# RPG a Day 2023 - Day 15: Favorite Con Module / One-Shot tags: #thoughts/RPGaDay/2023 ![[RPGaDay2023.png]] Another one that's actually quite easy for me. Once upon a time at [[Anime Weekend Atlanta]], I scheduled a three hour **[[All Things Zombie]]** session. It was going to be straightforward, simple,. I laid out some buildings and roads, told people that they were locals just scavenging for gear and equipment and let them set their own goals. This was either brilliant or a mistake. 9 hours later… I was improvising a closer. Luckily for me I had brought some extra stuff, including a fairly hefty 28 mm scale helicopter. The helicopter was coming to rescue whatever first six people were in the landing zone that got to it and on board. Which was good because what followed was nuclear destruction of the city. Now, not everybody had been there for 9 hours. Because character generation is so fast and easy and mechanics so straightforward to pick up, people had been cycling in all day. Still, in the last 30 minutes there were good 12 to 15 people still playing, actively. A few of them playing more than one character because people had handed them off along the way. Then I pulled out the kitchen timer and set it to 25 minutes. Real-time 25 minutes. When the bell rings, the turkey's done. The helicopter comes in. It picks up whoever's there. It leaves. City goes boom boom. A cheer went up from the table and then – things got brutal. Now you have to remember, ATZ is not a pure wargame. It is what might be termed in the modern era a "adventure wargame" or "tactical RPG." There was definitely role-playing going on at the table and not just a little bit. Alliances had been made, rivalries had been established, a few straight up murders that occurred. Good times were had by all. With zombies literally swarming around drawn by noise, the sudden spike in gunfire and cars trying to start up went as you imagine. At the end, six people ended up getting picked up by the helicopter with three more standing around having deliberately chosen to interdict the swarms of undead to allow the escape. One NPC of the starting 10, which were automated by the rules – survived, dubbed "Action Man Rambo" by the players, he had an active fan base by the end – with people cheering as he literally left the map on foot just before the helicopter landed. We're all pretty sure he survived the nuke. And that's when I realized I probably should have gotten dinner about four hours before then. Over the course of that session we probably had a total of 50, maybe 60 people cycle through? Everyone having a good time. Everyone deeply invested and paying attention. That was a good session.