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The inclusion of kid figures is not the issue in my mind, it is making it a Good Thing for the owning player to get those kids killed that is the issue.

"Hey, I got Sophie killed! Now I get a bonus!"

That just doesn't sit well with me.

 CptJake wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
But it's cool incentivizing players to kill women and men?

Honestly? In a skirmish game it is cool to incentivize players to keep as many of their figures alive as possible.

But that may just be me.

When ever you are incentivized to get any members of your own team killed, especially the weakest/most vulnerable, there is a problem in my opinion.

And again, it seems contrary to the source material.

I don't think there is an incentive to get a member of your own team killed, I see it as more a deterrent to kill them for your opponent. I think this fits with the source material as any aggression towards children is usually the last resort.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
The inclusion of kid figures is not the issue in my mind, it is making it a Good Thing for the owning player to get those kids killed that is the issue.

"Hey, I got Sophie killed! Now I get a bonus!"

That just doesn't sit well with me.

I think any bonus you get would not make up for the loss of a character able to take objectives.

The funny thing is that in the comic, Carl is actually one of the group's more competent fighters. Considering he also survives multiple shootings, Carl should be one of the game's better characters. There's also the fact that Sophia managed to be one of the last few people in tge original Atlanta group to survive. She doesn't die in the comic. If they manage to throw in Clementine, the kids really ought to have better stats than most of the adults considering what they go through in their respective stories and manage to survive.

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Who wants to play a game where most of the characters you are playing look like helpless people in the process of dying? And you also get to try to murder children, so there's that.

That's a child? I though Warwick Davis was pulling an Eddie Redmayne.

The only 2 sculpts I actually dislike are Liam and Donna as they are clearly one moment away from death. The other unarmed characters look on edge but still seem acceptable as scavengers.

 Barzam wrote:
The funny thing is that in the comic, Carl is actually one of the group's more competent fighters. Considering he also survives multiple shootings, Carl should be one of the game's better characters. There's also the fact that Sophia managed to be one of the last few people in tge original Atlanta group to survive. She doesn't die in the comic. If they manage to throw in Clementine, the kids really ought to have better stats than most of the adults considering what they go through in their respective stories and manage to survive.

Indeed Carl should kick ass - Sophia should be good at just not dying

but they are very chubby - or is it just me?

Aeneades wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
But it's cool incentivizing players to kill women and men?

Honestly? In a skirmish game it is cool to incentivize players to keep as many of their figures alive as possible.

But that may just be me.

When ever you are incentivized to get any members of your own team killed, especially the weakest/most vulnerable, there is a problem in my opinion.

And again, it seems contrary to the source material.

I don't think there is an incentive to get a member of your own team killed, I see it as more a deterrent to kill them for your opponent. I think this fits with the source material as any aggression towards children is usually the last resort.

When the zombies are run by an AI, the other player isn't going to stop you from running Sophie into a rotter so that Carol gets her bonus to cap an opponent. I don't think that fits with the source material. I guess we need to just agree to disagree.

 CptJake wrote:
The inclusion of kid figures is not the issue in my mind, it is making it a Good Thing for the owning player to get those kids killed that is the issue.

"Hey, I got Sophie killed! Now I get a bonus!"

That just doesn't sit well with me.

I agree. Not because it's immoral, but because the rules of any game should reward strategies that make sense either by real life logic or according to genre conventions, and should punish strategies that do not make sense according to either. Deliberately allowing your children to be eaten by zombies is stupid both by real life logic and by zombie movie logic, and so it should be equally stupid by zombie game logic.

bound for glory wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Who wants to play a game where most of the characters you are playing look like helpless people in the process of dying? And you also get to try to murder children, so there's that.

Yeah, not crazy about Sophia and Carl being in a wargame. Yes, war is hell and all of that but that doesn't mean I want to pay money to, in essence, kill kids. Alternatively, I suppose that you could choose not to play with the kid models.

