Zombie Apocalypse- Intermission & Ideas for the future

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You're welcome, Stompie.

Zombies don't like or dislike radiation, but it does nothing to harm them while it sickens and kills living people, thus creating more zombies. Irradiated zombies may also be able to cause radiation poisoning in humans they attack.

Regarding the space story, As far as I know the Chinese space program doesn't have the capability to carry out a manned lunar mission. Only the U.S. and Russia probably have the means to pull it off, and even then the publicly known parts of our space programs lack this capability as well. Of course, the parts that are not publicly known could be a different matter. Perhaps the lunar mission is a joint Russian-Chinese effort, with the Russians supplying the spacecraft. This could also bring about distrust and suspicion between the Russians and the Chinese, as well as within each group.

Different chapters could certainly have different numbers of characters. I wouldn't remove any characters completely from the T-Bone story, but many of them could start in other locations and still have the possibility of reaching the T-Bone later if they survive. The missile base story would likely involve far fewer than 50 characters, as would the space story: space shuttles have a crew of seven, the ISS has only a handful of people aboard at any one time, and a lunar module wouldn't support more than a small number of people. The high school is big, though, and even with reduced attendance there would still be 35-45 people present plus a bunch of others in the neighborhood. I wouldn't want to move Earl to the high school (I have my own ideas for the drug dealers there anyway), though. There is a lot of possible interaction between him and Hammond, Rita, and Horst that we never got to see because most of them died early. Someone needs to be in charge of the garage anyway, so it might as well be Earl.
 
Mr. Handy said:
Regarding the space story, As far as I know the Chinese space program doesn't have the capability to carry out a manned lunar mission. Only the U.S. and Russia probably have the means to pull it off, and even then the publicly known parts of our space programs lack this capability as well. Of course, the parts that are not publicly known could be a different matter. Perhaps the lunar mission is a joint Russian-Chinese effort, with the Russians supplying the spacecraft. This could also bring about distrust and suspicion between the Russians and the Chinese, as well as within each group.
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That would work. My thoughts on that were that perhaps only the Chinese captain would know what the mission was about, or perhaps he's also rather clueless until he gets communication from above. I know the Chinese are thinking about a lunar mission, but that's many years off- like 2020. But that could be moved up and, as you mentioned, its not impossible that China and Russia are doing the mission jointly or even that the Russians have sold China technology.

Suffice it to say, things will begin to go wrong...

Different chapters could certainly have different numbers of characters. I wouldn't remove any characters completely from the T-Bone story, but many of them could start in other locations and still have the possibility of reaching the T-Bone later if they survive. The missile base story would likely involve far fewer than 50 characters, as would the space story: space shuttles have a crew of seven, the ISS has only a handful of people aboard at any one time, and a lunar module wouldn't support more than a small number of people. The high school is big, though, and even with reduced attendance there would still be 35-45 people present plus a bunch of others in the neighborhood. I wouldn't want to move Earl to the high school (I have my own ideas for the drug dealers there anyway), though. There is a lot of possible interaction between him and Hammond, Rita, and Horst that we never got to see because most of them died early. Someone needs to be in charge of the garage anyway, so it might as well be Earl.
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Yes, I think the campsite and the space mission would involve only a few characters- probably 3 on the lunar operation, three in the space station, and seven on the shuttle. Of course we could remove one of these three pieces violently.

I am also thinking we might want to consolidate some of these stories- the convenience store and the high school could work together, or so could the convenience store and the campsite- if the convenience store is off the beaten path.

Well there's a lot to consider.
 
ya know the high school I went to had a gas station right across the street. If ya copied that then we could have a story with a store and a school and have us each get one or at the most two characters from each
 
I had planned all along to have a place of business within a block of the school; I was thinking about a gas station and/or a convenience store. Most of the characters would be at the school, but there would still be 5-10 at the other location, plus a few in the park that surrounds them both. Players could take two characters from the school (one student and one faculty/staff) and one from outside.

The only problem with combining the convenience store storyline with the school is that the convenience store starts around 2:00 AM (or 3:00 AM if in Omaha), while the school would start at 7:30 AM. We could always decide to start the convenience store at the same time as the school, though. I'm leaning towards having the business near the school be a gas station, though combining the convenience store and the campsite is a good idea. There's still a gap of a few hours between the campsite's start and that of the convenience store, but that could be adjusted as well or the campsite survivors could later go to the convenience store, which would be in the nearest town.
 
