Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => Creative Projects => Topic started by: Cthulhu on August 30, 2009, 11:27:15 am
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So I had the best idea ever.
Dark Heresy is probably the most violent pen and paper RPG I've seen. FATAL is probably worse, but I don't want to know anything about FATAL.
You know what else is violent? Zombie Apocalypse. Yes. You know you want this.
Here's what I'm thinking right now, post if you have an idea.
I'll set up a city, make a map for it, get an idea of what items are where, and set up dice tables to determine what's actually there.
There should be vehicles, I have the vehicle rules apocrypha, but I'll probably have to make modifications to the rules to make zombies a threat. I'm thinking there should be a serious risk of being dragged out through the windows if you drive into a crowd of zombies.
I'm trying to decide whether or not there should be career progression. Part of me says yes, part of me says no. Progression would make it easier to differentiate similar careers, but at the same time I feel like a survival game shouldn't have you leveling up.
Another thing, of course, is zombies. I suppose I could make multiple types of zombies and let the players pick what kind of apocalypse they have. Other people GMing with the same ruleset could do their own thing with the zombies or use one of the predefined types I'll figure out.
Here are the zombies I've thought about, you guys may know more.
Romero Zombies - Slow, shambling, can only be killed via destroying the brain or severing its connection to the body(Or if you're going with some of the other movies, by completely destroying its body). Can do basic human things like open doors, and when no brains are to be found mill about in places they used to frequent. I don't know if I'll use this, because I don't like the idea of zombies that can open doors.
Non-Romero Shamblers - Slow, shambling, brain thing, huge hordes, can't open doors. This seems like a likely choice, along with...
Infected Living Humans - Technically not zombies, although only jerks actually call you on that. Fast, sometimes faster than humans, and the infection means they can run without stopping for longer than a human. If we use these you're going to want to use vehicles for travel, because I will be going with the one-bite-and-you're-infected rule.
I may allow you to spend experience at character creation to be immune, but it's going to be expensive, because immunity is no fun. That goes for all of the zombie types except Romero zombies. Everyone comes back to life with that apocalypse, whether you were bitten or not.
Here are my ideas for careers. I'll be treating it as if I will use career progression, but if it's clear that that's not the path I decide to take, I'll change it.
Ex-Convict - Strong, tough, dumb, low fellowship. High melee and barehanded weapons skill, pistol skill, maybe shotgun skill. Probably minimal building/mechanical skill from prison shops.
Citizen - Average attributes, weak combat skills, but good at navigation(?), and foraging in malls and the like.
Cop - Strong, tough, dumb, higher fellowship. Pistol skill, shotgun skill, vehicle skill. Probably rifle skill at higher progressions, assuming I use them. You may be starting to see why progression looks good. A lot of these careers are going to be redundant without career paths to differentiate them.
Mechanic - Strong, tough, dumb. Can repair(and improve? via tuning up?) vehicles, minimal building skill, melee weapons skill.
Redneck - Strong, tough, low(Or high?) fellowship - Vehicle skill, handgun skill, maybe rifle skill at higher levels, minimal(Or moderate?) building and mechanical skills, skill at foraging outside the city limits if we decide to include nearby forest/country areas.
Military - Strong, tough. Skill with most weapons, possibly vehicle and mechanical skill, probably building skill, superior equipment. Will need some kind of disadvantage to balance him out. Less starting XP, maybe?
Construction Worker - Strong, tough, dumb. Melee weapon skill, high building skill, good for setting up fortifications.
What else is there? I know there should be less strong/tough careers. I don't plan on including things like tesla coils and automated turrets, because they're lame, and that limits the viability of having things like a geek career, I'd need to figure out what they could do in a zombie apocalypse.
Somehow I completely forgot most of the actual gameplay in the premise. It'd be basically an open-ended survival game. No real pre-set goals except to survive and maybe escape the city. You'd need to eat and drink, of course, which would necessitate some moving around to gather supplies.
So that's what I have so far. Questions, comments, suggestions?
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The existence of a class that focuses purely on leadership and personality would be interesting, if only because it would be of more use keeping survivors together than re-killing zombies.
EDIT: I propose that the non-Romero zombies be called Russo zombies, just to tie in to the original duo.
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Construction Worker class that focuses on building stuff.
Also, why are cops dumb?
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That's because the stereotype is.
I mean really, i feel real bad for making fu-- DONUTS!
Omnomnomnom
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Somehow I forgot to put in the construction worker career. That was one of the ones I thought about right at the beginning.
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Hey, I'm not a cop and I'd be all like "blah blah bl—OMG DONUTS!"
Om nom nom.
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Have the military types start off with preset orders that they have to follow?
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That could work...
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Re: Zombies - Why not multiple kinds? Maybe even set up a couple templates with random features? Keeps everybody on their toes. Left 4 Dead of course features most of the obvious types (normals, crazy hunters, explodies, huge mutants). You could have others like giant shambling mounds of people fused together, actual zombie animals, semi-animalistic thinker zombies with some kind of control over their kin, patchwork zombies that can piece themselves back together, and other wild options. Maybe gasbag zombies that can fly? The possibilities are endless. And endlessly deadly.
