True horror

[vikinglad]

I think Emp is right about taken over, right? I think that you would run up and look in the window, see the zeds (who also see you and become alerted; kinda stinks, but OK), then decide whether or not you go in. The "Oh Shit" I guess would come from looking in the window, then having to decide whether to change plans or sally forth.

For me, the OH SHITs come from the zombie and hero cards. They add the element of horror to the game I like. "Shamble... Oh No!" "Locked Door... Geez!" "Oh MY God They've Taken The... NUTS!" "Bickering... you are kidding me!" "Resilient... eat me!" You know how it goes.

Anyway, it seems like Kinkomaster's rules would be most fun for a GM sorta player that enjoys providing a cool game experience for everyone else at the cost of some additional tedium for himself. This is how I play zombies with newer players, and I imagine these rules could be fun to try. However, if playing to have an action-packed battle to the end for everyone, they may be a bit cumbersome and limiting for the zombies.

Only one way to find out. Let me know how it works out when you playtest it. I am interested to see where this goes (the rules, I mean).

[kinkomaster]

*Rubbing eyes* Getting on your nerves, Emp? Never said you wouldn't use the rules? Look back at 5/13/11... 2:23am. If you don't want people using your own words against you... speak correctly.

I'm actually a Zombie player, but I have enuff confidence in my abilities to be able to overcome the initial disadvantage. As for zombies being lesser opponents, of course they are! Why do you think you can have 3 to 1 odds on the heroes? You think zombies and heroes are on equal footing?! You know what? After that... there isn't anything more you can add to top it. Well... maybe the heroes sniffing out the zombies, that is up there too. sheesh.

Ok, vikinglad, let me give this to you again about the "Taken Over" building and the whole spotting thing, since it has been mucked up beyond belief.

A player has the ability to use a building as cover. They can get next to the wall and slide along it without any zeds inside knowing that they are there. The drawback being that they don't know if there are zeds inside or not, because they haven't looked in a window/ door to establish LOS. The only way a zed will know that a hero is on the other side of the wall is thru zombie hunger (smell), otherwise, they will need for LOS to be established. As the rules state, you can only look in a building if you are touching one of its walls, not from a few spaces away.

If you are going to argue that they should be able to hear the zeds if on the other side of the wall, go stand outside of a gym or dentist office and see how much you hear from just outside.

You know Vikinglad, you actually gave me a pretty good idea. It probably shouldn't go on here, but since you gave me the thought, I'll give it to you first and see how it sticks. What if you play the game like a campaign? What do I mean? You start out with all of the heroes being available. Then what you have to do is line the missions up in an order of completion and ending with one where they have to escape the area. Any heroes that die or are turned, cannot be used in later missions. I'd be interested to see the number of heroes that actually escape the string of missions. It brings a whole new level of strat to the heroes.

Oh, I did play-test the rules with the scenario "Run for it". We played it twice. The first time to walk thru the rules, for both them and me... talking it and doing it are 2 different things. I found a couple things that I need to work on... like zeds that are alerted with the groan from a zombie who got LOS. Where do they walk to? The zombie... the direction in general... ya, I had them walk towards the zombie, but not thru walls. Definitely have to work with that.

Funny thing... after the first playing and wrapping their heads around the "do's and don't's" of the rules. They made the whole zeds in a building thing moot by taking a hero with a high move and running up, looking in, and then taking off. You are right about the cards doing a lot, tho. In the second game, I played the card that gives d6 zeds a free space movement, and one of them stepped out from behind the diner and spotted 2 heroes and gave out a groan, alerting 3 others. 2 of them moved towards the zombie and then they got LOS. They groaned, and that alerted another zed. Never counted on a cascade effect... kinda nice in a way. Gives the whole "zombies crawling out of the woodwork" feel. heh heh Another time I played a shamble, and this zombie staggered all over and almost at the end of the move, shambled out into LOS... 2 spaces away from my buddy playing Becky.

