The 'what are they' question.

[Prince Artemis]

Is this in this game? One of my biggest annoyance with most zombie horror movies is someone in the group, invariably askes the question 'what are they' as if zombies weren't the common knowledge they are in reality and in some movies, evident in the movies themselves.

Hundreds of books, dozens of movies, thousands of pictures, and someone askes, when seeing a half dead person shambling towards them 'what the heck are they!'

So, do the people in Dead Reign awknowledge that they're zombies.

[Shawn Merrow]

They know its Zombies as the background mentions people getting wrong idea from Zombie movies.

[Nxla666]

As much as probable, remember though people have the rather nasty habit of rationalizing things so whilst some people would realise right away some would stay in denial clear up to the point where they get up and start shambling themselves.

[Tricky]

I like to always point out in a discussion like this that it seems as if people in most horror movies have NEVER seen a horror movie. "That guy ripped out his throat and drank all his blood....and ran when he saw Rev. Jim's cross! What would make a man do all that?"
(and you can be sure the people in Night of the Living Dead have NEVER seen a zombie movie)

But, if you were going down the road, and you saw a bloody guy missing an arm wandering toward the lights of your car, would you automatically say "OMG! He's a zombie! I should run him over before he can attack me!!!" (if you do, wow, you need to get out more!), or would you say "OMG, that poor guy has been in an accident, I should stop and help him and call 911." (at which case the zombie will eat you, and then you two will eat the paramedics!)

While we know about zombies, they are the stuff of fiction, like superheroes, Jedi Knights, and honest politicians: if you see one, you're either in a movie or gone bonkers!

[Prince Artemis]

I like to always point out in a discussion like this that it seems as if people in most horror movies have NEVER seen a horror movie. "That guy ripped out his throat and drank all his blood....and ran when he saw Rev. Jim's cross! What would make a man do all that?"
(and you can be sure the people in Night of the Living Dead have NEVER seen a zombie movie)

But, if you were going down the road, and you saw a bloody guy missing an arm wandering toward the lights of your car, would you automatically say "OMG! He's a zombie! I should run him over before he can attack me!!!" (if you do, wow, you need to get out more!), or would you say "OMG, that poor guy has been in an accident, I should stop and help him and call 911." (at which case the zombie will eat you, and then you two will eat the paramedics!)

While we know about zombies, they are the stuff of fiction, like superheroes, Jedi Knights, and honest politicians: if you see one, you're either in a movie or gone bonkers!

Nope. I wouldn't assume their zombies. If I see a few limbless people jump some guy and start eating him, then yes, I'd have to go with the 'holy s*** it's a zombie!'

[NMI]

Is this in this game? One of my biggest annoyance with most zombie horror movies is someone in the group, invariably askes the question 'what are they' as if zombies weren't the common knowledge they are in reality and in some movies, evident in the movies themselves.

Hundreds of books, dozens of movies, thousands of pictures, and someone askes, when seeing a half dead person shambling towards them 'what the heck are they!'

So, do the people in Dead Reign awknowledge that they're zombies.

The Rifter 40 I believe dealt with that.

Well, I dont think the poster is referring to Rifter #40.

[NMI]

Is this in this game? One of my biggest annoyance with most zombie horror movies is someone in the group, invariably askes the question 'what are they' as if zombies weren't the common knowledge they are in reality and in some movies, evident in the movies themselves.

Hundreds of books, dozens of movies, thousands of pictures, and someone askes, when seeing a half dead person shambling towards them 'what the heck are they!'

So, do the people in Dead Reign awknowledge that they're zombies.

The Rifter 40 I believe dealt with that.

Seeing that he is asking about the GAME, I would say he is not referring to the Rifter article. That's just me.

[NMI]

Whatever man. You say TOMATO, I say tomato.

[Nxla666]

I like to always point out in a discussion like this that it seems as if people in most horror movies have NEVER seen a horror movie. "That guy ripped out his throat and drank all his blood....and ran when he saw Rev. Jim's cross! What would make a man do all that?"
(and you can be sure the people in Night of the Living Dead have NEVER seen a zombie movie)

But, if you were going down the road, and you saw a bloody guy missing an arm wandering toward the lights of your car, would you automatically say "OMG! He's a zombie! I should run him over before he can attack me!!!" (if you do, wow, you need to get out more!), or would you say "OMG, that poor guy has been in an accident, I should stop and help him and call 911." (at which case the zombie will eat you, and then you two will eat the paramedics!)

While we know about zombies, they are the stuff of fiction, like superheroes, Jedi Knights, and honest politicians: if you see one, you're either in a movie or gone bonkers!

