Re: "Which Bite Wins"

Hmm.

It all depends on precisely which variety of each monster is being used. So let's start with the fundamentals.

PART 1: CONTRIVED BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS
Zombies are caused by an actual virus, spread via bodily fluids. One explanation I always liked, from a few incarnations of Resident Evil, was that it was a combination of a destructive ebola strain (which would kill people too fast to actually spread) and a failed viral vector which stimulated cell growth & activity (they wanted supersoldiers, instead of mutated bodybuilders with lots and lots of cancer).

Vampirism is a disease, bloodborne microorganisms (think malaria) that alter your bodily chemistry to make you sociopathic, alert, unnaturally strong, oversensitive to light, in need of blood, etc.

Werewolves. . .hmm. Let's say that werewolves are a hereditary genetic thing- because genetic traits aren't always just recessive or dominant. There are disorders that run in a family but have little clear pattern, because the potential is there in the genes but other factors are needed to push you over the brink. Like your diet, or high levels of stress. High levels of stress. . .from being bitten by a werewolf.

Uh, and it has to be a werewolf because there's also a biochemical factor that's induced by a werewolf's saliva. (Werewolf french kisses will thus also induce a transformation, but they almost never do that to someone)


PART 2: INITIAL INFECTION
If we assume each of these transformations' initial effect happens over the effect of 5 minutes, what happens when they're combined? Here's where I really start throwing out bullcrap (instead of rigorously looking up concepts like "viral vectors" on wikipedia, for like 5 whole minutes, and *then* using them in my bullcrap).

The zombie virus is spreading throughout your bloodstream, altering the behavior of your body's cells so that they work 80-hour weeks with little oversight or direction. The effects would not be obvious right away- the subject would be feverish and delirious, with the viral vectors needing longer periods of time to reach the central nervous system.

The werewolf stimuli simultaneously triggers a change in the subject's. . .uh. . .he grows hair and stuff, ok? Look, this just getting ridicu{TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, PLEASE STAND BY}

Ahem. The werewolf stimuli simultaneously triggers its own change in the subject's biological functions, activating the latent potential behaviors of his organs. His body starts to reconfigure itself, with the viral zombie interference hindering the development in some cases and amplifying it in others.

The increase in pulse rate and vital activities would give the bloodborne vampire microorganisms a boost, letting them take effect quickly and with more potency. So while the subject begins having difficulty distinguishing reality from his imagination (the zombie virus' initial delirium), and having all kinds of predatory carnivore impulses, he's also becoming more alert, obsessive-compulsive, and sociopathically cunning.


PART 3: THE TRANSFORMATION
Soon the delirium will fade as the zombie virus reaches the brain, and the higher thought processes turn to empty static. But where a normal brain would thus be left in a constant state of dazed distraction and simple agitation, this brain has different kinds of things going on under the hood. Predatory impulses to hunt and prowl, to lurk and carefully monitor the surroundings, to lunge forward and attack your prey with terrible ferocity.

Physically, the subject's skin becomes pale and lifeless before it can grow much hair, and his terrified babbling quickly gives way to guttural groans and animal growls. The scientists high five one another as the subject flexes ineffectively against the restraints, concluding that they have basically produced a zombie with sharp teeth that snarls alot.

They aren't realizing how there are changes that are only just beginning in the subject's muscles. That they've started growing to fulfill their latent potential, AND have been told by viral vectors to work overtime, AND are being treated to a special biochemical cocktail courtesy of bloodborne symbiotic microorganisms. Meaning that in a few days the subject will become twice as strong. . .three times over. (That's right- EXPONENTIALLY stronger)

And because there's nothing else left for a zombie to feel; because it fuels everything the wolf has evolved to accomplish; because it defines the vampire by its all-consuming addiction: the subject will be driven by an unstoppable hunger for living human beings.

Howzat?

