[DarthJoe8]

I would chose having more people. There is safety in numbers. Granted if you have a couple a-holes in your group then let the zeds get them. No one will miss them. :drinking:

[ZomBoognish]

Creature said:

You forgot for downsides : Looters Target You More

Why not become a Looter?

[DarthJoe8]

zmbvan said:

Why not become a Looter?

I'd imagine that no one will be around to accept your cc or cash payment for whatever it is that you're taking so by default, your a looter. :drinking:

The real dilemma would be, :think: the flat screen tv or the box of ammo.:think:

[ZomBoognish]

Why not loot survivors? Like in Diary. Sure eventually someone is going to have bigger guns, but we are all doomed anyways. Live it up.

[DarthJoe8]

zmbvan said:

Why not loot survivors? Like in Diary. Sure eventually someone is going to have bigger guns, but we are all doomed anyways. Live it up.

See, that's one of the things that bothered me about Diary. What the f are soldiers looting civilians for? Keep in mind that this is all within 24hrs of the outbreak happening. :x Stupid, stupid, stupid. :x I can see after a few weeks or months of everything going to hell, but that scene really grinds my gears. It utterly amazes me how unprofessional soldiers are portrayed in zed movies, in particularly, Romero's. :roll: I guess it's an easy target.

But...
Thats the folly of mankind. When shit hits the fan everyone starts tossing shit. That's why Zack wins. :drinking:GOooooo Zack!!

[Slayer]

Your large group might not be a target for looters if you show yourself as a well armed bunch, they might get too nervous to attack you, more likely looters want an easy to exploit target.

[Ball Tripper]

Drama would be the biggest problem with large groups I think.

[detpat]

Romero always portrays soldiers in a bad light because he doesn't really know anything about them. his thought processes are pretty standard "campus commie" if you know what that means.

successful groups are gonna have to have both a strict command structure and the ability of everyone to have a say in things. i think you'll also need to have some sort of mechanism to guard against a prominent sheeple from organizing a drama club to screw things up. the main problem with these mechanism's is long term abuse, sooner or later somebody will abuse that authority. that's the very reason why old time community policing has failed and people fear police authorities.

I think you would need a benevolent dictator, with a process that would allow that person to be replaced if he abused his authority or just screwed up too much. maybe a 3/4 majority vote to make sure that process isn't abused by the drama club.

[JakAttak]

I'd go with a group of 10.

[ZomBoognish]

10 is a good number

[bandits1]

Downsides: harder to organize, more mouths to feed

Upsides: more people to help with defense/labor/whatever, more diverse base of skills/knowledge

I'd want to be in a faily large group, about 30-50, since operations need to be running 24/7.

This post has been edited by bandits1: 31 July 2008 - 12:43 AM

[Faran Brigo]

I'm not a people person, but the more the merrier, as long as the group is running decently, which isn't really about how many people there are but rather what kind of people.

[JakAttak]

definitely have a cap on the number though.

[mattifikation]

Your best bet is to figure out the things you'll need to be able to do. Then make a list of all the things you can do yourself, without any help.

Then, see how many of them you can easily learn by picking up a book, or watching some videos, etc.

Your next step is to pick one of the things on your list that you can't do, and would take time and practice to learn, but are important. Then start learning! If you master it, move on to something else on your list that you can't do yet.

For your zombie survival group, I recommend trying to create the smallest possible group that has at least two people that can do every job on your list. You want people whose skill sets cover multiple abilities on your list in order to keep the group small.

The most important thing to remember is that if you've only got one person who can do a certain task (or set of tasks,) you're in big trouble if you lose that person. If you've got two people that can do that task, the second person can start teaching others if the first is lost.

It might seem like having three people that can cover each task would be better, for the triple redundancy. The problem is, in addition to having all of the needed skills covered, you also want the smallest group possible. The more people you have in your group, the more problems you have that can develop between them.

Special Forces teams for the U.S. Army use a similar rule of 2 that I've come up with, in that each team has 2 people that are specialized for each of the important tasks they need to be able to do. The structures of their groups are a bit different, because they have the luxury of huge budgets and massive amounts of training time, but they go by twos.

Ideally, I think you'd want a two person team, with each of you knowing everything. That's a bit unrealistic though. I think realistically, you should be able to get your group to 5 or less people.

[JakAttak]

words out of my mouth.

[Faran Brigo]

mattifikation said:

Special Forces teams for the U.S. Army use a similar rule of 2 that I've come up with, in that each team has 2 people that are specialized for each of the important tasks they need to be able to do. The structures of their groups are a bit different, because they have the luxury of huge budgets and massive amounts of training time, but they go by twos.

Ideally, I think you'd want a two person team, with each of you knowing everything. That's a bit unrealistic though. I think realistically, you should be able to get your group to 5 or less people.

Rule of two? I think you're talking about the Sith and Darth Bane...

Anyway, I think 5 is not nearly enough. And I have to say that while it's true to an extent that more people means more probability of friction between at least a couple of people, the opposite is not true, a smaller group won't necesarily be better in that regard. Why? higher workload for each member will cause higher stress per member, which could offset the "less people to fight with" advantage.

That aside, I also think a reduced group inherently implies putting more eggs in fewer baskets. The loss of two team members, if there was a simple car accident (assuming that it wasn't the two who knew how to do something that the rest didn't), is going to be a crippling blow to your group, if they're "just injured" you might be worse off as the 3 left will have to take care of the other two while they recover.

Plus, the amount of people necesary to accomplish a given task is reduced by the skill level they have. Conversely a group of civilian survivors needs to be bigger than a well trained team to do the same actions under the same circumstances and most likely, that's the situation where most people who are not currently in active duty or part of a national guard/militia will find themselves in.

To top it off, five people is the minimal necesary for a scavenging team or scout party. If you're talking about self-sufficiency, I seriously doubt 5 people can take care of all the peaceful work that needs to be done AND defense and raiding. Training so you need fewer people is great, but I think you're seriously underestimating the effects of burnout, and seriously overestimating the battlefield awareness a team that small can have.