Actually the people is the original NoLD movie probably had never seen a zombie movie considering it was the first of what we now consider the "zombie" genre.

As for the guy missing an arm, no I wouldn't automatically assume hes a zombie, but I'd be ready to defend myself in case the guy was freaked out so bad by what happened to him he was violent.

A guy I used to game with was a paramedic, the stories he told me about some of his calls made it so I carry a full medkit in my car complete with heavy duty rubber gloves, safety glasses, face mask and mace.

[Spinachcat]

Many horror movies operate on the premise that there are no horror movies in their reality. Scream and a few others were actively against this concept where protagonists were extremely aware of horror fiction. Its important for your games to set up what fiction existed in the pre-Wave world and how prevalent that fictional knowledge would be for characters. It may be fun to declare that no Bram Stoker, no Lovecraft, no Stephen King and no Romero ever existed in your world so horror is a rare genre, mostly filled with ghost stories.

It's hard in Dead Reign to keep players from acting as if they do not know what they are up against. I suggest finding the least-traditional zombie in DR and making that the first monster encounter so you set the tone where what the players think is going down is not fully correct.

[Steeler49er]

No Bram would mean that, thanks to the butterfly effect, the WHOLE worlds history would have been Completely altered fer good since November 8th of 1847... That is, unless some all powerful deity (equal to Yahweh himself) came down and declaired "No More Horror FliX"... Then either sat there for the "Next 162 year Micro Managing Every event to Just delete the Billionss of Zombie horror movies, Video games, Novels, comic book, and TV mentionings of anything realated, Then made it so everyone in the world ended up doing almost everything the Exact same way they did when such things existed!

I can just imagine billions of people over the years goining into theaters, or sitting down to watch TV or a movie, read a book, or Play a game (Video OR RPG), and sitting before a Blank White screen, or reading a blank comic book/novel fer hrs every day...
"Hey John, Wasn't that a great movie about _________?"
Yeah Pete, I loved it when the __________ ate the girls Brains..."
"Wait... What wer we talking about again"...

Or he just broke every single law, and understanding of said laws of Nuh-Duh physics fer idiots, including his own!

This kind of vacume Could exist and still crete a world similar to our own, but it would require a COMPLETE lock down of all world info by an Opressive New World Order government, similar to a communist country, but still with enuff capitalisum to prod on tech developments like Cars, TV & Radio.

But this would create a world that is Devoid of the ability to Cope at all with such events! Still, it make fer a fun but shorrt) run of a game.

[Steeler49er]

ALSO, my wife just brought up how Zombies & Vampires have been around forever, and are a HUGE part of others cultures (Read Voodoo). Meaning New Orleans & Transilvania woulda lost alot in tourist revenue

[Tricky]

Actually, in the original myths, vampires were much more like what we call zombies (rotting corpses eating the flesh of the living), while zombies were reanimated dead used to serve a voodoo priest.

Another good example of people not knowing the horror going on around them is the Film "Mulberry Street": ok, it has rat people created by a virus, but the main characters are so busy with their lives that they fail to notice things(increase in rat attacks, people who were attacted acting different, spooky music playing when wierd stuff happens) that to us, the viewer, are dead give aways to the impending crisis.

[Tricky]

As a funny aside to your last comment, in one of the books of pre-generated characters for AFmbE, there is the 'Zombie Rights Activist', who thinks that the undead (living impaired?) have as much right as the living to exist!

Thats a guy I want in MY post zombie-apocalypse group. He can take point (so he can negotiate...yeah, thats it!)!

[Greyaxe]

As a funny aside to your last comment, in one of the books of pre-generated characters for AFmbE, there is the 'Zombie Rights Activist', who thinks that the undead (living impaired?) have as much right as the living to exist!

Thats a guy I want in MY post zombie-apocalypse group. He can take point (so he can negotiate...yeah, thats it!)!

I wonder if a variant of that character class has appeared in Kevins (5) sourcebooks.

[gaaahhhh]

As much as probable, remember though people have the rather nasty habit of rationalizing things so whilst some people would realise right away some would stay in denial clear up to the point where they get up and start shambling themselves.

You forgot about Mock Zombies.

[Tricky]

roflas, holy majumbo tricky i about died when i read your response. lol i think ill add these to my campaign, and yes they are mostly going to be vegans. poor zombies will starve to death( no offense to vegans every where) but here in tucson az. the veggans are quit obnoxious.
i think for myself the hilarity of say a group of six people marching with signs down main street usa"zombies are people to" and then watch the smorgasbord begin. wipes tear from eye
then having some guy in a suit pop out don't try this at home.

