Dead... and Back is a survival horror Role Playing Game. The Anarchy Zones is its official setting - aliens, reanimates, and the ruins of 2055 America.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Moods and Modes

One of the biggest changes still to be made in the rules, is the "Evolve" Chapter. Most of the other stuff is elements of technical editing, or deciding how many blog post stories to include to flesh out the settings. There are incomplete tables, but the basic rules are generally playable. (Some combat maneuvers need a bit more testing).

Partly, this is an unwillingness to throw much away.

I would like to think, however, that this is less my laziness, and more because zombies mean different things to different people.
  • For some, these creatures are emblematic of a pessimistic world view - the only thing that could unify humanity, is some existential threat like the undead, and there would still be some hold-outs. 
  • Conversely, its an optimistic thing - in the face of such an impossible supernatural event, people can find shelter, and fight back. 
  • Its an adventure! Most monsters over match people by far - that is part of  what defines them as such. Not much can be done about cthlulu, and a dragon is a tough fight, but hey, zombies you can deal with personally, which is a novel experience.
  • Zombies teach the lesson that the most important survival trait is not firearms training, but how to deal with A-holes, and work in a group.
  • Zombies are a chance to forget all those social mores about dealing with A-holes and shoot their shambling corpses instead.
  • The undead are a symbol of nature and man's inability to truely control the world
  • The undead are a symbol of man and its pervasive corruption of the world.
In short, its my rules for your horror game, not a script for one specific scenario. The Anarchy Zone setting is made to have more exploration and less hiding than a Romero or Russo styled movie. 2552 is about uncovering conspiracies, or unofficially working to make sure dead things stay buried.

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