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SO I've gone back to playing Dead frontier (in between life and judging the compo). for thoughs of you who don't know its a free browser-based Zombie Epoc mmorpg. Its got me back in that old zombie mood again, so I've go three old projects on my mind again....

Rogue Cells: this was at one point a "I got a great idea for a new resident evil game!" kind of thing that turned into a full RPG idea. in this game the govenment had tryed to clean up the mess, and were close to succeeding. The last of the infecting agent was being tranceported out of country to be destroy. once done all that was left was to kill off the Zombs. unforunetly the plane caring the last of it crashed.
You characters are infected with the weakest strain, so week it mutates at the drop of a hat. You start off as a basic Zomb with one mutation...awarness. as the game goes on you can mutate in any number of ways...get smarter, faster, sprout wings...etc.

Necrovore: this one is an older idea that was alot like rogue cells, in that you were a self aware smart zomb. however nature managed to even the score with the undead by turning you and the other players into zombie eaters! Your still undead so normal people will try to kill you.

Dead-end Streets: I was writing this in a note book while at school (I multi-task to focus better). It takes place in a Quatum epoc. (time/space and entropy seem to be drunk or high as they do not function well) the world is reduced to mostly smallish walled in viliges that barely can sustain them selfs. People are more xenophobic as travel is rarer....but not for you! character play the unsung heros of the times; nomads, merchent caravaners, neo-gypsies, and freaks that just love the open road tomuch. Think romaro meets caniball run......


so to stroke the ego a bit...any sound interesting to you all?

All three seem to be a decent starting place for a game.

Dead End Streets is probably the least intriguing of the lot since its kind of a default. In theory, most survivalist games (or D&D's "Points of Light" setting) turn into this sort of thing, with PCs as the ones outside. Not that you can't do a "Damnation Alley" style game, but there has to be a bit more metaplot.

Admittedly, D&B's Anarchy Zones are a bit like that as well - but I try to change it with a more long term focus. The idea is to look more at the rebuilding process, and how to make peace with all the city states, some of which didn't even originate on this planet.

Rouge Cells sounds neat, but I kind of wonder what a zombie player is supposed to do. Zombies don't tend to be motivated by greed or lust after all. It also may be rather difficult to survive, since people are recovering from an outbreak, so presumably those who are most vulnerable or unprepared have been culled by the prior events, leaving a bunch of expert survivalists as the main targets.

I like the Necrovore setting the most. It seems a bit like world or darkness/vampires in general, though there is no hiding your monstrous nature, and people are well aware that there are undead things out there. Unlike "Rouge Cells" you've got at least some goals set out for you and aren't required to play the most dangerous game to eat.

What kind of tone are you figuring for these settings? Is it supposed to be bleak and kind of hard to survive with all those dangerous "breathers" out there, or are we looking at more of necrotic superheros? Romero famously dismissed running zombies with a comment to the effect of "being dead is a handicap" - but playing crippled characters can be a bit of a turn off.

If you want, you can at least try to mock up some of these ideas in D&B. The gradual crippling of humans from the animus system means there is a reward for working in packs or making devious traps to slow target, rather than all or nothing assaults. Depending on survivability concerns, the player zombies could have animus of their own (thus multiple hit-points) or could still use a variation of the necro-point/necrotic threshold system, with the danger of the encounter determined by the number of dice they roll. (ie almost every enemy is ranked by their chance of an instant kill, rather than damage over time like most systems.)

Not that I need another distraction from judging myself, but I'll have to check out that MMO.

Necrovore is (of course) a rather grim game. first off who ever you once were, you are them no longer. The period of time you spent as a standered zombie compleatly removed who you once were. Trying to dredge up your past may not be a good idea, cause you may not even have anything in common with the origenal you. Added to this is fact that your still undead..too a point. You can't reproduce, but any wound you inflict on some one unarmed has a chance of turning them into a zombie. You don't heal, unless you eat living flesh (any animal will do, but it needs to be raw and off the still screaming beast). You continue to rot unless you eat other undead regularly. If you do so you can look like the living.

Added to all this, most of the good people in the world died. Whats left were servivalist milicas, religus end of timers, and a lot of other wack jobs. most existing towns are parinoid, deranged, or under attack by those who are. try being a repentive undead when there are "witch" hunts going around

the only thing is...as a Necrovore... you some how know things could be better if people would try and get along. You know cause as you regained self awareness it was one of the few things still in that rotting head of yours