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Okay, the bigger one is there, with everything I could think of on it.  Use the simplest one possible

i know this is currently a bit small for more complex monsters with more actions. I’m gonna make a bigger one next. 

just coming back to say, this was fucking brilliant.

oh this looks great!!!

That makes a lot of sense.

I’d love to pick the brain of Chris O’Neil and get a greater sense of his goals with Polymorph.  Because to me, I feel a pull in a simplifying direction but then an opposite pull in a complexifying direction.  

Some of Zombuddies was a reaction to what I saw in the play throughs of Mazes I watched, which (to my mind) were kind of dry and not atmospheric.  I was missing a sense of story or flavor.  But also what drew me to Polymorph is the idea of getting out of the way of the narrative, because the mechanic was so dead simple.

So to watch Mazes which both wasn’t super story-y, but then had quite a bit more complexity… I really want to understand some design goals in order to evaluate what I think works to achieve those.

I mean either.  

Yeah, I still don't QUITE get Darkness as a spendable resource.  Someone on the 9th Level discord said for Mazes said  Darkness increases when a PLANNED Hazard shows up, and it's spent to buy unplanned hazards.  I guess that makes sense.  But I haven't bought or read Mazes yet, though I have watched a couple of playthroughs.

Yeah, I didn't really understand it either, so I dropped it from my updated version, and just use Darkness (called Dread in Zombuddies) to track how suspicious the humans are about if there are zombies in their midst.  I feel like I wanted to allow for a stealth/obliviousness mechanic in case players wanted to play either as quiet stalkers or use the comedy framework to play as monsters in plain sight. 


Like I GET the desire for a mechanic there, so players don't think the GM is being unrestrainedly adversarial by just adding extra hazards on the fly without having to spend something.

The Star Wars RPG has a mechanic I prefer I think, for that.  It's a set of light-side/dark side tokens that are shared in a pool between players and the GM.   At the beginning of the session,  a die is rolled to determine the number of each token.   But they flip over, light on one side, dark on the other.  And the players can "spend" them by flipping them over and that works like a Star, they control the narrative for a moment, get to do something amazing, gain advantage on a roll, or get to add something to their gear that a flashback will explain.

But now, that token is flipped, and it's a dark side token, which the GM can use to give the bad guys a similar moment.  And when it's used that token flips back to light, so the players can use it.

Finally had a chance to read this.  Excellent work!  You outlined a really great monster-hunting use of the Polymorph system.  I feel like I based my game on a more rules-sparse game (Rebel Scum) and you seem to have based yours on a more elaborate game (Mazes, right?)
Love the setup!  Love the combination of an individual magic reserve and a party reserve.  

Thoughts on creating adventures for it?

I’m taking a set of courses which got me to think about what we “over center” in conversation.  I was realizing that we over center the state of being cisgender or indeed gendered.

Gender is optional.  It’s there for you, but not required OF you.

Realized I had an opportunity here to just put that thought in the game. 

Kind of my nudge to get people thinking about playing the characters as genderless!

 I was creating the character sheet and got to where I was going to put pronouns and realized that if you’re a zombie, what ARE pronouns even?  Like, it’s kind of cool to play it as a genderless character.  Of course if someone wants to play it as a gender, it’s up to them!

I read it.  I watched the same video and was thinking about some NFT based game.  Mostly because I think anything that spurs strong emotion might make a game.

Oh, it’s a tv show I get the Sharknado reference now.    I looked around to see if there was any TTRPG where you play as a zombie and didn’t find any.

Oooh lemme take a look at those.  Maybe my idea has already been done!!  

Well, it’s gonna be new for this rule set anyway.

Wow, that one is intense.  I have read Honey Heist and a couple of Grant’s wackier games.  Fetch is really a contrast.  

I should have a published version of my TTRPG by the end of this weekend.  It’s a wacky rules-light set in a zombie apocalypse where the players are the zombies.  It uses Polymorph rules, so it’s kinda like an ultra-light D&D.  I started writing it, then someone recommended I read Honey Heist and that kind of exploded my mind into this world of possibilities. 

Now I want to play with different forms, different moods, different worlds.  Taking what’s on my mind and making games about it.  Some serious but deeply silly.  Some silly but deeply serious.

This is incredible.  
I'm creating a fairly traditional TTRPG right now, but kind of spiraling with the possibilities of the format and just blown away by this.

I'm reading a bunch of games to spur my creativity, because I want to be creative in this field.  This game hit me.  Wow.  

Thanks.