Skill Default Issues

[Kromm]

Vulnerability can be phrased in all kinds of ways, and that's my preferred handling. But FWIW, GURPS Zombies unapologetically privileges cinema over other media and takes an unabashed "visuals over scripts" stance (because frankly, most makers of zombie flicks attach good-to-great F/X to mediocre-to-rancid writing). Two of the fundamental theses of the work are "Zombie fiction is a primarily visual genre" and "If it looks and acts like a zombie, then it's a zombie." There's support for gamers who insist on realism despite zombies, love to argue that the living infected aren't proper zombies, etc. – whence the notes on Vulnerability – but the book doesn't adopt either view as its default. Its default is that zombies are unrealistic bogeys from cinematic reality (just not one where the heroes always win!), and that human-turned-mindless is the sole criterion for zombiedom.