Zombie Apocalyse- OCC- General Discussion

[welsh]

The yog-sothoth.com guys are a good bunch and the forum is, I think, one of the best fan sites- not only for the quality of the conversation but for much of the help they offer players. Wonderful site. I hope a few come over.

Cthulhu in the Roman world- I should get Invictus.

By the way, Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide shows up a lot in our story. The basic guidelines - the ten rules of zombie survival- comes from Brooks and the intro threads were based on an idea-

Zombie Survival Guide for first year parents.

 

[SuAside]

hmz, i think we should get the dogs into the basement. if not someone will have to carry them up the trapladder to the roof, which might bring misshaps and accidents (and obviously take some time).

should the rest of the PC's go up to the roof? or are there some other people who want to go to the shelter as well?

About the door to the fallout shelter- no, there is no combination lock and it's not very heavy. Rather, its a fairly simple trapdoor that you found when you moved the beer barrels over.

didn't mean a combination lock, rather a bulkhead-ish iron door. (due to the age of the building and the size down below)

rather strange for a fallout shelter not to have a decent seal... that would rather make it a bomb shelter, not a fallout shelter.

One might be able to throw the bolt from the bottom, if it hadn't rusted to the point of being jammed. You might be able to unjam it. But it seems pretty clear that no one thought this would be necessary as a fallout shelter for the last 30 years. Hopefully Zombies have not figured out the mechanics of lifting up a trap door. Chances are they will try to either bang it open or claw it open. Either way, you're right- once the zombies move into the hallway, the zombies will probably start pounding on the door. There is an advantage. The entry into the liquor cabinet is visible from above, so if someone thinks of it, they can keep a shotgun on the zombies below and distract them.

can the liquor cabinet be locked and potentially blocked as well by stacking up stuff like beer kegs to prevent zombies to get in too easily?

 

[welsh]

hmz, i think we should get the dogs into the basement. if not someone will have to carry them up the trapladder to the roof, which might bring misshaps and accidents (and obviously take some time).

should the rest of the PC's go up to the roof? or are there some other people who want to go to the shelter as well?

Well, it's a rather dicey situation. One one side you have zombies coming in through the windows and the doors. The most vulnerable part is probably the window to the T-Bone diner and then the ones to the office.

The downside is that you have a lot of people still on the top floor.
Let's see- Bud, Bob, Beth, Azadeh, Samantha, Jimmy, Gary, David, Jim Kerr, also one of the dogs. Which include some of your best fighters and a good distribution of guns. While you might be finding new guns down below, you still need bodies to shoot. If those folks get eaten, they also don't provide you any of the needed skills. So I think your goal with the door is to hold till the last minute, perhaps even fight off the zombies that reach the door first to allow a few of your people to escape.

About the door to the fallout shelter- no, there is no combination lock and it's not very heavy. Rather, its a fairly simple trapdoor that you found when you moved the beer barrels over.

didn't mean a combination lock, rather a bulkhead-ish iron door. (due to the age of the building and the size down below)

rather strange for a fallout shelter not to have a decent seal... that would rather make it a bomb shelter, not a fallout shelter.[/quote]

Yes, it does. Which raises a question as to what the nature of this thing really is. Is it really a fallout shelter or do the characters merely think its a fallout shelter? As Robert, Duke and Lynne are discovering, this thing runs pretty deep. Remember they've gone down at least 30 perhaps as far as 50 feet underground and have found a chained and locked gate. They have also heard someone screaming further below.

That said, the door used to be able to be bolted from the inside. Basically its a throw bolt that would keep the door shut from above, but its rusted up and would be difficult to budge in the time you have.

Perhaps if the fallout shelter was built to withstand a nuclear attack they favored going deep rather than securing it from outside blast. But what if the base got caved in should a near miss to Warren hit closeby? Also the construction is 1950s, early Cold War. So perhaps the construction reveals early understanding of fallout shelter construction.

One might be able to throw the bolt from the bottom, if it hadn't rusted to the point of being jammed. You might be able to unjam it. But it seems pretty clear that no one thought this would be necessary as a fallout shelter for the last 30 years. Hopefully Zombies have not figured out the mechanics of lifting up a trap door. Chances are they will try to either bang it open or claw it open. Either way, you're right- once the zombies move into the hallway, the zombies will probably start pounding on the door. There is an advantage. The entry into the liquor cabinet is visible from above, so if someone thinks of it, they can keep a shotgun on the zombies below and distract them.

can the liquor cabinet be locked and potentially blocked as well by stacking up stuff like beer kegs to prevent zombies to get in too easily?