The key to this is not so much the parts but how the parts fit together. Ideally the story should have some coherence so that players have something to do, besides just survive. There should be some element of goal or aim that motivates players forward. The trick will be working that goal so that all parts fit together.

That will require a bit of planning.
I can actually fit the high school to the space mission. Not sure how to fit the high school to the T-Bone. Campsite is near the T-Bone, Convenience store is.... option. Military mission is also close to the T-Bone.

I can see the connections on some but not others- but again this is something that requires some plotting.
 
I thought of one too, which I think I mentioned before. The drug dealers there could be linked to Hammond and Earl (who are their suppliers). If the high school is in Omaha, the survivors could try to reach the Crisis Response Center in the secured portion of the city. The helicopter group is also trying to get there, and if both groups make it then they can link up.
 
Would anyone be interested in playing astronauts? We got Americans, Europeans and Russian/Chinese crews in mind. Fix a telescope, research on a space station or visit the moon?
 
I'd be interested in playing astronauts in the space storyline, of course.

After some discussion with Welsh, we may set the convenience store storyline in Cheyenne and combine it with the escape from Cheyenne. The convenience store would probably begin at around 2:00 AM, and the helicopter group would be involved around 3:00 AM - their chopper is due to take off at 4:00 AM.
 
Hold on there Handy! We still need a lot of planning of plot to figure out how this all holds together. Suffice it to say that we have a couple of plots happening in Cheyenne, a few plots happening in Omaha, a few plots happening between both. And one story with three plots in space.

So we got lots of plots to sort through. This promises to be a big campaign.

To answer Steve's question-

We are going to move the plot back a bit to introduce the story before the meteorites fall but as things begin to happen. From this story you know that the meteorites are what brings the mosquitos from hell, one means by which zombification spreads to the rest of society.

Our back stories will help explain what is going on, why this is happening and what can be done to stop it. Zombies are a part of that story, but just part of it. One could say there are bigger fish to fry.

At present our plot involves basically three elements-

(1) One group is trying to get from Cheyenne to Omaha with information that could stop the zombie infestation.

(2) Another group is trying to avert thermo-nuclear war among the nuclearn powers as the governments of the world begin to collapse while trying to figure a way to stop the horror from spreading.

(3) Our people are trying to survive against the hordes of the undead.

The back story will be primarily about those people who figure out something is about to happen, but are not quite sure what. We know that Haussman and Stephanie have been researching this problem, and that there is a CRC in Omaha. There are other plot elements that relate to the zombie attack that have yet to be fully explored.

We have also reason to know that there is more to the T-Bone and the Motel than meets the eye. There is that rather strange complex underground that has been barely explored. One such event might be a coincidence, but having two rather odd facilities in the same general area....

And we also know that there is more to the zombies than just cannibalism, and there are more aliens at work here.

The Space and Cheyenne stories will begin before the meteorites fall. They will probably involve what the Helicopter group learns before the helicopter departs and some notion of the nature of the emergency. This will also introduce us to Tisha and Willie and the guys at the convenience store who become involved in some rather odd goings on even before the meteorites fall. Some of this will also occur in space as bad things begin to happen.

The campsite, T-Bone and the military base will involve further discoveries as they come to the surface. These stories will begin shortly before the meteorites fall, or in the T-Bone story a few hours after, and deal with the consequences- each offering up some clues about the big picture.

The Omaha story lines will probably be more on an Alamo story- people trying to hold out as long as possible to try to reverse the effects of zombie attack. It is quite possible that the Alamo will be overrun before the helicopter group arrives.

The trick will be how all this fits together. The stories currently fit in three ways- either individuals will have some relationship to each other, or there will be proximity relatioship, or there will be some technological tie in. What we need to do is pull the plots together. Of course the problem there is that we can't give up too much plot as that's part of the fun.

For example the helicopter group is tied to the CRC in Cheyenne, and the CRC may be within close proximity or have ties to the high school. The CRC is tied to Mr. Foo through the comm system, which also ties Mr. Foo to Warren. Tisha had strong personal ties to Warren while the T-Bone and the PMS compoud were tied together both by proximity or by personal relationship. While most of the ties you have seen thus far have been either through personal, technological or geographic relationships- the plot of the story is still rather unknown. In the campaign, the ties should become clearer.

