Brains: Thinking About Zombie Apocalypse RPGs



I recently posted some of the games that are distracting me, causing one player to ask me "what about a zombie apocalypse?"

So... What about a zombie apocalypse? Truthfully, I've never done an all-out zombie apocalypse game, though I have rather enjoyed liberal use of zombies in D&D games.

I've actually always wanted to do such a game, though truthfully I find it a little bit on the intimidating side - while a one-shot zombie apocalypse game is pretty easy to do, the challenge is in keeping the campaign interesting. Obviously, game after game of killing zombies would get rather boring.

One of the inspirations I'd take would be Max Brooks' World War Z. While I found the movie to be so-so, I found the book fantastic. Its premise is it is written several years after a zombie apocalypse has been contained, with the author being the interviewer of numerous personalities. Most of the interviewees appear in only one chapter, others are revisited throughout the book, either directly or indirectly. Through them we follow the story of the outbreak, the near collapse of civilization, and the turning of the tide. What I found refreshing was the idea that civilization does not absolutely collapse, though it is on the brink. For example, the United States is forced to withdraw its zone of control to west of the Rocky Mountains, temporarily abandoning everything else. The Walking Dead is another inspiration, both in comic and television form. There society is definitely more decimated, providing a greater need to form their own communities.

Gaming engine is fairly wide open. I've two games that are built around zombies. The first is Eden Studios' classic All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I flipped through it a little bit today and it does have a lot going for it, though it does seem a funkier in its mechanics than I'd remembered. I really do like its zombie customization system. The other game I have is a more recent one, Immersion Studios' Infected RPG. While AFMBE is a fairly generic zombie apocalypse game, Infected posits a fairly specific apocalypse, set five years after the outbreak. It's definitely configurable but I'd need to give some thought to the default assumptions and how much work I'll be creating by breaking them. The biggest adjustment I'm considering is starting the game off in the outbreak and possibly utilizing the Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel system, giving each player multiple characters and seeing who survives the initial outbreak.

Other games would work very well for a zombie apocalypse. There's four additional ones I'm considering:

  • Savage Worlds - Fast character generation, fairly easy prep. Tons of online resources. Possibly a bit pulpier than I'd be looking for.
  • BRP/Call of Cthulhu - I love Chaosium's BRP system and Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition could work just fine - take away the Mythos, add zombies. Its got a lot of stuff we don't need, but we already have the books, so no harm.
  • GURPS or Hero - Lumping these together. Both of these are fairly gritty RPGs which might serve well in a survival game where a certain amount of realism is desirable - yes, in Champions the Hero System can go to four-color comics, but take away the powers and start with fairly normal humans and you've stripped away a ton of the complexity. I lack a ton of experience with either, having played in the occasional game of both. Given I've a desire to do Golden Age Champions at some point in the future, perhaps a basic version of Hero might be reasonable.
We've still got some Penny Dreadful Cthulhu to do, but this will give me something to contemplate. Assuming Rogue One doesn't unlock Star Wars...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jules Verne Translations That Don't Stink

Image
Shortly after I graduated from college R. Talsorian published their fantasy steampunk RPG,  Castle Falkenstein. Having missed out on Space: 1889  when it first came out this was my first steampunk RPG, though I had been exposed to the genre by Gibson and Sterling's novel The Difference Engine (a novel which, though I though I found the setting compelling, I did not particularly care for - must reread some day). Jules Verne was one of the authors in the inspirational reading section of Castle Falkenstein.  Heck, the game also made him into France's scientific advisor, having him responsible for their massive Verne Cannons  which formed a sort of nuclear deterrent.  With that in mind, one Sunday afternoon I was at a Barnes & Noble bookstore my new girlfriend (now my wife of nearly 16 years!).  On a whim I decided to pick up a Jules Verne novel. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . That night I started reading it, never having read any of his works before but having vagu
Keep reading

Stepping Away and a New Beginning

Image
After maintaining this blog for nearly seven years (an eternity in internet time), I've decided to step away from it. When I first began I wasn't 100% certain what it would be about. For a while I thought it would be a blog related to OSR type RPGs but I found my own tastes not firmly rooted there. Looking at the history of the blog, I see a lot of Call of Cthulhu which is hardly surprising. However, some lack of consistency definitely made it tough for me find a defined niche and over the past few months I've been giving some thought to starting a new, more narrowly focused blog. The imminent end of Google+ played a part in these thoughts, with much of my traffic coming from that site. I write because I enjoy writing, but I do enjoy growing an audience. My plan to start a narrowly-focused blog took a turn when I had the opportunity to join the  Rolling Boxcars  blog. Talking with the contributors (one of whom I game with on Discord already) and going through thei
Keep reading

Developing Boston for 1920s Call of Cthulhu

Image
While Chaosium has produced sourcebooks for many locations in Lovecraft Country (Kingsport, Arkham, and Innsmouth) as well as non-fictional cities of the 1920s (such as New York City and New Orleans), the nearby city of Boston, while being featured in many adventures, has never received its own full sourcebook. The most common era for my Call of Cthulhu  games has been in the 1920s - some campaigns have been in New York City while others have been in Lovecraft country. For those in Lovecraft Country, many adventures have been in nearby Boston. Over the years I've slowly been building up some expertise in the area and I thought it might be of interest to others gaming in the same setting - whether with Mythos horrors or a purely mundane game. First, let us investigate those official sources. While Boston has found its way into many adventures, I can think of two sources where it has been given a fair amount of detail. First, The Unspeakable Oath  double issue 16/17 has a ref
Keep reading

Using the Force in D6 Star Wars

Image
Defending yourself with just 1D in Sense is not easy, as Luke discovers when training with a remote. My previous post discussed the proto-D6 System as found in the Ghostbusters RPG. For those unfamiliar with the D6 System and the way it does the Force (or for a brief review) the essentials are: You roll a bunch of six sided dice against a target number, typically ranging from 5-ish (easy) to 20 or even higher. Your rating is listed as something like 2D+2 which means roll 2d6+2. By default, most normal/non-heroic people have 2D in most stats.  Starting heroes will might have their best skill be at 5D or a touch higher. You can take as many actions as you want in a round. However, taking two actions in a round reduces all dice codes by 1D, taking three reduces all by 2D, etc. Starting with Force skills will lower a characters starting attributes. Unlike most skills they start off at 1D. There are three Force skills - control, sense, and alter. Control lets you control t
Keep reading

Balancing Classes in Swords and Wizardry

Image
DM: "The box is the size of a small trunk; it is latched but not locked."  Dougal: "I'm looking for traps on the box."  DM (rolling for Dougal's "find traps" ability. The roll indicates that Dougal has failed to find the poisoned needle in the latch.) "You don't find a trap."  Morgan (the group's leader): "Black Dougal will open the box."  DM: "Black Dougal, you find out that you missed a tiny discolored needle in the latch. Roll a saving throw vs. Poison, please!"  Dougal (rolling): "Missed it!"  DM: "Black Dougal gasps 'Poison!' and falls to the floor. He looks dead."  Fredrik: "I'm grabbing his pack to carry treasure in." Game balance. It's a tricky concept in RPGs. D&D 3rd and 4th editions made a very strong effort to balance the character classes with one another as well as to balance encounters. For my purposes, they went too far. A
Keep reading