Mix and Match Survivors

[Fenris2020]

How many people have used their own life-paths to make their characters, and then played Dead Reign?
My last group consisted of:

1st Guy/ Me, from a military family and grew up hunting, joined the army and was in 10th Mountain when I got out. Various weapon skills, Hand to Hand equal to a black belt, survival skills and so on

1st Girl, Black belt in karate, biology major, works as unarmed security.

2nd Guy, sort of the same background as me but a lot more training with sword and bow, from Alaska originally so possibly more survival skills than I have. Worked as a contractor, recently retired and works as armed security.

2nd Girl, dance instructor, some training with knives and shooting, naturalized citizen from Eastern Europe. She was our GM.

3rd Guy, former MP, current Special Weapons on Sherriff's Department.

3rd Girl, EMT, some weapons training but a little prejudiced against fire-arms.

4th Guy, SCA and HEMA-type, knows the basics of making armor and bladed weapons.

4th Girl, knows 1st Girl through their dojo, kind of an average person otherwise, works as a waitress.

Our character levels were from 4th-8th, and even with our characters starting out with all the gear we could pick from our actual lives, it was pretty difficult. A lot of the difficulty came from zekes surviving head-shots from a 12-gauge or great-axe, so our GM toned down the SDC for zombie-heads after the first three sessions

[Zer0 Kay]

We did ourselves we and realized that the PB system doesn't give enough skills.

Our GM had zombie head hits doing double damage and triple on a crit.

We started where we were (Elmendorf AFB, AK) and were supposed to get down to Cape Canaveral with our families for some delusional belief that we could get on board a shuttle launch, scheduled for the president who was going to go into orbit and Ripley the zombies.

We never made it. The group got pissed off because a psychopath NPC, that we left tied up in a Costco, was somehow able to track us across country after finding like minded psycho friends and destroyed our up armored U-Haul. Supposedly having no equipment with him when we found him he had placed a GPS tracking device on the U-Haul and seeing as how we left him with nothing he came with except the clothes on his back he was apparently able to go to a Radio Shack and cobble together a GPS tracker and knew the code for the tracking device. Personally I think the GM thinks "Spec Ops" means "Can do ANYTHING." The tech stuff is very outside the MOS's wheelhouse. Using it sure, cobbling it together from scratch, not a chance. Avoiding someone who is actively scanning for said devices that is in the particular tech MOS/AFSC not likely. GM applying Deus Ex Machina for the NPC psychopath= pissing of the players

[Fenris2020]

We did ourselves we and realized that the PB system doesn't give enough skills.

Our GM had zombie head hits doing double damage and triple on a crit.

We started where we were (Elmendorf AFB, AK) and were supposed to get down to Cape Canaveral with our families for some delusional belief that we could get on board a shuttle launch, scheduled for the president who was going to go into orbit and Ripley the zombies.

We never made it. The group got pissed off because a psychopath NPC, that we left tied up in a Costco, was somehow able to track us across country after finding like minded psycho friends and destroyed our up armored U-Haul. Supposedly having no equipment with him when we found him he had placed a GPS tracking device on the U-Haul and seeing as how we left him with nothing he came with except the clothes on his back he was apparently able to go to a Radio Shack and cobble together a GPS tracker and knew the code for the tracking device. Personally I think the GM thinks "Spec Ops" means "Can do ANYTHING." The tech stuff is very outside the MOS's wheelhouse. Using it sure, cobbling it together from scratch, not a chance. Avoiding someone who is actively scanning for said devices that is in the particular tech MOS/AFSC not likely. GM applying Deus Ex Machina for the NPC psychopath= pissing of the players

Oh, we had the occasional debate about what to do with people like that when we had to deal with them. 2nd guy and I usually won out and ghosted them. He's about as close to a real-life Aberrant as one will ever meet (I'm more like Scrupulous, but a little more... pragmatic); the girls range from Unprincpled to Scrupulous or Principled, 3rd guy fancies himself Principled. 4th guy's somewhere between Anarchist and Unprincipled
If we lost the vote, 2nd guy usually offed the scum when the rest of us weren't looking anyway (caused some tension, but probably worth it).

[Zer0 Kay]

If I knew exactly how ridiculous the GM was going to be with the difference between the guy being a somewhat incompitent liability, constantly being the cause zombies were being attracted to us and our families and then becoming super commando all because we left him in a stocked, cleared and secured Costco. I would have gone with my original plan to drop him off the roof to attract the zombies (which he was so good at) while we made a run for it out the main gate. I got lectured for having such an evil idea so we tied him up and snuck out... And then got punished for leaving him alive.

[Fenris2020]

If I knew exactly how ridiculous the GM was going to be with the difference between the guy being a somewhat incompitent liability, constantly being the cause zombies were being attracted to us and our families and then becoming super commando all because we left him in a stocked, cleared and secured Costco. I would have gone with my original plan to drop him off the roof to attract the zombies (which he was so good at) while we made a run for it out the main gate. I got lectured for having such an evil idea so we tied him up and snuck out... And then got punished for leaving him alive.

Never leave them alive.
Might want to ghost the lecturers when opportunity permits as well. I world like that is no place for ideologues.