How to keep it interesting?
Except for the fact that the dead walk, this is supposed to be the real world. I don't want to use fast or super powered zombies. The focus should be on survival, planning, and role playing rather than just shooting every zombie in the head and burning down the city. Combat should occure, of course, but just shooting zombie after zombie will get boring fast. How, then, do I keep my players interested? Let's face it, a zombie is really not much of a threat unless they come at you in great numbers, so there's that. I also plan for there to be several "human" obsticales in the form of crazy/panicing people, other survivers needing rescue, etc. but there's got to be more I can throw in there. What interesting encounters could I use without making it too high powered or pulpy?
What if they die?
In order for the threat to seem real I've decided not to fudge at all on rolls. I want my players to suffer the consequences for bad decisions which means character death is very probable. What should I do when someone dies? Should I have them roll one or two extra characters in the beggining and let them enter the game with a new character should their old one die? I'm afraid that might tip them off and expect danger which might make them create less realistic heroes. Should I make them sit out the rest of the encounter/session and begin the next with a newly made character? Any suggestions?
How will it all fit together?
In the past I've mostly done episodic style adventures where new episodes had little or nothing to do with previous ones. Our play time will be somewhat limited, probably one night a week with a two or three hour session. Since the whole goal of the game will be to survive and escape the town/city/whatever, how should I pace the adventure? Since it would be difficult to end on a cliffhanger at the end of every session I was thinking of trying to make smaller individual goals for each session. Find a safe place to hide, rescue NPC X and make it back to the safehouse, find medical supplies and return before NPC X dies of wounds. Each one a single session of play and possibly spanning several days of in-game time. Something like that. Time can pass between sessions to make it seem like they've been at it a lot longer without having to play all the boring stuff. I don't know. I'm open to other ideas.
What happens now?
All I have so far is "survive and escape". If it goes well and my players want more, where can I take it? I would like to entertain other ideas but what I've come up with is maybe spliting the campaign into three parts. Part I, PCs discover the dead walking, try to survive, plan how to get out of the location they're trapped in (probably a small town) and make it to salvation (military base, safe city a la Fiddler's Green, other uninfected location). Part II, no rest for the weary, salvation isn't as safe as they thought, outbreak on grander scale. With some xp under their belts maybe can have more combat, working as civilian military personel, protecting salvation or going out on supply raids. Not sure what the ultimate goal for this part would be. Part III, the cure. Reveal why the dead are walking and make it the PCs job to do something about it. Maybe by introducing one of the games organizations, Dept. 7? I forget what it's called. Maybe by this point the zomibes are evolved, experimented on, or somehow changed to be a bigger threat. Again any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
How it went down?
At this point I have no idea what the actual cause of the outbreak will be. And frankly I don't really need to know for this stage of the game but I would love to hear some new ideas on what it could be. Causes that I think have been pretty much used to death include a chemical spill, space virus delivered by falling meteor, some kind of brain parasite, voodoo magic... hmm I guess that's it.
That's all I can think of right now. I'm flexible on almost anything except for making the zombies too fanciful. I would love to hear some interesting scenarios any of you have thought up or played out in your own campaigns. What worked, what didn't, that sort of thing. Also any links to good material would be awsome since I only own the D20 Modern book and don't have money for suppliments.
Thanks in advance, and I look forward to reading your replies.
Undead Jed
I'm also looking for a good place to get maps. Free if possible. I need things like a small town, some wilderness areas, eventually a larger city probably, and lots of interiors. Houses, bar, hotel, normal stuff like that.
Hi Jed! Your best bet here would be to find Critical Locations, a d20 Modern book that has maps such as this. If that doesn't work, though, you could probably pull out the oldest trick in the book: crib notes. Public domain images of buildings, old floor plans, stuff like that. There's also Campaign Cartographer map-making, but that's pretty expensive. I know it's not much, but I hope that puts you on the start of the right track!
Hi Jed! Your best bet here would be to find Critical Locations, a d20 Modern book that has maps such as this. If that doesn't work, though, you could probably pull out the oldest trick in the book: crib notes. Public domain images of buildings, old floor plans, stuff like that. There's also Campaign Cartographer map-making, but that's pretty expensive. I know it's not much, but I hope that puts you on the start of the right track!
Hi back atcha! I'll be looking for Critical Locations on Amazon or Ebay and try to get one for cheap. As much as I'd like to spend money on stuff like that I kind of have to make feeding myself a priority. Interestingly enough I was at the hospital this morning and noticed they had a map of the whole place with fire exits and everything posted every so often in the halls. I'll go back with a friend's camera phone and see if I can get a clear enough picture to recreate with a paint program or something. I hadn't thought of using real blueprints and things. I tried to find if my county's planning and public works department had a website with some kind of searchable database but it was just a pretty simple page with a bit of information. Fees and whatnot. I could go into the office but I'm pretty sure they charge for copies. I think I recall my brother having to pay for them when he went in for permits and such for some work he was doing on his house.
I remember a time I could start a thread, come back the next day and have two pages of posts to read. That was Star Wars though. Anyway, thank you trappedslider, I got a lot of good info from that old thread. And thanks Rappy. I was able to get my hands on a copy of Critical Locations. I at least now have a place to start and some good ideas.The first session will be this Wed. night. If anyone's interested I'll come on and give a rundown of how it went.
Thanks again.
Unfortunately, the questions you are asking are the same questions that I have been unable to answer, causing me not to play a zombie apoc game unless it's a one-off.
And uhm... I really don't know about your prison thing.
You mean like, if 2 guys rob someone, if the 2 guys will go to the same prison? I guess that could happen, especially in areas where the prisons are already overcrowded.
I like your idea of how to make it episodic but you could continue that indefinitely. Have them escape with NPCs to set up a safe "town" type thing as seen at the end of "I Am Legend" with the party having to fend off attacks of zombies or going in to find new supplies or save someone. Heck, it could stem to having enough people for the Heroes to be sort of the security officers having to save a party of scavengers sent out or collect their remains if possible. I think that this type of play leaves endless possibilities and if you communicate with your Players after every session then you can definitely make it work.
Another idea, not everyone reacts the same to the threat. Maybe a military base nearby, separated from the chain of command, sets up a tyrannical dictatorship, with the head being an evil man who uses everyone he can to whatever his own selfish desires are. The characters must deal with such a threat to the people while retaining the support of the armed military.
Or.. While on the outside travelling to a new safe location, the PCs come across a military convoy that was ambushed by Zombies. They find out the mission was to stop a rogue agent from launching nuclear missiles into a friendly/safe area.
Basically, find stuff for the characters to do that is not necessarily directly related to the Zombie threat, but nonetheless exposes them to Zombie peril time and again.