Here Comes THE WALKING DEAD TTRPG!

Free League has announced the official The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game.

The game will hit Kickstarterin Spring 2023, with a release in Fall of the same year. It includes a core rulebook, starter set, and other accessories, powered by Free League's Year Zero engine, which is behind games like Mutant: Year Zero, Alien, Bladerunner, and more.

Additionally, there will be a 'Liveplay' series.

As the groundbreaking TV series The Walking Dead comes to its climactic conclusion, AMC Networks today announced a long-term alliance with Free League Publishing and Genuine Entertainment to continue expanding The Walking Dead Universe with The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, an official tabletop roleplaying game. The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game will debut on Kickstarter in Spring 2023, offering early access to the Core Rulebook, a Starter Set, and other premium accessories and limited-run exclusives long before its Fall 2023 retail release.

For news and previews, visit thewalkingdead-rpg.com. Then follow Free League Publishing on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, where fans can discover art and gameplay development ahead of the game’s release.

A co-production between AMC Networks and the award-winning tabletop publisher, which is working closely with key forces behind the franchise, including Chief Content Officer of The Walking Dead Universe, Scott M. Gimple and Head of AMC Networks Publishing Mike Zagari, the ongoing RPG series will introduce new story elements while drawing inspiration from the current series and upcoming spin-offs.

“The Walking Dead has always been about characters – and audiences, by extension – facing impossible life and death choices,” says Gimple. “Now, fans can face these choices head on, putting themselves in the world of the Walking Dead – at any time in the timeline, encountering familiar faces and places and brand-new ones and, within our apocalypse, making the biggest choice: Who are you going to be? We’ve seen a lot of stories in the Walking Dead Universe, now it’s time to see yours.”

The game is directed by Free League co-founders Tomas Härenstam (Alien RPG, Blade Runner RPG) and Nils Karlén, with Nils Hintze (Tales from the Loop RPG, Vaesen - Nordic Horror Roleplaying) as lead writer, Gustaf Ekelund (Twilight: 2000 RPG) and Martin Grip (Alien RPG, Blade Runner RPG) as lead artists, and Genuine Entertainment's Joe LeFavi (Alien RPG, Blade Runner RPG, Dune, The Dragon Prince) as producer and brand manager on the game series.

To immerse fans in this new extension of The Walking Dead Universe, AMC Networks, Free League, and Genuine Entertainment will also produce a limited Liveplay series, where real players will roll the dice at the game table and play an actual The Walking Dead Universe RPG campaign filmed in real-time. Featuring original events pulled from the series’ writers’ room, the Liveplay series will follow new characters who intersect with core story elements and cross paths with a familiar face or two. Kevin Dreyfuss, SVP of AMC Networks’ Digital Content & Gaming Studio, and Genuine Entertainment’s Joe LeFavi will serve as executive producers on the limited Liveplay series.

In The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, players are challenged to enter the unforgiving, post-apocalyptic sandbox and learn how to survive and thrive in this new world order.

“You can spend days just scavenging ruins and testing survival skills. Or blur it all into the background to focus upon the compelling human drama,” says Härenstam. Fans of survival games may indeed lose themselves in fortifying strongholds alone. “The place you call home should become a rich, three-dimensional character with its own origins, attributes, and memories,” says Hintze. Pushing the boundaries of the survival genre, each group can tailor their RPG experience to suit their own interests and play style. "Each session should feel like you're writing, directing, and starring in your own TWD episode," says AMC's Zagari. "Where it goes is up to you."

No matter what, expect the stress and stakes to be high. Boasting a new spin on Free League Publishing’s award-winning Year Zero engine, players must not only hone their physical skills, but deeply explore what makes them tick – confronting how the hardships of this world naturally impact what they’re capable of, in the best and worst of times.

“Just like the show, this game is not about killing walkers,” asserts LeFavi. “It's not about losing health points and fighting to stay alive. It's about losing your humanity and fighting to find and protect what’s worth living, killing, and dying for.”

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[Reynard]

Anyone trying to get a good handle on how to model different kinds of zombies should get themselves a copy of All Flesh Must Be Eaten post-haste. It's a bespoke system but a simple enough one you can easily translate how different kinds of zombies work, mechanically, to your favorite game. The YZE in particular is adaptable enough that it should serve as a very useful guide

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Free League hasn't released all of the details about how the game is handling zombies, but what they've shared is interesting. Basically zombies aren't really separate enemies, but more like an environmental hazard, with Threat levels based on how many, the circumstances, etc. Threat goes up based on rolls, and if zombies catch up with you, you might do a skill test to avoid being bitten.

