

As you can tell, we have a very irregular gaming group, and most nights, it's just my wife and myself.

[scarydk]

(07-29-2012 05:14 PM)Zombotanist Wrote:  I love this idea. I'm trying to adapt it for two players. Do you think there could be too much mayhem on-board if I tried a two v. two approach? As in, each player controls half of the Zombie horde, and their Heroes, pitting their Zombies solely against their opposing Heroes, and their Heroes against their opposing Zombies. That way, their is no need for a ZM, and players are given two chances to win the game.

As you can tell, we have a very irregular gaming group, and most nights, it's just my wife and myself.

Interesting idea. IMO the zombies should follow the normal rules which already allow the zombies enough freedom to choose their targets. The trick to win such a game would be to force the opponent player to attack his own Heroes by imposing zombie hunger.

Since the Heroes in this variant are pitted against each other, have you considered allowing the Heroes to fight each other. This shouldn't result in wounds but perhaps the losing player could lose his next turn. Just a thought.

[Zombotanist]

(07-29-2012 05:29 PM)scarydk Wrote:  Interesting idea. IMO the zombies should follow the normal rules which already allow the zombies enough freedom to choose their targets. The trick to win such a game would be to force the opponent player to attack his own Heroes by imposing zombie hunger.

Since the Heroes in this variant are pitted against each other, have you considered allowing the Heroes to fight each other. This shouldn't result in wounds but perhaps the losing player could lose his next turn. Just a thought.

I love it. When I play any game, I find myself monitoring the consistency of the storyline. If I played the version of this variant that I mentioned, I would immediately ask myself, "Why won't these Zombies attack this group of Heroes?" Obviously, that would be a severe impairment to the continuity of the game.

What you suggest kind of sounds like a huge charlie-foxtrot. Except, it also sound amazing. It puts me in mind of a Roman coliseum, in which every participant is vying to win, pitted against their fellow survivors in a game of death. It sounds hectic, but it also sounds wild, and the pace maddened; Zombies who act in accordance with their nature, versus humans, creative, intelligent, resourceful. If the Zombies win, it's a default victory. However, in the spirit of competition, someone still "wins". It sounds like a great time all around. I can't wait to try it.