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Simulating Humanity's Post-Zombpocalypse Fate

The above picture is taken from an old project of mine. The goal was to build a simulative model in order to predict what humanity's fate would be, long-term, in the event of a zombie apocalypse as seen in classic films like those of George Romero. It was actually my final project in a high school class that was based around using a computer program called STELLA to model these sorts of complex situations. Prior assignments had modeled things like the spread of a disease and the populations of wolves and deer in a wildlife preserve; part of my interest in putting together this particular simulation came from how it mixed elements of those two prior models. You have predators which infect and convert their prey. How would such a premise logically play out?

The simulation takes into account more factors than just the method by which the virus spreads. The two major things I wanted to take into account beyond the basic model were supplies available for salvage and survivor's experience in dealing with zombies. If there's a ton of abandoned houses around with fully stocked fridges, an average survivor has lower odds of starving or freezing to death. If a person has never had a first-hand encounter with a zombie before- knows nothing about the situation they're in except that there's a moving corpse in front of them- then their odds of surviving that encounter are going to be alot lower.

The variable in my simulation, then, was the size of the initial outbreak. If the dead rise from their graves all over the world, and society has collapsed by the end of the week, people are going to be less prepared than if they've had a couple weeks to watch news of nations in other hemispheres slowly crumbling while wondering if they'll be next.

So.
THE RESULTS:


The model's results are interesting to me in three different ways:
-The single scariest factor is a way in which the zombie-human factor does *not* match the typical predator-prey relationship. Cruel as it is, that type of system has inherent balances; wolves will start starving to death if they kill and eat 90% of the deer population. But zombies don't starve. They get along just fine even when there's only one of us left for every ten of them.
-As you can see, the variable- the size of the initial outbreak- leads to some interesting variations in the model. But even the smallest outbreak- only 50 initial infections- still leads to the death of over 80% of the population. However, the only scenario in which humanity is actually wiped out- leaving only a population of slowly eroding zombies- is the one where a full quarter of the population is initially infected and turned, so that when only the seasoned veterans remain there's just too many zombies left for them to handle.
-Lastly, the model ignores/handwaves a certain factor which is rarely addressed in zombie fiction (Though Max Brooks made a concerted justification effort in World War Z, bless his heart): There is NO WAY the virus is going to spread effectively if it's only transmitted from a zombie to a living person's bodily fluids. Because the world's just too big. In zombie fiction you can drop into some random point in the wilderness and there'll be a hundred zombies in a mile radius. The virus will spread across the country like wildfire. But in practice. . .how does a zombie make its way across open countryside to another major population center? Romero's zombie virus, as presented, just isn't cut out for global armageddon.

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Dead Zone: Setting Preview

Okay, where to begin. I could discuss how I think this can serve as a new take on the zombie genre (more techno-thriller than apocalyptic), I could talk about how this is my extrapolation of the core canon of the Resident Evil series but can stand on its own, I could skip right to the part where this ties into my previous post about "non-fantastic superpower" action. . .I think I'll start with a description of how life is different in this setting, which until ten years ago was identical to our own.

You see, ten years ago- 1998- was the first zombie outbreak. A small midwestern city was lost after a pharmaceutical company's secret attempts to create a biological weapon were more succesful than they could have ever imagined. The zombie virus was a combination of two other viruses; a bacteriophage aimed at increasing the subject's physique and a highly lethal strain of ebola. The former was the result of an older research project that had been deemed a faliure because the growth was always uncontrolled and led to mutation and death on the part of the subject, while the latter was proving impractical as a biological weapon because the modifications that had increased the virus's lethality also virtually eliminated the incubation period, meaning that subjects died without having any chance to pass the infection on. It was theorized that the physical enchancements provided by the former virus would keep the subject "alive" for at least a day. In some ways, you could say that the results were an unprecendented success- after all, the result was an amazing biological weapon.

Now, you have to understand- there was no "apocalypse". The release of the virus (actually a deliberate act of corporate sabotage) may have wiped out most of a single town's population, but even in the face of such an unprecedented threat the government was able to set up a quarantine and then heavily bombed the region. The outbreak was contained, and while at first the corporation was able to persuade the goverment that the zombie-creating virus had been a prototype for the physique-enhancing bacteriophage and nothing more eventually the truth was uncovered and the corporation shut down. But the virus remained.

