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Originally Published:
2010-10-31
Last Updated:
2012-02-20
Original Concept:
George Romero
Final Design:
Gerry Harris |
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Associated Games/Campaigns
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Whether from an alien meteorite, from
government research, from bad milk, or because Hell is full, for some reason the dead have been rising from their
graves. What's worse, they're infecting the living into
turning into walking dead. Within weeks the world has become a
wasteland of walking dead and scattered remnants of living humans
doing their utmost to survive in this post-apocalyptic world.
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Introduction
The Zombie Apocalypse shares a lot of the same tropes as other
post-Apocalyptic campaigns, such as
Twilight: 2000 or
Traveller:
The New Era. However, there are a number of major
differences.
First off, there is no economy anymore. Money is useless when
it comes to purchasing equipment. This is offset by the
plethora of stuff just lying around. Zombies do not use
vehicles or weapons so these are often available for the taking.
Ammunition may be a different matter altogether. Between the
police and military, prodigious amounts of
ammunition will have been
expended in the early stages of the Zombie Apocalypse. Saving
one's brass to be hand-loaded may become critical. Also fuel
for vehicles is no longer being manufactured, and much of it will
have been burned up by a fleeing public in the early on.
Starting Equipment: There are two ways of
handling this. If the campaign begins before the Zombie
Apocalypse, have the characters roll up starting money appropriate
for a campaign set in the appropriate period (for instance, use
Merc: 2000 for a modern
Zombie Apocalypse, or
Traveller for a far future Zombie Apocalypse).
Then allow the characters to purchase equipment normally. If
the campaign is set after the beginning of the Apocalypse, allow the
characters one long arm and one pistol of the player's choice and
§1000 of additional equipment. In addition there will be one
to two vehicles for every four characters in the party (players'
choice). Remember, fuel for the vehicles will be in short
supply, and stopping long enough to hunt for it will attract the
attention of local zombies, so players should be careful in the
choice of vehicles they make.
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Campaign
Types
Zombie Apocalypses are more about
character interaction and character development than most other
types of campaigns. As such, the characters will actually
determine the type of campaign that is played. There are
basically three types of campaigns:
Searching for Safety: The characters are
hunting for a safe area free from the Zombie threat. Maybe
they've heard of a refuge and are heading to it, or maybe they're
trying to get as far away from formerly populated areas and their
resident zombie hordes as possible. Either way, they must hunt
for supplies and deal with other survivors along the way. And,
of course, they have to fight zombies.
Refuge: The characters have a fortified safe
place immune (or mostly immune) from zombie attack. However,
they must make forays into more heavily-zombified areas in order to
gather needed supplies. There is always the
possibility of a character being infected or a zombie stowing away
or otherwise being transported back to the refuge. This would
work well in a science fiction Zombie Apocalypse as the characters
use their starships to raid zombified planets. Maybe a zombie
manages to get into the landing-gear bay of their starship, or was
trapped in one of the cargo containers the characters loaded during
their raid.
Rebuilding: The Zombie Apocalypse has ended.
It's time to rebuild civilization. There are still a few
zombies around, and the newly dead have a tendency to become
plague-carrying zombies, but those problems can be dealt with.
The big task is recovering technology, getting groups of survivors
to work together, and keeping a resurgent zombie threat at bay.
A zombie apocalypse may be a precursor to a larger apocalypse,
possibly The End Times or the return of the
Great Old Ones.
Or, it could just be a zombie apocalypse.
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Encounters
Depending upon whether the zombies eat just human brains, or will
devour any flesh, there may or may not be many animal encounters.
If the former, animals will be encountered at the regular rate.
If the latter, most of the animals will have been devoured, and
animal encounters should be checked at -1 or more.
The number of zombies encountered will depend upon the encounter
location. The number of nearby zombies in an urban area may be
in the hundreds, while smaller towns may have only a few dozen and
the countryside might have one or two in the area. If the
referee allows it, zombies may begin "starving to death" within 1D6
weeks of their last meal. If that is the case, the number of
zombies will begin falling off precipitously within a few months of
the initial infection. However, in that case the referee
should declare all newly dead folks will come back as zombies to
keep the zombie threat (pardon the pun) alive.
Also, in many zombie apocalypses, cold weather slows or stops
zombies. If this is the case, reduce the number of zombies
encountered in sub-zero weather by a factor of 10.
Zombie (Cinematic)
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Targeted
Shots
As a head-shot is the only way to stop
a zombie, many characters will want to aim directly for the head.
Aiming, as usual, counts as an action. Hitting the head is one
level more difficult than other aimed shots (as the head is a
smaller target).
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