Giving out mroe details might ruin the surprises later.
 
I know there's a lot of planning to do. I did say "may." The space, campsite, and missile base stories would probably be the first to begin, so we'd need to plan those thoroughly first. Cheyenne would likely be the next to start, with Omaha later and then the T-Bone. Other storylines could be added in between as needed, but it's better to consolidate these stories some and have multiple things taking place in the same location when possible. Most of all, we also need to plan out how all of the stories work together and what the big picture looks like, which Welsh and I have been doing.

The way we're thinking of working it is that we'd start one story first, then after some time went by we'd start another one, and so on. Each story would have multiple plotlines going on at the same time. Some of the earlier storylines could end (if everyone gets killed) or merge with other stories (characters who survive Cheyenne could show up later at the T-Bone, for example). There would be some overlap in terms of timing, so the space story (with three subplots), which is likely to be the first to start, would still be in progress when we begin the campsite story. Different stories could be run by different Keepers. I don't expect this to be ready until February at the earliest.
 
So first of all we are now not going to start until February?

And then when we do we will redo the T-bone one more time?

And we will also have:
a millitary base
Omaha
campsite
space station
space shuttle
confinence store
high school
and a road trip from Chyene to Omaha?
 
Chapter 2 will begin here in early January, but the expanded version of the game on play@yog-sothoth will most likely not start until February. as there is a lot of planning and recruiting of players left to do. Even when that starts, I intend to keep running this version of the game here at the same time, though events will certainly unfold differently in the new version. The T-Bone will be one of the last stories to start in the new game, and while some of the characters will be introduced in the earlier stories, many of them won't be seen until the new version of the T-Bone begins. That could be several months or even a year. Our T-Bone characters in this version of the game can still continue their story in the meantime, as I have no intention of abandoning this version of the game. We'll end up with two completely different tales, but with many of the same characters and the same overarching plot.

The plotlines you listed are some of the ones we have planned. I'm thinking of having two convenience stores, one in Cheyenne and another in Omaha near the school. The one in Cheyenne may be primarily a gas station which has a convenience store attached to it, but the one in Omaha could have a larger store that also happens to have gas pumps. All of this is still up in the air and subject to change at this point. Some of them will probably be combined. For instance, I'm leaning towards having the high school in Omaha.

There is also a third space mission (the lunar one). The trip from Cheyenne could be played out too once the characters make it out. The helicopter trip will be faster and less eventful, except where it breaks down and has to land at the T-Bone. The people who get out on the ground would also eventually reach the T-Bone on their way east and would join that storyline. If anyone tries to go further east that could be played out as well, but getting past Sidney would be rather difficult. If you read the early part of Chapter 1, you saw what happened in the original version of the story when Tisha, Willie, and Thomas went east on I-80 and were forced to turn back and rejoin the T-Bone survivors (frankly, Tisha and Willie were lucky to survive that encounter).

As the story progresses, it could expand into areas we haven't listed here, depending on where the survivors go and what they do. Various characters have families that live elsewhere that they might try to get in touch with or potential safe havens they might want to reach.
 
Yep and then some.

Chapter 2 is well along the way. We'll probably start there here after the holidays are over and keep it humming along. In fact, I think you probably have enough to start but with the holidays coming, we could use the time for a bit of planning and to rest up. These games take a lot of work!

The Air Force helicopters will leave through, probably thinning out some of the zombies coming from the West while the ground unit takes position and carries out its operation.

The T-Bone survivors have plenty to do in order to either dig in, rebuild or plan a departure. There is the entire complex below yet to be discovered. You've already found clothing, guns, a zombie and a surivor down there, and you have yet to fully explore the detention center.

I think we can afford you sense of calm before the next storm. But not much and don't develop a false sesne of security. Paranoia is the nature of this game.

As for the campaign game at yog-sothoth.com and the timing of the T-Bone, I think the best way to do the campaign is to plot this out, hour by hour, speeding up some of the earlier episodes.

For example-

we could start the game with the helicopter group being called to look into a disturbing murder while Haussman and Stephanie are collecting samples. What they discover might help them start putting the pieces together early.

