And thus ends my biweekly All Flesh Must Be Eaten game. . .
:-:
The
party left the military convoy with which they were traveling. The goal was to
hit Cape Canaveral, meet up with the Navy, and head to Hawaii. Having no proof
that such an idea was a great option, they decided to go rogue and investigate
an odd facility back up near Beaver City.
At
the facility, they found a shed full of zombies, a building for observing
zombies in a closed environment, two living quarters, a garage facility, a
radio tower, and an office building. The entire complex was surrounded by ten
foot tall fence line topped with razor wire – an easy feat to beat when your
mode of transportation is a helicopter. They killed the shedful o’ zombies,
discovered an underground tunnel system that connected the buildings, and a
scientist.
The
scientist confirmed what they had been told by an insider, that there was no
known cure and everyone else had given up on finding one.
While
investigating the tunnel system, they were set upon by zombies that were
released into the tunnels. As it so happened, one of the zombies was carrying a
9mm handgun and knew how to use it. He managed to incapacitate one of the party
members and nearly incapacitate a second. In the process of escaping the
tunnels, the incapacitated party member died and took a bite out of another
party member. Luckily, another member of the party was able to put the zombie
down before he could do more damage.
Moving
from the heat and into the fire, the cast was taken prisoner by the insider and
her military squad. Quick thinking by the party led to an escape that resulted
in no more PC deaths, but brought about the death of the NPC nurse traveling
with the group.
The
party fled back to their rendezvous point and an NPC they met a few nights
prior came by (via the dead PC’s player). It was apparent that the informer and
her military squad had tracked the party to this rendezvous point. All of the
NPCs left behind with the gear were brutally killed and some supplies were
taken. The party decided to head back to a fuel tank that they had stashed at
an old farmhouse in order to fuel up their helicopter. They took a giant dump
truck, Suburban, and the cable guy’s work minivan with them.
Arriving
onsite, they discover the barn where the fuel truck was hidden to be chained
and locked shut. They took the easy route and shot the lock off the door. With two
party members in the Blackhawk helicopter, another in the dump truck several
miles up the road, yet, and a fourth waiting in the Suburban, the fifth member
of the party opened the door to the barn. Peering inside, he saw the fuel
truck, several other trucks and tractors, plus what looked like feral human
males, including an eight year old boy. The boy quickly turned and shot a .22
rifle at the party member. The other feral males brought their shotguns and
rifles to bear and the party member ran for cover. Thus, started the end.
The
helicopter came closer to the barn as the boy stepped outside the barn,
chambering another round into his rifle. The door gunner cut a path with bullets
in front of the boy, who shot at the helicopter and did no damage. The men
inside the building began shooting at the helicopter, but not hitting it or the
door gunner.
The
party member in the Suburban grabbed bow and arrow, left the Suburban, and
scrambled through a field to get behind the barn. The first party member poked
out of hiding and shot the child.
The
dump truck came rumbling on scene at this point, drawing fire from a nearby
farmhouse. The dump truck pointed itself at the house and aimed to run down the
woman shooting at it.
With
the boy no longer in the way, the party member who had opened the barn door
snuck in and to the side. He kept low and behind tractor equipment – staying away
from the fuel truck.
The
helicopter pilot brought the chopper closer to the ground, allowing the door
gunner to start shooting at the feral men with long arms. The pilot’s only
words to the door gunner (with 2 Life Points left to his name) were, “Don’t
shoot near the fuel truck.”
The
dump truck roared closer to the farm house. A farm house less than 50 yards
from the barn.
The
party member inside the barn shot and killed one of the feral men.
The
party member with the bow and arrow managed to prop open the back door to the
barn. He deftly put an arrow through the lung of another feral man.
The
driver of the dump truck pulled up short and to the side of the house,
providing cover for said driver to jump out. The plan? To sneak about and kill
this feral woman with a shotgun who had retreated into the house.
The
helicopter pilot kept the Blackhawk in place as the door gunner’s player
BOTCHED his roll to near negative 20, spraying M-60 bullets throughout the
barn. Several of them pierced the fuel tank on the fuel truck before a last
bullet scraped metal somewhere near the leaking fuel, causing the rest of the
fuel tank to go up in a massive explosion.
Faster
than the speed of love, the barn exploded in a shower of splintery death. The feral
men, bow and arrow PC, the PC who had snuck into the barn, and the door gunner
were killed instantly. The helicopter pilot fought to maintain as much control
of the bird as he could. The force of the explosion pushed it away from the
barn and towards the farm house. It tore through the farm house, digging into
the dirt just in front of the dump truck.
As
we pull away from a close up of the dump truck driver pulling the unconscious
helicopter pilot from the wrecked Blackhawk, we see the carnage of the
explosion, the destruction placed upon the farmhouse, the ruined vehicles in
the drive, and the giant smoke plume rising into the air as if to tell any
zombie who can see it, “Come, there’s food here and it’s fresh.”
:-:
In retrospect, I picked up on a few of
what I consider my old, bad habits as a ZM. I naturally prefer “sandbox” style
games. The problem is that I usually don’t have any rails designed, so the
cohesiveness of the party (or lack thereof) gets in the way of moving the story
along in the right direction. Once the party got out of town and holed up at
one of the party member’s country home, it because more driven. That stalled at
one point, but then it picked up, again, with gang bangers coming out to play.
I put in too many NPCs that I wanted to
be important. That resulted in very few of them being important to the players.
There were a couple of moments, but it wasn’t until they met up with the
military that the party would really start to interact with the NPCs. I need to
let go and let them interact with the NPCs. I needed to develop more
personality traits.
So, my lesson from this game is to
remember not to dial the game out to the 10,000 foot level. Keep it dialed in,
let the players dive deep if they want to and it bothers none at the table.
Slow the pace down, unless it’s a race against the clock or combat. Make more
interactions meaningful by bringing out the personality side of the NPCs. This
will force me to have fewer NPCs that I want to be important.
Next up, I think I’m staying with
modern, but not post apocalyptic. We will be heading into modern supernatural
with horror. The group seemed keen on that, so I will send out the usual email
asking for some feedback on ideas and see where that goes. I plan for it to be
more structured than a sandbox and be more of a controlled setting. I suspect I
will be pulling from source material such as Unknown Armies, The Esoterrorists,
and Mutant City Blues.
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