Help me design my homebrew D20 Apocalypse

[kiznit]

My resources:

• D20 Modern Sourcebook
• D20 Menace Manual
• D20 Future
• D20 Apocalypse

Near-future setting, combining Genetech with a touch of PSI. A few experimental fusion reactors have been developed by first-world powers to help quell growing energy concerns and diminishing fossil fuels. Combine this with growing world hunger, class warfare, and increasingly common use of genetic engineering (think Gattaca) to further divide the haves and have-nots. Some genetic engineering has unlocked very basic psionic abilities among a rare few ESPers.

I see something apocalyptic occuring several sessions into the game, fairly early-ish. I imagine a lot of the experimental gene-technology releasing a pretty horrific neuro-virus. I haven't figured out possible ways for the PCs to survive.

My initial idea was that the PCs were genetically enhanced shock troopers and their team associates (i.e. there might be non-military scientists or hackers with the group), and the initial adventure would be an underground raid on a gene-splicing facility suspected of illegal modifications.

Influences for the game are Umbrella Corp/Resident Evil, cheesy Genetic thriller movies like The Sixth Day or The Island, nanotechnology threats like Crichton's Prey, near-apocalyptic psionics like Otomo's Akira and Domu, with a little bit of Metal Gear Solid thrown in.

Flavor is dark, high-tech horror/thriller, switching between extremely basic encounters of primitive violence with high-tech infiltration and environments.

So, any help with the brainstorming? Possible ideas? Places to take this?

 

[C. Baize]

If you're going to incorporate shades of Resident Evil, dare I ask if you're going to have zombies?

 

[kiznit]

Yes, definitely. All part of the apocalypse.

Albeit, I don't see them being truly undead zombies, a.k.a. fed on negative energy from an overflowing hell, but more victims of some genetic body-animating plague that induces cannibalism. I don't feel like I have to define the reasoning specifically, but it would fall more along the lines of the zombies from 28 Days Later or the genetically canibalistic Reavers from Serenity.

That being said, there's room to explore the dark side of the human soul a little, especially with psionics, but definitely things I don't want in the game are Shadow-stalker type demonics, ghostly horror, or evil aliens. All the horror should hopefully stem from misused biotechnology and/or psionic madness. I need secrets, but I really want the game to have a constant we-did-this-to-ourselves vibe. That's the coolest flavor of an apocolypse, IMO.

 

[Stormborn]

OK, how about this:

Rather than having the apocolypse start a few sessions into the game have the seeds of it already taking place in 3rd world countries. Whole nations are going silent in Africa, Asia, and Central America. The PCs can be corporate troubleshooters sent in on the first adventure to simply check up on some isolated research facility or to extract personel from a small nation gone to anarchy.

When the complete the first mission succesfully the go back to find their bosses in a panic. In the few days they were in the field things got bad, real bad. Now there are all kinds of international mandates in place to try to keep the affected countries isolated, but its not really working. The rich are going into privately owned coorporate fortified communities and the streets of most major cities, especially port cities, are in chaos.

The PCs second mission involves extracting a high ranking VIP from someplace like LA or New York, where the mutant virus is already appearing and everyone who could has evacuated. The VIP has some important info that the world needs to survive.

The PCs extract the VIP, but too late. The corporate bosses are gone or dead, the country is in anarchy. But, the VIP knows what to do, and where the PCs can go for safety and maybe to help stop the virus. Its some remote location in Canada or the like and he needs the PCs to help get him there.

Make the virus communicable, but transmited only in a liquid medium. So the PCs can take precautions to avoid it, but the threat is always there. It also means they have to be careful of drinking water, and probablly want to stay out of the rain, much less avoiding blood and other bodily fluids. Also, if the PCs are all altered somehow, make the virus most virulent in baseline humans and in certain mods, none of which the PCs will have. That can give them an edge, and make their survival a little more believable.

 

[Roudi]

I like the viral apocalypse idea, especially in a setting where genetic manipulation is fairly common. I also noted that you're tossing in some Metal Gear Solid, one of my favourite stories / games, so... if I may toss a suggestion?