Then we open up the space space story with various things happening in space.

Then at the campsite a few of the campers talk about their plans to visit a legendary haunt.

Meanwhile in Omaha a murder occurs in the inner city.

A strange shows up at a convenience store in Cheyenne

The helicopter group returns to Cheyenne to study their findings in a lab... making some more discoveries.. But something in the lab is trying to stop them.

The police and then others show up in the convenience store.

Criminals consider how to hide a body in Omaha.

In space strange discoveries are made at the ISS as the Russians slip behind the dark side of the moon. The Shuttle astronauts discover a secret.

The campsite people arrive in the thick of the night.

Meteorites begin to fall all over the earth....

Those stories would progress through the night. The thing is that the stories would be staggered and event happening in one place would correspond with events happening somewhere else. The first zombies will show up in Omaha, Cheyenne and Syndey at about the same time- give or take an hour.

Like this, the T-Bone would not start until fairly late- probably when the dinner first opens up unless we plan for something to happen that evening- but that would strickly be character development. Most of the guests arrive over the evening. Eat at the diner and crash at the Motel.

The High school would probably start up at around the same hour- give or take an hour.

So we would begin the story early but move through the hours more quickly and develop new ways to sustain tension and pace.

Or actually we could tie the T-Bone to the campsite story pretty early on, but in a peripheral way. My thoughts are that the T-Bone would play a form of "refuge" for the campsite folks after things start getting bad- the place they are to run too.

Thing is, I don't want to give up too much. The more I give up here the more it could spoil the story and furthermore, we have a lot of plotting still to do. Handy and I have been talking about this for a little more than a week or two, so we're still hashing out the ideas.

We've got some idea of place, some notion of characters and plot, a good sense of tone, some notion of "mythology" and some of the nasty creatures you will probably meet up with. But it is still imagined and not created. Right now its a work in progress. Logistically I see lots of challenges.

And your ideas are helpful.
 
Mr. Handy said:
As the story progresses, it could expand into areas we haven't listed here, depending on where the survivors go and what they do. Various characters have families that live elsewhere that they might try to get in touch with or potential safe havens they might want to reach.
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This is especially difficult. Much of Zombie Apocalpyse involves players being challenged with doing lots of things with very little time. But the game is also open-ended. These are your characters and you can do with them as you wish. So its quite possible that you guys decide, "Fuck this, let's go into the hills and find a refuge." In which case our story would take a dramatic turn in another direction.

As Keepers we can only really give you some directions you could take and some motives that might compell you to act, but this is yoru game in the end. You decide what you want your characters to do.
 
So for instance the story will start here after the holiday with the characters for me of Alice, Jim, McCain, and the other guy I have. Then in Feb a whole new story will start over at the other board and eventurally we will move over there or will we keep developing this story here and only here while having a new T-bone there? I guess I have to have faith and pastiance for you to work it out and make it simple for me to follow with the 40 or so characters I will have by the time all the stories are going at once.
 
In early January we will continue the story here into Chapter 2, and you will continue with Jim Kerr, Alice, Airman Lewis, and Sergeant McCain if you still want him. After that, around February, a new story should start over on the other board. I still want to continue this story here at the same time as long as the players are willing to keep going.

I think the high school would start a couple of hours before the T-Bone. If it's set in Omaha, there's an hour time difference. I was planning to have it start around 7:30 AM, which means it would be 6:30 AM in Wyoming and western Nebraska. The T-Bone started at 8:50 AM in this story, but it's possible that one could start earlier next time.

You won't have 40 or so characters. Only with the larger stories (such as the T-Bone and the high school) would you have three characters. With the smaller ones (like the space story) you'd probably only have one, and you wouldn't have to play in every story, just the ones that you want to play in. A lot of characters will die during the stories as well. You'd also get dibs on the characters you've played here when they're introduced on the other board. Jim Kerr would start in Cheyenne, so you could get him earlier than most of the other characters. Alice could also start at another location and make her way to the T-Bone. Some of the new characters from Warren AFB could start out in the missile base story. Buddy will be back, but you'd have to wait until the T-Bone restarted to play him again. Hopefully the earlier chapters will move faster and we can get the later ones into play without too much delay.
 
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