Survival Horror

[Gregor]

Your game sounds fantastic!

Some things I would add in to increase the spooky level (my apologies if these have been mentioned already) would be to add lots of environmental factors.

For example:

Flooded rooms and chambers (waist deep water) - zombies can pop up out of the murky waters around the party and try to mass grapple them, trying to pin them under the water to drown them.

Dense Fog - thick fog surrounds the players, limits their sight and allows your baddies to sneak up on them.

Constant Random Sounds - when players make listen checks, be sure to add in lots of extra sounds to throw them off and force them to be confused. Have lots of scratching, dragging, dropping, dripping etc sounds ring out once and a while. Dont forget the standard baby's cries or that spooky music box tune echoing down a stone hallway.

Ambushes - Ghouls dropping down on your players from high up rafters or dark crevices. Have a big ogre zombie bash through a wall right next to the party and attack them when they let their guard down.

Lots of dead bodies everywhere. Some rooms should look like a butcher shop - congealed blood coated limbs, torn torsos hanging on hooks, heads on pikes etc.

Disease or Poisoned food - some food may look ok to eat, except for the contagion sitting in that crusty roll.

Insanity / Fear - dont be afraid to make your characters roll wisdom checks or will saves once and a while based on situations. Even the toughest fighter can get a little weak in the knees sometimes.

Cheers,

 

[Krail Stromquism]

I Love IT!

What a great idea!

I like Beholder Bobs ban on certain spells, I might just minimize their effects instead of banning them outright.

One thought is it could be the very beginning of a Midnight campaign, where all of a sudden a darkness has fallen and Clerics have lost their powers.

Anyhow,

Its mentioned how players can become "disengaged" from the story and the aspect of whats going on in the game. "Zombies Again? snore." Thats where you have to really pull them in and connect them with the story. I might have playeda game or two of happy funtime and given everyone a friend or pet that would eventually die or get zombiefied. YOur doing that with the stablehand. Dont rush that too fast let them get to know him, have him attach to a PC and really befriend him. Then just subtley have him cough or shiver once in a while and let that paranoia start to seep in.

Depending on how you are trasmitting the undead plague can be very important. Say if the characters ever take their con in damage they have a chance of contracting the disease or whatever. If its just a bite, then I would have it only affect humanoids as a swarm of zombie fleas or flys will kill everyone extremely fast.

Itd be nice to watch a Zombie flick before you played that might help get people in the mind set.

Dont forget about the slow escape. Somewhere somehow a zombie has to shamble after someone as they try and unlock a window or door.

keep us informed on how they do.

If they all end up dead, stop the session with one person still alive and have them create another party to go save the others.

 

[blackshirt5]

Has anybody tried using something besides undead in a survival horror campaign? I was thinking of including eldritch horrors(a la Call of Cthulhu) as well as the pervasive undead in my futuristic sword and sorcery and six-shooters game(plus, the occasional dragon if they can survive to higher levels; if that's not terrifying, a rotting out starving dragon, I don't know what is). What do you think?

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

Man this is cool; now you've got me writing up a dark, Vampire Hunter D styled Survival Horror world. Curse you Arc of Corinth!

Rel: Most of the animals in the province died when (looks around...remembers none of his players post/read here..whew!) the cult of Toldoth attempted to merge the Negative Energy Plane with the Material Plane. Unfortunately for the cult, it didn't work as planned - a substantial amount of negative energy was released but the plane did not overlay as expected. Everything within a seventy-five mile radius (including the cult) died. The closer a creature was to the burst's epicenter, the tougher the undead they arose as. So, just about every living thing in the province perished and was animated.

Four things have happened in the two weeks since this occurred:

1. Communication was lost with a sector of a city-state's realm of influence. Messengers were sent, but they never returned. For reasons I won't go into right now (see offer for long-winded summary in my original post), the city-state isn't in a position to properly respond to the rumored situation.

2. Animals from nearby areas have wandered into a land that seems to lack competetion. Therefore, the wildlife population is thin, but widespread and regaining strength. However, the undead keeps the larger animal population (such as deer) low. Things such as rodents are doing pretty well.

3. The cult of Toldoth has become concerned with the lack of immediate results in the province and has dispatched a team to investigate. Now, the PCs have someone that will compete with resources and will refuse to aid them and may even actively thwart their plans and so on. Think you found refuge for the night? Not when the sorcerer burns the barn down!

4. The PCs arrive. They've been sent to investigate the silence. They have no clue as to what has happened. They only know that they ran into trouble at a critical moment: when they were preparing to restock on supplies at a garrison in a governing hub known as New Dawn (there wasn't much to the province before...just two villages, several hamlets and isolated farmsteads...all the government structure is based around a temple and garrison at a crossroads. There's not much to it, just a temple, garrison, inn and tavern, mortuary, cemetary and a sanitarium.)

