After the recent zombie thread, I was thinking about why I generally don't use zombies in RPGs. I will sometimes have them as servants for the main opposition, but not as much of a threat in themselves. That's also how I've seen them in most RPGs - but then, I haven't played a zombie RPG like All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

My problem is that the genre of zombie movies largely depends on the protagonists being tactically stupid.

THE GENRE ISSUE

The iconic zombie action scene is heroes faced with a horde of zombies. The horror being that no matter how many zombies they kill, the zombies keep coming, wearing them down and using up their bullets. The zombies are mindless, fearless, and relentless.

If the heroes are killing zombies by hand, that can be terrifying. However, if an engineer builds a zombie trap -- then the fact that zombies keep coming no matter how many die is terrific. Each zombie is no threat as it comes in, and they keep coming in and dying.

A common situation is living people trapped in a building (like a house or mall). The zombies can't get in, but the humans can't get out. The obvious thing to me is to build a murder hole - a tunnel that zombies can come in single file and handle it like a cattle chute in a slaughterhouse. It doesn't have to be perfect to be twenty times better than running outside and fighting zombies in the open.

This sort of tactical/engineering logic would make for a boring movie, but it's the sort of solution that RPG players would come up with.

SOLUTIONS

There are plenty of solutions, I'm think. I've got some ideas of how I might deal with this if I wanted to do zombie horror, but I'll leave it as an open question at first.

Make them infectious but you don't need to get bitten to get infected, it's a mutation of the Virus, now it's airborne.

Instead of making them mindless make them to have the intelligence of a wolf, and to be able to cooperate to hunt in packs.

Instead of having them decompose make them so they regenerate form any injury short of completely burning them, meaning if there's a viable cell it will spawn a new zombie, if you cut it in a 1000 pieces you will end with 1000 zombies if given enough time.

Make them like the Thing from the original movie.

Undead 'zombie master' directing intelligence(s) is one obvious possibility.

If you've not read I Am Legend, I strongly recommend it, the original zombie (well, zombie-vampire) apocalypse. It has the airborne virus and the smart lone protagonist. A lot of the tension comes from the knowledge that he is smart , a great zombie/vampire killer, but if he makes one mistake, if he gets too carried away with his self appointed mission, it's game over.

There are several takes. One is that it doesn't matter if you've been bitten. If you die, you rise a zombie. That's more of an original idea (I think one of the Romero movies was more like that), and also in The Walking Dead.

World War Z also solved some of that by making the zombies incredibly fast. They were able to defeat walls just by piling up on each other and then climbing up. They also reacted badly to another zombie being killed. Kill one and you attract a swarm. So the game becomes stealth, and combat almost certainly guarantees failure. You can even then have guaranteed hits and not even need a roll to see if you kill the zombie. You do. But then it's a question of resources - how many bullets do you have?

The final thing is of course the conflict between humans. I think it's Escape from Tarkov that shows how nasty people can be in a survival situation. The obvious enemy can then be anything, doesn't need to be zombies. It could be aliens. The 'real' conflict is to be resolved among the survivors.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 02, 2023, 05:30:14 PM
Make them infectious but you don't need to get bitten to get infected, it's a mutation of the Virus, now it's airborne.

That's a great idea.  How about maybe the infection spreads also by touch?  Lets say the Zombie grabs a persons arm and then then become infected?

One of the most unique takes I saw a GM use was transmission via sexual intercourse.  The virus took 1 year to take hold and change the person.  Procreation was a death sentence but humanity had to do it to survive.

You need to read AFMBE. The game hasn't received new entries in years, but what it does have is amazing. It predates the zombie craze by several years and even afterward is still more creative than the entire zombie craze was, with few exceptions.

Don't really have an opinion on the genre aspect directly, because it isn't my thing.  A lot of the zombie horror genre stuff seems to be change the setting conceits to bring out the horror.  I'll answer from a more limited aspect, bringing the horror of zombies in particular in an otherwise more typical fantasy setting.