Actually, in line with one of my Halloween shirts this year, the sign should have the 'are' crossed out, and say 'WERE'
"Zombies WERE people too!"

[The Beast]

Is this in this game? One of my biggest annoyance with most zombie horror movies is someone in the group, invariably askes the question 'what are they' as if zombies weren't the common knowledge they are in reality and in some movies, evident in the movies themselves.

Hundreds of books, dozens of movies, thousands of pictures, and someone askes, when seeing a half dead person shambling towards them 'what the heck are they!'

So, do the people in Dead Reign awknowledge that they're zombies.

I just got the book a couple days ago. According to it, it was at least a couple hours before it was being reported that people were turning into zombies, and most of the fluff suggests that it's been almost half a year since then.


FYI: In From Dusk 'Till Dawn once they killed the first batch of vampires everyone started talking about what works best to kill a vampire, and were arguing about whether the methods were from Hollywood, comic books, or a real book on the subject.

[Tricky]

That's a good point: I was on a different message board, arugueing with some 'dead-head' about the "kill the brain" rule .I kept bringing up varient zombies from fiction that were resistant to this, but he didn't accept it. My arguement was that like vampires, werewolves and many other creatures, the attributes, powers and weaknesses of zombies has been reworked that if, IF you ran into one, you wouldn't know the truth from the myth. (he didn't accept this argument either.)

So, I took a different approach: I told him to imagine that a robot was walking down his street, smashing things and killing people, and it was up to him to kill it. I asked him how would he stop it?
Smash it with a hammer? Throw water on it? Use a magnet or Electricity to scramble it's circuts? Catch it in a logic loop and make it's brain explode? Hack it's CPU with a Powerbook? Hit the red button on the back of it's head? Tell the robot that it's going to Robot Hell if it doesn't stop it's rampage? The point was that there are many forms of robot in fiction, but no one REALLY knows how to stop a "Killer robot". This is the same of the zombie.

He insulted me and then logged off.

Spoiler:

OH, and the only way to beat that robot was to teach it to love.

[Danger]

That's a good point: I was on a different message board, arugueing with some 'dead-head' about the "kill the brain" rule .I kept bringing up varient zombies from fiction that were resistant to this, but he didn't accept it. My arguement was that like vampires, werewolves and many other creatures, the attributes, powers and weaknesses of zombies has been reworked that if, IF you ran into one, you wouldn't know the truth from the myth. (he didn't accept this argument either.)

So, I took a different approach: I told him to imagine that a robot was walking down his street, smashing things and killing people, and it was up to him to kill it. I asked him how would he stop it?
Smash it with a hammer? Throw water on it? Use a magnet or Electricity to scramble it's circuts? Catch it in a logic loop and make it's brain explode? Hack it's CPU with a Powerbook? Hit the red button on the back of it's head? Tell the robot that it's going to Robot Hell if it doesn't stop it's rampage? The point was that there are many forms of robot in fiction, but no one REALLY knows how to stop a "Killer robot". This is the same of the zombie.

He insulted me and then logged off.

Spoiler:

OH, and the only way to beat that robot was to teach it to love.

Great post.

[cornholioprime]

Society has laws that keep people from committing murder. Even though it may seem like someone is acting like a zombie, your brain will try to rationalize every possibility to rule out any doubt before you pick up a bat and kill the zombie. Even if the guy is eating someone else, the news shows that on many occasions, people won't lift a finger to help someone in need.

It's not until the news stations start reporting that there is, in fact, a zombie infestation will people go on the offensive, if they do at all. Many people still won't be able to get over the idea of killing another person, even if they are a zombie. And if they are a family member or good friend, it's even less likely they will put up a resistance, or at the very least, willing to do the deed.

The other possibility is some people just don't watch or read the news. A lot of their information may come from word of mouth gossip, so you'll get a lot of people who ask the question "What are they?"

I watched Shaun of the Dead again over the weekend, and it kind of proves how some people can walk to the store and back to their apartment without even noticing the world around them has changed.

Then you missed the point.

It was a bit of clever Social Commentary on the Movie Makers' part, that in fact the Sheeple were pretty much zombies even before they became undead.
( Watch the Movie Opening again; you'll notice that almost everybody that Shaun interacts with on his way to the store moved in almost the exact same manner that they moved after they were turned. )

[asajosh]

I simply avoided the "what are they" scenario in game by setting my campaign 6 moths after the Wave. It allows the characters "pre-game" time to have developed some survival skills, knowledge of the threats, and room to build up some supplies. Seemed logical to my group.