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Play Advice: Explain Zombie Cinema To Me

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  1.  
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      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 1
    Because I love riffing on Jason!

    Many people at the Forge Booth exuberantly tried selling me Zombie Cinema. I didn't buy it mainly because I was confused by the conflict rules after having played it at Games on Demand.

    When we played, it seemed like we were introducing our own conflicts till a player died and took over the zombies. Example:

    - Bob's turn.
    - Bob: "Sam and Lou are in the scene."
    - Bob: "We are in the mall trying to move up the stairs to evade the zombies."
    - No one is playing the zombies yet, so there is no conflict to get away.
    - Bob: "We are slowed down by having to drag Lou in his wheel chair with us so the Zombies get closer."
    - No conflict yet since no other player's in the scene oppose (does that mean no conflicts if only one player is in the scene?)
    - Bob: "I drop Lou and leave him to his fate so the rest of us can get away."
    - Lou: "No way, I hold on to you..."
    - Conflict!

    I suspect we were playing incorrectly. Help!

    On the positive side, I really liked:
    - the board
    - character creation
    - the box set and pieces
    - the price
    - the dice mechanic
    - aiding with your character in the same scene
    - supporting as a player, regardless if you are the same scene (Ryan Macklin describes this as a way to vote people off the island!)
    - how characters die and move on the board

    Side note, my character was forced to escape faster than I wanted him to. So towards the end I tried to lose conflicts so I can stay in the game a few more scenes.

    I'm eager to learn more!

    Best,
    John
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 2
    Until someone dies, the conflicts are among the PC's. Conflicting with the other PC's is the only way to move forward until that first player bites it.

    The goal of the game is NOT-NOT-NOT to survive and get to the end of the board. The board, like everything in the game, is just there to help everyone with the story. The goal of the game is to walk away with a kick-ass zombie story.
    • CommentAuthorJesse
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 3
    So, in that sense it's like The Shab-al-Hiri Roach where the "win" condition is really a structural element rather than a true goal?

    Jesse
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 4
    There is no "win" condition. Escaping does not equal winning.

    Winning = walking away from the table saying, "We made something cool."
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 5
    First off: John, you're not playing it wrong ... except maybe in that you took too long to get to the conflict between people.

    It is all conflicts between people. The thing is: Everyone on one side moves up, and everyone on one side moves down, right? So there is a group advantage to unbalanced sides: If you have four people, you want three of them to be moving up while only one is moving down. That's a net win for the group.

    I refer to this as the "Asshole savior" effect. The one person in the group who is saying stuff that is obviously wrong-headed is doing the most good for the team.

    Rather than dropping Lou and leaving him to his fate, for instance, you could have your character be really offensive ... "Why we bothering to wheel this gimp around with us? It's just gonna get us killed, for cryin' out loud! I say we roll him down an escalator and run like hell the other way when the zombies go after him. Who's with me?"

    The goal here is to give Lou (and Dierdre and Sylvia) a point toward escape at the cost of you getting a point closer to death. Hopefully (heh!) they'll turn around later and say something really unreasonable that you can disagree with in turn.

    Everyone shows the stupid, panicking side that zombie-horror requires, and everyone also gets a chance to band together with their friends to let cooler heads prevail, and together they push toward eventual escape.

    That is one way of playing the game.

    If, by contrast, you come to it with typical story-game sensibilities, saying to yourself "More even conflicts are better conflicts!" then you'll get two people going up while two people go back, which is pretty well the definition of a zero-sum game for you humans. Keep that up, and the zombies will over-run you as sure as anything ... but you'll all have a reasonable claim that you were the reasonable one, right before your brains get chewed on.

    That is another way of playing the game.

    Helping at all?
  6.  # 6
    Also, John, were you sacrificing yourself? You can totally move your guy toward the zombies by "helping" other characters move away from them in exchange.
    • CommentAuthorJ. Walton
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 7
    John, I wrote Push the Red Button about Geiger Counter, but I think those sentiments apply equally well to Zombies at the Door... I mean Zombie Cinema (Eero, the original name was SO much better!).
  8.  # 8
    I'm getting confused. Tony says there is a net "win" you can work on and Judd says there's no winning condition. Like, maybe this is a philosophical disagreemnt or something, but I'm really curious if the game does have a goal you're trying to achieve a la the Roach or some other games.
    • CommentAuthorJ. Walton
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 9
    I think the win condition (as in Geiger) is somebody making it out alive, but probably not your own character. If you play it like that, you're golden, I think.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 10
    The game models zombie movies. In zombie movies, the important conflicts are between the humans. The zombies, like cylons, are only there as pressure for the human conflicts. So especially early in the game, but arguably throughout the game, you should be looking to find and play through conflicts between characters rather than "the party" versus the zombies.