Running under the assumption that, like MGS, there is one (or perhaps many) behind-the-curtains uberpowerful group(s) running the show, that they might somehow be responsible for the apocalypse virus. Consider, if you will, in a society where every person receives at least some basic form of genetic manipulation (like tweaking in childbirth to prevent common and rare genetic disorders, etc). Now consider that the shadowy power group has been incorporating a key modification along with these basic, universal gene mods to act as identification tags. Every person under their influence has been tagged and sorted into a database which is kept up to date with info on these people as they grow. From the database, the shadowy group can instantly recall, say, "every caucasian male with blue eyes and an athletic disposition", or "all citizens fit for military service", or "all citizens predispositioned to be troublemakers and rebels", or specific individuals.

Now imagine that said above-mentioned group has created a virus which is lethal only to whatever gene tag parameters it is given (very similar to the FOXDIE virus). So, shadow group could release a virus that targets all blond-haired caucasian females born under a full moon, or all peoples born in the year 2001, or one single individual. The virus is fatal unless an antidote is administered, which only the shadow group has. The virus has no effect on people without gene tags.

Now imagine the player characterss find this out, in the midst of the biggest plague humankind has ever seen. Will they wonder "why would the shadow group want to kill EVERYBODY?" Perhaps they'll think "why are they sparing us? Are they going to use us?" I'm sure many other things will be going through their heads as well.

Just a thought.

 

[C. Baize]

Then I would suggest another source, and an online novel as resource material...

I would definitely suggest getting Year of the Zombie (13 reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 possible is pretty telling) as a further source material... even if you don't want to run it in that setting, the zombie templates, wolf pack, and the Lawman advanced class are totally worth it (plus the Diaries of Becka would be GREAT in-game nuggets that the players could find, here and there... sheets of paper, written on with the trials and tribulations of one group of survivors).

The online novel (actually three online books... they're free, and not bad at all... they read kinda like a story hour, really) starts with Monster Island and then goes on to Monster Nation and Monster Planet. The story is better than the writing, and the writing isn't bad.

 

[Jim Hague]

It's in the food, man. It always was.

Taking the current scare trend of genetically-modified (GM) foods to an extreme, consider this:

To deal with the growing global famine, several corporations, under the auspices of some transnational government agency, devise a series of crops to help the millions (and soon, billions) of hungry people across the globe. To stave off a global conflict, the development of these crops is pushed through without the usually stringent standards applied to food products; standards which, in a corporate future, will likely have slipped horrifically.

The crops are hailed as a saving grace - a wonder food that can grow practically anywhere, under any conditions, that provides basic nutirition to millions who'd otherwise starve. the Third and Second Worlds rejoice.

No one is sure where it went wrong, really - rumors range from a secret sterility drug placed in the plants' genetic code to contact with industrial wastes to corporations creating an addictive drug in the plant to cross-pollination with other GMOs. But the result is horrific - a global plague, spread on the jet stream, carrying the seeds of destruction to the entire world. A disease that alters the brains and bodies of the consumers. At first, it's thought to be a recurrence of the Flu Pandemic of 2018, but soon enough, aid workers that escaped the horror that confronted them told a different tale - that the bodies of those dying from the disease rose again, ever hungry, a cruel joke at the expense of those whose goodwill was meant to save the world.

 

[kiznit]

Zombies...and more?

Wow, these are GREAT ideas, guys! I especially appreciate Stormborn's ideas for the actual campaign arc. Along with the background parameters I need to figure out the specifics about various power groups and the politics of the future.

While I definitely want some zombie horde action, the whole campaign can't be just about that. I'm still fishing for ideas toward the psionics horror side of things - I wouldn't mind throwing in a touch of mecha (The MGS universe has both the Metal Gear mecha, nanites, and psionicist Psycho Mantis while still having a very realistic, modern feel).

You can't beat zombies for that utterly unstoppable feeling, but don't forget gray goop! That stuff is incredibly dangerous. What if the plague was not just viral, but nanotechnological? What would nanotech-infested monstrous animals look like?

