Hi

Im planning a co-op boardgame about surviving the zombies and holding out until help arrives. But i want one player to be secretly against the others and mess up the plans just enough to not be exposed. Problem is it doesnt really fit with the zombie setting. Could there be a zombie overlord that secretly controls the zombies and want them to fail (so his/her zombie minions can feast on some nice brain).

Or any other solution to this?

Thanks
Erik

Maybe ask on the Writing subboard? They might be able to help you more I think.

If it was me, I would just retheme (I know, not very helpful :D).

It's your game you can have whatever you want, really. But I believe a zombie overlord would be more conventionally known as a necromancer. It kinda sounds like you might be looking for some sort of motivation for such a player. Simple survival makes sense as presumably the other players would kill the necromancer as soon as he's discovered.

Probably your biggest challenge will be finding a way for the necromancer to do things in secret.

It could also be a (mad?) scientist who wants a few zombies to survive so he can experiment on them.

Probably your biggest challenge will be finding a way for the necromancer to do things in secret.

Just design actions/choices that can have hard-predict(wrong/right) results.

As stated above...

Mad scientists work well in a number of themes where zombies are involved.

Necromancers fit best in retro-fantasy settings.

You can mix and match the two and make your brand about this:

"The Mad Necromancer" - a brand is born!

Ooh, or a mad scientist who wants to inject himself with zombie-blood or something to become a necromancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)

The zombies don't have to fall neatly into the existing zombie canon - you can come up with your own canon, which includes how they become zombielike, and why.

I agree that this probably should be in Writing, so I'll move it there.

Im thinking a human has been possessed by the "overmind" who secretly controls a single player. The longer the game continues without that possessed player being exposed (and then killed) the more power the overmind collects from the survivors, which is released in the form of more trouble for the "real" survivors at the point of exposure (the players can try to expose a suspect by using torture, but if they torture a non-overmind player they loose "hope", a resource). The possessed player must try to act not too suspicious but also not help too much.

The overlord player later (after loosing the human body) goes to openly direct the undead forces on the board (different set of rules for that player at that point) and is no longer present at the "barricaded church" where the survivors are holding up.

Does this sound like something you would accept as an scenario idea? Or plz comment/modify it.

I suggest, rather than a secret traitor, game mechanics that allow a player to save his character at the expense of other characters.

For example, repelling zombies (unavoidably, towards someone else) and hoarding pickup items like weapons.

Alternatively, every player might control both a necromancer, scoring points for map control, number of controlled zombies, casualties and other measures of effective zombie invasion, and an heroic survivor, scoring points for survival, defeated zombies and necromancers, calling for help, saving "civilians" and other heroic feats.