    Or, as Eero best put it: "Zombie Cinema is a story game because it puts the characters in an untenable position. The untenable position is that zombies are coming to eat their brains."

    Zombies are not for conflict. Zombies are for consequences.
    •  
      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 11
    I forgot about the sacrifice rule, great catch Jason! Towards the end of the game, that would have been very useful!

    Tony and Judd, makes perfect sense!

    It wasn't clear to us that we were supposed to create characters or situations where we were so often and so quickly antagonistic towards each other till much later in the game. At first the conflicts I was bringing to the table felt very forced and artificial. But I suspect we had too much build up. If we we ended scenes where there was no conflict after say 1-2 minutes, then we would have gone around the table quicker, and the zombie token could have started it's march towards us which would have created more tension and reasons for screwing each other. We had 5 players and it felt like it took the zombie token a very long time to move. Our total game lasted around 2 and half hours. Although that also seems to fall in line with the 30 minutes per player estimate.

    Jonathan, I'll check out that article and then respond back here with thoughts. Many of us who played also have played Geiger Counter in the past and didn't have the same issues. In the version of Geiger Counter we played, when you frame a scene, you aren't framing from your own character's perspective. Also, the order you take turns is more flexible. Both differences seemed pretty key to me for a GMless game. But there are many factors!

    Thanks,
    John
    •  
      CommentAuthorfnord3125
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 12
    I haven't played this game (though I think it sounds cool and I hope I can sometime) but can I assume it's both possible and reasonable to have conflicts that have nothing to do with the zombies whatsoever? Like a pair of lovers getting into an argument over something and because they are caught up in that, they don't notice the hungry undead approaching, thus leading to problems for at least one of them?
    • CommentAuthorJesse
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 13
    From what I'm seeing, there is a point at which "people escape." Is it *possible* for the whole group to make it out alive? I'm not saying easy, likely or even desirable, just is it a legitimate possibility?

    Jesse
    • CommentAuthorJ. Walton
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 14
    No. You can only move forward by other people moving back.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRafael
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008 edited
     # 15
    The cards tell you a lot about the different ways that your character is going to screw things up. I drew Naivete, Useless?, and Invalid (or something along those lines). I decided that my character was a senile old coot with hearing problems. We were trapped in an elevator and the zombies were trying to get in. One had shuffled into the open doorway above us, tumbled down the elevator shaft, and landed on top of our elevator. Still in one piece, it was pounding on the access hatch in the ceiling (obviously incapable of actually opening the hatch and letting itself in).

    I figured it would be totally in character for my demented old guy to assume that rescue personnel had arrived, so I immediately starting screaming that we were safe, and I used my cane to open the hatch just enough for the zombies to get in. Hilarity ensued.

    Since most of the character cards result in the creation of extremely dysfunctional characters, it seems to me that no matter what you're dealt, if you're playing in character, you're going to be making some terrible decisions. Which is where the fun comes from. Mmm, brains. Tasty.
  16.  # 16
    John,

    If it would have helped, i could have forced the video box into your hands at the register??

    Let me know if you are up for a retry, as i brought a copy of it back to New York with me.


    Eric
    IPR Accidental Employee of the Month, August '08
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 17
    Posted By: fnord3125can I assume it's both possible and reasonable to have conflicts that have nothing to do with the zombies whatsoever?

    Yes, absolutely. In fact, this is probably better than zombie-related conflicts, from a story perspective. The zombies can turn up the pressure ("You said you loved me and my daughter, too, but now you're not willing to risk a dash across the zombie-laden street to save her!"), but ideally, the conflicts remain human ones.

    Posted By: JesseIs it *possible* for the whole group to make it out alive?

    Yes, as Tony points out — if each conflict was 1 against 3, and the odd man out was rotated each conflict, you'd get a net group "progress."

