From: Eric Funk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Got any comments on the plot or world assumptions? Does requiring
head-shots turn the game into a NRA social? Do fungus-based zombie
plagues fall-victim to fire too easily? Should there be a cure the
players are striving for, is one even possible?
IMO, if there's a credible cure, then it largely ceases to be horror.
Why would head shots make a difference to undead?
(Classically they use some sort of aura-based life-detection, not needing
eyes or ears.)
Kromm sez, because they're twisted mockeries of the living, at least
mystical undead. This was his justification for saying an animated
skeleton would be blinded in response to my question about throwing a
cloth over its head. In light of other discussions about concepts
researched during his writing of UNDEAD, I'd have to say that it works
because the semi-conscious animating force doesn't realize it has no
functional eyes or ears, it just continues as it did in life, only in a
diminished, feverish way reflecting the replacement of the divinely
given spark of life with the inferior energies of necromancy. The aura
tracking thingy seems to be well-meaning sophistry from late 1st or
early 2nd ed era D&D.
As for movie-zombies, the answer is "because the director says so." This
lets the heroes make some headway against the hordes of the dead, before
being overwhelmed. There is some justification in that non-mystical
zombies are from the modern era where public education has taught the
audience that the brain is the truly vital organ and the seat of
consciousness. If a dead guy with no heart beat can still get up and eat
you, the brain's the next most likely seat of its animating principle.
There's also a closure in that shooting for the brain tends to disfigure
or obscure the face. Thus, you're figuratively no longer being preyed
upon by a particular person, or even someone you knew in life, but just
another anonymous dead guy. Uncle Bob loses much of his shock factor
when you can't keep track of which zombie used to be him, so the
director might as well let him go limp, and get some new threat into
play, like an all-zombie basketball team or something.
--
Jeff Wilson - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
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