Enhancing roleplay in Dead Reign

[Spinachcat]

I am sure you could run Dead Reign as an arcade game, but I think a Zombie Apocalypse campaign could be something much more. Like a good Chaos Earth campaign, there are many interesting stories to be mined away from the monsters based on the sudden breakdown of society and coming of the impossible into our reality. Here's my thoughts.

1) Do not let characters (either PC or NPC) exist in a vacuum. They were not born yesterday. They have lives that stretch back many years with friends, foes, families, commitments and ties to other human beings. Even orphans have relationships.

2) Make mercy killings hard on characters. People should freak out around "hard core" merciless PCs who simply shoot the infected or anyone who gets in their way. NPCs will be using phrases like "you are no better than them!" against such PCs and certainly turn away assistance. Few of the PCs are going to be people with experience killing another human being. Take that into account. Billy the Software Engineer is not going to become Mista Killzone on day one. That would mean your character has some pretty messed up internal psychology.

3) Just because the players know they are playing Dead Reign does not mean that the PCs should be "ZOMG! Zombies!" and instantly go into video game mode. The players should be encouraged to roleplay their characters learning about what they are facing and what that means. Remember, zombies are Things That Should Not Be and break all accepted laws of everyone's normal life. We live in a society where science trumps the supernatural. The Wave flips that on its head. That should not be an easy logic jump for anyone.

4) The Stages of Grief might be an interesting tool to use for NPC reactions to the Wave and the aftermath. Some people may progress through the stages faster than others, some will get stuck at a stage for a long time and some will never reach acceptance.

STAGES OF GRIEF
Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
Anger (why is this happening to me?)
Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
Depression (I don't care anymore)
Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

What are your thoughts on enhancing roleplaying in Dead Reign?

[tundro]

I agree %100. To make it a really fun game, players really should try to play it like it really happened. There are going to be some people that are going to react more agressively than others (maybe didn't get that pony for their 7th b-day or whatever), but the whole group shouldn't suddenly become some frenzied navy seal team. In most movies, inevitably someone in the group wants to head back home to try to save loved ones, only to be confronted with the fact that the very person they wanted to save is now trying to eat their brains, and they may have to destroy that person. Adds flavor and realism to the game, instead of it becoming one big firefight after another.

[Steeler49er]

5/5

[Levi]

I’ve run post apocalyptic games before. In my experience there are 3 steps to getting good role-play out of a situation like this.

1. Have the characters write up backgrounds. Give experience points based on quality.
2. Role-play a session or two at least before the apocalypse happens. Help the players get to know their character and form a bond to it.
3. Leverage their actions and backgrounds in the game. I take notes for myself to reflect on.

From the games I have run in the past this has worked out really well.

[Rallan]

If Hollywood's anything to go by, the easiest way to zombie stuff into more than mindless gore is to make the zombie apocalypse the background to something else. Yes, civilization as we know it has collapsed. Yes, the walking dead are everywhere and they're trying to devour your brains. But there's plenty of zombie movies with character-driven or plot-driven rather than action-driven stories.

For character-driven stuff, look at every "zom com" ever made. What makes them work isn't just the zombie apocalypse (which will inevitably be done strictly according to the formula), but the way they characters react to it and to each other. Or the more ambitious "zom rom com" (zombie romantic comedy) stuff like Shaun Of The Dead, which managed to play both a romantic comedy story (girl loves boy but disapproves of his slackerness, boy loves girl but is reluctant to commit because he likes his slacker friend) and a zombie apocalypse, and do them both straight. Or if you want more serious stuff, mine the themes of war movies. All the best character-driven war movies just use their setting as a background: it's a world full of faceless enemies and random violence, where what's really important is the reaction of the characters to that world, and their relationships with each other.

For plot-driven stuff, your easiest way is to have a lot of shades of grey and "lesser of two evils" stuff. So a secret gummint lab that's been running self-sufficiently since the apocalyse is working on a cure. But is it worth the horrible atrocities they're commiting on innocents in the lab? Or sure, the king of Survivor Town is keeping the zombies out. But is his brutal and corrupt little warlord fief worth living in? That sorta thing.

[Rallan]

I really hope that a lot of the secondary stuff I wrote makes the final cut.

One can hope, Laz.

According to latest Murmur, it did not.

Ah cheer up. It wouldn't be a Palladium book if Kev didn't ditch half the original submission, replace it with some tamer stuff that he wrote himself at the last minute, and add his name to the by-line. You haven't suffered at the hands of an editor, you've become part of the Palladium tradition

[Rallan]

According to latest Murmur, it did not.

Ah cheer up. It wouldn't be a Palladium book if Kev didn't ditch half the original submission, replace it with some tamer stuff that he wrote himself at the last minute, and add his name to the by-line. You haven't suffered at the hands of an editor, you've become part of the Palladium tradition

It would be funny ... if it were not true.

So will you do the traditional Burning Of The Bridges with a rant on RPG.net, or are you gonna save that for after you've published a few more titles?

[velcRomanceR]

I just ordered the Rifter #40 and hope to get a couple quickies in before Dead Reign arrives.

I'll probably start my players off with characters I've created which they can randomly choose; this has worked great in the past for one-offs and even created some lasting relationships as the players have chosen to keep a few of their characters.

I'm thinking I'll open the game with the PCs in a group of people being chased by sprinters and normals in a mall, at an election, at a rally.. Then once the action stops in the game, the characters can question one another. The information is revealed to the players as it's revealed to the players' characters.