Yes, you can lock up the door, which is just really a normal door lock to a wooden door. You can also put barrels of beer in front of it to help keep the door from opening. Eventually the ghouls would claw their way through the door and pound it open, but that would slow them down a lot.

As mentioned above however, the fallout shelter is in fact the quickest but not the safest refuge. The roof is a safer refuge for the group (although perhaps the group above is not aware of that) but it is harder to get up the ladder than race into the liquor cabinet and then down into the "shelter."

 

[SuAside]

so you think we can get the guns out and loaded before the shit really hits the fan? first you need to get the guns, then find the correct ammo and then load the guns. do we have time enough for that before the zombies are on top of everyone? your description tends to counterdict that.

so my idea was to get whatever people want to go into the liquor closet/shelter inside, lock the liquor closet door (where Dave currently is waiting), and barricade it. move some supplies down (preferably non-acoholic drinks and food, lord knows how long they'll be stuck there), close the shelter trapdoor, lock it and perhaps barricade it as well (got enough crap downstairs for that i guess).

after that one has time to investigate the weapons and ammo at their own ease. normal guns shouldn't take too long to get to know and load, but if we're talking about AR's such as an M16/M4, i really wouldn't just storm upstairs rambostyle without decently getting to know them & trying them out. currently we only have amateurs downstairs and no one with real extensive knowledge of firearms.

 

[welsh]

Life is full of uncertainties. Much depends on what David and now Mitch do in the basement, what they find, etc. You have found the crowbar (only one, although there is a second in the garage that Jim Kerr has found- we haven't posted that yet but will). Technically you can have on person look for guns and one person go up. How quickly you achieve your objective of finding and preparing the guns is more or less up to your decisions as well as your indecision. If you don't act, I will assume you are being indecisive. Unfortunately time waits for no man or character.

The alternative would be to play your charactrs. I would prefer not to do that.

Yes, find guns, find ammo load guns, etc. Meanwhile the group up top has to fight its way out or retreat effectively into one of two refuges in the T-Bone.

I think David's problem with getting every one into the closet is that most of the other players are deployed either just outside the kitchen entering the diner, or in the diner or leaving the garage. Bob, for instance, is near the front door. Flip just stepped out.
Unfortunately, two vulnerable break-in areas are very close to the main door. Any character who goes up will likely be terrified and will roll sanity as this is pretty stressful.

There is nothing in the liquor cabinet except liquor- booze, beer, wine( (and not much wine). All the food that exists would either be in the kitchen or the walk-ins. You have whatever supplies are downstairs- and I don't think that included any food.

Dave is currently running for the liquor closet assuming Mitchel is opening the crates. You will get there in another round or two.

At this point in the game, time becomes very problematic and needs to be measured carefully. You have to cross the storeroom and go up two flights of stairs to get to the closet on the ground floor. That will take a little bit of time- enough time, for instance for a person to climb the ladder, for two people to get in the fallout shelter, for a person to shoot.

This is a bit different than we were doing before. We could take time a bit more generously as the zombies were closing in. But the more intense the combat situation in which all the characters are active, then the time slows down to accommodate their actions.

So yes, in about another round Dave will be in the liquor closet, probably as Jimmy or Samantha go inside. They can probably assist Dave prepare a block, but the door goes into the closet, not out into the hall. There is no working locking mechanism to keep the trapdoor shut. It would be difficult to barricade the door as the trapdoor opens to a stairwell going down. So you will be setting up a barricade on a stairwell.

You could also create somekind of a barricade in the storeroom itself, which might be easier since you have lots of boxes of varous items down their with you and you won't have to go up two flights of dusty stairs in the dark with a large box in your hands.

How long this will take until the zombies get close? Much depends on how long the team in the diner can hold out, and how long the doors hold and windows keep the zombies outside.

Again, life is full of uncertainties.

 

[SuAside]

David *snip* David *snip* David

DAVE! ffs...

(sorry, but you're causing my brain to melt down)

If you don't act, I will assume you are being indecisive. Unfortunately time waits for no man or character.

euhm, i think the intent has been made pretty dang clear... Dave runs for the liquor closet to close the door & barricade it once people that want to be inside are inside. Mitchell is probably still working the guns, but he's not my char, so i cant say for sure, but i presume he will.

