All the talk about characters and rules....how about scenarios or even campaigns?
I posted a campaign I am working on for next weekend with my group of gamers. I will repost it here and add a couple scenarios we have come up with as well.
Beans, Bullets, and Bandaids
3 scenarios around the story line of finding medical supplies. It uses a campaign mechanic of allowing survivors to keep ONE card from the previous scenario.....ONE card...unless the survivor starts with something (El Cholo or Phil or Troy), but they still get the ONE card (and Dave only keeps one Molotov). Additionally each scenario starts at one level lower then the first one ended. So if scenario 1 ends in orange scenario 2 starts at yellow. Survivor skills are adjusted accordingly. We wanted a character feel here. We like characters and developing them (RPGs and our first love Warhammer leaking through there).
So scenario one is pretty simple....survivors go about their day finding gear and supplies. The objective here is to find all six foodstuff cards in addition to all ammo cards (what good is surviving if you don't have ammo?) then get back to the bunker. But something isn't right. There are a lot of zombies around here.
Scenario two, things are heating up, but they ran out of fuel for the generators. As they progress into the city looking for fuel (5 objectives in buildings and one hidden one is the blue one) zombie population is getting more dense. Why? They happen across a Red Cross worker in a car. She has been trapped for a month! 10 zombies surround the car at game start. There is also another objective in addition to rescuing the red cross worker. So two objectives. Get the fuel and save the Red Cross worker.
Scenario three. The zombie swarms are dense. But why? the red cross worker tells the survivors there is a hospital nearby and that it is home to a nest of zombies. A morgue is deep inside and that is why the population here is so dense. This and it was a collection point for infected but the zombies soon overwhelmed military and police forces. The map is a large building in which the survivors only have two entrances. One is a half way on the other side of the board, and the other is right nearby. The nearest one is the quickest and most difficult. It is the rear security entrance. The door requires three hits with a strength 2 door opening weapon. Also being the rear of the morgue, there were bodies outside for overflow...but they came back so the backdoor is surrounded by 10 zombies.
So the setup on this one is important. The back door should entice the players to want to try it but due to the proximity of a spawn point and 10 zombies it should deter them. Odds are they will be yellow if not orange in this scenario. This way you satisfy the players that want to slug it out AND create conflict with the players as they argue the best route. I will admit upfront it is supposed to be difficult, nearing to impossible. I have the map set out but don't have time right now to post it as a picture here. yet here are the tiles used: 1b 7b 6c 5d 4d 3c 4b 2c 2b 4e 4c 4c. There is a spawn point in the multi room hospital, plus three more around the map. There is also one objective on the opposite side of the morgue inside the building representing medicine. The survivors must get the medicine AND shut down the spawn point. In playtesting I have gotten up to the very far end of yellow before making it to the hospital front doors. You do have to have the extra tile set to make the hospital big enough.
The red cross worker, while timid and afraid goes with them (she doesn't want to be alone). She has the medic skill but that is it. She counts as two noise counters, and follows a survivor around...NEVER alone. She cannot search nor use weapons. When zombies are in the same space she freaks and runs around screaming, as a result she is ALWAYS the first one to take a wound if zombies attack.
something I am toying with is to create a room to room clearing type effect. Where you don't spawn the whole building at once....you do it room by room or at least sections at a time. I don't know how that will effect things. too easy or hard. I do want to stop herding tactic my group has used where they herd swarms of zombies and nuke them with molotovs. It is not 100% effective; it works about 40% of the time. Still I don't want a lucky molotov to end the game quickly, that and I want tension and suspense.
I posted a campaign I am working on for next weekend with my group of gamers. I will repost it here and add a couple scenarios we have come up with as well.
Beans, Bullets, and Bandaids
3 scenarios around the story line of finding medical supplies. It uses a campaign mechanic of allowing survivors to keep ONE card from the previous scenario.....ONE card...unless the survivor starts with something (El Cholo or Phil or Troy), but they still get the ONE card (and Dave only keeps one Molotov). Additionally each scenario starts at one level lower then the first one ended. So if scenario 1 ends in orange scenario 2 starts at yellow. Survivor skills are adjusted accordingly. We wanted a character feel here. We like characters and developing them (RPGs and our first love Warhammer leaking through there).
So scenario one is pretty simple....survivors go about their day finding gear and supplies. The objective here is to find all six foodstuff cards in addition to all ammo cards (what good is surviving if you don't have ammo?) then get back to the bunker. But something isn't right. There are a lot of zombies around here.
Scenario two, things are heating up, but they ran out of fuel for the generators. As they progress into the city looking for fuel (5 objectives in buildings and one hidden one is the blue one) zombie population is getting more dense. Why? They happen across a Red Cross worker in a car. She has been trapped for a month! 10 zombies surround the car at game start. There is also another objective in addition to rescuing the red cross worker. So two objectives. Get the fuel and save the Red Cross worker.
Scenario three. The zombie swarms are dense. But why? the red cross worker tells the survivors there is a hospital nearby and that it is home to a nest of zombies. A morgue is deep inside and that is why the population here is so dense. This and it was a collection point for infected but the zombies soon overwhelmed military and police forces. The map is a large building in which the survivors only have two entrances. One is a half way on the other side of the board, and the other is right nearby. The nearest one is the quickest and most difficult. It is the rear security entrance. The door requires three hits with a strength 2 door opening weapon. Also being the rear of the morgue, there were bodies outside for overflow...but they came back so the backdoor is surrounded by 10 zombies.
So the setup on this one is important. The back door should entice the players to want to try it but due to the proximity of a spawn point and 10 zombies it should deter them. Odds are they will be yellow if not orange in this scenario. This way you satisfy the players that want to slug it out AND create conflict with the players as they argue the best route. I will admit upfront it is supposed to be difficult, nearing to impossible. I have the map set out but don't have time right now to post it as a picture here. yet here are the tiles used: 1b 7b 6c 5d 4d 3c 4b 2c 2b 4e 4c 4c. There is a spawn point in the multi room hospital, plus three more around the map. There is also one objective on the opposite side of the morgue inside the building representing medicine. The survivors must get the medicine AND shut down the spawn point. In playtesting I have gotten up to the very far end of yellow before making it to the hospital front doors. You do have to have the extra tile set to make the hospital big enough.
The red cross worker, while timid and afraid goes with them (she doesn't want to be alone). She has the medic skill but that is it. She counts as two noise counters, and follows a survivor around...NEVER alone. She cannot search nor use weapons. When zombies are in the same space she freaks and runs around screaming, as a result she is ALWAYS the first one to take a wound if zombies attack.
something I am toying with is to create a room to room clearing type effect. Where you don't spawn the whole building at once....you do it room by room or at least sections at a time. I don't know how that will effect things. too easy or hard. I do want to stop herding tactic my group has used where they herd swarms of zombies and nuke them with molotovs. It is not 100% effective; it works about 40% of the time. Still I don't want a lucky molotov to end the game quickly, that and I want tension and suspense.
Or we could start another, regrouping all the custom scenarios in the OP.