New to GURPS: Zombie Apocalypse

[Kromey]

Originally Posted by Xplo

You'll note that zombies don't offer much in the way of roleplaying opportunities; if you want RP beyond party infighting then you'll need to have them encounter other survivors (who may want to team up, or scare the PCs away from their hiding places, or take the PCs stuff by threat or force...)

True dat. Which is exactly why they will indeed face other obstacles as they progress through the city -- opportunistic thugs looking for an easy score, holed-up survivors intent on refusing entry to their shelter and sharing their resources, a fire raging out of control over several city blocks requiring alternate routes to be found, etc.

Not everything is about the zombies, they're just the central theme.

Originally Posted by Xplo

About the characters: since they're pregens, they don't really have to have the same point value, just the same amount of useful points. If you've got a character who's an artist (probably won't, but it's just an example) then his Artist skill isn't likely to do him much good, so don't count it in his point total. Your exec might be rich and have skills for running a company, but it's not going to do him much good in a zombie apocalypse, so don't worry about those either; if he ends up being a 115 point character but only 50 points of that are good for anything he's likely to do, it's not really a balance issue.

Huh, I hadn't thought of that. I've read again and again about how point totals don't really mean jack for comparing two characters, but it never occurred to me that that could likewise mean that the point totals don't really matter for the PCs themselves, so long as relative ability in the game is equivalent.

Originally Posted by Xplo

Likewise, don't even worry about point totals for NPCs. Just give them the traits you think they should have. The only time you need to know an NPC's point total is if it's going to be someone's Ally or Enemy, or a template for a shapeshifter, etc. Remember that you can't compare point totals to figure out who's more badass, anyway; a 25-point thug could mop the alley with a 300-point accounting genius, and a 25-point petty bureaucrat is perfectly capable of stonewalling a 300-point ex-Special Forces mercenary, unless he's willing to use violence against City Hall...

Yup. Which is why my initial zombie was just a small set of stats, completely devoid of any points total, and my plan is to just have them do what I need/want them to, and to heck with trying to figure out how to represent all that in RAW! If they have the spider-like ability to just crawl up walls, well, they have the spider-like ability to just crawl up walls -- no need to figure out how many points that costs, unlike a certain other system where such a thing dramatically affects a monster's CR or XP total, but never in a way that actually makes sense!

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Well before running your game, talk to the players about what kind of characters they'd like to play (mechanic, kung-fu master, hobo with a shotgun, epic accountant, etc.), then build those characters. They get characters without having to get their hands dirty with the rules, but they also get what they want.

Oh. Duh! Of course! Also takes some of the onus off of me to invent all these characters entirely on my own!

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

The problem with running "average" people in adventure scenarios is that adventures are difficult and dangerous, and average people caught up in them tend to fail and die. That's realistic, but it may not be the kind of fun you're after. If you want all sneaking and hiding all the time, average people are the ticket. If you want to see some zombie-splattering action, crank up the points. Also, consider metagame-ish advantages like Luck and Common Sense, which allow PCs to be apparently average but a little harder to kill.

That's actually exactly the fun I'm after! :-) The zombie apocalypse is a very dangerous place to be, where people will die, but games always seem to make light of that fact.

Of course, I doubt we'll go quite this gritty for a full-blown campaign, but it suits my purposes for this game.

My books aren't here yet, so I don't know what Luck and Common Sense actually do, but I've got a good idea, I think, from reading other forum posts around the interwebs. And once I do have those books and know what they are, they very likely could find their way into these characters...