The next outbreaks occurred in the third world. Attempts were being made to create additional samples of the virus from existing ones, and not everyone had the sense or resources to take adequate precautions. In some cases these too were contained, but in others they went unnoticed by higher authorities for far, far too long. And not all attempts to produce additional samples of the virus were so unsuccesful. The threat of bioterrorism was now a far, far greater threat than before.

In the wake of the September 11th attacks, viral outbreaks occurred in multiple first-world cities. Before the end of the year the use of the virus as a biological weapon was confirmed in multiple third-world conflicts. The world was quickly approaching a state of panic, and things were changing as a result. It was about this time that the term "Dead Zone" began to be used.

A Dead Zone is an area that has seen a zombie outbreak. In a first-world nation a dead zone tends to be several miles across, its borders rigidly patrolled by a military personnel; meanwhile, the majority of several african nations is considered to qualify as a dead zone. These regions often retain an active zombie population and in a portion of cases are also affected by nuclear fallout. Not only that, dead zones are rumored to contain populations of what the media refers to as Bio-Organic Weapons; cases where the victim has survived both the more immediately lethal aspects of the virus and the ensuing mutations, often resulting in a warped monstrosity. B.O.W.s, while rare, are much less so among animals, who can be infected even if the results are not usually in turn infectious.

While only a small percentage of the world's total population has perished, the general mood is still one of extreme paranoia and isolation. Politicians are elected on the basis of how well the public feels they can protect them, and nations dedicate their military to securing the boundaries of dead zones and the borders of nations against hypothetical incursion.

Of course, the rush to quarantine dead zones means that there's still going to be some people inside. But sending in military forces will inevitably lead to huge losses and has proven to severely hamper enlistment efforts. That's why, as the next post will delve into, it's a good time for PMCs.

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10 ideas for tweaking zombies

