Zombies, oh my!

So we took a trip a couple months ago to a zoo. After walking around looking at animals for a few hours, i heard a walking dead reference.

I said to myself, "Self, a prison may have made a nice fort in zombie times, but this friggen zoo, is AWESOME"

So i took extra pics and grabbed a few maps.

Next session, I threw the plan out there, the PC's would be left for dead survivors, who ended up at the zoo......what followed was a few epic sessions of fun.

Green text to follow, and zombie ttg general I guess.

>5 players using (system)
> The objective was to survive the zombie hordes and beasts, and gather others, etc.
>Standard zombie apoc game
>The only variant being, we started in a zoo.
>The PC's did an excellent job of skill picking, focusing less on combat and more on survivals
>The center of the zoo, was the reptile house, a 2 story domed building of rock, with long hallways and dozens and dozens of thick glass cages.
>For the sake of time, and to prevent 1 million rolls to befriend zoo animals, all the animals were dead (non zombies), upon their arrival at the zoo
>The reptile house was declared 'base', and defenses were put into place.
>I told them since the RL zoo was under construction, anything they saw in the pictures and maps and the zoo's website, COULD be used, provided their charc had relevant skills
>A massive bridge (30' up), from the top floor of the reptile house, to the large mammal area (bears, lions, etc), was built, providing a walk way between the two buildings.
>The bear area, had a 28' drop into the trench surrounding the area. And...a rather thick iron fence.
>Supplies were gathered from nearby stores/shops, which led to the first zombie horde following the pc's back to the zoo.
>The outer fence fell quickly, as did a couple chain link fences and the zombies were soon at the reptile house, banging on the doors
>1 PC (we will call adam), Ran to the bridge and used an air horn and waved a flag to draw the zombies away from the door, and towards him (Adam was safely above the horde)
>The zombies soon feel into the pit surrounding the bear area, and were simply burned with a bit of gas and a book of matches
>1st zombie horde defeated
>Repairs were made to the outer fence, and a few more spikes were cemented into the floor of the trench (Which soon became known as the killing pit)
>A few survivors made their way to the zoo, and there was some drama as the PC's ruled with an iron fist and allowed no dissent

>cont.

cont.

>the second horde that followed them back was a bit bigger, and had a few special undead
>These proved to be no challenge, as the Pc's again drew them towards the pit, and shoved them off in.
>One survivor who'd shown up was killed, but other than that, almost no loss or damage.
>Repairs again, and the Lion area was added into their defense plans......another killing pit.
>More survivors showed up......
>The outer fence was greatly strengthened with supplies from a couple home depots from town.
>The 3rd horde didn't make it through the fence, so the PC's opened the gates, and led them to the killing pits, and slaughtered the lot of them
> a few sniper nests were set up to pick off random stragglers and beasts that showed up within the fence
>A huge haul of canned goods were found along with a ton of planters that were used to grow food
> "Who's got farming?" I asked
>3 of the 5 PC's raised their hands.......FML
>Another horde attacked in the middle of the night, and the new generators and flood lights were put to use
>Another horde destroyed...no loss of life

So far, 4 hordes, and only 1 person was killed......I knew I needed to up the ante a bit, and give them a challenge.

>Cont.

Where is the map of the damn zoo

cont.

>I sent a small group (5) beast type undead at them in the middle of the night
>Basically hunters/tiger zombies that had a long range pounce and were very stealthy
>All 5 were killed crossing the fence by the snipers who were very alert
>I sent a flock of undead hawks to fly over and attack
>The PC's used a squad of 10 shotgunners to destroy them before a single person was harmed
>I sent another huge horde, bigger than the last 4 combined, with special undead mixed in
>1 person died, and the massive horde was again, shoved off and drawn into the killing pits (4 pits now), and burned
>More survivors show up after seeing the huge fire light up the sky
>The PC's gain 2 doctors (random rolls) and an air force pilot who know where a chopper was.
>Soon, the PC's had a helicopter, and could zip around the area and gather people
>A new bunk house was built inside what used to be the seal/penguin area. 100 beds protected by stout walls, with an upper level for watching
>A swimming pool was filled and fenced off for parties and bbq's. (ya)
>At this point, I couldn't find a zombie threat that could really hurt them........so I upped the game, and gave them an encounter with a hostile group of humans
>The humans had pillaged an army base, and had a couple tanks. After some back and forth and threats, the tanks were destroyed by the air force pilot and his crew......
> So I added some numbers up of the population of the area, doubled it, doubled it again and threw everything at them
>The outcome was predictable, no loss of life, and a horde the size of NYC was destroyed by fire, bombs and bulldozer

cont......

>all the animals were dead
Dropped, instantly stopped being interesting. Now it's just "5 cunts in an empty lot". You could literally use a city park as a setting and it would be more interesting.

These defensive seem like a big balloon.
Very sturdy and difficult to pop, but you only need a needle to breach the defenses and it is all over.

>all the groundskeepers and handlers did the human thing during an apocylopse and just peaced out.

Son, no one's going to sit in a zoo and take care of the animals. At the best they might let the stuff out. At best. like 80% of the time they'd either get abandoned or eaten.

