Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

You are on your own. The Army is MIA and our government is gone! There are no communications of any kind. Cities and towns have gone dark, and zombies fill the streets. The dead have risen and it would seem to be the end of the world. Help me, Mommy!

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plotulus
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Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by plotulus »

Is it possible? How would it work? Can you have everyone turn when they die?
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by eliakon »

plotulus wrote:Is it possible? How would it work? Can you have everyone turn when they die?

Sure you could do it no problem.
It will be even more deadly and grimdark than the published setting though. I would highly recomend making it much, much easier to kill zombies as well. Unless your planning on running it as a Call of Cthulhuesque horror game where there isnt a point and everyone knows that they are just postponing the ineveitable.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Misfit KotLD »

eliakon wrote:
plotulus wrote:Is it possible? How would it work? Can you have everyone turn when they die?

Sure you could do it no problem.
It will be even more deadly and grimdark than the published setting though. I would highly recomend making it much, much easier to kill zombies as well. Unless your planning on running it as a Call of Cthulhuesque horror game where there isnt a point and everyone knows that they are just postponing the ineveitable.
Yeah, for Walking Dead, the zombies need to be squishier. Otherwise, it works fine.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Josh Hilden »

It was a lot more like the Walking Dead when it was written.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Vrykolas2k »

Josh Hilden wrote:It was a lot more like the Walking Dead when it was written.



I'm sure that's true.
I had to house-rule zombie head SDC to make it more logical, as well as a few other things to do with weapons which were a bit inaccurate.
Aside from that, fun game.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Sgt Mushroom »

Vrykolas2k wrote:
Josh Hilden wrote:It was a lot more like the Walking Dead when it was written.



I'm sure that's true.
I had to house-rule zombie head SDC to make it more logical, as well as a few other things to do with weapons which were a bit inaccurate.
Aside from that, fun game.

The rules as printed are ridiculous. I also despise the Reapers.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Axelmania »

Well, it might already operate this way depending on how loosely one interprets "the zombie killed you".

I mean, if you die from slipping in the shower, it doesn't SEEM like a zombie killed you... but what if the only reason you slipped because you were sleep-deprived from zombie moans keeping you up all night? A zombie did it
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by eliakon »

Sgt Mushroom wrote:
Vrykolas2k wrote:
Josh Hilden wrote:It was a lot more like the Walking Dead when it was written.



I'm sure that's true.
I had to house-rule zombie head SDC to make it more logical, as well as a few other things to do with weapons which were a bit inaccurate.
Aside from that, fun game.

The rules as printed are ridiculous. I also despise the Reapers.

I agree with you. The Reapers are, frankly ludicrous. Especially since its painfully clear that it is the exploits of either the designer and/or play testers group. What with the constant mention of events... that are not in the books and are blatantly escapades from someone's game.
You can include factions, that's cool. You can even put in homages to the play testers. But saying "The play testers characters are going to be the canon ubermen and you have to include them as the sole force of heroism" isn't.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Axelmania »

eliakon wrote:You can include factions, that's cool. You can even put in homages to the play testers. But saying "The play testers characters are going to be the canon ubermen and you have to include them as the sole force of heroism" isn't.

Lord Coake would have words with you.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Josh Hilden »

eliakon wrote:The Reapers are, frankly ludicrous. Especially since its painfully clear that it is the exploits of either the designer and/or play testers group. What with the constant mention of events... that are not in the books and are blatantly escapades from someone's game.


Well, that's completely untrue.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by eliakon »

Josh Hilden wrote:
eliakon wrote:The Reapers are, frankly ludicrous. Especially since its painfully clear that it is the exploits of either the designer and/or play testers group. What with the constant mention of events... that are not in the books and are blatantly escapades from someone's game.


Well, that's completely untrue.

They look exactly like a game group though. They have a leader (main PC) and their group. They have all sorts of back story adventures like, for example the battle of Chicago, that are not discussed anywhere else, even in the world history section... leaving the impression that "well duh, everyone knows about the battle of Chicago... which would only be true if the battle actually took place and thus those involved would know... the rest of us are left with out a clue. BUT somehow this motorcycle gang is even more successful than the military or literally any other group or organization on the planet...again, it looks exactly like a PC group in action with the special "PC power of plot" that allows PCs to be larger than life and solve all the problems no one else can.

