Looking for some advice about zombie apocolypse setting

[heathd666]

im not super fluent with all the d100 families of their different versions. recently I backed a kickstarter for a game called "outbreak undead 2nd edition" (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/186293494/outbreak-undead-2nd-edition-starter-kit/description ) after receiving it I found that I have lost interest with the direction that game is going in and was looking into a brp version of it. part of the reason I really loved the first edition of the game was due to the ease of play. is there a monograph, I think is the correct word, that does the zombie apocalypse thing available? the closest I have found was rubble and ruin. thanks in advance for any direction or advice. also very sad that the BGB will not longer be produced it was a very good tool kit for making worlds what you wanted when none were currently produced.

 

thanks in advance

heath delashmit

[tooley1chris]

I'm currently playing a Walking Dead campaign using nothing more than BRP BGB and the Modern Weapons catalog.

http://www.chaosium.com/the-modern-equipment-catalog-pdf/

You really don't NEED more than that.

Figure out what KIND of Zombies are in game. Walkers or runners. Bite automatically fatal? Resistance roll verse infection? Antibiotics work? Cure?

I recomend letting animals get infected as well for variety.

Also in any apocalyptic game I recommend making consumables VERY important. Use BRP fatigue rules. This way survival isnt JUST about not being a zombie snack. People will want what your PCs have. Bad people.

[Akerbakk]

First off: Last I read the BGB will still be produced as POD and PDF, there aren't any more major print runs scheduled, which is OK. BRP Essentials will hopefully be less intimidating for new potential players than the BGB.

There are fantastic games out there that you can use as a base for a ZA game, and convert. All Flesh Must Be Eaten by Eden Games is a classic and should be looked at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Flesh_Must_Be_Eaten You might also want to look at the new End Of The World series from Fantasy Flight Games https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/the-end-of-the-world/products/zombie-apocalypse/ There are more out there, but those are good ones.

I'm not aware of any supplements for D100 and I'm okay with that. ZA is not too hard to manage system-wise, the challenge is making a good story out of it. Best of luck!

[heathd666]

@ Akerbakk I appreciate the advice. AFMBE is a fun game but wasn't a good fit for my group, it was a little crunchy for me as well.

 

@ tooley1chris what options did you use for your game? for example hit locations? how did you work building barricades and the zombies breaking through etc.

 

ive kind of mined dead reign by palladium books for ideas as well.

[tooley1chris]

My zombies are dead dumb, like in Walking Dead series. I gave each of my zombies a STR equal to their SIZ to simulate inability to use STR with any intelligence. So while they're not going to use leverage or balance to their advantage they can still bash down a door or force their way through a wall as a group. I don't have an actual formula for this as it hasn't really come up in game because my group made an emergency helicopter landing on an aircraft carrier and they've been there most of campaign so far. (Steel walls and hatches are zombir proof)

My zombies are also slow so I use standard attack matrix and consider each attack against the zombie as a failed dodge. This makes it easier to make called head shots per rules, and honestly hitting a zombie shouldn't be too hard 

Yes, I use hit locations and think its pretty darn important to do so, as a bitten arm can be amputated to prevent death, or tied off until an antibiotic can be administered (obviously preferable  )

Antibiotics are like gold in my campaign but the real fun is the other survivors who want everything my PCs have or want to team up.

My outbreak actually started with my PCs working the set of an All Star Survivor TV show with a couple well picked stars. Some (like justin beiber) died horribly but it was fun watching my players interact with them in a crises.

Ah, I'm ramblimg. Sorry. My point is don't forget other survivors. They can be a lot of fun.

Fatigue is also a pretty important spot rule to use. Finding a safe place to rest can be difficult. Finding food and water to avoid fatigue makes the game grittier.

Giving the players NPC family members is something else I should have done but forgot. Make them valuable in some way besides roleplaying to make their possible loss significant. A wife that can hot wire a car, a son who can maintain firearms, a boyfriend who can hunt food.

 

[dragonewt]

7 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

My point is don't forget other survivors. They can be a lot of fun.

Other survivors are often the real 'monsters' to watch out for (As seen in Walking Dead or when playing DayZ).

After a while (depending on the nature of the dead), zombies become a predictable threat that can be managed (similar to other environmental threats).

Unless you are playing a game where zombies develop sentience, or are controlled and coordinated (zombie lords or necromancers), or the supernatural theme is taken up several levels (zombies were just the first wave of some kind of inter-dimensional rift opening), or the 'science' allows for bigger threats to evolve (radiation or chemicals enabling the dead to mutate and grow into huge tentacled constructs), or maybe scientists work out how to weaponise the dead (or are the result of an alien invasion, with the first landings only months or years away - Ack ack ackkk!).

[fmitchell]

I once ran a one-shot (using PDQ, alas) where the PCs were the zombies.  In an isolated Old West mining town that had seen better days, self-willed intelligent revenants (the PCs) rose from their graves in varying states of decay ... just ahead of the shambler / "fast ghoul" mass rising.  So they had to contend not only with frightened mortal townsfolk but shamblers that tore through anything in their way.  (Since I adapted the BRP/RQ hit location rules for PDQ, and struggled to mesh the splatterpunk "simulationist" aesthetic with the PDQ narrativist rules, I wonder if I should retool it for BRP.)

The animated Flash series "Xombie" inspired the original, but lately I've been obsessed with CW's iZombie,  (In that series, victims of the Zombie Virus "rise" with their minds intact but must consume human brains to keep from turning irrevocably into Romero-style shamblers.  The brains give zombies flashes of the deceased's memory and impose some of their personality traits and skills; zombies, particularly the central character, go through dramatic personality shifts.)  In that series, zombies live (mostly) secretly among the living, with only a few unfortunates becoming "Romeros", but you could postulate an apocalyptic version where the virus goes, well, viral.  (A scratch can transfer it.)  You'd have a multi-sided, almost World of Darknessy conflict where the clueless authorities (police, CDC, agents of a vague yet menacing government agency) try to control a problem they don't understand, more ruthless interests who know just enough to be dangerous try to exterminate all zombies, free-roaming Romeros menace the living, and the tiny intelligent zombie community (including some or all of the PCs) tries desperately to survive.

Edited December 18, 2015 by fmitchell
grammar

[Skunkape]

9 hours ago, fmitchell said:

I once ran a one-shot (using PDQ, alas) where the PCs were the zombies.

When I still frequented All Flesh Must Be Eaten's  forums, one of the posters talked about running a game where the PCs were zombies, but not letting them know they were zombies. Anytime they ran into a survivor, the GM always made it seem they were fighting fast zombies, that would jump out of no where and attack them. For their own equipment, he always mentioned that it appeared to be either broken or out of ammo for weapons. I kind of thought that was an interesting twist on the normal zombie apocalypse and have been meaning to write up something along the same lines to run at a con.