    Notably, however, you mostly care about your own damn pawn, and so you frame conflicts where you will be in the majority, which means one character (or sometimes two) gets labelled the badguy, because everybody's willing to roll dice against him. (In the game I played, this character was Barack Obama. I shit you not.)
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 18
    Posted By: Jonathan WaltonNo. You can only move forward by other people moving back.
    I believe that you are incorrect: Once someone has escaped, they are allowed to play their dice on behalf of the zombies ... which means that the zombie side can lose, with a result that everybody else moves up.

    That said, my knowledge is based off of a game at GenCon, not off of direct access to the text, so I could totally have just been misinformed.
    • CommentAuthorJ. Walton
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 19
    Tony, it's totally possible you're right. I played a version of the game while it was in development, not the final version.
    •  
      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 20
    Jonathan, from our game, I believe Tony is right. Dead players roll as the zombies so you could have everyone else moving up. But someone with the rules in front of them should clarify.

    Josh, I agree with you 100% about zombie movies and the important conflicts being about humans and pretty much everything else you said. But rules wise, character creation seemed to create characters that were dumb asses (but funny) that we wouldn't mind seeing killed. But beyond that, we didn't have any positive or negative connections to each other to work off of. And with 5 players, the pressure the zombies presented at the beginning of the game felt small and far away. It felt like we had to do most of the heavy lifting to get the game going and build a situation appropriate to the mechanics to then feedback and help push the story forward till things reached a more synchronous fiction meets mechanics rhythm.

    But we could have been doing something wrong. I don't want to judge any game based on a con game. Is there anything else to the initial set up beyond draw 3 cars, imagine a character inspired by those cards, and then start framing the first scene?

    Eric, we will game one day! Not sure when but it will happen!
    • CommentAuthorJesse
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 21
    Wow this thread makes me see-saw. Half the posts make me want this game, the other half make me not want this game.

    So let me ask about these character cards. At the start of the game is there any sympathy for them as people, AT ALL? Or is everyone pretty much already relishing their demise?

    What about room for character change? Are the traits on the cards intended to be *starting* points or are they intended to be fixed things throughout. Could something horrible happen mid-play that wakes my "naive" guy up to the realities of what's happening?

    Jesse
  22.  # 22
    Posted By: JesseSo let me ask about these character cards. At the start of the game is there any sympathy for them as people, AT ALL? Or is everyone pretty much already relishing their demise?

    I got "Career Girl" "Slut" and "Location", and I really wanted her to survive. Escape for her would have been making it to an old flame's survivalist compound (the weirdo detail about his enthusiasms that ended the fling in the first place).

    There are many inherently sympathetic card combinations. There's nothing stopping you from detailing a change in your character once play starts - if you "win" by telling a great story together, transformation is a pretty good move.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 23
    John, I'm not sure if it's represented in the rulebook, but when Eero ran it for us, he was very explicit that, when interpretting your three cinema cards into a character, you should create relationships to other characters and/or to the zombies. I'm pretty sure that rough sort of relationship map is necessary to make the game tick.

    Jesse, trust me: you want this game.
  24.  # 24
    My understanding is that you create a situation with characters having reason to interact at the same time as or even before you make the characters.

    When we played it last year, first we decided we were playing "Love Boat, except with zombies!" and we all picked characters that fit that, instead of the other way around.

    Until the zombies were well up the track, our conflicts were absolutely with each other, with zombies just being background noise and tension.
    •  
      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 25
    Thanks Josh! That would definitely make a world of difference if it's in the book. I suspect we probably missed it given the con atmosphere.
    • CommentAuthorhoog
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 26
    I played the game recently, and the guy explaining the game (thanks Christoph!) told us that the character cards (or sticks, since we used the Finnish version) weren't even really necessary to play the game

    you can use them, if you like, but you don't have to

    they're there to help, but you can pretty much make any character you want

    I guess you can pick three new cards if you don't like the ones you have

    or everyone can pick five and discard the two they like least, or whatever

    also, the game is great fun, and very fast
  27.  # 27
    Great discussion, guys! I'm glad that there is so much interest for my game.

    I have one overall answer to most of the concerns detailed here, I hope it'll be satisfying: Zombie Cinema requires some skill to play it. This is because of the game's background as a roleplaying kata (I explained this to many demoees: I originally wrote the game to teach protagonism), but also because in the context of this sort of social situation I very much believe that the satisfaction of success is integral to the game experience - it is absolutely exhilarating to stand up from the game and realize that your skills, your friends and a simple game have made this excellent story. Thus the game allows for some leeway in approach and does not include any advice for play, but only rules.