>Missing the point this hard
The actual interesting part would be trying to keep those animals alive.
You know when you are shit at world-building if you can't reproduce in a fictional setting achievement of your average zoo's staff IRL during nasty combinations of wartime and famine. Leningrad's zoo survived 4 year siege of the city, along with one of the most important collection of botanical specimens (aka - both massive sources of food) despite mentioned siege, famine, lack of supplies and no resources nor no help

Killing the animals outright just turns it into boring shit, because you have 5 random nobodies in the middle of what can be best described as "park with empty cages".
Why even bother then?

Most city parks have a huge fence, with many stone buildings, and cages?

>Still missing the point
Ok, let's be blunt:
The idea is shit and wastes own potential.

>missing the point
No, i'm not. Sure, op getting the animals alive might be a better story than "the ruins of the old world and the dead" but zombies (in almost all the fiction i've read in the genre) mean total sociatial collapse. No more power, no more anything. A lot of the animals in a typical zoo need something those two things provide, ignoring basic hydration, not to mention dietary requirements. Many of those animals require fucking meat, daily. How the fuck are you going to hunting for a sizable portion of the zoo's animal population in what must be an urban area? Every. Fucking. Day.

tl;dr it would make a good story but it requires more handwaving than "lol the dead are rising"

>give them a challenge.

Make the antagonist a cute girl

Not him, but any half-decent part will have what a zoo has:
- fenced areas (or being fully fenced)
- tools and heavy-duty gear required for keeping the park in shape
- locked in "administrative" area (so already a housing unit, with all the necessities, further fenced and separated)
- a big pond with some fish stock in it
- lots of planting areas
In short - the main difference would be lack of utterly useless animal habitats.

And if you think any half-decent zoo is using honest-to-God cages, then you probably never been into one.

Oh, so you are just shit GM.
Thanks for informing.

strawmanning this hard because the elephants and lions died in a story.

I was discussing, now i'm just pitying.

It has nothing to do with animal pity or granola girls. But it shares a lot with lazy world-building and zero-effort scenarios.

>Maps, Internet resources, 20 customized NPC's, 5 entirely new critters, dozens of random NPC's, Figuring out the damage heavy machine guns and homemade bombs do.....a 2'x2' scaled map showing defenses and improvements.....10 pages of inventory lists, and many other things.

>Lazy world-building

Pick one faggot McComplainypants

Which was sorta the point of avoiding that hassle.

>Fly to africa and get rare fruit for this really cool bird, or it dies
>Come up with a meat source for big cats and bears
>We need another barrel of fish, or the seals will starve
>this one is sick, do you have any (x) to cure it? Or do you need to fly to San Diego

Animals wouldn't have added to the story, IMO

>t. Shitposter on Veeky Forums because he's such a that guy no one will play with him

>mfw love all flesh must be eaten/unisystem
>mfw have tons of ideas for a zombie apocalypse
>mfw create game
>mfw add maps, tokens, props, all that good shit
>mfw cool music, cool zombie ideas
>mfw suddenly blank out halfway through
>mfw no other rpg idea gives me writers block as bad as this
>mfw stare at the game screen for half an hour
>mfw decide to postpone it till later and end up doing other shit instead

How do you actually start a good zombie game? I love AFMBE as a player and GM both, but creating my own setting and ideas is giving me such a bitch of a time.

Good is totally subjective, but as for me; my players loved it and I had a good time as well, so to me, it was good.

I used what I'd just seen, as a base, and expanded from there.

Stop feeding this Troll. He is being obtuse on Purpose.

>"Self, a prison may have made a nice fort in zombie times, but this friggen zoo, is AWESOME"
This is actually a really good point.

>These defensive seem like a big balloon.
>Very sturdy and difficult to pop, but you only need a needle to breach the defenses and it is all over.
This.
Sneaky smart, and ruthless humans would be how to try to take them down, not strong humans with tanks.

Still y'all did a good job.

>You could literally use a city park
>Not him, but any half-decent part will have what a zoo has:
Trolls or not, you have seen some shitty, shitty zoos.


>How do you actually start a good zombie game?
Never run/played one, but I imagine it's a combination of interesting location or group dynamic along with a variety of survival challenges.
Unless you are going for a fast paced escape game, in which case you just need a huge map filled with death.

you guys are missing the bigger picture, which is that the party should have had to fight off zombie animals.

I was pretty disappointed that this wasn't the first thing they had to do.

>some time into the zombie apoc
>zoo is a big fort and a settlement for survivors
>they hunt down enemy survivors and throw them to the animals 4 fun
>also throw down zombies (i mean why not? you can eat mummies irl as a snack to beer. they are edible)

Localised outbreak, with reinforcements/help/rescue coming in X.

This way you avoid all the bullshit related with typical zombie scenario AND create actual tension.
>Damn, if Jimmy wasn't bitten yesteday, he could make it to the tomorrow's pick-up
>Jesus Christ, how can I look into a mirror ever again if I do this...
>Look, Fred, just because dead are walking on the streets, I'm not going to sleep with you, it's still not the end of the world

Just feed her a retard brain and turn her into mush.

I withdraw my suggestion. Seduce some really lonely bastard, feed the brain to the zombie girl and enjoy a lovestruck QT for a couple of days, then take it from there. Godspeed.

>tldr

Put in a religious cult and some government remnants to spice things up.

All flesh must be eaten.