In summary, the rules worked to a degree. I used a laptop to keep track of my zeds until they popped up, so that went a little quicker than it may have. (it probably also helped that I put a direction randomizer in the Excel sheet for each zeds instead of rolling dice for each one.) Surprising how many stood still. I was happy with the bulk of the rules, but a couple of them do need tweaking/ looking into. The "Silent" search rule only came into play twice, and both times the roll was made, so I don't know how it would have worked otherwise. With Memorial Day coming up, I'm hoping to be ready to give it another shot.

[vikinglad]

(05-13-2011 07:41 PM)vikinglad Wrote:  I think that you would run up and look in the window, see the zeds (who also see you and become alerted; kinda stinks, but OK), then decide whether or not you go in. The "Oh Shit" I guess would come from looking in the window, then having to decide whether to change plans or sally forth.

kinkomaster Wrote:Ok, vikinglad, let me give this to you again about the "Taken Over" building and the whole spotting thing, since it has been mucked up beyond belief.

A player has the ability to use a building as cover. They can get next to the wall and slide along it without any zeds inside knowing that they are there. The drawback being that they don't know if there are zeds inside or not, because they haven't looked in a window/ door to establish LOS. The only way a zed will know that a hero is on the other side of the wall is thru zombie hunger (smell), otherwise, they will need for LOS to be established. As the rules state, you can only look in a building if you are touching one of its walls, not from a few spaces away.

If you are going to argue that they should be able to hear the zeds if on the other side of the wall, go stand outside of a gym or dentist office and see how much you hear from just outside.

That is exactly what I said. They run up to the building and look in the window. I am not sure why you felt the need to re-explain this to me. The fact that I was not contradicting anything you said, but you still felt the need to post in this condescending tone, after I tried to post a "can't we all get along" sort of post, does make me feel like you are kinda on the attack in this forum. Wierd, cuz I have never experienced this before. Let's try to keep it respectful, huh?

Then, you said in your game that your opponents "made the whole zeds in a building thing moot by taking a hero with a high move and running up, looking in, and then taking off." Can you see now that that is what I was predicting would happen when I said the above?

Glad to hear the rules tested well initially. Hopefully 2.0 goes a bit better. I would be interested to try these with a scenario written specifically for them. I have said from the beginning that I think this is an interesting idea, and I am eager to see where it goes.

[kinkomaster]

Sorry, Lad, I didn't mean to give it a tone. When I was typing it up, I really didn't have one in my head... I just thought that I needed to put all the rules out there again. We seemed to get stuck on the whole spotting thing, I just wanted to point out that part of it had to do with sneaking around... that's all. No disrespect intended.

You know, I don't know if I read your prediction wrong or what, but going back now... you're Nostradamus. heh heh The way I see it, there isn't much that you can do about them running up and then taking off. The only good thing is that they have to be close in order to do it, so there's a better chance of catching them than them knowing the zeds are there beforehand... especially if they already have a few on their tail to begin with and need a weapon.

I have the map layout all ready, and the scenario story for it. I just need to get the rules ironed out so they run smooth. I don't want to put a scenario out that is hard to follow. I haven't submitted since a couple adventures I sent in to Dungeon magazine back in the day.

[vikinglad]

No hard feelings then.

Ya, I like the fact that you have to run right up next to the building to see what is in there. It would give an "Oh No!" sorta feeling as all of the zombies "Uugghh?" and look over at you in the window. Pretty funny in some cases, I bet. ZP would need a pretty good poker face; I would get all giddy as the fly walked into my web.

The other thing is, if they do not think to look in a window and just run in, they could very well end up in a zombie square without knowing it, right? And surrounded on all sides if it is taken over? Scary.

Also, I never really thought about how cool it is that a zombie you weren't aware of could bust right through the wall you are sneaking around because of zombie hunger. If the ZP has the clerical fortutude to keep up with the zed tracking, this could be really fun. I bet it takes a few practice games before things go smoothly, but that is how this thing played out of the box for us (although we are not super-experienced board-gamers, yet!).