Starting with a basic option: Headshots don't work. Maybe you need to take out the heart/other weak spot, or just destroy it entirely. 9 more ways of tweaking zombies in order to keep players from being jaded after the link.
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The players catch the occasional glimpse of a zombie who will eat other zombies. It's no dramatic affair- it simply walks up to a zombie and then seizes onto it. The "prey" will attempt to push them off and get away with typical zombie slowness, and the "predator" will usually overpower them and simply crush/break the body until it stops moving before it starts chowing down. It goes after the closest prey, zombie or human. Over time these zombies become more noticeable because they're more fleshed-out; their body type doesn't change, but their muscles are fully formed as though they were in excellent shape and died yesterday. It's not clear right away, but the more they eat the stronger they grow. They also regurgitate "hairballs"- half-digested hair, scraps of clothing, bone fragments, etc.
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Here's one that you don't give your players any exposition for: The zombies show basic stalking behaviors. They deliberately stop moaning when approaching an unspooked prey, will intentionally feign death, are more likely to remain hidden/inactive when the prey has the advantage in terms of numbers. . .this can just be an explanation for the use of several scare tactics, but the realization that they possess this sort of cunning can be quite disturbing in the right circumstances.
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The zombies possess varying degrees of clumsiness, and those that are often active seem to improve their coordination over time. The key is, those with better control over their bodies aren't moving like humans- instead, they're prowling about on all fours. They can't climb bare walls or anything fantastic, they're just. . .purer reflections of the inner feral nature that now dwells within what was once a person.
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For a larger thematic change: The zombies retain some of their past nature. Not exactly intelligence, mind you; more like a patient with a severe brain injury. They experience a limited degree of emotion and even some pain, will mumble to themselves and make the same idle gestures and absent-minded responses that they might otherwise. . .but when prey appears all that there is to be seen is a vaguely expressed mix of malevolence and desperate determination.
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The zombies are only predatory during the night. During the day, some are almost normal- most act in a confused and dreamlike fashion, not quite realizing any mortal injuries they have or blood on their hands. Start killing them then and they'll panic, scream, etc. And there are some who are so close to a normal person that you aren't sure whether or not they're still alive; maybe none of them are actually dead, it's just some mysterious curse that makes most of humanity into cannibalistic monsters when the sun goes down.
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At times, apparently corresponding to some sort of cycle, the zombies seem to have an urge to congregate at the highest or lowest places possible. For several days they'll climb trees (an awkward trail-and-error process, mostly error) and stand around on building rooftops doing what amount to king-of-the-hill to get on top of the ventilation boxes. The next week they've started massing together in culverts and sewers. It alters how survivors travel, and also allows for plenty of DEATH FROM ABOVE attacks- "Zombies fall. Everybody dies".
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The zombies' behavior varies based on the weather. During an overcast day they behave like a typical zombie's supposed to do. Sunlight agitates them, while light rain makes them quieter and more active. At night they're fairly docile, which means that the players will have to consider doing travel/errands during that time since you're a bastard like that. It's during downpours and thunderstorms that they go completely apeshit, smashing crap up and actually running after people. The rain makes it hard to tell who's human and who's a zombie, too...
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The zombies begin as docile. That is, all throughout the world the dead emerge from their graves and then do nothing but wander around, feigning death if they believe they're being observed. People are aware, it's all over the news; but there's just too many of them to immediately deal with each and every one, or even more than half. People are urged to stay away from the walking dead since they probably carry diseases. Some wonder if the zombies are migrating with a purpose. Whatever their reasons, something- a code in a radio broadcast, lunar cycles, weather (see above)- eventually makes the zombies go OM NOM NOM like normal. Can make for a very tense intro.
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The zombies are not hungry, but instead hate all living beings- animals and humans alike. They are driven to attack any living thing in close proximity. Perhaps they're attracted to heartbeats, or perhaps there's a supernatural cause at work- they can sense life forces, or some similar explanation. Either way, players see zombies attacking cats and dogs as well as people, stopping as soon as the battered victim has passed on.

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On Zombie games

This material is largely not my own- rather, it represents what I've taken away from numerous discussions on the topic of zombie survival horror games, and in turn offer as advice to others. I've found myself repeating it enough that I figured I ought to just stop and write it all out. If you want an exhaustive discussion of all the different ways you can do things, there was an amazing thread in the d20 modern section of the wizards forums. If nothing else, it should still be in the archives...

So. Here's my primary recommendation: Have the zombie plague be a disease- spread by contact between body fluids, usually saliva to an open wound- that begins with the victim being flushed and irritated. This state builds up slowly and then escalates sharply, with the diseased flying into a berserk, adrenaline-fueled rage which lasts for several hours. Eventually the subject's body simply gives out, and they collapse, reviving as a body about half a day later. This has a few benefits for you as GM; it accounts for the torn-up condition of both the world and the zombies, while also giving you handy shock troops to shake things up.

And you always want to shake things up- give the players safety mechanisms and then take them away, never let them be sure a safe haven will last, have the zombie's vulnerabilities and abilities not be quite what they expect. (Note: At this point I started naming more examples of how you could do this and couldn't stop. I'll post it as a separate example in the next post). A lack of uncertainty and/or speculation makes it very hard to scare someone- don't be afraid to let the game evolve as characters, locations, and circumstances change.

Any gamer worth his salt will relish the chance to play in the most genre savvy ways he can imagine. If you'd rather have them assume the role of people who weren't geeky enough to already have a plan for dealing with zombie outbreaks, make sure everyone understands this going in. Personally, though, I relish savvy players- especially when details like the origins of the outbreak are left unknowable. Every time they circumvent a challenge, it's a chance for me to take another set of gloves off. Look at the direction they're trying to take and work off the challenges that goal will naturally entail. You want to hide in the wilderness? You'll need get your hands on camping gear and other supplies, then make your way out of the city. You want to stay out here? Then you'll need to make regular food runs, and any number of events could force you to move. . .

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