In other words, zombies aren't just endless combat encounters vs. statted enemies of various strength, which seems like a good thing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Free League hasn't released all of the details about how the game is handling zombies, but what they've shared is interesting. Basically zombies aren't really separate enemies, but more like an environmental hazard, with Threat levels based on how many, the circumstances, etc. Threat goes up based on rolls, and if zombies catch up with you, you might do a skill test to avoid being bitten.

In other words, zombies aren't just endless combat encounters vs. statted enemies of various strength, which seems like a good thing.

I would want to have both options, myself. The series premiere has Rick trying to deal with the terrifying threat of a single little girl zombie (yes, a lot of it was just dealing with the horror and shock of it all). If your swarm stats scale down to "one zombie," that feels a little silly, especially since it closes the door on other sorts of singular zombies.

Free League isn't going to be in the business of officially supporting The Last of Us or other zombie franchises with this game, but closing the door on fans making their own clickers, bloaters and rat kings, and their counterparts, seems unnecessary.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Free League isn't going to be in the business of officially supporting The Last of Us or other zombie franchises with this game, but closing the door on fans making their own clickers, bloaters and rat kings, and their counterparts, seems unnecessary.

Sure, but it's not like you can't stat out a clicker on your own, if you're doing a hack. Year Zero Engine games are simple enough.

But I think any setting where you're doing fast zombies would probably mean coming up with different mechanics than what they're doing, since TWD's walkers are old school shamblers, and sort of randomly all over the place. Could probably still use some of the Threat mechanics, but they'd have to be turned way up, and even then they wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for The Last of Us, where zombies tend o be basically nowhere to be found, or clustered in huge numbers. So having any of them appear because of a 1 on a pushed roll (or similar) would be way weirder and more disastrous than a handful of walkers stumbling into the scene.

As for doing a one-on-one fight with a single walker--little girl or otherwise--settling that as a skill challenge seems right to me. YZE combat isn't about knocking piles of HP off each other, D&D-style. It's fast. Plus you need a headshot anyway, right? If every encounter with a walker was just you fumbling at called shots (remember how hard it is to succeed in YZE) while it gradually gets closer...no thanks. What you're describing is basically someone having to push one or more rolls, while probably also having some bad Stress-related effects. Sounds like the right system and approach to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sure, but it's not like you can't stat out a clicker on your own, if you're doing a hack. Year Zero Engine games are simple enough.

Yes, so long as someone for whom this is their first, or nearly first RPG can do so without owning another YZE game. (I am guessing this is going to be a lot of people's first RPG, based on the responses of my non-gaming zombie fan friends.)

As for doing a one-on-one fight with a single walker--little girl or otherwise--settling that as a skill challenge seems right to me. YZE combat isn't about knocking piles of HP off each other, D&D-style. It's fast. Plus you need a headshot anyway, right? If every encounter with a walker was just you fumbling at called shots (remember how hard it is to succeed in YZE) while it gradually gets closer...no thanks. What you're describing is basically someone having to push one or more rolls, while probably also having some bad Stress-related effects. Sounds like the right system and approach to me.

Fair points.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Yes, so long as someone for whom this is their first, or nearly first RPG can do so without owning another YZE game. (I am guessing this is going to be a lot of people's first RPG, based on the responses of my non-gaming zombie friends.

Very good point. I think a lot of first-time gamers might be a little boggled by the game, especially if their goal is to do Last of Us with it, or really any fast zombies, like in the style of Train to Busan or basically every recent zombie story that isn't The Walking Dead.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Love zombies, zombie games, walking dead, and RPGs.

I think their system will work well for a “personal horror” game. Can’t wait to play it

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Funding for Kickstarters always slows way down toward the middle of a campaign, but I've been struck by just how little this one has been making over the past few days. Of course funding will pick back up toward the end, as it always does. But this? I've never seen this in a Free League Kickstarter:

That's not the usual slowdown. Funding just went down by about $709.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Huh. There's a correlation with The Last of Us ending and people not getting their weekly hit of zombies. I wonder if that's causative.

 

[MGibster]

There's a good chance I pick this up and get the deluxe version of the rulebook. The only disappointing thing I've found about Free League games is that I haven't been able to play them as often as I'd like.