Ever want to pull a "Dawn of the Dead?"

[SpiderMonkey]

Have you ever had the PCs, seemingly midway along in a campaign, go to bed only to wake up and see that EVERYTHING has changed, for no apparent reason. I envision having my PCs settle in at the inn, only to wake up to a scene ala Dawn of the Dead, and have ghouls and other such cannibalistic monsters just start taking apart the campaign world I've labored so hard to construct.

Is this crazy talk?

 

[Jeremy757]

Have you ever had the PCs, seemingly midway along in a campaign, go to bed only to wake up and see that EVERYTHING has changed, for no apparent reason. I envision having my PCs settle in at the inn, only to wake up to a scene ala Dawn of the Dead, and have ghouls and other such cannibalistic monsters just start taking apart the campaign world I've labored so hard to construct.

Is this crazy talk?

I have had the exact same idea. Except in my version the PC's are down on their luck adventurer who go off for a dungeon crawl. Its hard and grueling but they are rewarded with a ton of treasure. They have never had so much money. They return back to the city eager to spend their gains and help boost the local economy only to find everyone has become undead in their absence. The real horror of the situation is the realization that their money is now worthless.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Interesting. I've never had a desire to disrupt a campaign midway through it, but I've often *started* campaigns like that. For instance, my Cthulhu Comes to Town campaign started with the idea that everyone in FR woke up one morning, and, suddenly, their magical knowledge started draining away their sanity.

 

[Wolv0rine]

See, now if only you weren't wanting to do it in D&D, Year of the Zombie handles a Romerian universe So well (it should, we worked our arses off to design it).
For myself, I've seen a Romerian (Romero-inspired, that is) zombie attempted in D&D many, many times. And D&D is just so different from the Modern World that it never works right. I'm not saying it can't BE done, or don't try it, just saying the vast differences force paradigm changes in the concept you may not be wating to have change.

 

[Jeremy757]

Interesting. I've never had a desire to disrupt a campaign midway through it, but I've often *started* campaigns like that. For instance, my Cthulhu Comes to Town campaign started with the idea that everyone in FR woke up one morning, and, suddenly, their magical knowledge started draining away their sanity.

It doesn't have to be disruptive at all, it should just seem that way at first. For instance here is a quick campaign outline.

1) The heroes, who are from the City, go on several seemingly unrelated short adventures in the City and surrounding country side that familarize them with the territory.
2) During these beginning adventures the Hero's find clues that lead them to the discovery of a dungeon that has been long forgotten.
3) The heroes go to said dungeon to find out it was built by followers of a LE god of corruption to summon one of the god's servants. By entering the dungeon they awaken the servant. They defeat the servant and take his loot.
4) They return to the City to find everyone has become undead for no apparent reason.
5) In the treasure they got from the dungeon they found a puzzle box with a symbol on it that resembles a symbol some of the undead wear on themselves or mark on buildings.
6) researching the symbol and puzzle box leads them to a hidden and forgotten library of forbidden books, where they learn that the LE god had an arch-enemy, a CE god of disease and undead. The CE god also had a dungeon where his servant was imprisoned. By awakening the LE god's servant they awoke the CE god's servant too, who broke free and caused the spread of the undead infection.
7) Now the Heroes have to find the dungeon of the CE god so they can slay his servant and stop the spread of the undead.

There see. It can work and make sense.

 

[Three_Haligonians]

I've always wanted to lead such a game.

The catch being that all the PCs would be limited to NPC classes. I think this way, you would get closer to the "zombie feel" that would otherwise go away once wizards can cast fireball and fighters can hack through 8 bodies a round.

With NPC classes, zombies stay tough and a single ghoul could be downright deadly. If you kept the treasure of such a game down, so that an alchemist's fire or a quiver of crossbow bolts was a really good find and finding basic healing potions was a cause of jubilation, the game could have that "survivor horror" style.

Of course, such a game would have to start like this, and your players would have to want to play it but it could be a neat alternative in between your regular campaigns.

J from Three Haligonians

 

[thedungeondelver]

I've actually been thinking of a scenario that goes a little something like this:

The party (1st or maybe 2nd level all) is out in the wilderness, they've recently been waylaid by bandits and are low on hit points, no healing magic really to speak of, and they lost a good portion of their supplies. While hunting game, one of the characters lets fly with one of their (dwindling number of) arrows. It arcs through the trees - and a second or two after it disappears, a loud gong noise is heard!

The adventurers go off to explore (or maybe they don't and I have to do something different! ) and find a walled village out in the middle of the wilderness. There's nobody inside, the gates are completely shattered - what happened? Did a siege fall on this place in some forgotten time?

As the party explores (assuming they do, again!) and they begin to uncover things they realize that something horrible happened here in the town. The dead came to life and spread a horrible disease or curse - or both! - on the townspeople. Basically Romero zombies - you're bit, you die, you come back. The town was overwhelmed by zombies, most of whom drifted off here and there to rot or be destroyed by other adventuring groups. But nobody made it out of the town alive.

Once the party is in the town they realize that enough of the former residents of the place are still present to turn things really wrong...

Remember, they're low on supplies, and while they can (possibly) find someplace to barricade themselves, all they'll get out of the rest are minor spells (low level party!). The party cleric can turn the undead, but a maximum of 12 at a time - assuming he makes that critical roll.

Who will survive - and what will be left of them? (Whoops, sorry! Wrong horror movie!)

I haven't quite sussed out whether or not it's a "doomsday" scenario where the PCs unwittingly caused the zombies to rise again and potentially infect the entire world or if it's just a survival horror situation localized in the town. Nor have I quite worked out if the PCs can find an object or perform some action to reverse whatever created these things and get out alive, or if they'll have to try to survive long enough to flee...

 

[Wik]

I have had the exact same idea. Except in my version the PC's are down on their luck adventurer who go off for a dungeon crawl. Its hard and grueling but they are rewarded with a ton of treasure. They have never had so much money. They return back to the city eager to spend their gains and help boost the local economy only to find everyone has become undead in their absence. The real horror of the situation is the realization that their money is now worthless.

Ha. That's just cruel.

 

[GwydapLlew]

So far, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft very much feels that way to me. We've lost 20% of the party just getting into town, and now we realize that we're cut off from the rest of the world with a bunch of local yokels and a serious zombie problem.

 

[Sejs]

Have you ever had the PCs, seemingly midway along in a campaign, go to bed only to wake up and see that EVERYTHING has changed, for no apparent reason. I envision having my PCs settle in at the inn, only to wake up to a scene ala Dawn of the Dead, and have ghouls and other such cannibalistic monsters just start taking apart the campaign world I've labored so hard to construct.

Is this crazy talk?

I've been tossing around the idea of an FR campaign in which there are two massive, world-spanning events early on in the course of things:

1) The Stars Become Right and there is a massive eclipse - Shar reaches her hand out and blocks the sun. Darkness reigns for days at a time. Dendar the Night Serpent is loosed and corpses the world over rise as shadow-tainted undead. And they spread undead to those they kill. Real classic zombie plague stuff.

2) Shar's lucent sister responds ... drastically - the Tears of Selune, the trail of asteroids that follow the moon in its orbit ... fall. By divine providence, almost all of them survive atmospheric insertion. It's nuclear armageddon, only the fallout isn't radioactive, it's magical. Millions die, cities are laid to waste, and the landscape is forever altered. Sadly, it does not stop the march of the undead, but merely slows it.

Post-appocalyptic zombie-infested FR campaign. Booyah!