Food will be an issue for certain. The PCs will definately have to work for it until the cleric can cast 3rd level spells. It's already started.

I've also decided to not ban any of the mentioned spells for the reasons you stated. I want to force the characters into tight situations.

BardStephenFox- The first session went rather well. Hopefully, we'll be playing again on Saturday. I'm going to have to stat up a NPC though. One player (the fighter) will be having job conflicts with the timing over the course of the campaign so he'll be around sporadically.

carpedavid- Ghoul fever's a 3.5 addition. So far everyone's pulled off their fort saves...I may up the save some though to make it tougher. I like your idea of speeding up the incubation though. I might require a fort save every round for three rounds straight before they being to become a ghoul. There's always the Melting Fury from BoVD...

kaosdevice- I don't have access to that system right now though. I will be using the Lingering Effects of Evil section of the BoVD though.

BeholderBob- I've already decided to not limit any spells. If anything, it makes its more interesting. I won't be just sticking around with weak undead. Things will grow progressively harder...first the zombies start having more hp...then more hit dice...then they start dealing a little bit of vile damage...then it isn't zombies anymore...its wights and much worse.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Well, I've been drumming up a few ideas for a horror based game, though I may just end up stealing the whole no hope setting. I never would have thought to push it that far Anyway, I'm a bit of a novice at the genere, but I've talked with friends who enjoy it, and gotten a few good pointers.

Keep the lighting low. It sets the atmosphere nicely.
Set up props where they'll be noticed periphally. One of my friends put up a freaky looking model on the shelves behind him. Midway through the session a player looked up at it and jumped.
Have them hear things, smell things, or come across their trails. You know the things are around here somewhere, but where? Keep what they can see limited, but give them more information. That's when I freak out, just because I know something is out there. In the same vein, darkness works well, be strict about how far they can see and not showing them where they can't.
Drop some things in without explanation.
Place some decidedly normal things in the game. That one guy who's cheery, and doesn't seem to mind the undead just makes things worse.
Play Survival Horror games, and remember the moments that freak you out. A good one for me was in Silent Hill. There's a part with an elevator. It's got 4 floors. After exploring for a while and coming back, it has 5 floors. I just stared at it for a while, knowing that there was nothing but trouble that way.

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

A good one for me was in Silent Hill. There's a part with an elevator. It's got 4 floors. After exploring for a while and coming back, it has 5 floors. I just stared at it for a while, knowing that there was nothing but trouble that way.

I like this one. One of my players is a huge Silent Hill buff though, so I don't know how I could pull something similar off without being completely obvious.

 

[Rackhir]

I like this one. One of my players is a huge Silent Hill buff though, so I don't know how I could pull something similar off without being completely obvious.

One of my favorite bits was the horror world versions of the spots that you had already been to. You might want to consider running the PCs in reverse through the places They've already been only now they're sort of in a half-negative energy plane. You could also toss in some of the "changing" archtecture" at that point.

 

[KaosDevice]

I was thinking it would be cool to have spell effects become 'death aspected' as well. Fireballs burning with a cold bluish flame, healing spells working at a minus, etc. Sort of like what you see in the S&S Hollowfaust supplement. Just a thought.

 

[Maerdwyn]

Has anybody tried using something besides undead in a survival horror campaign? I was thinking of including eldritch horrors(a la Call of Cthulhu) as well as the pervasive undead in my futuristic sword and sorcery and six-shooters game(plus, the occasional dragon if they can survive to higher levels; if that's not terrifying, a rotting out starving dragon, I don't know what is). What do you think?

All sorts of things work besides zombies. Personally, I've used robots to great effect, when play with my college roommate who was a huge Terminator fan. Normal humans work really well, too. They can be demon-possessed, or virus infected, or whatever, but I tend to prefer groups of normal humans who are simply acting of their own free will in an utterly evil, bloodthirsty, or best of all, calculating manner - think a Farenheit 451 type milieu, where the PCs just don't fit into the government's view of utopia, and have been marked for termination. There's also the Planet of the Apes inspired setting, in which something normally considered lower than humans on the evolutionary ladder gains the upper hand, and wants either dominance, or just plain revenge.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I run a survival horror game with....

Zombies. That's right, flesh eating, wandering around and groaning, PC eating, head-shot only to kill Zombies.

