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Okay - I don't own the book, but I always wanted to know the following:

How did Z Day Happen, is it a Biological weapon gone afoul? Or something more dastardly...

How is the Z Virus transmitted - Saliva?

Has the Zombification transferred species? Meaning can a dog, cat, bird, or other animal be infected? And if this happens, can it then transfer back to humans?

Citizen Lazlo wrote:

Tiree wrote:Okay - I don't own the book, but I always wanted to know the following:

How did Z Day Happen, is it a Biological weapon gone afoul? Or something more dastardly...

Kevin decided nobody needed an answer to that.

How is the Z Virus transmitted - Saliva?

fluid to fluid contact

Has the Zombification transferred species? Meaning can a dog, cat, bird, or other animal be infected? And if this happens, can it then transfer back to humans?

No, humans only

Thanks!

Fluid to Fluid contact, now that could be interesting. I can see a whole community where touching and showing affection would be frowned upon. Women who want children, would need to go through special screening, and of course impregnation would also be odd to say the least.

But I just can't see it leading to quick spread of Zombies via Fluid Transfer... Maybe a dispersal system was used. Of course that goes into the realm of Kev didn't think people needed to know that...

Oh well.

Citizen Lazlo wrote:

Tiree wrote:Okay - I don't own the book, but I always wanted to know the following:

How did Z Day Happen, is it a Biological weapon gone afoul? Or something more dastardly...

Kevin decided nobody needed an answer to that.

He decided nobody needed to know WHY it all happened ? What a copout

Has the Zombification transferred species? Meaning can a dog, cat, bird, or other animal be infected? And if this happens, can it then transfer back to humans?

No, humans only

That makes no sense, if it's fluid to fluid contact, well animals have fluids too, If a zombie bit a dog or vice versa, their blood should be just as tainted as a humans.

I know this will probably get some people pissed, but it seems like lately Palladium is getting a little lazy with their books. I know everyone will jump on my back and say if you don't like Palladium then don't play. But what these fans don't see is that IS the problem. I love Palladium and it IS possible to love the game AND have views different then the main stream view (that view being EVERY single thing that Palladium puts out is gold) from the shounds of it the "original" manuscript for this new game was better.
Just my two cents.

Razzinold wrote:

Citizen Lazlo wrote:

Tiree wrote:Okay - I don't own the book, but I always wanted to know the following:

How did Z Day Happen, is it a Biological weapon gone afoul? Or something more dastardly...

Kevin decided nobody needed an answer to that.

He decided nobody needed to know WHY it all happened ? What a copout

Has the Zombification transferred species? Meaning can a dog, cat, bird, or other animal be infected? And if this happens, can it then transfer back to humans?

No, humans only

That makes no sense, if it's fluid to fluid contact, well animals have fluids too, If a zombie bit a dog or vice versa, their blood should be just as tainted as a humans.

I know this will probably get some people pissed, but it seems like lately Palladium is getting a little lazy with their books. I know everyone will jump on my back and say if you don't like Palladium then don't play. But what these fans don't see is that IS the problem. I love Palladium and it IS possible to love the game AND have views different then the main stream view (that view being EVERY single thing that Palladium puts out is gold) from the shounds of it the "original" manuscript for this new game was better.
Just my two cents.

EDIT: Post Edited - NMI

It makes total sense. In the real world there are plenty of diseases that affect some species and not others (bird flu comes to mind - it affects birds, but not humans..yet). If you decide that zombies were created by a virus or something similar, it affects only humans. Perhaps later it might mutate to affect dogs as well, etc.. If it were something supernatural, well, then having it affect only humans is even easier to justify.

In the game, a person can become a zombie by 1 of two ways. First off, if a zombie kills a person, then they become a zombie. It doesn't matter how the zombie kills someone - as upon death the zombie still will absorb the PPE. Second, if someone is bitten and it gets infected enough to either cause them to become a half zombie or have them die from infection - they will become a zombie as well.

While currently only humans can become zombies - I would bet that in the future sourcebooks there will be the option to include zombies of different species. The main book gave me the impression that Kevin wanted the game to be a very classical zombie game. Zombie animals (Resident Evil excluded), demons, magic, the supernatural, etc. are not things you typically see in zombie movies regardless of how much you like or dislike them. Now, putting these ideas into sourcebooks - I believe that is where they belong and could make things quite interesting for people who wanted to deviate a bit from the classic genre.

Eric

Razzinold wrote:

Citizen Lazlo wrote:

Tiree wrote:How did Z Day Happen, is it a Biological weapon gone afoul? Or something more dastardly...

Kevin decided nobody needed an answer to that.

He decided nobody needed to know WHY it all happened ? What a copout

That is not what the book really says.

Kevin left it up to the reader on purpose, as the cause of the zombies varies from movie to movie. What he did do, was list 5 rumors that are commonly believed to have caused the apocalypse (curse from god, plague, etc). I think this fits quite well. For starters - who cares why it started - you have zombies destroying the world and trying to claw your face off - worry about that first!!!! In addition, I think a zombie campaign fits the tone of genre better if the players had no idea how it all happened - if there is nothing specific in the book, then it is all up to the dastardly mind of the GM

The book is specific enough to function as a complete game, but open enough in just the right areas to allow people to tweak to their idea of what a zombie apocalypse should be.

Eric

Citizen Lazlo wrote:

erc1971 wrote:

Razzinold wrote:

Citizen Lazlo wrote:

Tiree wrote:How did Z Day Happen, is it a Biological weapon gone afoul? Or something more dastardly...

Kevin decided nobody needed an answer to that.

He decided nobody needed to know WHY it all happened ? What a copout

That is not what the book really says.

