Thursday 14 April 2011

Oh look. Zombies.

What is there to say about zombies that hasn't been said? I don't know, and judging by The Walking Dead they don't really know either.

Zombies rank somewhere around cultists, ninjas and Orcs in the "emergency fight horde" rankings for RPGs. I remember when they were scary - loss of identity, loved ones turning on you - but that time is past, and now they're a backup threat, a merchandising opportunity, and just not as cool as skeletons.

(Skeletons are still totally cool.)

A long-form genre apocalypse is interesting, and it's very well done all round, but the zombies are one of the least interesting parts of it. Above all, it made me miss Survivors. I'm more looking forward to Falling Skies because, hey, it's got aliens instead. They might do something interesting.

So where does the gaming come in? Well, obviously with something like All Flesh Must Be Eaten, the zombie-surviving RPG with its various genre books mostly including zombie stats as excuses for producing genre books for the Unisystem, but particularly the long-term-games-can-work-for-this sourcebook One Of The Living, put together by Ben "Zomben" Monroe, who was writing zombie adventures for Call Of Cthulhu before they became cool and doesn't mind that they're uncool again. Lots of good advice on modern-apocalypse survival. And some zombies.

So now part of me wants to do a zombie-free Survivors type game...

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