There is nothing in the liquor cabinet except liquor- booze, beer, wine( (and not much wine). All the food that exists would either be in the kitchen or the walk-ins. You have whatever supplies are downstairs- and I don't think that included any food.

how about non-alcoholic beer in the liquor closet? (or low alcoholic beer)

There is no working locking mechanism to keep the trapdoor shut. It would be difficult to barricade the door as the trapdoor opens to a stairwell going down. So you will be setting up a barricade on a stairwell.

not on the stairwell, that wouldnt work anyway. stuff is too unstable on stairs to easily set up a barricade. so obviously you put the barricade at the bottom of the stairs...

 

[welsh]

putting a barricade at the bottom of the stairs would allow the zombies into the area then.. Remember that the stairwell is two flights from the storeroom up.

I think the next post or so will get to some of the discoveries. I think Handy will post on this.

Non- alcoholic beer? Blasphemy.
But yes, they might have some there. Good thinking.

 

[Mr. Handy]

I should be able to post in the IC thread tomorrow. Mitchell is strong enough that he'll have no problem getting one of the crates open this round, and I'll post to let you know what's in it.

Also, both dogs have already gone down into the fallout shelter. Stompie, you still need to roll Climb for Wallace (40% base skill) if he's climbing on top of the truck. He declared he was climbing before time passed, so he actually has a second round to act if you post before I do. This can be used to make a second attempt to climb the truck if the first one fails.

 

[SuAside]

putting a barricade at the bottom of the stairs would allow the zombies into the area then.. Remember that the stairwell is two flights from the storeroom up.

and? you barricade the main entrance (liquor closet door) and then barricade the end of the stairs as well (possibily leave a small firing hole just for fun).

barricading stuff ON a a flight of stairs as you suggest would not only be hard and hence take time, but it would also be dangerous (if stuff tumbles down when you're building it, auwchy auwchy!)

building the barricade where you have flat floor and a bottleneck doesnt really equal "allow the zombies into the area", Welsh.

Non- alcoholic beer? Blasphemy.

you're preaching to choir, my good man.

i'm a belgian, remember?

 

[welsh]

Ok, so you plan to set one barricade at the door to the liquor closet to keep the zombies out, then another one in the storeroom at the base of the stairwell? Only problem there is that as the zombies come down they can better use combined weight against the barricade and you would be shooting up. But I agree that its better than nothing and would give your group time to retreat deeper into the facility.

By the way Handy and I are comparing some ideas about the future of this game and where its going, and coming up with some creative ideas. Should be delightful.

 

[SuAside]

Ok, so you plan to set one barricade at the door to the liquor closet to keep the zombies out, then another one in the storeroom at the base of the stairwell? Only problem there is that as the zombies come down they can better use combined weight against the barricade and you would be shooting up.

yet if there is room to shoot, zombie bodies will pile up at the bottom against the barricade, causing an extra barrier of zombie meat. this would keep them from really pushing the barricade hard, other than their weight (nullifying the zombies' superhuman strength). i doubt the zombs can dig through a layer of corpses easily.

 

[SuAside]

Gary has the Marlin i think, welsh

 

[welsh]

Thanks Suaside. We should post on the character thread, who has what guns.

Also note, there are more crates below for Mitchel to break into.

 

[Mr. Handy]

Don't forget to roll Sanity for the people in the diner, and to decide who should go up and who should go down, and in what order. One can go up the ladder and two can go down the stairs per round. Anyone who is panicked (say, from failing a Sanity roll) will have to pass a Dex roll in order to climb the ladder. Think carefully about who would be useful in each location and who needs to be kept alive.

For instance, you don't want to send all of your mechanics downstairs in case that ends badly, or you won't end up with any. Dave and Mitchell already went down, though Dave is coming back up to barricade. Your other mechanics still in the diner are Jimmy (currently unarmed), Gary (with a rifle), Azadeh (with a rifle), and Bob (with a pistol). Jimmy and Azadeh are the only two of them close enough to the ladder to attempt to climb in the coming round, as Bob is near the front and Gary is in the office. If Azadeh climbs, though, she won't be firing.

