Is there an alternate rule for the Danger Level scaling with survivor experience?

Quote from: Skarg;934725Is there an alternate rule for the Danger Level scaling with survivor experience?

Why are you looking for an alternate rule?

Oh, just because I like things to be connected for a reason, and I'm thinking about a meta-game with stakes and reward/benefit that operates on a larger level than one scenario.

That is, for what reason would things get more dangerous as a direct relation to the experience level of the survivors?

And, it means that getting better makes things worse, automatically. That's a negative side-effect of a goal which doesn't have a reason that seems logical to me. There's also a weird effect where if someone experienced dies and leaves less experienced people, that would lower the danger level, again for no reason other than game balance or something.

I wouldn't mind, and it could be effectively a similar thing, if it was just about the level of damage/alert generated, but I'd rather in not be an artificial balance mechanic or movie genre-expectation thing.

So I'm already thinking of the possibility of running a multi-scenario campaign (do they already have a system for that?) where characters who survived a scenario would be able to start with the experience they earned in earlier scenarios, and then it would make even less sense for that to increase the danger level, especially if the campaign is designed to challenge players to keep characters alive and make decisions about what to do based on logical consequences rather than an automatic balance mechanic. That is, it would make sense to try to keep experienced people alive and use them where needed, but it'd be a strange counter-mechanic (even in a single scenario) if there's a downside to getting experience. e.g. "Don't have Bob kill those zombies - let Marge do it because otherwise he'll get us to Orange Danger Level..."

Quote from: Skarg;934735Oh, just because I like things to be connected for a reason, and I'm thinking about a meta-game with stakes and reward/benefit that operates on a larger level than one scenario.

That is, for what reason would things get more dangerous as a direct relation to the experience level of the survivors?

And, it means that getting better makes things worse, automatically. That's a negative side-effect of a goal which doesn't have a reason that seems logical to me.

Eh, killing zombies isn't a goal - it's a means to an end.  See, on my end I see it as reproducing the rising tide of zombies in a story - at first you've got a few zombies coming on you in a movie, but as you get used to killing them more zombies appear to keep the tension high.  Sure, in theory you should have one mechanic for growing more experienced (the more zombies you kill the better you are works fine as it is) and a second mechanic for slowly ratcheting up the tension - although I'm not sure what.  Drawing tokens out of a bag?  A timer of some sort?  N turns and you switch from Blue to whatever the next color is?

But the current rule actually works pretty well.  It's hard to not kill zombies, and eventually someone's going to go up to the next level, and then everyone's got to push forward to get up to speed or get left behind.  It doesn't require any extra tracking - it's something you're already tracking for your characters.  Sure, it's not a logical pairing - but it's not the only game, and even on Blue level you still have the chance of things you're not ready for being spawned - Black Plague has a blue-level Abomination, for instance.

That's what I figured, but it's not what I'd want. I don't like things happening merely to keep the tension high either in stories or in games. If a scenario is designed to keep the tension high, I at least prefer there to be a reason which makes sense, rather than being directly tied to something that doesn't have an in-fictional-universe reason to be linked. Even moreso when it can generate weird decisions based on that OOC weirdness. Not just who to have kill a zombie, but whether even to let someone die or go do something other than fight in order to avoid the weird side-effect of a specific character gaining a certain level of combat experience.

I'd look for a mechanic that makes sense for the scenario, or add some concept to the zombie behavior. A timer could make sense, or could events that would stir things up. Starting up a vehicle, causing a big stimulation somehow (alarm, explosion, musak...). It could just be that the more zombies that die, the more the population gets agitated, and as long as the Danger Level is based on that and doesn't have weird effects that also don't make sense (like if it makes you find different things or trip more often or something), I'd be happy.

I'm happy making my own replacement rules - I just thought I'd ask in case there already were some optional rules, before I think about inventing something.

Quote from: Skarg;935036That's what I figured, but it's not what I'd want. I don't like things happening merely to keep the tension high either in stories or in games. If a scenario is designed to keep the tension high, I at least prefer there to be a reason which makes sense, rather than being directly tied to something that doesn't have an in-fictional-universe reason to be linked. Even moreso when it can generate weird decisions based on that OOC weirdness. Not just who to have kill a zombie, but whether even to let someone die or go do something other than fight in order to avoid the weird side-effect of a specific character gaining a certain level of combat experience.

I'd look for a mechanic that makes sense for the scenario, or add some concept to the zombie behavior. A timer could make sense, or could events that would stir things up. Starting up a vehicle, causing a big stimulation somehow (alarm, explosion, musak...). It could just be that the more zombies that die, the more the population gets agitated, and as long as the Danger Level is based on that and doesn't have weird effects that also don't make sense (like if it makes you find different things or trip more often or something), I'd be happy.

I'm happy making my own replacement rules - I just thought I'd ask in case there already were some optional rules, before I think about inventing something.

Fair enough.

I'd hunt around http://boardgamegeek.com/ - there's pages for the various Zombicide games which may well have variant rules there.  I think there's also forums on CMON's site, but I never go there, so I wouldn't know where to look.

But y'know, Zombies are usually magic of some kind anyway.  (Or science so stupid that they might as well be magic.)  Maybe experienced people's souls just smell better and draw the zombies in faster.