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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 1114957" data-attributes="member: 7737">One cliche of survival horror movies (and it's a cliche because it works) is to allow the protagonists (PCs) to hear about a place of hope, a refuge, that last bastion of humankind amid a sea of zombies. Let them uncover clues to this place, listen to legends of how it came to be, perhaps meet someone who has been there. Let the PCs battle their way towards the refuge, every slow step of progress a hard-won victory.Then when they get there... the gates are smashed, the houses are burned down, a layer of ash covers everything. It's too late; the refuge has been destroyed.If you set it up so that it takes the PCs a couple levels to reach their goal, they will have that sense of accomplishment that comes in a D&D game; this will make the eventual disapointment even more bittersweet. You can play the metagame: allow the players to think that you are allowing them to gain levels so that when they reach the refuge, they can defeat that last hoard of zombies or big bad ghoul to gain entrance. Only there is no climactic battle; there's just a cloud of dust and the passage of tumbleweeds.I think that could be damn effective in your campaign.</blockquote>