    Now, what this means is that Zombie Cinema is not so much like a jukebox than it is a guitar: you need to bring in some techniques and skill to it yourself, because you are answering a question of narrative theory: how do I make these characters appealing and this story engaging? You have complete freedom as an individual to figure out a personal answer to this, and as a group you will work to develop teamwork that benefits the common goals of play. It is not random that I left the notion of relationship mapping the characters out of the game, for example; it's an excellent idea for an individual character's interest and survivability to have some existing relationships with the other characters, but this does not mean that all characters should have such relationships. Furthermore, you can play successfully without those relationships by working up other sources of motivation, characterization and sympathy; thus relationship mapping is not a required rule in this game that only presents the minimal, required rules and leaves matters of play strategy (or technique, as you might call it) up to the players who play it. Part of play is to figure out which techniques you need to make the story successful. I've often played an intentionally isolated character myself to set up adversity or outsiders in an otherwise well-connected group of characters. Something like this often grows out of the setting, as when we played a Haiti-based voodoo zombie game and all but one of the characters were natives to the island.

    Coincidentally, I'm going to write some strategy articles for the game on our website soon. Just like a boardgame, Zombie Cinema only presents the objective, absolute rules of the game in the rules booklet, leaving matters of preference and technique for deeper sources. So there is going to be technique advice, it's just not in there mixed with the rules. I encourage anybody else who's taken a look at the rules to give some hints out as well - that's why it's "advice" and not "rules".

    (Expect that article this month; I can't say for sure, as I have a horrible after-con rush going on here.)
  28.  # 28
    As for some details:

    • The purpose of the game is to enjoy creating a story with your friends. The characters are most likely trying to escape with their lives, but even that can change as the game proceeds and the characters are revealed - the sacrifice mechanic is there explicitly so you can choose to have your character endanger their well-being for some other priorities, and there are other places where characters act for anything but self-preservation. So while concentrating on character survival is a very useful compass when you learn the game (you can't go much wrong in your actions that way, really), you're also free to discard this priority and strive for other things if you want.

    • The rules of the game have not changed much at all for the last year (most of the changes have been in very minor, theoretical points), but I noticed at Gencon that there are all sorts of interesting mis-interpretations floating around, perhaps because of a hasty translation we made last year. I recommend reading the rules booklet carefully, I put it together very carefully.

    • It's theoretically possible for all characters to survive the story if you have more than the minimum number of players. You just need to have lots of uneven conflicts; like Tony said, the average net of those conflicts is positive, so with any luck the group will overall be moving up. In practice I dearly hope that individual characters will come to have their own concerns and priorities which drive them to betray others and complicate this "optimal game plan". Zombie movies are very much about character thinking that they can take the zombie threat less seriously and even benefit from it; this is not a false promise in this game, as if you choose your conflicts right, you can be completely selfish and still fight your way up to escape over the bodies of the other characters.

    • If you don't want your character to escape, sacrifice to move backwards. Note that the sacrifice narration is optional.

    • As the rules say, "Each player creates his character for the game by drawing some Cinema Cards. One of each color is traditional, but the players are free to take more or less, or trade cards with others to their satisfaction." What this means is that the cards are not a rules-constraint, but a tool for players to utilize as they see fit. The topics of the cards have been toned to represent typical character concepts in zombie movies - note that you can interpret and deviate from the cards freely in the basic game.

    • Furthermore, the rules for game set-up are intentionally free-form: it's up to the group to decide how much situation they want to front-load. If there is a GM-type player in the game and he suspects that the others need it, it's completely feasible for him to start the game off by having a pre-prepared situation to start with. The point is, as I try to communicate above, this stuff is about the technique of play, not about rules issues, which is why I don't discuss this in the rules booklet.

    • Per the rules, players are very much not required to frame scenes for their own characters. It is completely feasible (with some good strategic reasons, too) to frame scenes with other characters, or even ones that don't have characters at all. Story integrity is much more important than just getting your own character into a scene (if you don't care about story integrity, at least remember that other players might, and annoying them is not likely to increase the survivability of your character), so I often see players framing good scenes for the other players purely in a gamemasterly mode of thought.

