Should Zombies be armed or should their bite be enough?

[Gun bunny]

  To me it depends on what kind of zombie is in your game...
1) romero style zombie be it fast(first 24 hours after death) or slow(after rigor sets in) needs only teeth because it's only function is to make more zombies by infectious bite.
2)cursed zombies protecting an area may use weapons if their only purpose to kill trespassers not add more to the group.
3) cursed(movie voodoo) zombies have insane back breaking strength to kill the target of their makers wrath and are immune to  weapons without a specific component needed to end them(such as salt in mouth covered with holy wax etc...) with no need to bite or use a weapon to kill.
4) raised zombies to be used as troops use what weapons they had in life and are used to attack other armed and armored living troops usually without the need to make more of themselves by such mundane means as biting to infect. 

that's how i see it anyways.

[FramFramson]

To me it depends on what kind of zombie is in your game...
1) romero style zombie be it fast(first 24 hours after death) or slow(after rigor sets in) needs only teeth because it's only function is to make more zombies by infectious bite.
2)cursed zombies protecting an area may use weapons if their only purpose to kill trespassers not add more to the group.
3) cursed(movie voodoo) zombies have insane back breaking strength to kill the target of their makers wrath and are immune to  weapons without a specific component needed to end them(such as salt in mouth covered with holy wax etc...) with no need to bite or use a weapon to kill.
4) raised zombies to be used as troops use what weapons they had in life and are used to attack other armed and armored living troops usually without the need to make more of themselves by such mundane means as biting to infect. 

that's how i see it anyways.

This is basically where I'm at as well.

Of course these descriptions can overlap to some degree (but not 100%) with ghouls, etc. (IIRC the critical distinction in many - but not all - works is that ghouls are not reanimated dead, but debased living, or a standalone species entirely). Ultimately there's enough overlap that really it's down to a given authors and how they choose to label and portray their creatures. So long as it's internally consistent within a given story or game that really all that matters.

But Gun Bunny seems to have described most of the varieties of undead commonly referred to as zombies.

[syrinx0]

Fantasy (or modern)  undead clumsily using hand weapons are fine but guns?  No.

[FramFramson]

Yeah, gun use feels like a line zombies of any strip should never be able to cross.

If you want ranged zombies have them throw something or fart in the enemy's general direction, or whatever.