[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by Onkl

Firearms are just so much more powerful than any muscle powered weapon.

And magnitudes louder than any muscle-powered weapon.

The notion that the PCs should face repercussions for reckless employment of firearms is a good and correct one, but I'm pretty "meh" on what basically amounts to an "Apparating Zombie" mechanic. It results in a weird outcome of "We cleared all of the rooms except this one, shot the occupant, and one second later zombies came pouring out of the cleared rooms."

Which isn't to say zombies shouldn't come to the shootin' party. But it should take them some time to get there, depending on what kind of environment the party is in. If you're in a popular commercial or residential district, there are probably more zombies and it'll probably take them less time to arrive. If you're on Bubba Johnson's Ranch, there should be fewer zombies and they're likely to be rather far away.

I don't know what the particular numbers should be, but I'd probably say something like this: The first time a firearm is discharged in an area, make a roll to figure out what "spawns." (Base the roll on where they are at least as much as what they're shooting, but louder shots carry further and therefore attract more zombies.) Then use the Hearing Distance table to estimate approximately how far away they are, based on firearm volume and with adjustments based on former-population density. Maybe add a random element to distance as well, particularly on a per-zombie (or something) basis. That gives you a distance for "Okay, the zombie result spawns X yards away, off-screen." Each zombie in the "Spawn" moves towards the sound of the gunshot at its usual move.

Continued shooting results in additional rolls, but rather than adding the result to the original result, simply take whatever the difference is and add that (so whatever the worst result is is always the one that's in effect). So if in one round you get MoS 0, and the next round (continued shooting) gets MoS 1, then you end up with 2×N Walkers (who have already had one round of moving towards the shooting) and N/2 Runners (who have not), rather than 2×N Walkers (with one round of movement), 2×N Walkers (with no movement), and N/2 Runners (with no movement).

If you wanted, you could even say that each round of continued shooting adds a minimum of +1 (cumulative) to the "effective skill" for that round's Zombie Appearance Roll (ZAR).

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I realize that was a lot of rambling and not a lot of meat, for which I apologize and blame having just finished exercising, but hopefully my overall point got across.