So I want to run a zombie apocalypse game, using the world of

Portray the NPCs like people instead of redshirts. Make them competent and capable at what they do.

Making one of them look like Taylor Swift is a good start. Seriously, if they can waifu it they'll care about it, and they only need to start with one, then she can care about the rest.

Something I attempted was separating NPCS into two groups "Survivors" had their own character sheets and had a unique flair.

"Citizens" were run of the mill people who may have been laborers or other simple jobs and they would reduce build/healing/etc rates at the fortress.

Losing citizenry hurt players by losing game mechanics but losing a survivor that the group liked was always a good moment.

>>43601101
Then I'll be accused of inserting my own fetishes into my DMing haha.

>>43601085
I came up with entire back stories for 5 different npc survivors and tried to make them normal people. Problem I am having is that all my players make combat super saiyens and band together. The idea I had was to keep them all separated at first and not let them tell each other who their characters are until they have made friends with npcs by accident.

>>43601056
Have them as a non-renewable resource. Subtly increase the difficulty of encounters the more survivors who are dead. That way the combat gets way harder and they should think "damn, if only we had a few more guys to help us through this". Also make the NPC's likable and believable.

>>43601203
I like this idea, maybe I'll try and do something like this.

Give each individual something to make the PCs care about them. That could be an interesting personality, a unique mechanic/skill, or something else.

>>43601335
Have you tried not playing with D&D That Guys?

>>43601056
Award xp for helping & saving NPCs.

Award xp that can only be distributed to a player's own band of NPCs. Building up their own teams of NPCs might be fun.

Are you going to put traitors and psychopaths in the pool too?

Go full RTS and have the npcs be the sole factor to gathering resources. The PCs cannot do everything for everyone, and they cannot survive just amongst themselves. They need the npcs to gather, build, and generally be a society. Make the players act as supervisors in addition to working down in the trenches.

>>43601056
It's WOD. Beat them over the head with sanity/morality mechanics until they get the idea they are ruining their character by acting like a lunatic and creeping towards a moral or psychological nadir they may well not return from.

Characters like that also have trouble getting goods and services and will be treated like the monsters they are becoming by said people. If they don't quit it, have them get lynched by the "little people" or rode out of town on a rail. They have been asked to leave in a very emphatic way, and being outside, with the Zombies, is bad.

>>43601056

I think there's two kinds of zombie genres that need tow kinds of games.

There's 28 Days Later, where you're just a guy or a small group who is trying not to die like a bitch. Pretty much every Zombie game is designed for this.

And then there's that long-term survive the apocalypse thing that everyone seems to like in theory, but nobody makes any mechanics for. I almost feel like this kind of game would be best served without "PCs", but with the players mostly managing a community of some kind. Like The Sims, but with zombies. Players would make decisions for the group, be in charge of different aspects of it, and try to endure (or rebuild) in a world that's hostile as fuck.

Are there systems that do something like this?

>>43603588
All Flesh Must Be Eaten for the first, Kingdom for the second.

I didn't enjoy the AFMBE system too much, but that may have been more the fact that I was with a bad group the one time i played it, and kingdom is more abstract than you may enjoy but it's a game all about managing a community rather than a single character.

>>43603687

Yeah, I think AFMBE is kind of the flagship zombie game. It does what it does well, I think, although I don't have much to compare it too considering I've only ran one zombie game and AFMBE was the system.

I'm not familiar with Kingdom though, I'll check it out. One of those funky GMless systems, could be fun. Thanks, Anon.

>>43601056
Give extra XP for civilization/society building and for helping people.

>>43601056
>I want to run a zombie apocalypse game
Why?

>>43601056
>How do I stop them from banding together and treating the npcs like redshirts instead of people?
Make them scarce and give them useful skills the players don't have.

>>43601056
Sending someone off to die instead of you should be a Breaking Point for all but the worst people. Treating people as redshirts would risk Integrity, so you might want to avoid it, purely from a self-interest point of view.

>>43601335
NPCs don't necessarily need complete backstories at the beginning. Having a rough idea and a few pointers is more than enough.
What makes a NPC likable is how you portray him ingame.
I your group is incapable to sympathize with a capable and sympathic NPC portrayed in a favourable light, then this game is probably not for them and no matter how much you try to force it, it won't work.

good lord i didnt fully read your post op but read
>zombie apocalypse
and saw the
>taylor swift pic

in an instant my head formed the idea of a country girl group (Shania Twain, Taylor Swift, Dixie Chicks and maybe Sheryl Crow)surviving a zombie apocalypse saving their groupies with music

thanks for a setting bruh

>>43604419
For fun, dumbass

>>43601291
A Taylor Swift fetish...isn't. It's about as vanilla as you get.