Part of why I thought of some of those is, well, when you said you wanted to make a Zombie Apocalypse game with the Dark Heresy rules, part of me thought you meant a zombie apocalypse set in the Warhammer 40K milieu. Very rarely been done before, with lots of AwesomeTM implications. But of course way too easy for spammy 40Kphiles to uselessly flood. For the record, I'm cool either way.
Also, why is their no Scientist class? Only the power of Science can save us now!
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*Holds up laser-powered zombie "cure"*
HAHAAHAHA SCIENCE!
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Yay.
Not a bad idea.
Wonder waffles? :3
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Allow waffle irons as weapons, under the classification of WMD's.
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Allow waffle irons as weapons, under the classification of WMD's.
Weapon of Making Deliciousness?
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Wunderwaffe
:3
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Wunderwaffe
:3
Oishii Wafuru
=3
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Wunderwaffe
:3
Oishii Wafuru
=3
??
Someone has to have played Shi No Numa or Der Riese
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Okay, I read too fast. Having seen the note about geeks and super weapons, it strikes me as fair but unnecessary. Scarcity of high tech resources and the difficulties in acquiring them should keep a good limit on game-ending superweapons. By extension, the ability to reliably and frequently build things like automated crowd destroying weapons is a pretty good sign that we've won anyway. Besides, without lasers and so forth, you don't get to use DH's magnificent Energy Critical Hits tables.
Few other RPGs have anything so inspiring as a rule that can turn a person's femur into a frag grenade.
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Is it 40k or regular day?
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Flamethrowers man, molotov cocktails, you can still have energy weapons.
And modern day.
I'd rather not do the thing with boss zombies and stuff. I'm a simple man, with simple tastes. When things start waxing complex I begin to long for when they were simpler. Zombies are better when there's one type of zombie(Or a mix of the basic forms. I'm cool with having fast zombies, shamblers, and maybe some kind of zombie that has to be chopped up and burned; but when giant mutant zombies, smart zombies, and stuff like that come in I get a big frowny face), RTDs are better when you just roll, and you don't throw in skills and classes and all of that in it, everything is better when you KISS.
One thing that worries me is that without a main goal other than survival, it will be kind of aimless. I'm hoping a focus on RP will make it easier for people to stay with it for a long time, but I can see why people would want boss zombies, science, and a way to win to keep their interest.
To help remedy this, I'm going to be looking at ways to keep the players on their toes. I'm thinking loud noises attracting zombies will help, leading to situations where it's difficult to hole up for more than a few days before things get too bad to stay, and leading to a lot of intense escape situations where your stronghold is surrounded and you have to fight your way out, find a secret escape route, or LAST STAND FOR GREAT JUSTICE
The more I think about this idea, the more I wish someone else had come up with it so I could be a survivor. Oh well, if it turns out awesome I might even put it in PDF form and let /tg/ see what it thinks.
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Then why the fuck are you using Dark Heresy at all? It's not exactly a simple game system itself.
And flamethrowers and such roll on the Flame Critical Hit table. Though I guess a downed powerline could work.
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Why are you judging the game Aqizzar? No one got angry and questioned the system you are working on.
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It's called facetiousness Org.
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It's called facetiousness Org.
Noun 1. facetiousnessfacetiousness - playful humor
playfulness, fun - a disposition to find (or make) causes for amusement; "her playfulness surprised me"; "he was fun to be with"
...
Oh
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I think Dark Heresy's pretty simple, actually. Maybe I'll use a homebrew setting anyway. I'm sticking with the d10-based approach though. Too many dice spoil the bread, you know.
Because you'll choke on them. Don't put dice in bread. That's a stupid idea.
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To disadvantage soldiers: Give them the stereotypical 'mus be a hero' attidue. If someone is under attack from the shambling horde, they aren't allowed to leave until the person is thoroughly dead, and they must try to save them. If there's them and a civilian, but only one spot left in a transport, they give the spot to the civvie.
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That could work too. It depends on how the character is roleplayed. Maybe I'll give them a choice of several disadvantages, and they can pick the one that fits their character.
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They start alone and have to trust the dice roll until they join up with the group?
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It'd be tough to pull that off, considering it's a P&P RPG. The DM would have to split his efforts between multiple parties.
I'm wondering, what should the city be like? Obviously a GM can use whatever city he wants to use, but I'll probably run at least one game once it's finished, assuming it's any good, and I'd probably like to set up a city even if I don't run a game, just so the rules have a good example.
Should it be a full-on urban sprawl, or more like a suburb? Both have their merits. A city seems like it would be a more interesting environment. I keep envisioning the survivors being pushed backwards to the roof of their stronghold, and having a tense situation where they have to jump to the next rooftop, over a twenty or thirty foot manmade chasm filled with zombies(Maybe there could even be climbing zombies, so it's not quite as safe once you get to the next rooftop. You know that'd be intense.
