Zombie Survival Horror

[exile]

Anyone use D20 Modern to run/play a game themed around zombie survival horror? If so, how'd it go? How long did it last? What kind of encounters scenarios did you run? Were the zombies slow moving or fast (a la 28 Days later or the Dawn of the Dead remake)?
Chad

 

[Alzrius]

On a tangential note, probably the best in d20 zombie survival horror is UKG's Year of the Zombie.

 

[kroh]

UKG is even doing stuff with Zombies in space now! Great stuff. A guy in Arizona won the contest we held back in January / February where people submitted their ultimate bad guy. He won a t-shirt and free web space to debut his bad guy from his Zombie Wars campaign. Great campaign setting and a great bad guy. The setting was zombies set in space and the last time I talked to him he was picking up all of UKG's stuff.

Check it out Here: The General

Regards,
Walt

Regards,
Walt

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I thought about running such a campaign once, but gave up without announcing it to the players.

The issue came down to "fightin' the zombies". In most zombie movies, the heroes use guns, but sometimes use melee weapons. Movies aren't a good example though, since the characters in the movie aren't under their own control.

Of zombie games, I'm most familiar with Resident Evil. In that game, if you actually get to use melee attacks, they're wimpy. You can't just take on large numbers of zombies as you'll run out of ammo. (In RE4, you can't buy ammo at the shop. Grrr...)

A friend of mine told me about another zombie game where you don't get to use guns. Instead, you have to get close to the opposition or run.

In D20 Modern, you'll likely have a mixed party. Pretty anyone can use guns, and some can use them well, while some will have Melee Smash, Archaic Weapons Proficiency, and high Strength, using weapons that dish out as much damage as guns (or use Combat Martial Arts, a weapon that literally cannot be taken away). Running out of bullets won't scare these PCs all that much. Dealing with the resources (bullets, maybe grenades) isn't in my personal skill set, especially if it only affects some of the PCs.

 

[Roudi]

A lot of one's survivability in a zombie scenario depends on the type of zombie being fought. In Year of the Zombie, you never want to engage in melee combat with a zombie unless it is your only means of defense. Each of the five types carry the zombie infection that infects any creature damaged by the zombie, infects the victim with no save, and carries a 100% fatality rate within 36 hours. You do NOT want to be within melee range of one of them. Other zombie types from other games (including d20 Modern's zombie template) aren't as threatening up close.

 

[hobgoblin]

there is a specific kind of zombie in the D20 acopalypse. alltho i hear that people think its to wimpy. maybe because its not 100% sure that you will die and turn into a zombie when you go into melee with it. alltho, with the con damage it produce on non-killing blows, and this resulting in a reduced massive damage treshold, there is a nice risk that you will die. and if you do die you do turn into one of them.

the thing is to not give the characters the downtime needed to heal ability damage, and allways attack with these being in hordes (even tho your only bringing 5 or into the fight at one time, there is allways more of them coming in when their kin falls).

basicly, the idea of a zombie horror is that you cant stand and fight, expecting to win. there will allways be more zombies. and whenever you think your safe, they come falling in thru some opening...

ie, limited downtime, and allways more of them to fight...

 

[mlnunn]

Zombie Stomp

Team Frog did a fun Zombie games Called Zombie Stomp, it is light hearted but fun, and has one huge cool map of a wal mart type store. Yes I did work on it, but I get nothing from it any more, just lett you know it's out there! It was kinda tied in to our Vampire Hunter$ game but stood on it's own too.

Michael

 

[Iron Captain]

I tried running something like this and in the end it didn't work out to well because there was too much combat. I like Romeroesque slow moving Zombies that can only be killed by a bullet in the head. The Zombies didn't prove too much of a threat and I ignored the other people in the world too much.
For a game like this to work it needs to be very chracter driven in my opinion. Also the zombies will not pose much of a threat most of the time so you will have to include plenty of moral dilemmas and human opponents and obstacles (A scared father trying to protect his family brandishing a shotgun who won't let a group of PCs pass for example).

Also the system should handle things such as mowing down Zombies with a car and barricades etc. in a fast and simple way.

 

[genshou]

I ran a one-shot Year of the Zombie game, and the system works well for what it was designed. The PCs only had to face down one run-of-the-mill zombie in the first encounter, and it nearly slaughtered them all. Only thanks to some lucky rolls did they manage to blow its head off. It managed to bite the martial artist PC, and she of course got infected and would have died if the game had gone past the first session. It's too bad I had to cancel it, because the next session they would realize just how outnumbered they were...

 

[ukgpublishing]

I ran a one-shot Year of the Zombie game, and the system works well for what it was designed. The PCs only had to face down one run-of-the-mill zombie in the first encounter, and it nearly slaughtered them all. Only thanks to some lucky rolls did they manage to blow its head off. It managed to bite the martial artist PC, and she of course got infected and would have died if the game had gone past the first session. It's too bad I had to cancel it, because the next session they would realize just how outnumbered they were...

Hehe, sounds familar

The sessions of Independance Day Massacre I ran at GenCon UK went down very well, and it was a good job the sessions were for 6 players as the spare Pre-Gen characters were needed, especially by the guy who decided to go hand to hand with 2 sprinter zombies and 3 classics.

One thing I found with this style of play, where the PCs were all everyday joes with little or no weapons is that invovation becomes a key factor (and I had to wing a few rules due to it as well, especially the guy who used an outboard motor as a make shift chainsaw).