Derailed

It never ceases to amaze me how different it is from one game to the next. Our last session marked the first time in our Zombie Run Campaign when the party has been "off the rails." Because, this Zombie Run Campaign marks the first time that I have been the Game Master I have been grateful for the guidance provided by the Zombie Run campaign guide. I've mentioned before that originally I was going to run Necessary Evil—I will admit to being even more nervous about Running that campaign than I ever was for Zombie Run.

The Night I had slated to be my first session ended up being a weekend that my wife was out of town. That meant that I didn't want to run Necessary Evil per se. In my mind Necessary Evil is a long extended campaign. I can see people playing for a year or two or three, at the rate that I'm running Zombie Run. I already had it in my mind to try and run some sort of one shot game for my first foray in to the world of Game Mastering—so when Zombie Run was released in it's Explorers Edition Compatible version, the week I had planned to run a game I was quite pleased. I purchased it then and there.

In my mind Zombie run was a campaign that would run a few sessions and then we could get on to Necessary Evil. Zombie Run is still running. I have railroaded it up to this point. Because that's exactly the sort of thing that I needed as a first time Game Master. The Adventure is written in such a way that makes running it as a railroad easy to do but not necessary.

I read about another group that was running Zombie Run—and they spent a lot more time in New York. They essentially had different factions in the starting building vying for the support of the party, each with different ideas of how to proceed (i.e. some wanting to get off the island, some wanting to wait for the government to come and help them, some wanting to restart society, etc.) and apparently the first chapter alone went on for many sessions. Well, getting into this I wasn't quite up to that sort of challenge. So I have (for the most part) run a chapter per session.

However the chapter in question that was slated for the last session is written fairly open ended. There are several different things written out in the chapter that the party can do, they have more choices than ever before in this adventure. They seem to have made up their minds about what they want to do—but how to do it? Aye, there's the rub. So I guess we're officially off the rails—and my poor new Game Master Brain is reeling.

I think the session went relatively well. The party avoided the only Big Fight that I anticipated as well as a scavenging fight which I was going to throw at them. I even cheated by re-rolling the dice three times to see if they were to encounter any zombies—and at that point decided to just give the success to them. So it ended up being more of a story telling/role playing session. I fear that may have alienated some at the table—but I hope not. They still got to roll the dice a lot. I like rolling dice, so while I advocate the role play over roll play—I feel there should be a healthy amount of roll—it is a game after all.

The fact that there's a priest (a pistol packing priest—that bluffs quite handily mind you) in this particular group has led to an interesting turn of events. He's indicated that he would like to start a Parrish, which is seen as a good thing by the militaristic "government" in Flagstaff, and since the chaplain went missing on a recent supply raid his request has been granted. I'm quite interested to see how it all plays out. Depending on how things play out the Zombie Run Campaign could be over in just a few sessions.

My Wife has asked that we take a break from Savage Worlds—while still continuing with Game Night every Two Weeks—playing Board Games and What Not—then start a new campaign.

I've had some interest in the Weird West for the next campaign—any suggestions from anyone else that plays with us? (FYI—I already have material for running: Fantasy, Superhero(Antihero), Steam Punk(ish), and Sword & Planet) Also, agree or disagree to a couple Non Role Play Game Nights between sessions? If so, what games are people interested in playing?