communication rules

[nitro9090]

Hello,

I am brand new to this site, was quickly browsing through the variants thread for LNOE (I don't have access to the downloads section yet) and didn't see anything that related to the communication between heroes or zombies. In a zombie horror setting communication is important, if lost you could be in big trouble, it gives that alone in a zombie horde feeling and we often have the issue that one experienced person tells everyone what to do on their turn, same with having a strategic zombie offensive which never seemed reasonable to me. This is an idea that could hopefully remedy/relieve some of those issues. These rules will of course work best with 4 separate hero players and/or 2 zombie players. They are currently completely untested and I would love some feedback.

At the beginning of the game everyone may/should discuss an overall strategy but once the first round begins these rules should immediately take effect.

zombie rule - 4 pips - lost communication
Unless heroes are 1 space or fewer from each other (ignore walls and barricades), two heroes have walkie talkies (explained later) or they are in the same bulding no hero player may talk about or reference a hero out of "ear shot" while discussing plans, it may be more viable to ask that they leave the room for a minute to discuss plans. If a zombie player catches this, all of that zombie players zombies 3 spaces or more away from the talking hero get to immediately move 1 space in any direction (zombie hunger applies). This may be too harsh, so you may want to also try all zombies 3 spaces away from any hero can move 1 space. The idea being that the heroes are shouting to each other, so all of the distant zombies who didn't know where your heroes were now know and will theoretically start moving quickly towards them.

Daisy-chain rules apply for talking, so if there are 3 heroes of which 2 are touching one hero and not each other they may still communicate, same with the walkie talkies. So, if 2 heroes are touching and one has a walkie talkie to another character they may all communicate together.

There can also be running communication. If a hero runs past another hero (comes within 1 space of that hero) during their move-action phase who wasn't in the conversation earlier the hero running past may tell the other hero their plan, but the non-moving player may not communicate back, since the other hero is basically running past and the non-moving character wouldn't have a chance to respond.

Walkie-Talkie - to give some freedom to the heroes at the beginning of the game you will roll a random building (reroll if same building as a hero) and place a pair of walkie talkies in that building (you can pick them up in any space of the building). During any characters exchange phase they may pick up one or both of the walkie talkies in the building and they do not count towards their inventory (pick whatever you want to be walkie talkie pieces). Heroes may freely hand off walkie talkies to anyone in the same space as themselves at any time, even if they immediately move in and out of a space with another hero in it. Basically handing off/throwing the walkie talkie as they run past each other. As you would expect any two heroes holding the walkie talkies may freely talk to each other. If a hero dies with a walkie talkie in hand it drops to the space they died in and another hero can come by and pick it up if they are in the same space as it during their exchange phase.

Hero rule - 4 pips - disjointed horde
Zombie players may not communicate with each other about strategy or tell the other zombie player what cards they have in hand, but they may freely play cards on the other zombie players zombies as long as it doesn't break any of the games usual rules. If caught communicating all heroes daisy-chained (as above) to the hero who caught them get to move 1 space aka the zombie lords communicated their plans a little too loudly to their zombie hordes and the hero picks this up and is quickly moving to thwart their nefarious plan. If not balanced you could also have it so all heroes move 1 space or just the hero who caught it gets to move 1 space.

I hope you like these ideas and I look forward to everyone's response.