Zombies: Real World Campaign

[Veldruk]

Greetings everyone,

 

I have been a long time player of the Hero System and have run several successful adventures in the past. While being bored one day I decided to optimize my house against a zombie invasion and then was struck with a genius idea:

 

"Have our gaming group roll up themselves as a character and throw zombies at them!"

 

Granted, I'm sure that this idea has been had by many in the past but there is one thing that is standing in my way.

 

:ugly:Zombie Character Sheet.

 

I'm opting for the slower traditional zombies and not the athletes that we've seen coming up in Hollywood as of late. My zombies will shamble and moan and only spring out at dramatically appropriate times.

 

I'm thinking of maybe a 20 str at the cost of <5 other characteristics. Keep in mind that our hero's are going to be limited to 10's on their characteristics to avoid conflicts such as "Oh wtf dude, I know I can bench press more then you, so that justifies me having a 15 str."

 

I may allow 3 char points to be put into any characteristic to allow some variation, but for the most part, str/dex/con/body/ect are all gonna be 10's.

 

I'm not sure how many points I will allow for skills. As a rough number I'm thinking of 50 for skills and 100 disads. But aside from what I should allow, point wise, for the players, I need a good shambling zombie.

 

:help:So now I leave the floor to you, the Hero Games community. I am open to all suggestions on how to make the best "real life" zombie that will go against "real life" characters.

[RPMiller]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

I was discussing making yourself in another thread not too long ago. Why? Because we were talking about a zombie campaign using ourselves. I think if you haven't ever explored this idea you haven't been a gamer for very long. LOL

 

Anyway, I would make the zombies as automatons to start off with. That will make it easy to make them hard to kill right out of the gate. There isn't much need for any skills or powers beyond the automaton stuff so it should be fairly easy to build...

 

Let's see... opening HD...

 

Here you go:

[薔薇語]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

I was discussing making yourself in another thread not too long ago. Why? Because we were talking about a zombie campaign using ourselves. I think if you haven't ever explored this idea you haven't been a gamer for very long. LOL

 

Anyway, I would make the zombies as automatons to start off with. That will make it easy to make them hard to kill right out of the gate. There isn't much need for any skills or powers beyond the automaton stuff so it should be fairly easy to build...

 

Let's see... opening HD...

 

Here you go:

 

Very nice,

 

I was thinking about doing something like this for a Halloween game last year but never got around to it. I like the above zombie but there are a couple things I would do different.

1.) Lower the Dex to 7, why? Because 8 is a normal human and Zombies tend to be even slower than normal people.

2.) Drop all Leap and Swim, Then Reduce run to 5, for the same above reason.

3.) Lastly buy its STR and RUN with "Reduced End, 0end" at +1/2advantage. Zombies never tire and never give up. Although this is less important becuase, unless you 'push' your zombies they will always be able to Rec,\ there End at any given time.

 

 

But those are my thoughts.

La Rose

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

You forgot the PS: Fast Food Clerk. If you're going to do real world zombies, you need to do it right.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

Here you go: Twilight of the Dead. Everything for your HERO walking corpse needs.

[Lucius]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

I was discussing making yourself in another thread not too long ago. Why? Because we were talking about a zombie campaign using ourselves. I think if you haven't ever explored this idea you haven't been a gamer for very long. LOL

 

Thinking back on it, I am pretty sure I was introduced to D&D at around age 12.

 

So I've been gaming for 30 years.

 

Gods, I feel old.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary adds that he is likely to get a good deal older before exploring this idea.

[Labrat]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

Thinking back on it, I am pretty sure I was introduced to D&D at around age 12.

 

So I've been gaming for 30 years.

 

Gods, I feel old.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary adds that he is likely to get a good deal older before exploring this idea.

 

Look at it this way, now you can get extra points by taking the Age (40+) Disadvantage

 

More points to spend on your Follower: Palindromedary I guess (or is a KS? call him 'Skasiro')!

[Veldruk]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

Thanks a ton you guys.

 

Yeah, about a year after I got into the Hero System we had talked about running a zombie game. I believe that 1 of our players stopped showing up because he found religion and another had moved away. And with an average group of about 4 showing up at any given game, roleplaying a zombie survival game with just me and another guy would be kinda lame.

 

I'll be stretching the rules just a little bit for my PC's. Even tho they will be keeping the base 10 dex, I'm gonna give them 2 8-point levels into combat so they can throw them into OCV or DCV if they want. This way they can still swing a baseball bat at a zombie but do it "cautiously" as opposed to just dodging and wasting a phase doing so. Because with a 2 speed (I might make it 3) wasting 1 of your phase-6 moves on just dodging would get kinda boring.

 

But if they want to dump everything into DCV AND dodge, thats perfectly alright too.

 

The hardest part about this campaign is going to be figuring out what would keep the players from doing the very rational and logical thing- climbing ontop of a house where zombies can't get them and wait it out.

 

...

 

Then again, I had originaly only planned on making this whole episode 3 days long. But I'll just throw that right out the window and leave the ending wide opened. They'll have to run outta food sooner or later =D

 

I may set a time span where a crack team of doctors have found a cure for zombie'ism but since our gaming group lives in a rural town and about an hour drive from any major city, (and it's not even that major of a city), then they can't just hop on down to the hospital to get immunized, they'll probably have to drive from NC to... (NYC/Atlanta/Chigago/ect) depending on how the dice fall.

 

Thanks again for the help everyone.

[Labrat]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

The hardest part about this campaign is going to be figuring out what would keep the players from doing the very rational and logical thing- climbing ontop of a house where zombies can't get them and wait it out.

 

Oh there's many ways around this. You can:

1. Allow the zombies to 'climb' or just let them pile up and eventually a few will get high enough to get to them. If they're on the roof, the zombies will see them and if they see them/detect them they shalt gather.

2. Let there be a gas-main leak and eventually the block will go up in flames including the house the heroes are on.

3. Let weather prohibit this (thunderstorm, icestorm, windstorm)

4. Let food supplies be an issue.

5. Throw in an NPC who cannot climb (child, elderly, hurt, stricken with a disease, etc.) to 'slow them down'.

6. Give the zombies rocks to throw or guns to shoot...

 

Etc.

 

Don't forget to apply the 'Swarm' tactics of the Zombie Horde. You don't have to use 100 individual zombies in terms of game mechanics, you can use a 'Zombie Horde' write-up and even give them a bit of a 'group mind' like a hive mentality. That way you can use big Area Effects to sweep over the PCs or chase them down even faster than they'd like to be...

[Veldruk]

Re: Zombies: Real World Campaign

 

Well, the game is tomorrow, Friday, July 6th.

 

I hadn't considered making the zombie an AoE, but thats a good idea. It would save alot of downtime in the game setting up all the individual zombies.

 

There is one problem with giving my player group an npc that can't climb. I'm almost positive that one of my players will just leave them or shoot them. Of course me (as a gmnpcpc) will object, but he might be crazy enough to shoot me.

 

Regardless there is almost no way that this will be a bad game. I'll post here with the highlights and the overall story sometime this weekend.

 

Thanks again for all the input.