I get that there is a desire for some 'rays of light'/good guy groups. But the idea that there is only one group, on the entire planet, that is organized and knows anything about what is going on and is the sole force holding back the tide? That reeks of "PC Party" with a side of "meddling kids" It gets worse when basically everything in every book is presented apparently through the eyes of the reapers and their leadership cadre... the same books that go to pains to explain why the police, the military, militias, survivalists and basically every other group went under. every one except for one motorcycle gang. Just one mind you since no other group seems to exist... just the Reapers and those they recruit. This is made worse by the fact that since the entire Rifter plot and the ritually tainted vaccine and all that went away there isn't even a game rules logical reason for the entire military to have suddenly gone under.

It looks like a PC group, acts like a PC group and thus I assumed that it was exactly that.
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Josh Hilden »

Well Kevin definitely Nerfed them hardcore but no, the Reapers were never part of the actual play testing of the game. When we play tested it was a group of survivors at the moment of the Wave.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Trooper Jim »

eliakon wrote:
Sgt Mushroom wrote:
Vrykolas2k wrote:
Josh Hilden wrote:It was a lot more like the Walking Dead when it was written.



I'm sure that's true.
I had to house-rule zombie head SDC to make it more logical, as well as a few other things to do with weapons which were a bit inaccurate.
Aside from that, fun game.

The rules as printed are ridiculous. I also despise the Reapers.

I agree with you. The Reapers are, frankly ludicrous. Especially since its painfully clear that it is the exploits of either the designer and/or play testers group. What with the constant mention of events... that are not in the books and are blatantly escapades from someone's game.
You can include factions, that's cool. You can even put in homages to the play testers. But saying "The play testers characters are going to be the canon ubermen and you have to include them as the sole force of heroism" isn't.

They always struck me as the product of someone with a SoA fetish, and little understanding of how the Outlaw Biker community actually works.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by eliakon »

Josh Hilden wrote:Well Kevin definitely Nerfed them hardcore but no, the Reapers were never part of the actual play testing of the game. When we play tested it was a group of survivors at the moment of the Wave.

You realize that makes this all even worse?
Because now we are left with this unexplained group of ubermen who are not only Better-Than-You but are Better-Than-Everyone-Else-In-The-World and not only that are The-Only-Hope-For-Mankind...
...and they don't even have a backstory.

That's pretty sad really.
I would buy the Reapers as one of the factions out there helping sure. But as, quite literally the only people on Earth who have been successful? At all? That doesn't even strain credulity. It moves into out right fiat of "these people are the Chosen Heroes and you will like it" and while some people don't mind playing the sidekick to the Destined One... most people like to play characters who have the chance that they might be allowed to make a difference.

Now if there was some backstory? A reason why this one group is successful while every other group on Earth fails? While the Military is, for some unexplained reason, gone in days, but a motley group of bikers can hold out and battle the City of Denver (or whatever the hell "Battle of Denver" was as it is basically a noodle incident)...
The rules are not a bludgeon with which to hammer a character into a game. They are a guide to how a group of friends can get together to weave a collective story that entertains everyone involved. We forget that at our peril.

Edmund Burke wrote:The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Josh Hilden »

I never said they didn't have a backstory. I said they were not a real factor of our original playtesting. We were working on game mechanics not play testing this factions.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Axelmania »

Josh Hilden wrote:When we play tested it was a group of survivors at the moment of the Wave.

Any chance you will give us the stats of your "Defilers"?
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Fenris2020 »

Misfit KotLD wrote:
eliakon wrote:
plotulus wrote:Is it possible? How would it work? Can you have everyone turn when they die?

Sure you could do it no problem.
It will be even more deadly and grimdark than the published setting though. I would highly recomend making it much, much easier to kill zombies as well. Unless your planning on running it as a Call of Cthulhuesque horror game where there isnt a point and everyone knows that they are just postponing the ineveitable.
Yeah, for Walking Dead, the zombies need to be squishier. Otherwise, it works fine.



Also, they can't see PPE, which is a pretty OP ability anyway.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Axelmania »

One thing I was wondering, you know how death cults feed PPE to zombies?

It's too bad they can only feed HALF. If they could feed ALL (like maybe a mage who spends all on spells) shouldn't they be invisible temporarily?
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by Trooper Jim »

It should never be difficult to kill an individual zombie. The real threat is when they are in a large groups.
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Re: Dead Reign in a world like The Walking Dead

Unread post by TheEvilDM »

in my actual play game, we are in the first month of the "outbreak" and the zombies are easy to kill because they are newly "made". So one, two or three is cake, its when the large group shows up...that's when the problem happens.

Also, its your game, you can do whatever the heck you want to anything in the book and as long as everyone is having fun, you are playing correct!
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