Suggest a System: I Want to Run A Zombie Game...

[Kinneus]

... but I tried and absolutely hated All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Well, "hated" is perhaps too strong a word. I might be willing to give it another shot, and it might've been more about how it was run than the actual system itself. But for the most part, I found character creation and combat way, way too complicated for my tastes.

So I'm wondering, what's a good game to get the zombie horror feel that isn't AFMBE? I guess what I'm looking for is simplicity, since any zombie campaign I run will basically just be a distraction from my group's usual 4e adventures. Very few "simple" systems seem geared toward horror, however, instead choosing to focus on the goofy and wacky.

 

[qstor]

I've never played Savage World just Deadlands ages ago but I have a few friends that speak highly of it. There's also the Choasium Call of Cthulhu Basic Role Playing system.

Mike

 

[Halivar]

It's not zombie horror specifically, but it does the job great: Deadlands.

I prefer the old pre-d20 version, which you can get as free PDF's now.

 

[Iron Sky]

I've never played it - though I want to - but I've heard Dread is practically designed to play zombie horror-survival games.

 

[Zombie Toast]

Dread works great for emulating zombie apocalypse movies, where it's pretty much a given that the group of survivors is going to get continually whittled down one by one. If that's what you want it'll work perfectly. It's great at building tension.

Savage Worlds works great for "action horror". It's not silly, but it is high action and will probably focus on players kicking undead butt. This can be adjusted a bit if you make sure PCs are poorly armed and limited in terms of what skills they can take. It can handle large numbers of zombies in combat and it makes fights go fast, but PCs are automatically badasses to some degree or other.

If you want to go more "survival horror" where players are relatively weak, the danger is very real and horror is a strong focus I'd recommend Call of Cthulhu or Unknown Armies. Both are simple, have good "fear/sanity" systems (Unknown Armies especially) and feature protagonists who are frail enough to be believable.

 

[enrious]

For a short-term campaign, I cobbled together a L4D game using Microlite20, Microlite20 Modern, and Microlite20 Rabid.

The entirety of the rules fit on a single sheet of paper and were such that everyone was able to quickly get into zombie mayhem.

Not sure I'd recommend it for a long-term game unless you want to tweak in advancement rules.

 

[Stormonu]

I used Savage Worlds for a one-shot I called "Maximum Security", it worked pretty good.

Maximum Security: Welcome to the Hobarth Maximum Security Prison and Sanitarium For the Mentally Disturbed. Outside the walls, a zombie apocalypse has occurred and the prison's Warden has sealed the place against outside intrusion. Despite the loss of power and connection with the outside world, the prison's tall walls and stout masonry facilities are a virtual fortress against the undead. Still, the prison's supplies won't last forever, and "patrols" are sent out into the city to recover goods and materials to keep those inside the walls safe.

Everything seems to be going well, though resources are getting scarcer and scarcer. A black market is thriving among the prisoners, and many of the guards question why they remain at their posts protecting those who probably don't deserve to live.

However, the growing discomfort is brought to a head when a guard, hiding a wound he recieved while on patrol, collapses during the dinner rush. Unsuspecting but well-meaning guards move to assist, only to become the first victims of the newly-turned zombie. Witnessing this horror, the prisoners riot - and within moments the entire prison is in an uprising when the generators finally give out (whether out of fuel or knocked out by rioters, it's not really clear). As the entire prison goes into automatic lockdown, prisoners and guards turn on each other as the ranks of the undead swell with each act of vengeance against the other side. Soon, nothing but chaos rules the haunted corridors of the prison.

The characters start out as guards and/or prisoners who have evaded the main riot and hidden themselves in a "safe" area. Banded together to survive, their next move is to gather needed supplies (guns, food, fuel, allies and transportation) and find a way out of the maze-like prison before they are done in by rioters, desperate guards, crazies or the undead.

 

[Kinneus]

Thank you for your suggestions. As intriguing as I find Dread, I forgot to mention... I do my gaming almost exclusively online, mostly through Maptools. Dread just plain doesn't translate.

I've long been interested in Savage Worlds, but didn't consider that it could be used for a zombie apocalypse in particular. I'll look into it. As for Microlite... honestly never heard of it. Where can I find out more about it?

 

[S'mon]

I'm playing in a Savage Worlds zombie campaign and it's ok-ish, but the ruleset feels a bit too pulp-action-hero for survival horror. The skills system works fine but combat has not been good*.

My #1 suggestion would actually be Call of Cthulu/BRP. It's very simple but absolutely not gonzo, PCs are appropriately fragile, and being a crack shot is only a marginal advantage. For even more horror you could use BRP/Runequest hit location tables, so zombies can chew on specific bits of the PCs, at the cost of slowing things down a bit.

*Issues I have - to-hit penalties seem far too harsh; the game requires headshots to kill zombies, which is a -4 on a typically exploding d6+d6 to-hit roll where you need a base 4 to hit... add on dim light penalty and it gets ridiculous. And all the bennies and soaking and stuff is way too fiddly for combat, though the complexity works fine for single-roll task resolution. Wild Card NPCs seem unkillable, which I guess is by design; ordinary NPCs die easily if the GM doesn't spend bennies for them.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I'd use BRP. (In fact, I did a one-shot survival horror with BRP a few years ago.)