Kevin left it up to the reader on purpose, as the cause of the zombies varies from movie to movie. What he did do, was list 5 rumors that are commonly believed to have caused the apocalypse (curse from god, plague, etc). I think this fits quite well. For starters - who cares why it started - you have zombies destroying the world and trying to claw your face off - worry about that first!!!! In addition, I think a zombie campaign fits the tone of genre better if the players had no idea how it all happened - if there is nothing specific in the book, then it is all up to the dastardly mind of the GM

The book is specific enough to function as a complete game, but open enough in just the right areas to allow people to tweak to their idea of what a zombie apocalypse should be.

Eric

I'm not gonna argue whether it was a good idea or not, but leaving the cause ambiguous is the same as not giving an answer.

I disagree.

Tiree wrote:Okay - I don't own the book, but I always wanted to know the following:

How did Z Day Happen, is it a Biological weapon gone afoul? Or something more dastardly...

Part Viral, part Supernatural.

In the OFFICIAL Book (there is a discarded PlotLine in one of the latest Rifters), there was a super-vaccine that was distributed worldwide, and used by a sizable portion of the entire human race.

Sometime almost immediately after that, The Wave struck, but "you" don't know exactly what it was, and neither does Brad Ashley -part of the atmosphere of this setting appears to be to DELIBERATELY keep you in the dark......the same way that you would out of the lop in real life if this happened to you.

However, the Zombies are CLEARLY supernatural in nature, since under normal circumstances carbon-based lifeforms tend to be unable to indefinitely move themselves around after physical death.

How is the Z Virus transmitted - Saliva?

When The Wave hit, the very first Zombies were the people that were killed by it.

Viral Transmission does NOT figure in this story at all -the Zombies create more of their kind by being the direct and immediate cause of the death of a living target. As far as the book is concerned, even if a Zombie bites you and infects you and you later die of the infection, you don't turn into one. HOWEVER, if you're fighting one of those things and you make a bad move in combat and he knocks you off the roof, you'll be turned into one provided the Zombie -any Zombie is within range to absorb your PPE at the moment of your death.

Has the Zombification transferred species? Meaning can a dog, cat, bird, or other animal be infected? And if this happens, can it then transfer back to humans?

They can feed on ANY lifeform that has PPE in it, and in a pinch they'll smash to bits anything that they encounter, but they ONLY transfer the curse to other humans.

silverlb wrote:I think the PPE feeding fits the meta-physics of the Megaverse. Psi-stakers do it, Lots of Demons do it, Rifts were caused by it.... PPE from death seems to make the world go round. Infection in the classic Zombie sense doesn't really fit in this game system. A few things do it here and there, as I can think of a few curses and monsters that cause that. However it begs a very important question. The book has Zombies feeding on PPE from as far away as 300ft.. What if the Zombie either is dorment or doesn't know you are there? can it still feed??? Or if you kill yourself within feeding range I guess you would rise as one of the dead.

on page 23 it says only active zombies taking part in the converging attack
share in the ppe and zombies that are dormant or otherwize engaged
do not recive any ppe

Hey man, just so we are clear on the "cop-out" statement I was not meaning that as a slight against you. I think that by Kevin taking the answer away was the cop-out. I love Palladium but their "oh we left it blank so it's more fun for you" thing is getting kinda old. I know I (and I'm sure others do this as well) change things that are written in the book anyways, so why not give a straight answer ?
Like I said never meant to step on toes, and from the sounds of things, the way it was originaly wrote the game was better, gotta see if my buddy has that rifter it was in so i can borrow it. Which issue was it ?
Later
Josh

The new source book, has anyone heard anything about what direction it will take?

The Galactus Kid wrote:

Citizen Lazlo wrote:
I'm not gonna argue whether it was a good idea or not, but leaving the cause ambiguous is the same as not giving an answer.

I disagree.

As do I.

Real Life case In Point: I thought that it was sheer genius that, in the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead," that we as the viewers didn't know anything more than the Mall's Survivors, and that all that we knew of the outside world ended the minute that the TV Station went off the air.

"Dead Reign" is and was deliberately designed (Kevin said so in the Rifter) so that the PCs (and you) wouldn't really have any idea of what's really going on.

Sometimes, it's a good thing if you DON'T know everything that's going on.

The Dawn of the dead remake was garbage, the original was much better.

[quote="The Galactus Kid
He decided nobody needed to know WHY it all happened ? What a copout
[/quote][/quote]

That is not what the book really says.

Kevin left it up to the reader on purpose, as the cause of the zombies varies from movie to movie. What he did do, was list 5 rumors that are commonly believed to have caused the apocalypse (curse from god, plague, etc). I think this fits quite well. For starters - who cares why it started - you have zombies destroying the world and trying to claw your face off - worry about that first!!!! In addition, I think a zombie campaign fits the tone of genre better if the players had no idea how it all happened - if there is nothing specific in the book, then it is all up to the dastardly mind of the GM

The book is specific enough to function as a complete game, but open enough in just the right areas to allow people to tweak to their idea of what a zombie apocalypse should be.

Eric[/quote]

I'm not gonna argue whether it was a good idea or not, but leaving the cause ambiguous is the same as not giving an answer.

[/quote]

I disagree.[/quote]

I disagree with your disagree.

I love the choice to leave the cause a mystery. This is a horror game after all. By nature we fear what we don’t understand. If you want the characters to truly show fear, the players must have at least a little themselves.

Honestly, I loved the idea of a zombie apocalypse game, but when saw the original version in the Rifter with explanations of where it came from and how it happened I was completely disappointed. I’m probably in a minority here on the boards, but if the original concept had been kept I would have bought the book.

I liked it too - it was gore..., uhm gorgeous! hard, fast and scary!

Vidynn wrote:I liked it too - it was gore..., uhm gorgeous! hard, fast and scary!

Yes indeedy!!

Super-fast Zombies for tha win!!