    • It's a good idea to make the conflicts between the characters be believable and interesting, and your character's participation understandable and human, as those are the qualities the other players are expecting. The zombies need not be concerned in the conflicts or any other narration at all, either - the only place where the zombies must come up are conflict ties. Characters can even die without zombie involvement, if you read the rules carefully. All this means that, technically, the role of the zombies in the story can be really minor if nobody is particularly interested in working with them.



    Please let me know if you have any other questions about the game. This, at least, is one topic on which I have complete confidence.
    • CommentAuthorJesse
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2008
     # 29
    Euro,

    Thank you! That thoroughly cements my interest in the game!

    Jesse
    •  
      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeAug 21st 2008
     # 30
    Thanks Euro for the explanation! Very much appreciated.

    We played again tonight. We still ran into similar problems but we're able to push through them quicker. The first quarter of the game feels like a lot of work. As if each player has to be a good GM to get things moving. And all the players had extensive GM experience. That being said, I find it to be an excellent zombie game that emulates zombie movies perfectly.

    Best,
    John
  31.  # 31
    Yeah, that's the part of the game where you plug in the situation creation - I can totally understand how sometimes you just don't want to go to the bother of figuring out a scenario to play. However, for me it's a clear joy to go into the game blind and then create a story by feel. It's nice to throw things at the game and then, around the middle of the story, to figure out what it's actually about. It's like you're storyboarding with your friends, except that nobody is planning anything. Ouija board story creation, in a sense. This is the same sort of entertainment that Universalis gives when played from a dramatic viewpoint.

    When we want to be more structured around here, we just spend a bit more time pre-play in figuring out the premise of the scenario. There's a huge difference between, say, a "licence game" like the one time when we played Jurassic Park in the game, and a totally blind undertaking where you just have a one-sentence setting and go into chargen.

    A note on play technique: do not be afraid to pass on your turn if you don't have any ideas and nobody is suggesting anything. That rule is there for a reason. Another note on technique: think of the first scenes not as significant in terms of escaping from the zombies - they're not. Rather, the first scenes are there for you to set up your character in the minds of the audience. So use those scenes for establishing character motivation, and don't worry about whether you get conflicts or not. Remember that your job as the active player is to close the scene when it has ran it's course. Remind others to close their scenes when the pertinent stuff has been dealt with - even if that means the scene is just a bit of flavor with no free character play at all.

    I've been thinking that it wouldn't be that difficult to create adventure modules for Zombie Cinema, if that sort of thing were needed. Basicly you'd just have a sheet of bangs and a pre-thought idea about why the zombies are there, what they do and so on. I believe that sort of thing could be rather entertaining, and perhaps require less creative energy from the players.
    •  
      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeAug 22nd 2008
     # 32
    Thanks Euro! I look forward to any technique advice you will have for us in the future. Our second game went much smoother than the first, primarily because we made use of non conflict scenes and encouraging people to pass when they didn't have an idea. Made a world of difference!

    Next time I will probably have everyone specify a vulnerability or something they care about that they are trying to hold on to and a relationship to another character, what another character cares about or to the zombies.

    Have you worked on any other games? I'd love to delve deeper into your work! Do you have a blog?

    Rock,
    John
    •  
      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeAug 22nd 2008
     # 33
    I also noticed that Zombie Cinema has a Board Game Geek entry

    For those who played the game, head on over to the above link and talk about it, rate the game, and help spread the love!

    Rock,
    John
  34.  # 34
    Good to know that you're getting the hang of the game. My blog is Game Design is About Structure. I have your typical hobbyist game designer background, just like most Forge folks - a game or two under my belt, several years of designing into private folders and such. Probably the most notable bit about me is that I'm either a bum or a full-time designer/author (as opposed to having a real job) - depends on whether this is just a phase I'm going through, I guess. Apart from Zombie Cinema, my other current project is rewriting The Shadow of Yesterday, in case you didn't hear about that one. After that I'm going to go back to Eleanor's Dream, which is my real game that is going to convince people that I'm not only good-looking, but smart as well. I've introduced the latter at the Forge at some point.

    As for the BGG entry, Joachim Erdtman told me that he made it. I'm going to send him some images for the entry as well when Jari gets back to Finland and is again available for this sort of stuff. I always find these rpgs in BGG rather amusing, hopefully this attracts some attention as well.

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