I've already seen the "yawn" posts, and I'll tell you the truth, I haven't had that problem in the month I've been running this game.
While it isn't Fantasy d20, it's still a lot of fun.
The group has gone from a gaggle of unconnected people that happened to be in the same place to a tightly knit group determined to survive at all costs.
The players still get excited, the combat is still a blast (literally sometimes, if a wild burst sets off something combustible) and everyone has fun.
Here's the way I handle it. This is a Modern d20 game, heavy grit.
First of all, the players had NO idea what was coming down the pipe (The infamoust "TWO MINUTE SIGN UP WINDOW FOR AN ICQ GAME!" ploy netted me 9 players who knew little about each other) as far as the game, so nobody took feats, skills, etc geared toward post apocalypse survival.
Two: I used confusion. I won't allow a battlemap during modern games at IRL games (combat is confusing, nobody knows where everyone is, and many other factors), and love using vague confusion to hieghten the tension. On the IRC game we use PM's (I've fought TWO battles in PM only due to terrain/lightning, Only putting a few things in the main chat. Nobody has a clear view of what happened during those fights) extensively so that there is constant confusion.
Three: Ammunition, fuel, food. Going into a supermarket can be risky, as zombies congregate at places that were important fixtures in thier lives. Ammunition is scarce, but for the most part, it's living VS living battles that give ammo, but the sound of gunfire draw the zombies.
Four: The feeling of being outnumbered. With invasions, confusion and decimation of the civilian authority infrastructure, the total engagement of the military infrastructure, the is no law other than what the PC's can dish out themselves. The group contains 2 active duty military (One who was being transported to Fort Leavenworth to await execution for War Crimes, another whose helicopter went down) and a County Sheriff's Deputy (Who answered a "Shots Fired" call and ended up in a whirling nightmare of dead) who have difficulty with this part. For the War Criminal, this is a party, survival of the fittest. For the former NORAD Security, this is a nightmare where the world's potential is gone. For the Deputy, this is Hell on Earth. The party has NOONE to turn to, no place to run. All they can do is keep moving.
Five: Lethality. Yup. Pull no punches. There's no healing spells in Modern d20 Gritty, which means a bullet in the stomach is a bullet in the stomach for weeks, not a cure spell waiting to happen.
Six: Replacements. Usually, when people come into a game, or have to replace a character that got pulled down by zombies and messily devoured ala Day of the Dead, they get to roll up a PC of equal level. BUZZZ! No dice. First level. Of course, that's made it so others didn't want to join (For some reason I'm considered a Killer DM... <grin>)
Seven: Crippling injuries: We've got people who are badly burned scarred (FIRE BAD!), people missing ears, fingers, etc. ANY time a hit does max damage, something bad happens. We've got PC's whose ribs are taped up, and these guys are rarely, if EVER at max hitpoints.
Eight: Keep 'em moving. Don't let them hole up and heal up. Keep on em. One or two attack, a frenzied zombie bursting in the door and into the room. Fire, flood, natural disaster.
Nine: Don't be stingy with the gear, but don't be weak with the opposition either. How many Modern d20 groups have a Bradley "Linebacker" model AFV? We're talking 25mm Chaingun, M-240 machine guns, Ma-Duece HMG, Quad TOW-II launcher? Mine does. Know what it sounds like going down the road? "GAR-UMPH GAR-UMPH GAR-UMPH!" Yup, I've beaten the thing down. How? Rogue National Guard clashes against the PC's. So they have an Armored Vehicle, so what. The TC ducked back in, and the RPG hit the hatch and blew it clean off. Oops, can't seal the interior now.
Ten: Keep on em. Don't let em rest, don't let them regroup. Keep hammering at them. Old friends now zombies, family members scarfing down the remains of a kid, former team-mates shuffling along. Add in nightmare affects (Willpower Check: DC: XX) so they can't sleep. The moaning of the dead outside. A hit by a Rogue military unit.
Eleven: A goal, a place of hope. Always just down the road.
Twelve: If they do something stupid... Kill or maim them. Don't let them heal up too easily. I let the party rest for 1 week to heal up, on the third floor of a building after they destroyed the stairs, etc. Then, they had to try to get past the zombies, which could see them moving around... That was horrendous in ammuntion expendature.
Thirteen: Resources. If they can't carry it, it's gone. In a fantasy setting, that's spell components. If you don't ahve them listed, they are gone. That feat "Eschew Spell Components", forget it. It's gone. In my game, that's translated up to these guys policing up spent brass.
Fourteen: Keep shoving them. Have more zombies/ghouls/mutants/whatever on the way as they're searching the bodies. A "search" check takes awhile, and in the meantime, more reenforcements for the baddies are on the way.
Fifteen: Collapse of social order and services. No 9-1-1, no hospitals, no police, nobody waiting to rescue the characters. Bullet in the lungs? Too bad, better hope that doctor that joined the group is still alive. See that group of State Troopers? They are NOT here to help. In a fantasy setting, that means that the King's Men are now thier own...
Sixteen: Mysterious causes. What caused the disease. Nobody will EVER know. Flat out. Why did the Chinese invade? Who knows. Why did the Russian send paratroopers over the pole and into the US & Canada? Who knows. They're just here now. Who fired the nukes first, and why? What does it matter? By making some of the largest parts of the PC's lives affected by mysterious forces, it gives a sense of unease.

I could keep listing, but I figured I'd give someone else a chance to talk.
Hope some of this helps even slightly for your game.