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Originally Posted by trechriron
I was upfront yes. I told them I wanted this to be real horror and part of the scare was playing these "norms" caught up in the apocalypse.
Thanks for the thoughts, I appreciate it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trechriron
One of my thoughts to make this "more fun":
Make up 10 characters (125 points, 50 disads). These are the "ZA newbs". They are randomly chosen at the start. The beginning would be intense, with a big BANG up front zombie encounter that would increase the chances of a PC death. If you die, you pick another character. Play for about an hour and see where things fall out.
Then...
Hit the pause button, fast forward say 6 months into the apocalypse. Hand out the "hardened survivor" characters (say 200 points, 75 points in disads). These new characters would have the "how I survived the ZA and all I got was this stupid T-Shirt" background blurbs. :-)
Continue the rest of the CON scenario.
It could give the initial horror punch in the setup, showcase character advancement, and provide an exhilarating survival romp to finish it out. I would share this setup before we begin to manage expectations and give the players room to "ham it up" in the first hour playing the ZA newbs without fear of the 4-hour slot being "ruined by a horrible death".
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I've never run a con game, but that sounds kinda tough to pull off, and that may have been the difficulty with your initial offering.
A horror game is difficult to pull off even with a good and well known group. It takes active willing buy in from the players, maybe more so than any other Genre.
Have you considered running something a little more ACTION!-esque? I dont necesarrily mean with the Action Supplements and templates (Although Zombies Day One certainly has a couple of em that are practically ready made for that), but something a little more run and gun and that might be easier to play in.
Its a tonal shift, and that may be a concession that you're not willing to make, but consider that the transition from the movie Alien to Aliens was a shift from horror to action and both of those films are fun and good in their own right.
I think thats what you mean when you say 'tuned up', or 'effective' I think you're saying 'combat effective' in the setting.
Nymdok