Still not up on how you can play with unarmed survivors. I generally like my fighters to look like they're at least able to fight.

You do understand you are playing a game, right?

Sure but I, personally, find some subject matter distasteful to one extent or another. I don't play games where women are raped either but I also don't cast judgement on those who enjoy such things.

As CptJake already pointed out, the rules as they stand actually encourage the death of innocent children so, yeah, not interested but there will be people who are happy to do so.

Surely the loss of one of your team is going to more that offset a minor boost to one of your other characters?

Just seems like a fluffy rule to represent that the other character does place a high value on the child to me...

Actually, I think (as someone who didnt watch the show or read the comics) that having the kids confer bonuses upon death is a great way to implement some meta rules: BAsically, your opponent doesnt want to kill children needlessly (the actual player because itd confer a bonus, in-game because your guys might not want to kill children). You want your kid to get killed (this would represent children taking stupid risks because they dont know any better). So its a pretty nifty way to model *two* things thatd be hard to do any other way (apart from taking away player control entirely).

So yeah. Good idea, imo.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Who wants to play a game where most of the characters you are playing look like helpless people in the process of dying? And you also get to try to murder children, so there's that.

That's a child? I though Warwick Davis was pulling an Eddie Redmayne.

I had to google Eddie Redmayne. And I still have no idea who he is. Are you trying to be obscure?

Now a Willow game is I'd be interested in. When is someone going to do that one? Then we can get a Warwick Davis miniature.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
The inclusion of kid figures is not the issue in my mind, it is making it a Good Thing for the owning player to get those kids killed that is the issue.

"Hey, I got Sophie killed! Now I get a bonus!"

That just doesn't sit well with me.

I agree. Not because it's immoral, but because the rules of any game should reward strategies that make sense either by real life logic or according to genre conventions, and should punish strategies that do not make sense according to either. Deliberately allowing your children to be eaten by zombies is stupid both by real life logic and by zombie movie logic, and so it should be equally stupid by zombie game logic.

Well there goes my tournament strategy . Carol with as many kids as I can take. I was going to have her tooling around in the Oscar Meyers Hot dog van ringing the bell for all the Zombies and tossing kids out the door like a clearance sale.

But seriously, if there ever became a tournament for this game that rule would have to get fixed or she would lose the model for this game and all subsequent games to stop abuse......Child abuse

 Tyr13 wrote:
Actually, I think (as someone who didnt watch the show or read the comics) that having the kids confer bonuses upon death is a great way to implement some meta rules: BAsically, your opponent doesnt want to kill children needlessly (the actual player because itd confer a bonus, in-game because your guys might not want to kill children). You want your kid to get killed (this would represent children taking stupid risks because they dont know any better). So its a pretty nifty way to model *two* things thatd be hard to do any other way (apart from taking away player control entirely).

So yeah. Good idea, imo.

Except you do not need to rely on your opponent to cap the kid. You run it into an AI controlled zombie.

Hence, your 'meta rules' break down.

Nope, thats the "stupid kid" part. Obviously, youd want to have some sort of rule that *also* encourages you to keep them alive. Maybe itd be enough to make every model valuable, maybe a victory points thing could work. Its all about balancing things.

So, those rules, eh?

Doesn't seem to be inspiring much confidence and/or backer pledging...




I've got an Early Bird, but I can't see myself hanging on until the end.

And since the pace on this one is rather tame, it isn't spamming my inbox with updates, so I'm not in a rush to drop it...yet!

Man, it really makes me wish I could think of a metaphor for something that, you know, doesn't function any more yet keeps up the pretense by shambling on. Something that keeps going long after it should have stopped. Anyone got any ideas?

Jesus, those are some horrendous numbers. Compare them to Dungeon Saga, another relatively small project that had a similarly slow start:





Looks like they were banking on the license alone drawing in some good numbers, and didn't think they'd need truckloads of free stuff...

Did Dungeon Saga have add ons to help it along?