Also, when rolling a headshot against a zombie, remember to apply the -5% penalty to your skill. This could be done by rolling 1d100+5, but the best way is to roll 1d100 and use the Note section at Invisible Castle to indicate what the adjusted skill is. This makes it easier to see if you have an impale or a malfunction. If your skill is also halved or doubled due to extreme or point blank range, that should be done before applying the -5. For instance, if Dr. Hausmann (50% Handgun skill) fires a headshot at point blank range, her effective skill would be (50x2)-5 or 95. A normal shot (effective skill 100%) would always hit unless a malfunction is rolled. Don't forget that headshots must be precision aimed, which doubles the base range but also limits you to one shot per round.

By my count, there are 102 zombies still attacking the T-Bone.

 

[SuAside]

i wish those nazi muffins lobbed some grenades to the zombs. it wouldn't even be that much to ask, since they're too close for comfort.

 

[welsh]

I am away for the day and probably won't be able to post till tomorrow. If its any consolation, I am in Richmond VA, the Paris of Virginia and a city in which a zombie infestation might be a good thing. In fact yesterday at the mall I thought a couple of the customer were shopper zombies- frightening.

 

[Gonzalez]

Well, Im at work right now, and I have seen me a few zombies around here. Actually there is one right next to me right now taking calls. Of course we are celebrating Halloween and everybody is dressed for the occasion so it's hard to tell.

 

[welsh]

correct me if I am wrong-

the people in the T-Bone.

Leaving the garage and going through the office (I had thought they were going through te center of the public area) are
David-first out and closest to the ladder, followed by Gary and trailed by Jim.

In the T-Bone- Closest to the windows out are Bud and Bob, with Bob running while Bud is trying to talk to him (Suaside, did you miss that?)

In the dinner-
Beth is closer to the exits than Azadeh, who is retreating.

In the corridor getting out-- Randall and Rita?

Is this correct?

So the first to go to the exits-
(1) Rita- up the ladder, Randall down to the shelter and then probably David- to the shelter.

(2) Then Gary, Beth and either Jim or Azadeh. As Jim has to go through two doors and is a cop, I assume he will be among the last out.

(3) Bob should get to the exit before Bud, unless Bob goes back to pull Bud back. Jim Kerr would probably be among the last to go up.

Note, merely because your character wants to go up, doesn't mean that they can jump past other characters- this is about distance- from you to your exit, and space (or how easy it is to get stuck passing. The exit down an the exit up are almost in the same spot. Those of you familiar with drop down ladders probably know that they take up a bit of space and can block a corridor- further slowing down movement.

As mentioned to a few of you, you will probably have to consider some rear-guard action, or perhaps try to slow down the zombies.

 

[SuAside]

Bob isn't running, but still in retreat. tagging zombies that try to enter through there. if there is a decent bottleneck to pick off zombies, he'll hold there if he sees that people arent moving fast enough, but simply standing in the middle of the room near the entrance is madness.

Dave should be at the liquor closet about now, yelling what i said before & beginning to pull stuff closer to the door, to enable him to seal & strengthen the door faster.

Luke is on the roof trying to keep the backdoor from being breached by zombies (which is rather easy at point blank with a shotgun. pretty much 100% CTH and 4d6 dmg).

 

[Mr. Handy]

I thought Samantha and Jimmy were still in the corridor, but we'll say they went into the liquor closet and downstairs last round. They should reach the storage room where Mitchell is the round after next, where they can pick up weapons and ammo. Yes, the people leaving the garage and passing through the office are David, Gary, and Jim Kerr in that order. I had thought the office was the only way to get from the garage to the diner without going outside, but they may want to be in the office anyway to fire at the zombies in case they break through the windows. Rita is running for the ladder, and Randall is already near the ladder and the liquor closet. The other four, in order from closest to the ladder and stairs to farthest, are Azadeh, Beth, Bob, and Bud. That leaves nine people in the diner, meaning it will take at least three rounds to get them all up or down. You can't control who goes where or in what order, but if you have a character nearby you can tell them what you want them to do and hope they listen.

Bo will be using his shotgun to blast the zombies trying to get in the front. Once the zombies reach the corridor, he'll head back to the hatch and cover people who are trying to retreat or pulling up the ladder.

I'm going to make a brief post in the IC, but it will not cause time to advance. It's mainly Dr. Hausmann's reply to Luke. The next update will probably be tomorrow, which gives Stompie and Gonzalez a little more time to post.

Welsh, any news on thewhatchamacallit? You should probably send him PMs on play@yog-sothoth until you get his problems straightened out. Even though he successfully registered, I don't know if he'll be able to read PMs here. I also agree with what you said in the PM you sent me.