I was working on my own version of The Walking Dead RPG and of course, Free League announces their own game, The Walking Dead Universe, to be released in 2023.
My idea is different. It's more of an extension of indie RPGs where failure and drama is rewarded vs success. Robin Law's Hillfolk is about inter-character conflict. Delta Green gives you an experience check if you fail a die roll. Dungeon World gives you an XP for rolling 6 or less (failure with trouble).
I've pushed it to the limit. I decided that I'm going to make a game based on failure. Why? Because I binge watched The Walking Dead and noticed that Rick is a horrible leader. He makes bad decisions that get people killed, yet he survives and other people who make terrible decisions also live because they're fan favorites.
I wanted to make a rules lite game and I know there's no way I can get the IP (intellectual property) for The Walking Dead, so I can only build a generic zombie game with sly references to The Walking Dead.
So, the game is about people messing up. The more drama you create, the longer you survive. Zombies are more of a wild card that can get you killed. What's more boring than a group of survivors who know what they're doing and where nothing goes wrong?
The game is also couched as a TV series to explain why everything is so messed up.
Anyway, I wanted to beat Free League to the punch.
So, I present to you Zombie Drama:
Full Disclosure: It's a work in progress and not playtested.
It's free to use or modify for non-commercial purposes as long as you keep my copyright notice intact. If you want to redistribute, please keep the copyright intact and/or point people to this blog post instead, so at least I'll know how many people are interested in it.
2 comments:
Very cool! Lots of great ideas in there. The idea Popularity Points and determining which characters survive is great. I like the simplicity of the d6 > # zombies fighting check, but it feels perhaps too swingy for the TV show concept – I don't want star characters getting offed randomly. Perhaps if you were to otherwise lose the fight, you have to give up something significant in order to escape. Could be as prosaic as your signature item, but it could be abstract, like your trust in your best friend, or the ability to hold the group together, or the threat escalates.
Ah, but you can avoid certain death by spending 8 Popularity Pts!
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