Yep. I also *think* it didn't have any competition at the time, and/or was the first non-deformed generic fantasy dungeoncrawler boardgame for awhile. Some publicity from BGG, Jake Thorton's credentials, and that DS was based on an existing Mantic game, which wasn't too bad. Mantic wargamers, of course, were also picking up models for their KoW armies.

As for kids... Well, go look up what happened to Dale and Donna's two boys and what Carl had to do.

Dungeon Saga hooked the board game KS crowd with over 60 unique scenarios to play, rules for co-op, solo or pvp, and around 70 minis for $100 along with tiles and really good 3D terrain. It's a really solid game. Only went in for $100 during the KS and regretted it, will be buying all the expansions at retail now that I've played it a bunch. Got a cheap copy of SDE recently, and while its cute and fun, it has more complex rules and less depth than Dungeon Saga.

TWD is PvP, wargamers-only with a higher price point, and based around a specific IP, although not in its most valuable form (TV show licence).

It's hard to quantify, but there was a "buzz" around the DS KS, lots of facebook chatter about custom dungeon builds, people playtesting the demo scenario etc. Hasn't happened here, the timing for the crucial boardgame KS backer to take a look at it has passed (day 1-2). The next opportunity for the bulk of people to take a look will be in the last 3 days if it looks like a good deal by then.

The show coming back on air next week will give a small boost to the backer numbers too.

ced1106 wrote:


As for kids... Well, go look up what happened to Dale and Donna's two boys and what Carl had to do.

Did Dale and/or Donna send them into a zombie horde to sacrifice them for their own benefit?

If not, it does not negate the point I attempted to make above.

For those saying players will want to kill off their own child gang members, the playtest rules have stat cards for Rick and Carl. The bonus you get for the death of Carl is minimal compared to the benefit of having Carl alive - death of Carl gives Rick a rookie die added to his melee dice pool where as a living Carl has a rookie die for melee and ranged combat. Carl also has a decent sized health pool and defence (matches 3 of the 4 members of opposing gang) so he wont be easy to sacrifice.

Paper RV which may be of use to some folks:

http://www.paperdiorama.com/paper-models/trucks/winnebago-motorhome-model-f17-1969/

 CptJake wrote:
Did Dale and/or Donna send them into a zombie horde to sacrifice them for their own benefit?

NO. What I *AM* saying is that the comics didn't pull any punches with the kids, either.

If you don't like kids getting hurt in a game, there are plenty of skirmish games that don't have kids in it. I *think* you can play TWD without using the kid miniatures, but, who knows, maybe a scenario will have them as an objective.

I'm too lazy to read the update. Rick's card uses the word, "casualty" and, in the TWD comics, you didn't have to die to be a casualty. Carl was shot in the comics, and he didn't die or became a "sacrifice". He *certainly* was a casualty, unable to fight, afterwards.

Frankly, I think you're overreacting. We don't (yet) have gameplay involving the children figures. Once we do, THEN you can flame all you want.

ced1106 wrote:
Frankly, I think you're overreacting. We don't (yet) have gameplay involving the children figures. Once we do, THEN you can flame all you want.

You were doing fine until this. The word "overreact" is a very judgmental word, and it's one that will trigger a defense. I would avoid using it, especially since you really don't mean over reacting, but rather reacting too quickly.

I think that given that children's cards have rules, including rules for when they die, it's pretty likely they'll be an element of game play.

All this talk and all I can think of is...

"Look at the flowers...."

I was told that there would be cake.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Man, it really makes me wish I could think of a metaphor for something that, you know, doesn't function any more yet keeps up the pretense by shambling on. Something that keeps going long after it should have stopped. Anyone got any ideas?

Id call it Bobtheinquisitor , just kidding.........or am I????

I think they'll drag it out till Sunday when the new season hits, but I too am holding an EB that will most likely get dropped. I'm more tempted by the TMNT Kickstarter, but those sculpts look sad.