Then again, a suburb would allow for a lot of the over-the-top zombie stuff, like bolting sheet-metal over the windows of your car and driving through a playground, some crazy guy standing out a hole in the top of the car, mowing down zombies with an assault rifle. Cars probably wouldn't be as feasible in a city considering how choked the streets are when everyone isn't dead. The streets would be so full of abandoned cars it'd probably hard to even walk in them.
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It's not a modern tabletop game without a Tesla coil gun :P
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It is when I make it. Anyway, I don't know. I didn't realize until just now how much work it would be to set up a whole system and balance it and make sure it's not terrible. Urgh, but the zombies call for me, and I know that any premade zombie setting will probably contain things that zombie settings shouldn't contain(Tesla guns, lazors, super-zombies, and the like).
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a geek class might work if he had the ability to hack simple computers or something. EG: the group wants to break into a house to raid for supplies, but the old security system is still active. if they just go in, the loud alarm goes off and all the zombies in hells-half-acre come to get the delicous brains. but a geek/hacker/whatever could attempt to re-wire and deactive the alarm so it would remain silent.
the other idea i had for em would be to let em set up simple cameras for security. if the base had working computers and power, the geek could set up an old webcam or something at the entrance, and the group could set watch on it via the computer. things liek that.
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I never thought of that. That could work.
I'm wondering(Assuming I even do it. I haven't even started yet) if I should just make it classless and levelless, and have them just pick a number of skills based on their intelligence or something. Do away with the class system entirely. I don't know./
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i definatley like class systems better. i feel if everyone could do everything, then you would just have a mishmash of players who could do some of everything and there isnt much sense of team-unity. if you had only one person who could build barricades, you want him alive. if everyone could, it dont matter so much outside of another mook with a gun at your side.
but if you really dont want a class system, perhaps you could go part way and not make the skill list set-in-stone? you could choose classes, and each one would make a certain set of skills more or less expensive to get and possibly starting with a handfull of basic skills. choosing the soldier class would have you start with proficiancy with certain firearms/armour, but it would cost alot more to learn to ghetto-rig alarms like i mentioned geeks could in my last post. a geek would start being able to do that on a basic level, and could get better at it for alot less exp/points then the soildier could, but it would be more expensive to learn things like construction and such like a handyman/construction worker could. ect. the difference being everyone could do everything. but its more practical haveing a team of specialists, each one good in a set of things. it forces them to work together and adds some challenge.
also, a leveling system is more realisitic. think of it this way: a zombie invasion has occurd right now. oh crap. you wouldnt have much supplies stockpiled, no defences prepaired, maybe no weapons on hand. and you dont even know how the best way to fight them are. sure we have movies and books and theories, but none of them have ever been seen or tested in real life. out of all those choices you had in the first post for zombie types, it could be any one of them, and assuming the wrong one could get you killed.
now imagine yourself in this world, say, five years later (just for example). the invasion is still around and its an apocalypse at this state. by now, your probably alot fitter from all the work youve been done, you have a small group together, you probably know how to do more stuff by experiancing it in your new day to day life. heck, you might have even looked online or on the tv in the first few months of the outbreak, before those went offline. now that the city is wasted, you could just steal books to learn stuff. you possibly moved into a place in the city where its easyer to defend, raid, and attack. you overhauled it into a awsome bunker, prepped escape routes and panic bags. you might have been lucky enough to steal better armour or guns from stores and warehouses. i know for a fact if it happened to me, i would get down to the archery shop on west eleventh and raid as many arrows and bow supplies as possible.they even have cameo outfits that are heavy padded for woodland trecking. it'd take em too and trust my training with the bow in the begining. atleast untill i could get guns and training
now after this little mental trip, compare the you from right now (EG: the start of the invasion) to the you from five years. see the difference? all in all, in game terms, you have leveled up. alot. it also motivates the players to take action. its possible for them to build impossible-to-enter buildings all over town connected by catwalks that'r proofed from zombies, but then nothing happens and it gets boring fast. if that happens and there is a level system, you can throw a super-zombie that smashes the walls down and kicks all their asses at them; and when they die give them a "oh well, if you had bothered to train some you woulda lived" to teach em a lesson, but thats a sure fire way to loose your friends.
why, yes, i do think about this alot. whatever would have given you that idea? ;D
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You don't need a level system for that, though. You can do a more organic system and have the players spend the experience they earn on skills and abilities, or do a thing like Call of Cthulhu where you have a chance of increasing your skill at the end of adventures.
I don't know, this is all just speculation as I haven't even worked myself up to actually get started. I'll probably do some research on how to balance things like this so it doesn't turn out terrible.
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ah yes. i was gonna mention something like that, but i forgot. besides, my post was becoming too massive allready :P
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I'll give you a nand with this if you need assistance, Cthulu.
Zombies are my Speciality.
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There could be a zombie entheusiast geek
who knows everything about the zombies and has a premade kit
basicly half the people on the zombie wiki