Upcoming zombie game of mine

[bpmasher]

I'm probably running a one-shot for my returning non-gamers.

I'll steal the beginning of the Walking Dead video game and make it the starting point of something. Police escort etc. Some banter and other stuff possibly before the apocalypse starts for the player characters.

I have a system in place, but I might still use ATZ if prep time becomes an issue.

Any good ideas for a minis scenario that starts in the woods with a crashed police car and zombified policeman trying to eat the PCs?

 

Some stuff I thought about was getting out of the woods at first. Like having to sneak around not wanting to attract the zombie attention too much. Stealth rolls against the zombies nonexistent perception. I don't have to tell the players that.

Then coming into civilization, among suburbs, where everything is already at disaster levels. Empty houses to pillage, food, clothing etc.

The characters need motivations, why are they trying to stay alive. I could write these into premade characters so that the non-gamers won't have to do all the heavy lifting at start. Or choose a history for each of the premades before the start of the game.

They are probably both convicted of crimes, thus they could be proficient at some form of violence already. I should really make these characters special so the players will bond with them easily, and each other, maybe. They won't know each other, they were just being transported to the same place in the intro.

That's just off the top of my head. I will put some thought into this and probably post a play report here after we're done.

[CaptainCoulson]

Please do, I look forward to reading it. Couple of things, though. First, if these are "returning" nongamers, are you sure they still aren't gamers now? They have returned for another game. Maybe not typically gamers, or very avid gamers but you so seem to have made them gamers.

 

Wouldn't staying alive *be* the motivation? Like, it is nice to have other drives and thinking about what motivates each character *other* than survival is probably a good thing, but I feel like the main motivations for not wanting to die are fear of dying, which is painful, and fear of death, which is permanent (probably, but maybe not, cause zombies).

[Ninja-Bear]

Getting back to family is a good motivation.

[Scott Ruggels]

 Any family member works, especially if they are incapable, such as sickness, or a small child.  Someone owns a gun store. Someone is a Grocery Store Manager.  Someone has the key to the national guard armory Motor Pool.  Just think of things that will motivate players as you layer in the chaos.