#GiveEveryMonsterLife
(Pick a monster and describe an “in medias res” scenario with player-generated monster trope twists.)
Give Every Monster Life: Zombies
It’s day number two of the undead apocalypse. You have survived the night after barricading your group in a home with the acrid stench of a burnt pile of victims still wafting underneath the front door. Tears stream down the paladin’s face but the fighter’s remains resolute. Ranger, you startle suddenly at the break of dawn by your animal companion and the thief motions silently to a fight outside. A baby is crying. You peek between the boards of your makeshift shelter and see the mother screaming, holding a holy symbol of your order, Cleric. The father is wielding a pitchfork and fighting off a horde of 10 zombies, on the verge of being overwhelmed in an alley across the street. Wizard, you detect a distinctive feature on the father similar to others before they succumb to the zombie plague. Bard, one of the figures looks familiar but you can’t make out if they are living or dead.
Fighter: You had to make a hard choice last night, but you made the right decision even though the rest of the party looks at you now with wary eyes. What did you do?
Paladin: You carry a heavy burden and a guilty secret about something that happened last night. What is making you question yourself or your faith?
Cleric: You suspect that the victims of the zombies aren’t sought out for mere brains or flesh of the living. What is the reason why these zombies hunt and kill the living?
Thief: You have discovered that these zombies don’t die from a beheading or a strike through the brains. What is the key weakness of these shambling undead?
Wizard: You are developing a theory why some people are turning into zombies but others are not. One thing is certain, their bite does NOT cause an infection. You could confirm your theory, but you need just one thing… what event/component/object/clue do you need to determine the cause of the zombie outbreak?
Ranger: Your animal companion is able to detect who is a zombie and who is not, which sometimes isn’t as apparent as you would like. How does your AC tell the difference?
Bard: Civilization as you know it is rapidly crumbling, and in a zombie-eat-world scenario, small bands form and break alliances as needed for survival. Your quick thinking and leadership has helped you form a cohesive band, but you need to rescue a key person/group to solidify your base. Where do you think they are and why are they important?
Great questions. I particularly like the Fighter’s question. Were these a start to a game or just ideas?
Love this, stealing it all.
Thanks +Damian Jankowski and Casey McKenzie
Glad you like the Fighter’s question — I placed the Paladin’s right after so it has the potential to set up conflict. Some of the player questions define the setting, while others set the mood.
This started off as a one-shot that I attempted and fumbled at… and I realized it was because I (as GM) was the one trying to shake up the generic D&D zombie tropes when it should have been the Players who described and defined it.
Making it Apocalypse day #2 was the most inspired part — it allows me to reboot the one-shot and make it better, lets the players sort through most of the basic zombie fiction mechanics while leaving some hooks, and draws on an early and desperate “Walking Dead/World War Z (Max Brooks’ book version)” feel to the campaign to set the tone of gritty horror and picking between bad and worse for choice/consequence.
What were the replies to the questions? I am very curious.
I really dig the GiveEveryMonsterLife topic! Hope to see more.
Stay tuned… I will post the outcomes of the “second shot” in a couple weeks after my gaming group has our annual “mini-con.”
I hope that the #GiveEveryMonsterLife tag takes off and sparks interest in old tired monster tropes by giving players a chance to turn them around into something new and fun.
Nice though after reading the undead bit, want to go back & read again the fun fantasy book ‘Mogworld’ with the wacky undead protagonists.
Part two, for those of you who are interested.
https://plus.google.com/104073087524335945732/posts/bzebPSSW9dn
It turns out that these seed questions weren’t even that interesting. The Ranger said “the paladin is crying because the burned bodies were those of zombie children” and he was nearly chased out of the room by a player with a 6 month old newborn who reacted viscerally to this.
They were missing a thief, so they never found out the zombies’ weakness were their LUNGS rather than their head, nor did they figure out the vector for the infection (which I had hinted by saying that they were silent, non-groaning zombies who breathed on people to infect them). Turned out that this didn’t matter either, since they approached the zombie outbreak more as a puzzle to be deciphered than combat to be hack-n-slashed.
Oh, and I almost forgot — I made up three unique types of monsters for this game: “Zed” which were the zombie-alternate, “G-men” ghoul-alternates who could eat zombies to fuel their racial powers like dwarf burrowing, halfling vanishing, elf/eladrin fey-stepping, etc. and the “VIP” Vampire Lord-Lich who feeds on Zeds and G-Men instead of drinking blood…
and NONE of that came up in the course of the short game either. Go figure. In true DW fashion, all of the DM prep that I did helped with mechanics to make the game run smoothly, but the players hardly even skipped a beat or even paused to figure out how/why these undead were different. I was getting so desperate at the end, I blurted out secret answers as the DM instead of giving them Spout Lore answers.