How do I run a zombie apocalypse game yet keep it interesting?

>>51357938
By actually making it about the zombie apocalypse, rather than the bullshit "nature of man" psychological bullshit that everyone tries to do.

Keep a balance between good and bad.
Zombies are not the only thing out there. They're just the first change in the world. The second change happens and it makes the survivor's lives a bit easier. The third change makes things worse. The fourth makes things a bit better.
Give the players a mystery to follow, to make theories, to experiment.

Be a good GM.

>>51357953
This, honestly. You get a lot of zombie shit that just ends up using the zombies as a backdrop for the character drama of the humans (fucking hate The Walking Dead for this reason. THE HUMANS ARE THE REAL WALKING DEAD HURR DURR.)

Make them a threat as well. While the PCs DO stand a chance at fighting them off, there still needs to be an element that continually pushed at them. Hordes, runners, special mutations, something. When they encounter zombies and alert them, make it a big deal.

>>51357964
First change: upon death a human's body is filled with a tiny demonic spirit.
Second change: Survivors find that food and water are needed less and less as the weeks go by.
Third change: The demons start mutating the zombies into abominations that are incredibly dangerous and hard to kill. People are running out of ammo.
Fourth change: Survivors find that they're just a bit tougher and heal a bit faster. What would once cause a lethal wound only cuts shallow. What would once take weeks to recover from takes only days.
Fifth change: The land becomes tainted and things from the other side start crawling between worlds.

>>51357953
This is pretty stupid petty advice, it can't be helped that people inherently find compelling characters and interactions between them more interesting than being "about the zombie apocalypse," which I can only assume to mean some sort of left 4 dead bastardization where a bunch of randoms gun their way through hordes of pointless enemies.

Stories are inherently better and more engaging when they feature good characters, sorry hipsters.

>Be in a zombie apoc game
>One person is playing a little kid
>This kid screams constantly, and alerts the zeds on the regular
>This kid has gotten two people killed with his screaming in four sessions
>Everyone finds fault with me when I eventually shoot the kid in the back of the head
>abloobloobloo hes just playing his character
>Well so am I, faggot, and if you're getting people killed, then I'll kill you before you kill me
Fuck zombie games.

>>51358017
So basically hell broke into the real world and heaven is assisting as passively as possible?

>>51357938

In addition to what's already been said about making your zombie apocalypse actually about motherfucking zombies, there's some other things to consider. How "grounded" do you want it to be? Do you want just zombies and humans? Just classic shambling zombies or do you want just fast zombies? What about weird mutant zombies in the vein of Left 4 Dead? Can animals be zombies? On top of that, what about environmental stuff? Chemical spills, radiation hazards, sand and snow storms? What about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Metro style anomalies: things that are emerging as part of nature's new order in the wake of whatever disaster caused the zombie apocalypse in the first place? You can accomplish a lot by having the world itself be dangerous and inhospitable in addition to zombies and bandits and such.

>>51358050
The very fact that he decided to make a character that endangers everyone regularly and doesn't learn from their mistakes just propels them up the shit ladder. You did the right thing both IC and OoC.

>>51358050

What a fucking asshole. And the rest of the group are assholes for being upset with you for doing the logical thing. Seriously, though, if someone decides they want to come into a game with a character that offers nothing but attract danger and get other people killed, then they're a piece of shit who shouldn't be at the table. Two deaths in four sessions is a lot, but two deaths in four sessions caused by the same party member is way to fucking much.

>>51357938
Well, if the virus is an infection and the players can roll saves against it, don't tell them if they pass or not.
The paranoia that builds when they don't know if they're infected or not is hilarious.

>>51357938
Have the players be the zombies.

>>51357953
The best part of roleplay is the characters. Cutting off the major parts of human interaction and filling it with wierd mutation super zombies kind of takes the character out of it and down to pure murder hobo. Pretty sure you could have both the character drama mixed with cool zombies, if you take a Resident Evil style to it.

>>51357938

Zombieism is incurable, but as time goes on and there and fewer and fewer people around... the players start to notice some of the zombies acting strangely.

It turns out that what drives zombies to kill is an addictive, mind-numbing HUNGER that overwhelms all thought and reason. Other zombies don't smell like food, but humans do. This means you you might see weird sights like zombies feasting on other open food they can smell as well, though humans are still their preferred dish.

But as time goes on, the zombie horde gets too large. Humans get too rare. Food is scarce. The zombies end up going longer and longer periods of time between meals.

It turns out that, while the process takes months, if you make a zombie go cold turkey long enough the hunger starts to fade and they slowly get their mind back. A little at a time.

This gives you a dangerous middle ground where the zombies are still deadly cannibals, but smarter than the players are used to dealing with.

Beyond that, you get... 'friendly' zombies. Ones that have been cold turkey for long enough that they can talk and are repulsed by their own hunger and actions. You can almost treat them like people. But they are one moment of weakness, one meal, away from meat being back on the menu and going full mindless zombie again.

You might introduce what seems to be an enclave of humans that the players get in contact with over the radio, but upon arriving find out that its intelligent living dead. Was the radio thing all a ruse, and this is a trap to draw in food? Or do they honestly just want to rebuild the world, to try and move past this awful calamity that has happened to them?

Even if they want to, can they? Or is it a plan doomed to fail?

The Walking Dead did okay, they just used the same plot line over and over again until it got stale.
>Find shelter
>Meet new survivors
>Happy time
>Someone fucks shit up
>A lot of people die
>Zombies
>Repeat.
You need to break this cycle.

>>51358607

Yeah, its kind of lame when they get to a new place with people in it and your immediate reaction is 'so, I wonder if its psychos or cannibals this time.'

It would almost be better if Ricks group was always just constantly outrunning a massive horde or zombies slowly following them, coming across new settlements and either warning them and leaving or trying to mount another defense to stem the tide, which inevitably fails and forces them to leave again. But always the same massive horde pressing down on them, and their attempts to stop it and the people that get eaten along the way.

File: left-4-dead-2-ellis-nick.jpg (402KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

402KB, 1920x1080px

>>51357938
Run a game set in the Left 4 Dead universe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d0opAMt-oU
>Better safe than sorry
>Better safe than sorry
>Better safe than sorry

>>51358669
That sound far worse and boring than their current already garbage plot.

Add in new details over the course of a year in-game. Slowly transform the setting from normal to fantasy.

Would a centralised, well-equipped and -meaning group be "realistic"?
How would we deal with asymptomatic carriers?
Would it be disrespectful if someone made a zombie run on a treadmill, and let it try to reach the meat a metre or two before it?