A while back I had a thread about the popularity of zombies that touched on how multi-genre they were and how easy they were to put into most games, thereby accounting for their popularity.

Now, I wondered what kind of zombies people like most. There seem to be several kinds:


There's the classic NOTLD type, which slowly shuffle, have little to no mind and are only dangerous in large numbers or when tnhye surround you.

Then there's the ROTLD type which are faster, intelligent and can talk, usually saying "Braaaains!"

I suppose that the Borg could be called a type of zombie too.....

I go for the classic myself, the very slow, mindless, takes a head shot to drop 'em Romero style. I especially liked it in the remake of NOTLD when the woman realized that if she just kept walking at a good clip she could outdistance most of them, which is what most of the crowd in the audeince was thinking too.

I prefer the older style of zombie because I like the analogy of zombies to mindless masses and crowds stripped of their will. Making them fast seems to make them more powerful than individual people, which is a mis-step IMHO.

Depends.  If it's a movie, I like the running zombies from the Dawn of the Dead remake.  Those things were damned scary.  The whole time you watched it, you knew they were just a broken window away from tearing everyone apart.  

However, if the real world got turned upside down and inside out, and I, Peter C. Spahn, found myself staring out a window at the shambling hordes, I'd much rather get stuck with NotLD zombies.  Not very scary and very easy to evade.  Much higher chance of survival.

In an RPG, I like to throw both into the mix, just to shake the players up.  Shamble, shamble, shamble.  Oh shit, that one's running at me!

Pete

I like the classic Decapitate/smash/shoot 'em in the head zombies myself - but with thier ability to move being proportional to thier rate of decay.

Newer zombies can run - older ones walk, decaying ones shuffle, etc.

I like them to be stupid, flesh eating, moaning machines too.

Having intelligent, talking, problem solving zombies defeats the whole purpose of having zombies in the first place IMHO.



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Pretty much what pspahn said.

This talk about zombies makes me want to play/run an All flesh must be eaten game.

Start everyone off with normals, then let them have survivors/metas after their
normals die (the longer they keep their normal alive, the more powerful their survivor will be )

Plot? We can use the old "Military screw up!" with bio weapons. Make the 'freshly exposed' to the chem fast scary zombies, but the 'infected by bite' slow and shambling.

Have the character encounter the slow ones first, then a glimpse or two of the fast moving ones..... right before one eats the stupidest/whiniest/annoyingest member of the team. :hehe:

Quote from: JaegerHaving intelligent, talking, problem solving zombies defeats the whole purpose of having zombies in the first place IMHO.

Hey, but that's where Romero was going with it in his Dead series.  Well, maybe not the talking part, but definitely semi-intelligent, communicating, and learning from their experiences.  That was the inspiration for Hunger: Zombies Must Feed.    

The intelligence factor was where the Marvel zombies fell flat, at least for me.  They were just basically evil cannibals.  Whoopdeedoo.  

Pete

I prefer the slow moving, large masses of zombies myself. I find them dangerous enough. In fact, I actually do not see the need for fast/smart zombies at all. The slow ones can be just as dangerous, and do not need to be in hoards to be a threat. If one of those suckers latches on to you it can be trouble - and you can place them just about anywhere. . .

Personally I like the Dawn of the Dead remake the best.  Just never was a big Romero fan or anything.

For gaming I prefer to mix it up a little.  Some are slow slogging types but then there are a few fast movers mixed in there.  Sometimes I give reasons like the fast movers are those who died from the slow infection spreading through them while the slow ones are those who died before killed completely by the infection.

Other times I don't give any reason at all, it's just an odd side affect.

The VIRUS type (i.e., the flesh/electric constructs in the old VIRUS comic books and subsequent film adaptation) still creep me out. The ROTLD brain-eating, fast-moving, undead also make me a bit uneasy. I think that my all-time favorite, however, has to be a fusion of the two types above. Have you ever seen an old Larry Cohen movie entitled The Stuff?

I like the fast crazy mad hungry kind. My very favorite of that kind are the ones from Firefly and Serenity. It took a bit for it to register that they were zombies, I think because the presentation was so different and plausible (in a sci fi sorta way).

Quote from: darI like the fast crazy mad hungry kind. My very favorite of that kind are the ones from Firefly and Serenity. It took a bit for it to register that they were zombies, I think because the presentation was so different and plausible (in a sci fi sorta way).

I don't think the Reavers were zombies.

Quote from: pspahnI don't think the Reavers were zombies.

Well, not in the "Reanimated corpse" kind of way, but in the "That what was once human, but now a monster" kind of way.

I'd say Reavers are an analog of zombies. Both were once human, both kill normal humans on sight, both eat humans (very few zombie types don't).

I think the Reavers were a great alternative to the old 'alien with cabbage on his head' that most Sci-fi goes for these days.

I typically like the slow romero type zombie. With a couple special zombies thrown in the mix to liven it up. I'm running an all flesh must be eaten wild west campaign right now. I told the players from the begining that it wasn't a zombie game. I wanted to the zombie aspect to be a surprise. Well one the players was playing a crazy indian. He decided that he was going to cut off the heads and cut out the hearts of his victims when able. I'm sure he thought he was out thinking me. To prevent these things from coming back to haunt them. Well one of the batches of people he killed I had intended on bringing back any ways. So all he did was make them harder to kill. As they dont have the normal vitals. No head shots. Well they can shoot them in the head, as I had their heads replaced with gourds. But it does not stop them. They have found this out the hard way.

Quote from: Dominus NoxNow, I wondered what kind of zombies people like most.

the slow-moving Romero zombies are the epitome of undead to me.
the fast moving zombies (or 'infected' humans) are terrifying, but imho just not right.  

besides, everyone knows the secret:


it's not about the zombies...it's about the survivors

Quote from: kregmosierit's not about the zombies...it's about the survivors

The reavers ARE the survivors.