Modern Zombie Apocalypse as Megadungeon?
I was recently reading articles about megadungeons. The portion of my brain constantly dedicated to worrying about zombies managed to bring up an interesting proposition: Could one run a modern day zombie apocalypse game like an old-school megadungeon? Here are my points of thought:
The game starts a few days after the zombie outbreak. The city has fallen apart. Most of the rampant chaos has died down, and the world is quiet now. Survivors are not completely gone, but people do not openly walk out in the zombie-infested streets.
The player characters all start in the same location. This might be the house of one of the characters, or a lightly fortified public place. There are no other survivors in this location. This operates as the headquarters for the party (at least in the beginning.) The city around them is fleshed out just like a dungeon level. Streets and alleyways become corridors, and buildings become clusters of “dungeon rooms.”
I absolutely love the idea of using a randomized character generation process. Roll some dice, in order, and try to survive with whatever fate has handed you. I envision something akin to a D&D “3d6 in order” system, with some added tables to fill in a little bit of background info. This background info could also establish some skills that the character possesses. I would like to give the players a little bit of choice in the matter, as a 100% random character might feel cheap and pointless. There could also be tables to roll up what starting equipment is available to the party.
Like older editions of D&D, I would like the accumulation of loot to be a big contributor to experience points and the leveling process. “Loot” in this sense would not be cash, but food, tools, medicine and other post-apocalypse fare. I want the accumulation of goods to be a main drive of the game–a reason to go searching around in the dark places crawling with the dead.
I would love to use something like the D&D tables for randomly stocking dungeons. The BECMI version seems the easiest to adapt–two different d6s, one for the presence of a monster, trap/trick, or special anomaly, and the other for the presence of loot. In this setting monsters would indicate zombies or potentially hostile survivors, traps might be survivor-laid defenses or environmental hazards, and special anomalies could be whatever horror and weirdness my mind could cook up. Some tables to randomly roll up loot would be nice too.
No system immediately jumps out at me for this type of game (other than older editions of D&D, which would need some adapting to cover modern technology.) I realize Mutant Future could be used, but it is of a much higher power level than what I am looking for. The closest I can come to both the desired power level and system granularity is BRP (a.k.a. Call of Cthulhu,) but it is lacking the experience system to reward loot.
Anyone have any suggestions, additions, or pontifications to add to the above?
I think this is a great idea. There is already a Left 4 Dead adaptation of 3:16, otherwise I would recommend that one. I think Savage Worlds could be a decent system, or Stargazer’s Warrior, Rogue & Mage (obviously a few changes would need to be made). I really think you’re on the right track, though, with adapting an older D&D system/clone. A Swords & Wizardry mod could work nicely, especially since the task resolution system seems right for this style of play. Of course, none of what I just said is really useful advice since it’s all dithering
I’d be really excited to play in this kind of game. The possibility of a light at the end of the tunnel (but the likelihood of further darkness) that comes from random generation would fit well in a zombie horror genre.