Yikes! Zombies!
Parthenia:
Ah, but Vincent, your character survived the zombies, but got into a car with the rest of Dr. Mahmoud's terrorist cell. Off to the next soft target St. Mary's!
I loved the pre-game prep. Trying to figure out the right setting was fun. Usually I like making up characters more, but setting felt more important than the characters. Populating the setting was simple once we knew where we were. Our "character sheets" were scrap bits of paper with our names and a couple of details. And our character allying was straight-forward, even with the tenuous alliance between the terrorist attending dr. and the resident.
I really liked this game, and I hope we play it again soon. I'd like to know more about dice loans and dead characters choosing sides.
Julia
Eero Tuovinen:
The dice loaning rule is pretty simple: you can either have your character ally with another character in an argument, in which case they share the fate of their partisans (that is, move on the game board), or your character can keep out of it and you can loan your die to another player to roll in the conflict. The former implies that your character commits to acting in the fiction and allows him to move on the board, while the latter is just a way for your the player to vote for your preferred outcome in a conflict. An allying player also gets to roll their own die and thus might get to narrate, while a loaned die gives the narration to the player who rolled it.
When a player's character is dead or has escaped from the story, the player continues play with the exact same privileges he used to have. Or rather, a subset of those privileges: he still frames scenes, plays NPCs and can still loan out his die to others. He can even ally and get to roll himself, provided that there are some NPCs around for him to advocate. The only mechanical difference is that players may run conflicts against the zombies when a characterless player is the active player: any character in the scene may then get entangled with the zombies, and the player may call for a conflict without human opposition. The active player then rolls for the zombies and others ally or loan their dice to whichever side they want (it's not unheard of for "badguy" characters to side with zombies). The zombie marker does not move on the board because of these "against the zombies" conflicts, so it's just a way to move on the board without necessarily endangering other PCs. (Normal arguments always have a victim in the form of an endangered PC, after all.)
Emily Care:
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen on March 14, 2008, 01:47:54 PM
When a player's character is dead or has escaped from the story, the player continues play with the exact same privileges he used to have. Or rather, a subset of those privileges: he still frames scenes, plays NPCs and can still loan out his die to others.... The zombie marker does not move on the board because of these "against the zombies" conflicts, so it's just a way to move on the board without necessarily endangering other PCs. (Normal arguments always have a victim in the form of an endangered PC, after all.)
Wow! I didn't know about this whole aspect of the game. It changes the end game completely. You shift from having to fight eachother to being able to unite against the zombies and perhaps all escape. Makes those first losses really matter.
I love this game. It's absolutely one of my favorite that came out last year and is my standard go-to game when I want to run a pick-up game. And the adaptation I ran using the mechanics for a scenario in the Iraq war was chilling and moving. We shall play more, I am sure.
best,
Emily
newsalor:
Remember that you can also loan your dice to the zombies or ally with them. The zombies won't move anyway, but I guess you will.
Picture it, three characters down, only two remaining and one of them tries to be a hero. In a fit of nihilism the two other NPC players loan their dice to the zombies. The smartest thing to for the other living character is to abandon his friend and ally with the zombies for teh win!
IMO the endgame is all about how interresting / sympathetic the characters are, because you need the other players help to stay in the game, so to speak. Many times, I've even played a complete arsehole of a character, but others have sacrificed / sided with me, because the movie needs a villain. The same goes for the leading male and female roles. :)
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