I love zombies.  The amount of zombie movies I’ve seen is absurd.  I also love gaming with zombies.  The survival horror aspect is something that is the most basic of plots, but somehow remains one the most compelling.  I’ve ran quite a few zombie scenarios in RPGs.  I own (and have actively used) All Flesh Must Be Eaten.  One-shots are always tons of fun, but I’ve tried to run a zombie apocalypse campaign, and I’ve run into a big hitch:  after you are done whacking zombies for a couple sessions, how do you keep story momentum?  I could run another, “we need to loot canned food from the zombie-infested store,” but that quickly approaches ad-nauseum.

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Over the past week I managed to catch a couple episodes of League of Super Evil on Cartoon Network.  (If you haven’t seen the show and haven’t put it together yet, that acronym is LOSE.)  It inspired me for a wonderful game.  Take your favorite super hero system.  Have players generate super villains, but give them extremely low points to create their characters and/or make their powers weak and ridiculous.  Don’t run adventures about stealing lots of money or trying to take over the world.  Instead, run adventures about petty things like trying to steal cable, or ordering a pizza and deliberately delaying the delivery guy so that you get the pizza free.

The primary idea here is that the characters should be pathetic enough that even minor things are difficult to accomplish for them.  This would obviously be a light-hearted comedy game.  I’m sure you could take lots of inspiration from Paranoia, Hol, and other games with a lot of ridiculous comedy and seething sarcasm.

I am of the opinion that 4ed would make an excellent system for running a Warhammer 40K game.  I realize that there has been a table top game (titled Inquisitor, free for download here) and a bonafide RPG called Dark Heresy.  The former had some convoluted rules that I was fine with, but I don’t think all my players would warm up to.  I haven’t seen much of the latter, but I understand that it is very specific in running games where the characters are inquisitors hunting down heretics and dealing with xeno infestations.  I want to run a game about pulpy, roaring combat with a thick slathering of gothic scifi sauce.  (Despite how gross it may sound to put something like that in your mouth.)

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Out of ideas for your next adventure?  Need some mental currency to fund your next plot expedition?  Take a queue from Shakespeare and steal some good tropes to build your material around!

Its easy.  Head over to TV Tropes and look for the “random item” button at the top of the page.  (Or, for you lazy types, click here.)  Instant inspiration!

It is time to discuss how rituals might work on Athas.  (Check out my previous post on Dark Sun arcane abilities here.)

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I love the preview product for How to Host a Dungeon.  I might just have to drop the cash for the full PDF.  The idea is simple:  it is a simulation of how a dungeon is created and ages.  By rolling dice and making a few creative choices, you can take the dungeon from the primordial age of the world up until the end of it all.  While the simulation aspect is entertaining, it is very obviously a tool to a greater means.

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I watched the first 20 minutes of Quarantine the other day.  I had to turn it off to do some responsible things, but the movie did a pretty good job of sucking me in.  My heart rate was up, my hands were cold and clammy, and all my muscles were tense.  (For readers that don’t know:  I’ve got this deeply rooted fear of zombies.)

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I was playing Fable this weekend.  One of the interesting little ways you can interact with the world is to marry a girl.  This is accomplished by using various flirt expressions and giving her gifts.  I don’t know if it is just the personality of the NPC I happened across, but at some point she started nagging:  “Now why don’t you go buy me a wedding ring!”  I did, and we got married.  Next thing I know, she is nagging:  “Why don’t you buy us a house!”  I had to go risk my neck killing foes and saving the world, but I finally put some gold down on a house.  For the moment she seems happy, but I can imagine pretty soon that she will be complaining:  “How about some better decorations!”

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Players absolutely hate missing attack rolls with daily powers.  (In fact, I’ve got a player that misses with most rolls, and thus is very dis-engendered to daily powers.)  On the other hand, the idea behind the Reliable keyword is excellent.

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Earlier version of D&D only bothered to expand their character class charts out a couple levels.  Life was short and brutal, and you weren’t expected to make it that far.  If you did, you were some sort of legendary hero in the game world.  At some point it was discovered that gaining levels and watching your character prosper was fun, so more levels were added to the game.  And then there are games that don’t have levels at all.  Some of those games also feature a high mortality rate.

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