I don't see the plague as being a product of genetically-altered food, though that's an awesome idea. Liquid or airborne is kind of cool, as well as nanite-driven. What about secondary disasters? A nuclear detonation somewhere? Climate shift?

I'm giving the PCs access to Moreau characters if they want them (knowing full well potential reactions to being a genetic upgrade). I haven't decided yet whether to allow them access to psionics yet. I really don't want this to be a psionics campaign - I just want it to be an "element", like sure, you can telekinetically throw stuff around, but not without nosebleeds, massive headaches, and possible brain hemorhaging, as well as being pretty messed up looking as the result of being a lab experiment for a couple of years.

As far as particulars, I think I'll start the PCs out right in the action: On board a helicopter or harrier transport, suited up, armored and armed (perhaps part of the operations division of Department 7?), ready to be line-dropped into a proto-military research facility to uncover - what? Obviously they're the green unit, trained but untested, and this should be a fairly standard operation as far as the brass is concerned, but something far more sinister and freaky has to be uncovered, and everything has to go wrong.

You know, a D20 Modern "dungeon" crawl, just to help us feel out the characters and the rules.

 

[kiznit]

More ideas:

I don't want to just totally write off the food idea; in fact, I like the idea of a hidden agenda for developing catalogued "identifiers" - I think I could work this into the nanotechnology conspiracy ideas.
Anyway, to give you guys some concrete ideas to put your minds toward, here's some specifics that I need.

Motivations and background for the PCs group. Whether it's Department 7 Ops or some Genetech Watchdog group, I need to have the PCs as part of some paramilitary group that provides them initial direction and training, as well as a reason to work together. This is just the first-level motivating force, I have no problem with Dep. 7 turning out evil or being all destroyed horribly or what-have-you, and in fact I imagine the campaign'll be a lot better if it's taken out of the picture pretty quick.

Particulars regarding the plague. This is a world-changing event. Not that everyone has to die, but it needs to turn the world vicious and ugly - a campaign turning point where the players go from being investigators of the dark parts of the world to being survivors and saviors of an entire world gone mad. There have already been some great ideas so far, but there needs to be some dark and dirty secret behind it all. It has to reasonably make sense, yet be utterly horrifying.

The Bad Guys. The shadowy force behind the government, or the evil corporation? A rogue nation gone psychotic with religious fervor? A genetic scientist gone idealistic and determined to bring about the next generation of man at the cost of the current? Or no bad guys at all, and just basic human error. Something along the lines of Stephen King's The Stand or Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.

Cool events, henchmen, random encounters, and other flavor. At some point the PCs have gotta be trapped in a city infested with roving hordes of VirusSpawn zombies - some horrible strain of the plague that animates instead of kills. At some point they should have to take down some horrible psychotic ESPer that can explode people's heads with his mind. I need strange and horrifying locations that have to be infiltrated, or escaped from. Anything and everything you can come up with, I'll take it all!

If this ends up really getting fleshed out, I'll put together a whole design document and distribute it freely. I'm having a lot of fun with this!

 

[arscott]

A few thoughts:

How many folks do you want to die in this plague? Turning the world into a post-apocalyptic nightmare might just be accomplished by killing those at the reins, rather than the entire population.

The Comic Y-The Last Man (from DC's Vertigo imprint) is an interesting example of this: a mysterious disease that wiped out all male mammilian life on the planet (except for one guy and a his trained monkey). An event like this lets you create a fairly beleivable apocalyptic event but still leave a whole bunch of people alive, while at the same time presenting an interesting way to examine what can happen when we marginalize certain segments of our society. Of course, that may be too political/farfetched/just-plain-wonky for your tastes.

Another thought: You're including psionics. What if the plague was psionic in nature, rather than mundane? Or (and this is from Y-TLM again), what if nobody knows what caused the plague?

Finally, do you want to have a goal besides just "stay alive in post-apocalyptic world"? You might want to have the plague be curable, reversible, or preventable. That way your characters could be looking for a cure/vaccine/other-solution-to-problems-caused-by-plague.