>>43604945
It was good until you included the others. Taytay 4 lyfe

>>43604747
>using GMC rules
>ever
top kek m8

Agree with what you're saying though, but fuck that "update"

>>43601056
Have them offer useful skills that the players need but lack.
If the players min/maxed for combat that makes it even easier.

They need food and water. This one guy is great at finding both and sneaky enough to go out alone occasionally. He's kind of a loner and pretty gruff and snarky. Gaining his trust will take a while.

This mechanic chick is good at tinkering up useful tools and maintaining weapons. She always needs supplies though since she's physically weak and afraid to go explore by herself. It's going to take some persuation to make her feel safe enough to stop worrying and start working.

This kid has survived by herself for quite some time. She knows her way through the city and knows which routes are the safest. The kid is lonely and craves affection. It's going to take some care to make her feel comfortable with you.

Start with their physical description and how they sound like. Try to add to that every time they interact with the npc. Two or three lines are fine at the start but the more the players interact the more you can fluff the npc and over time it will grow.

If the players aren't invested in the npcs enough, kill a vital one off. If they feel the impact of having lost a useful or even vital asset it might wake them up. Suddenly the food supplies run out (lower their health or stamina or something), their weapons start getting worn (this sweet assault rifle they found starts jamming quite a lot) and so on. Give them the feeling that they need all the help they can get.

>>43605087
Substitute humanity and sins then. Honestly, I don't play WoD stuff, so I was just going with the most recent rules I could find.

>>43605087
What's wrong with it? My main issue with it is that it made defence too good, which in turn makes melee kind of shit, but that one's easy to fix at least. Beyond that i thought it was a considerable improvement over the prior ruleset, so i'm wondering what you hated about it.

>>43601056
I've done something with Savage Worlds before that could work. I had a list of 20 or so extras that comprised all the survivors, and each of the players picked one of them to "upgrade" to a Wildcard. If any character died (and, being a zombie apocalypse, that happened often), their next character came from the remaining extras. So they had a definite incentive to keep their NPC's alive: they were also their "extra lives". It also gave them an incentive to go out and rescue more survivors, so they'd have more "extra lives" in the future.

I never took it to the point of rebuilding, but something similar could work for that. Just say that the NPC's are their backup characters, and you can bet they'll try to keep them alive.

>>43605028
But anon, that poster doesn't think it's fun. Why would you do something that poster doesn't like?

>>43601056
I ignored the thread because you can't.

If you have players that are interested in world building and caring about society, you'd have seen them demonstrate these traits in other games. I play with "muh politik" fags like that sometimes and even in a dungeon crawl shoot n' loot 2E AD&D game, they will drop everything to start learning about what grains the peasants like to eat and start fucking with the economy.

Likewise, I also play with beer and pretzel murderhobos, and they'll turn fucking anything into a "gibs me dat" kill spree. Even Nobilis.

So, just take a good look at your players and realize that you may be wasting hours of planning in trying to force an animal into acting contrary to its nature.

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>>43605434
>I ignored the thread because you can't.

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93KB, 500x672px

>>43601101
>if they can waifu it they'll care about it, and they only need to start with one, then she can care about the rest.

This anon knows how to herd players. Works every time.

>>43601291

"Being into a conventionally attractive blonde celebrity" isn't really a fetish, it's more of a normative state.

>>43601056
>Use a better system
>Name everyone
>Give needs and wants to everyone
>Make triangle relationships (Two PCs, one NPC)
>Look at everyone through a crosshair

Make your players play characters based off of themselves with one or two differences in terms of skills - if it's not realistically a portrayal of themselves or their abilities or something feasibly themselves you make it so. NPC's get similar treatment. I don't know the world of darkness setting/rules but if it's just a general system and no real setting, then pick somewhere random using google maps as the start point and go from there.

I've experienced a similar campaign, and it was marvelous.

>>43606061

>play as yourself

No thanks, I hate that guy.

>>43601335
>Making combat-oriented characters
>World of Darkness

Then don't throw combat at them. Put them in situations where their uber combat skills are fucking useless. You know, like the majority of the time in any apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic setting.

>>43603588
sounds a bit like dead state

Wow thread still here! I been at work for 12 hours and haven't had time to check it.