Horror Gaming - RPG, Miniature, & More

[Killed by Death]

I've been wandering around restlesly thinking about what skirmish game to use for my latest addiction - cops and robbers. And I'm still also trying to find that zombie game.

But actually I've yet to come up with a solution as I find a lot of games interesting but severely few to be good...

Here's my current "list" of tried skirmish games:

Combat Zone: I've only tried it once and I'll admit straight away that it didn't strike me as anything special. Plain as is..

Urban War: Funny activation concept.. blended with impossible imbalance in the stat/pts departement. Follows in line with GW in the to hit, to wound, save thing... as far as I remember! In fact it didn't really strike me as a skirmish game as the models weren't able to do much.. more like just playing 40k with single figures!

Necromunda/Mordheim: I'm not gonna use a lot of energi on this... I'm simply not cut out for GW-approach. Too simple, too limited and ooooold! IGO-UGO is sooo last millenium! The hiding/overwatch thing is funny, but totally takes over when the gangs have reached their peak. The experience system is funny too, but not diffenrentiating between "shooting xp" and "comba xp" makes for strange situations (markmens doing nothing but shooting and advancing only in handweapon skill and fighting stuff).

All Things Zombie: I think the REP system is either love or hate... I love the idea but I often wind up disliking the games where it's used. It feels like all the effort was put into making everything work around just one stat. Which means a lot of compromises and a LOT of tables!
As a zombie game I think it suffers a lot too.. I mean - the strenght of the game is "player vs. player" or "solo play". The "players vs. gm'ed zombies" isn't good. If you play strictly by the book it's way too easy to finish off the zombies and not really an harassment. Use handweapons instead of guns and the zombies will be gone in no time.
What I do like is the "zombies appear on 5+ for every shot you've taken"-rule. It's easily implemented in a better skirmish game system though.

Gangs of Mega City 1: I actually found this system quite fresh. It's rather simple but has some nice ideas about moving and overwatch. In fact - everybody's on overwatch pr. automatic. I haven't fully finished trying it though - need a bit more games to say if it's worth in the long run. I find that often a system can be really good the first time you try it out.. and then after two or three times a lot of strange mishaps become apparent. I think this would be my current pick for Cops and Robbers.

.45/Gloire/Rattrap stuff: This is something different. You only use a 2x2 playing surface (or less!). The game is set in "scenes" (e.g. the parking lot, the bank, the house etc.). Novel concept. So far. It's very characterdriven and has grunts and characters basicly. BUt the combat side of things can really drag on! Oh boy. We had a game take 4 hours... with only 10 figures in total. I really like the way stuff takes hit in the game. You lose stats as you take the hits in different places. Cool idea.

Roadkill (from Westwind): I don't think this game has seen a lot of tabletime around the world.. mainly as it's almost entirely hidden and no one tells about it. Might not be such a big loss though. The basic system is ok I think - you have stats (taaa..), and each stats is the amount of dice you have to test with the stat. You need to collect "goals" (like succeses in vampire the masqurade rpg) and the difficulity differs from thing to thing. When you shoot other people the rolls are opposed.. you rolls your dice and collect 4+'s and he rolls his and collects his 4´+s. Greater wins.
The rulebook didn't seem to be finished. Or at least it seemed quite hurried! I believe the SuperSystem rules are acutally the same. So Roadkill is probably copy/paste from that game - a genre game to cater for a couple of funny scultps. Not a major thing.

Warmachine: Not strictly a skirmish game.. but I think you easily could make a decent urban combat game with the mechanics. Imagine having a generic horror game where leaders have a "horror stat" that fuels dark magic. Haha. I think the major force of WM is the competative abilities the game has. And it's not bucket loads of dice but 2d6+stat vs. stat. That's nice and has a certain ring to it. Would be a load of work to figure out a horror game for it though.

Spinespur: I have just started this game, and of course I find it to be all the rage! It could easily be converted into other genres (mythos, gothic horror and so on). It's very skirmish though. You needen't have a lot of models... and that makes it less of a zombiegame-prospect.


Ok so now what?.. Well - those were the skirmishtype things I've played. I would really like to hear your take on the genre. I have a lot of ideas on how I would like a zombie game to work - and perhaps no game on the world save the one I'll write myself can ever merit those ideas. But I would like to hear of other peoples thoughts.

So what do I think the perfect skirmish/horror/zombiegame is?:

Well for zombies: I want players to battle the ZOMBIES.. not each other. I want lots of crawling, running, yelling and screaming. Not the SWAT-team going wild approach. Normal civil guys needing to improvise weapons, find weapons, escape zombies and so on. An XP system would be nice too. I imagine lots of zombies... and very few survivors. Not the 5 zombies 2 survivors thing.
I wouldn't mind if the game was a bit "gamey" too. Tactics, ways to be smart and so. The "eveything succeeds on 4+" approach of some simple games is not funny in the long run.

Horror: Hmm.. bugger - that's harder to describe. I think the "happening upon events" thing should be part of it. Look at my vampire scenario. In a way the Rattrap approach is probably good here. With slightly altered combat rules. Again the game should be a bit gamey. Perhaps something about finding clues and figurering out what's hunting you.


Ok enough of these ramblings! I hope somebody out there has some input on the "what's a cool game" topic.
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If the word of the day is "death", then spread the word.

[SofaKingComfy]

Hello,

Interesting topic, got me to stop lurking and actually get involved.


I'm from Comfy Chair Games (I figured that should be clarified first so my point/direction may make more sense.) I like a good zombie game, but there appear to be so many out there we figured making a "Zombie game" would be just adding to the pile.

However we are fans of a good Zombie flick (and even some bad ones.) In our second book thats in the works right now, we have no less than 3 walking dead types that will be introduced along with a Zombie master of sorts so an entire force can be made of Zombie types. This won't make the game a Zombie game like I'm sure some are looking for, but it will at least give you more Zombies to fint that perfect game with.

We do intend on streching our wings a bit using the same basic game mechanics so you don't need to learn a whole new way to play new games of ours.

Sorry if this sounded like an advertisment, it didn't start off as the intention.

[Darkoath13]

So does this mean there will eventually be more zombie miniatures from Comfy Chair? I have the Torn miniatures and really like them...

Darkoath

[Lowtardog]

I think for me although I have a lot of those mentioned above Dead Walk again does it for me, and with it being free you can try it out and download form the yahoo group.

The orignial was a beer and pretzels game (think thats what Yanks call it) but has been developed since taking ideas form Combat zone (mechanisms) and also character development form ATZ.
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\"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him. \" by Johnny Cash \"When the Man comes around\"