Is there a reason the zombies have to roam around when not on the board yet? In HeroQuest (sorry I keep throwing back to this, that and HeroScape is all I know) the beasties stay put until alerted. This makes even more sense for zombies to me, who are maybe not moving at all if not motivated? It seems like this would simplify/speed the bookkeeping a bit. From your game, could you tell if taking out the random moving would have helped/hurt at all?

[kinkomaster]

The problem was, the player that reacts the best wouldn't do the peeking, so I didn't get her squeal... well, until the shambling zombie came around the corner. You don't know how rough it is to keep a straight face during their moves, but figuring out the lines of LOS helps.

Don't worry about using Heroquest, it is a game we are both obviously very familiar with (you've been to their big fan site, right?). Well, the reason that I have them moving randomly around is that they are pretty much single-minded and if they are looking for food, they'd probably wander a little. When I first thought about movement, I went back and forth between rolling once and having them do that until they couldn't do it anymore, or the way I have it where they do it each round. Ok, why not leave them in place? Well, they would end up sitting on the spawn pits and the Heroes could just avoid those. Remember, in HeroQuest, most of the adventures take you thru all the rooms, so you end up going to all the monsters anyways. They don't really need to move.

Hmmmm... maybe what I'll do the next time I run it is have the zeds start off in a random direction and they will go that way until the way is blocked or they are alerted. If they are only blocked, we'll roll for a new direction for them to stagger off in, or they can just stand there... depending on the roll. If they are alerted or have LOS... it's a moot point.

[vikinglad]

I see what you mean about the spawn pits. I didn't think that through too well. I bet the last way you described would be faster than rolling while still getting the zeds to split up. That sounds pretty good to me.

[Emp]

I can't find a post of me with 2:23am stating clearly that I will not play your game. I'm in a different timezone so I might have different times stated here by the board.
And after reading your condencenting tone towards me....please feel free to show it to me because you clearly think of me of being alott dumber then you. Or are you going to talk you way out if this one too?

See if you can get your allmighty brain around these "pointers". (just breaking down the game and comparing it to real life and movies)

- Every wall on every house is to be considered having a window (otherwise heroes would not be able to shoot out or in) so NOT looking in is just plain stupid. Or are you going to say now that this is not possible anymore? Need to keep track of where the windows are in the building with a sheet of paper or laptop?

- Noise....didn't you say windows are broken (and dirty)? Clearly a broken window on a gym or dentist office will keep all the noise in... ??? The buildings in the US are problably superior to the ones we have here... oh no wait...they are mostly made of wood...

- The zombie 3 to one odds, in numbers you mean? Ok, I give you that, except...when are they always ALL on the boards? But how about the odds in fighting? Lesser opponents my "beep"! That is why every new player that comes here on the board is talking about "the zombies being overpowered"....
Or are you not playing with the standard LNEO rules for hand to hand combat and not using the zombie spawning rule?

Anyways...this went all wrong at one point because I didn't agree with you on ONE point and that is the random movement for zombies.
You felt the need to "explain" yourself to a point that I thought you needed realisme in your game...so I broke the entire game down to that level. Realisme (for as much as that counts in a fantasy world)
You went all defensive on me...even if you state that it is not true, after re-reading the posts I still feel that way.

But this clearly lesser human is going away as the complete overlord of this "shit" has to state that I do not contribute so I need to shut up.
Working for Kinko's must be quite uplifting.

And yes...I speak in a sarcastic way. That is who I am, if you can't handle that.......then that is your problem entirely.

[nitro9090]

So, for these rules what will stop heroes from just sitting in a building collecting cards?

Since the zombies just randomly move it would be easy to just hang around in a building looking out the windows collecting cards. The couple of zombies who randomly wander within LOS should be easy enough to dispatch. then, when it is clear your heroes have more than enough supplies they will tear through the scenario. Sure the zombie player could drop a few cards that might hinder the heroes and the zombies get to move an extra space if they are within a short radius of the heroes when there is a noisy search. But, as a hero I would be more than happy to collect 5 or 6 turns worth of cards before moving.

It is usually the large coordinated zombie hordes that get me, so when I play with someone who is not at least somewhat strategically moving his zombies it is a piece of cake.