The zombie niche is mindless, unrelenting, melee swarm you under.  It's about durability, resources, and trying not to get sucked into melee with them.  So you want the mechanics to reinforce that somehow:

- In D&D terms, zombies could have many more hit points than you would otherwise expect for their size/threat, and grappling should be a thing.

- Alternately, things that don't feel damage can be modeled as not taking very much, through damage resistance or the like (kind of like some games have skeleton taking less damage from piercing).

- Make sure morale is a bigger thing (like early D&D) and then creatures that won't break are a bigger threat.

- Related, they won't break off the chase once they have the "scent".  You can outrun them for a time, and then 3 days later they show up on your trail.  (To me, this actually fits the limited horror theme in an otherwise standard game very well, because it allows other things to happen, then the dread builds up.)

- Numbers, of course, works in any setup or genre.  However, you need to mix that with other things to make it felt.  For example, 4 heroic characters against 8 zombies, maybe, maybe not.  4 heroic characters plus 8 soldiers against 20 zombies, where the soldiers morale may break, completely different concerns.  You don't have to make PCs run to make them care about running.

- Zombie kills zones are a definite out for set scenarios in a survival game.  To make them more interesting, toss them in a mission. The players still want to create the zombie kill zone, and might, but the mission and environment give them other concerns that must be balanced against that. Kill zones with unlimited time and no reason not to do them, not very interesting.  Kill zones improvised on the spot because the zombie area has to be gotten through to do the main mission, have a lot more potential.

Quote from: GhostNinja on May 03, 2023, 09:40:17 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 02, 2023, 05:30:14 PM
Make them infectious but you don't need to get bitten to get infected, it's a mutation of the Virus, now it's airborne.

That's a great idea.  How about maybe the infection spreads also by touch?  Lets say the Zombie grabs a persons arm and then then become infected?

That works too.

Quote from: rgalex on May 03, 2023, 09:54:31 AM
One of the most unique takes I saw a GM use was transmission via sexual intercourse.  The virus took 1 year to take hold and change the person.  Procreation was a death sentence but humanity had to do it to survive.

So, two people fuck, get infected and become zombies one year latter... Leaving a 3 month old infant orphan. How come the infant didn't get the virus?

But never mind the baby not getting it. For humanity to survive you need 1.5 births per death, in that scenario you have 1 birth for every 2 deaths. Yeah, there's no hope.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 03, 2023, 11:43:48 AM

Quote from: rgalex on May 03, 2023, 09:54:31 AM
One of the most unique takes I saw a GM use was transmission via sexual intercourse.  The virus took 1 year to take hold and change the person.  Procreation was a death sentence but humanity had to do it to survive.

So, two people fuck, get infected and become zombies one year latter... Leaving a 3 month old infant orphan. How come the infant didn't get the virus?

But never mind the baby not getting it. For humanity to survive you need 1.5 births per death, in that scenario you have 1 birth for every 2 deaths. Yeah, there's no hope.

I think I'm missing something in the premise. If the virus is 100% lethal in 1 year, then if someone hasn't had sex in a year, then you know they're not infected. It makes it pretty easy to tell who is infected and who isn't.

This is why highly lethal diseases generally don't spread effectively, at least with human transmission.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 03, 2023, 11:40:31 AM
That's a great idea.  How about maybe the infection spreads also by touch?  Lets say the Zombie grabs a persons arm and then then become infected?

That works too.
[/quote]

You could also combine it so the infection is both airborne and touch.  Makes the situation even more deadly.

What if zombies aren't supposed to be threatening? What if the purpose of zombies is to be throwaway mooks to use as a speed bump? What if the actual threat is the thing you can't reach because there are too damned many zombies in the way?

With a smile and a nod to Mutant Chronicles.  (there's a Warzone kickstarter even as I write this)

Give them guns that can fire any bullet.  Bullets that cause wounds that can't heal.  Roided out mutant leaders with syringes that turn corpses into more gun weilding zombies.

how about Zombies with leather jackets and switchblades? 

Now that's threating.