Thursday 23 November 2017

All Things Zombie - Game Masters Guide to Running Scenarios



When I was drafting the players guide I kinda figured that All Things Zombie made sense to me in three parts being:
-      What I can do as a player,
-      What a GM has to do to manage all the other aspects of the table top game, and
-      What the players and the GM do as part of the campaign.
The motivation for the players guide was to help Dave get a bit more of an understanding of what he could do as a player but then I got to thinking that I wouldn’t mind a few more notes for myself on the other two aspects to make it a bit simpler for me to set up and run a game and to manage the campaign.
Because of my fly in fly out work style I tend to buy all my rules on pdf and put them on a tablet. This is great because it really reduces the amount of weight I carry around and it also means that I can take a lot of books with me. I can’t take all my cool figures, terrain, paints and stuff but at least I can still take the books.
The only problem with a tablet I find is that it can be a bit ponderous to get around the book unless you really know where everything is.
So I figured that I’d knock up a game masters guide for setting up and running scenarios. That way I could have this little sucker printed out and sitting beside me as I run the game and I can quickly flick through the pdf on the tablet to confirm any little rules that I need to as I go.
Now this isn’t a criticism of Ed’s rules by any stretch of the imagination but rather just a little tool to help me, a relatively infrequent player and GM, to quickly get the scenario set up properly, to get into the game a bit quicker and to enable me to find some of those little rules that I tend to forget and cannot fully memorise a little bit easier.
This guide is set up in two halves, what you need to do to set up a game and some of the key references that you need when running a game. For more detailed references on voluntary actions and reactions during the game a reference is made to the Advance Players Guide.
I’ve put both of the guides onto one A4 sheet (one on each side of the sheet) and it works a treat for me when playing the game.
Hope it helps. Let me know what you think.
DEW

8 comments:

  1. You've come up with another little gem here Tim :-)
    I'll raise my hand and admit that there's often times I've played and only afterwards realised I'd forgotten something in the rules!
    This will be a really useful reference, and ensure the games in my campaign are consistent! :-)

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    1. Thanks Greg. I'm looking forward to this weekend. I should have some good time when I get home to drag out all my stuff and get a game in.

      And you are right by the way. Every little bit helps.

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  2. That is such a useful resource both for newbies and veterans. Great work, Tim.

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    1. You are too kind Bryan. We all know mate that you don't need an aid of this nature but thanks for the kind words.

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  3. Even though I've change a great amount of ATZ to suit my needs, these are still useful, I only need the page numbers to be changed.

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    1. Hi Joe. Mate I've attempted to email the power point slide that I made this in so that you might edit it to put in your own page numbers. Hopefully that's of use to you. Let me know if it doesn't make it too you through the interwebs.

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  4. Excellent stuff and thanks. Hey, can you email at

    twohourwargames@gmail.com

    Thanks,
    Ed

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    1. Sure Ed no dramas. I've sent both pdfs in a couple of emails (due to size). Let me know if you don't get them.

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