The Common Room

The common room is, primarily, a holding pen for any attendees who we do not need to immediately participate in the game.  Depending on the number of people signing up we may have to deal with an excess of Zombies; to remedy this, we'll be shoving you in a room for an hour or so.

But it's not just some poky old room with nothing in it - oh no.  We are kinder than that.  The common room is situated at the rear of the building, on the lower floor.  This ensure that it's out of the way of the main game and relatively close to the GM room (or "Zombie HQ") should we need to run in and recruit a bunch of Zombies.  It's also really big (we reckon we could seat a couple hundred people in there - we won't, but we could) so you can make noise inside and not worry about disrupting the simulation.  The Room will come equipped with the following -

Board and Card Games - We'll be doing our best to have as many of these available for play as possible, by bringing our own meagre supply (Killer Bunnies, Scrabble, The Big Idea, Munchkin, Three Dragon Ante), using any we can find in the games society cupboards, and asking you - the players - to bring them.  There should be plenty of people to game with should you want to.

Computer Games - The Congregation Hall is full of TVs that the University use in seminars.  We'll be rigging up several entertainment systems on these, depending on what is available at the time.  You can be assured that party games like Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, and basically anything on the Wii will be available for play.  If you feel comfortable bringing a home entertainment system and a game or two, go for it.

Roleplaying Games - Okay, no promises here - it is admittedly hard to run a game in less than an hour, especially at four in the morning.  However, you should consider two things - one, there is a room full of eager gamers to work with and two, Wushu exists.  If you're not aware of this little marvel of action-led mechanics, please, check it out.  It changed the way I think about roleplaying games.  It's also so rules-light that you can fit a character sheet onto a business card and not even use especially small handwriting. 

Tabletop Wargames - Again, no promises.  I can't say that I'll be playing any (I'll be busy all night) but we do have tables adequate to fight a 1:32 scale war on.  We also have a large number of players.  It's probably not worth bringing your entire 3,000 point Empire army along, but there may well be a couple of players who will take you on in a game of Necromunda, Border Patrol or "40k in 40 Minutes."  We also have some terrain available for use should you really want it.

Food and Drink - Your £5 entry fee, aside from buying you a night of mayhem and revelry, entitles you to use our food and drink facilities.  We know how hard it is to get through an evening's gaming running on nothing but Red Bull and menthol cigarettes, so this time around, we're providing our players with some refreshment (though we'll still be on the 'bull and menthols combination - why break with tradition?).  We'll have tea and coffee available, combined with milk and sugar (gasp!) and as many kettles as we can scrounge.  These will be adequately backed up by a variety of biscuits and fruit.  Should anyone want anything more substantial, there is a 24-hour Tesco attached to a petrol station roughly fifteen minutes' walk away from the hall.

But what if I want to sleep? - We had an issue with some players last time - the arms of morpheus grabbed them by the short and curlies and dragged them under.  These players found places to sleep around the simulation - we had one designated "quiet room" with a few people taking naps, and we may well repeat the theme this year if we get enough requests.  If you're tired enough, though, you'll do what "Lovely" Steven Street, one of our players, did last time - sleep on the floor of the main hall for two straight hours, despite the large amounts of Zombies, screaming Survivors, and increasingly loud and creepy PA messages running through the speaker system.  Crazy old Steve.  We all thought he was a prop.