Monday, October 31, 2011

Considerations about Fiction

Hello,
     Happy Halloween, and here are some thoughts on the Those Who Remain blog. Game 4 isn't up yet because the fiction is taking a lot longer than I thought. So, what I'm considering is starting a fiction-only blog that will link to this one that gives the fiction for a given game there while here I give the All Things Zombie BatRep. This way, I can keep BatReps coming and not have everything grind to a screeching halt because my writing muse is on vacation.
     What do the readers think? Would you prefer the fiction jumped over to another blog to keep the BRs coming? Do you prefer the combination style that has been done in the past? Is the fiction worthwhile?
     If not (and I haven't gotten much feedback on the fiction) I can just dump it and go for straight ATZ goodness. No hurt feelings here, as this blog is as much for my followers as for my own pontifications. ;)

Zombie Chow

Thursday, October 20, 2011

To PEF or not to PEF

     I've been busy writing up my Game 4 fiction and slowly getting towards publication. While passing the time I've been reading other battle reports, including Vampifan's at his site located in my "Reported Outbreaks" list below. Look for the "ATZ Campaign" label to read them; they're great in describing how ATZ works in detail.
     Anyway, I found something else I'd been doing wrong. Instead of having both starting zombies on the table as well as PEFs (Potential Enemy Forces) you're supposed to just have one or the other. Which brings me to something Oliver/Whiteface says on his blog (also below in the Reported Outbreaks blog)
     Basically, its whether or not PEFs are good or bad for the game. Originally I really liked them (they're in game 4 too) but I'm beginning to become concerned about how rough they are on play. Like Whiteface, I too ran into some problems in game 4 with them. Though they did provide some recruits they also caused some serious problems. For instance, I set up the 4x4 foot table and I only got my team into one building before having to run off the board! It was quite an action packed building to be sure, but still.
     I'm beginning to wonder though if I should go back to 'original' All Things Zombie and just have encounters within buildings and random Z's on the street. The idea of changing the PEF table was suggested on the THW yahoo group as another option. Perhaps reducing the number of PEFs to 1 or 2 might help as well?
     Has anyone else had these problems? If so, how did you fix them? Granted, Ed says in the books that there are games where you just can't win and have to run; and I'm cool with that. But I'm just concerned with the increase in danger the PEFs are creating...and I'm not even through the first week of the Zombie Apocalypse!

Zombie Chow

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Zombies Arise?

Hey all,
     Sorry for the delay in posting, but a combination of factors (putting together game 4 BatRep, keeping my wife from turning into a zombie-she's sick, oh yeah-work, etc.) has kept me busy.
     To keep all occupied, here's a house rule for All Things Zombie I'm considering adding in for the future.

Zombies Arise!
     When a human is killed, two dice are rolled and his/her Reputation are subtracted from the total number. If the resulting number is positive, the body stays dead. On a negative or 0 result, the body stands up as a zombie. The number of turns before the new zombie arises is the difference between the body's Rep in life and the final number result.
     If a body is the victim of a Zombie Feast, the number of turns the feast lasts is subtracted from the figure's Rep in life. If a positive number, it stands up at the end of the resulting feast; with the assumption that such is why the feast ended because the body was now a zombie. If the number is a 0 or negative, not enough of the body was left to stand up in the first place and should just be considered meaty chuncks.

What do you all think? Too lethal for Survivors?
Zombie Chow

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Determining Random Vehicles in ATZ

Like in Sunday's post to randomly generate buildings, the below table is for generating vehicles found on the tabletop.

Commonly Found Vehicles By Area
***Urban
Roll Vehicle Type
2 Big Rig
3 Bus
4 Motorcycle
5-7 Pickup Truck
8-9 Sedan
10 Sports car
11-12 SUV

***Suburbs
Roll Vehicle Type
2 Big Rig
3 Bus
4 Motorcycle
5-6 Pickup Truck
7-8 SUV    
9-10 Sedan
11 Sports car
12 RV

***Rural
Roll Vehicle Type
2 ATV
3 Big Rig
4-5 Motorcycle
6-8 Pickup Truck
9-10 SUV
11 Sedan
12 RV


As with the buildings list below, I've set the tables for the North/East Texas area as to frequency of vehicles in a given area. Feel free to change the bell curve at need.

Zombie Chow








Sunday, October 2, 2011

Random Buildings (Updated)

All Things Zombie: Better Dead Than Zed has a lot of great information, but one thing I found lacking was a way of randomly generating of building types. The random terrain tables certainly tell you the number of building on the table, and where they are generally located, but not WHAT they are.
   As with much of ATZ and Two Hour Wargames in general, Ed simply says "Use what you've got, its easier that way!" Quite true, but if you've got several buildings its hard to decide!
    So, I made the below tables. I broke up the grid as I'm not sure how to post tables. Still, it should be readable and feel free to steal it for your Zombie Wargames at need!

Buildings In Encounters
 
Commonly Found Buildings By Area
***Urban

Roll  Location
2 (1-3) Apartments
  (4-6) Hotel
 3 Church
4 Media
   (1-2 Newspaper office
  (3-4) TV station
   (5-6) Radio station
5 Gas Station
6 Hospital or Clinic
7 (@1-3) Office Buildings
  (4-6) Retail store
8 Restaurant/Fast Food
9 School
10 Supermarket
11Warehouse
12 Law & Order
(1-3) Police Station
(4-6) Fire Department

***Suburbs
Roll  Location
2 Clinic
3 Church
4 Gas Station
5-6 House
7 Restaurant
8 Retail Store
9 School     
10 Supermarket       
11 Warehouse
12 Law & Order
(1-3) Police Station
(4-6) Fire Department

***Rural
Roll  Location
2 Clinic
3Military Base
4 Church
5 Gas Station
6-8 House
9 Strip Mall
10 Diner/Restaurant
11 School
12 Small Supermarket  (Grocery)

I based the tables on my opinion of frequency of buildings in North/East Texas, though it probably should have a higher frequency of churches. Depending on where you live, you might play with the bell curve to make certain types of building more frequent depending on where you are running your ATz game.

Zombie Chow
(Edited for text mess)