The Zone is an opinionated game system and is designed to create a very particular kind of play to lose experience. It’s helpful to be aware of these principles when creating new experiences with the system—or when trying to break it!

Key mechanics

Certain things are fixed and must be a part of your Zone:

• The Briefing
• The way characters are set up
• The Location, Scene, and Not So Easy cards
• The spiral
• Certain key locations (although they can be renamed)
• The Zone Observation Facility is always the 1st location
• The Boundary is always the 2nd location
• The Campfire is always the 5th location
• Key Moves (Take Stock, Something’s Not Right, Not So Easy)
• Mutation
• Fate cards, and having only one survivor
• The Center and Wish

In the future I may make more of these elements customizable. Let me know if there’s something you’d be excited to try and I’ll see if I can build it for you!

Theme

I wrote a blog post about THE ZONE’s Annihilation/Stalker inspired Zone and its specific influences. The most important theme is self destruction. Every mechanic and thematic element is built around this, from the escalation of Take Stock to Something’s Not Right and Not So Easy, to the Character sheets, and the Briefing.

A Zone is about self-destruction (play to lose)