Would you play this?

[awayfarer]

For a while now, I've been kicking around an idea for a one shot campaign set in a city infested with zombies. I'd recently been playing Resident Evil a bit and so the ideas been fresh in mind.

Heres the basic idea. The PC's are commoners, yes commoners. Your one goal is just to get out of the city alive. Zombies by the barralful would be the main threat here, with some appearances by other undead. Thats it in a nutshell.

The one thing I could see some people being turned off by is the thought of playing as commoners. The feel I'm trying to go for here is basically "Joe Average vs The Hordes". Something like Night of the Living Dead. Obviously the walking dead would need a bit of a drop in CR or the characters woud need a bit of a bump. I was thinking of adding a bonus to characters depending on the Profession skill. As a quick and dirty fer-instance, maybe Profession:butcher makes you a little more capable with sharp objects like knives and hatchets. Furthermore, adding a house rule that critical hits mean a weapon has destroyed a zombeis brain, killing it, might be a way to add to the classic zombie feel and give the characters an edge.

Does anyone think this sounds interesting or would I be wasting my time by trying to develop this further?

 

[pogre]

Make them experts and I'm totally in!

 

[reason]

....

Make the PCs low-to-mid level wizards with a social wizardry focus (i.e. lifers in the school of magic with lots of long-running social conflicts, grudges and whatnot with other wizards and the cityfolk). I'm sure you can link a great fire that burned all their spellbooks or drain of magic from the region that left them magicless with a zombie plague. Nothing like a zombie plague to show up natural human conflicts for what they are, and nothing quite like suddenly powerless wizards to emphasise natural human conflicts.

Reason
Principia Infecta

 

[Land Outcast]

Making them be from NPC classes should be enough...

the problem with commoners is: you have a 50/50 of doing anything most of the time, unless the "something" is of DC 11+.

but that's not the main problem, little stuff to do is the main problem. Commoners don't even have Climb as a class skill, for them to attack anything would be (with a club 95% of the time, their one Simple Weapon Proficiency) the sign of them already being doomed.

Variety of the still-alive characters is what makes Zombie movies interesting (when they are interesting).

A storyteller system would lend itself far better for this kind of adventure... if you are planning on running it via D&D: NPC classes (scarce equipment, but scarce as in as: you're a Warrior? then yes, you can have armor, choose: Leather Armor or Studded Leather Armor).

 

[Hammerhead]

I think being 1st level PCs would be pretty scary. Yeah, you have some resources, but a horde of undead is a horde of undead. You just have a leg up on the regular Cleave fodder that tends to infest cities.

 

[wolfpunk]

I think you could use the Expert, Aristocrat, and Warrior classes to good effect. I think it could be plenty of fun if you include a good array of props for the players to use as well as good environmental descriptions that allow the players to take advantage of the terrain.

 

[Sanackranib]

I started my players off at zero level in one game. gave them 1/2 hd of the class they were going into with no con bonuses and 1/2 skill points. they all started off at -500 xp. so when they got up to zero they became level 1. they each only got 1 feat. and 10 gp to purchase thier equipment. I also decided on 4 bonus skill points based on the characters background, most had like 2 levels in a craft or profession and 1 level swim or climb kind of thing. the players all had a blast, and I can tell you, they were VERY carefull about thier tatical decisions. If you were to allow warriors (maby you are a junior watchman) and experts (so they could have rogue) skills then they would probably do it and have fun. if you gave them a commoner level at no cost of xp (ie when they level they would become 1st level adventures with an extra level of commoner or expert then the survival rate would go up in the long rune and the players wouldn't complain about taking commoner levels. (at 1000 xp they would essentially be level 3: 2 levels as whatever adventuring class and 1 free level of commoner - so the hp would be a little better)

 

[Nyaricus]

Check out this core-class balanced "Profesional" class, which could emulate anything from a butcher to a woods guide to the milk man - NPC roles for a class as powerful as any other, more or less.

Link here

Hope that helps - it sounds cool!

 

[Nalfeshnee]

i once started an adventure at level 1/2 using half of the multiclass at level 1 variant from the 3.0 DMG (just letting the characters have one class) - to represent them being 'commoners' (ie: not adventurers )

i've also started adventures with the characters at level 2: 1 NPC level (which must be the first) and one normal level

I like the idea of criticals killing the zombies outright... it feels right

 

[wmasters]

Would I play it? Hell yes. But then I like Commoners occasionally for campaigns, when I'm feeling masochistic, trying valiantly to survive against unlikely odds.

As a one-shot, I think it's a fine idea, and certainely you'll find players for it since it's a 1-off brain frenzy. For a campaign I'd want to give people more freedom, I'd work on the principle of being happy to kill them because they're going no further.

For a 1-shot I tend to give out pre-gen characters (or give the party a choice of pre-gens), so you can run it with a lvl 1 cheerleader, shopkeeper, police officer and doctor which is immediately more interesting than commoners.

If you're looking to do this sort of thing though, check out the All Flesh Must Be Eaten rpg, which is all about the Zombies and the Night of the Living Dead scenarios