With the events of the past month pointing toward (hopefully) silly statements about a zombie apocalypse, let's talk about how to tie them into some sort of role-playing game.
1) Choose a location. One that you know decently, or at least better than your players. Check out my previous post if you're interested in fleshing out an unknown location.
2) Start slow. Nearly every single zombie movie starts with background news about the beginning of zombie attacks, with the day getting weirder and weirder until players realize they're in a completely empty environment, trapped with scattered other survivors against a crowded home of the undead. To help in this, here's a link to a map and timeline, to document the spread across the east coast, courtesy of Google Maps.
3) Utilize the terrain.
Mundane locations like Wal-Marts and 7-11s suddenly become major resource gathering sites. Map of the Dead (that apparently is the start of some sort of zombie ARG) is a wonderful catalog for nearby resources that might be useful in a zombie apocalypse.
4) Make players come up with an objective.
Whether they want to escape, rally with other survivors, or simply hole out the apocalypse, a zombie-infested setting is great either for a short-term goal (in a one-shot) or an entirely sandboxed setting with no plot at all (as a campaign).
5) Zombie themes are about how humans act when desperate.
Other survivors have to be scattered around the landscape. Present as many dilemmas as possible. Pregnant woman who's been bit is a lovely one, and cute little girl zombie in a dress makes a similar dilemma. Get deeper than this, though -- by hording, a natural tendency in a setting like this, players are deliberately choosing to starve other people.
6) Those first few hours are important.
Daylight is limited, and zombie numbers grow exponentially until reaching critical mass. Spend time scavenging, and you might not have a properly reinforced stakeout. Everything is a direct trade-off, and players need to be brutally reminded of that.
7) Flashy is a bad thing.
Players in an RPG tend to be loud, flashy, and prone to violent outbursts. All of these also tend to attract zombie attention.
8) Life is fragile.
Where D&D players might be used to hundreds of HP, only 1 HP matters in a zombie apocalypse. Are you bit? You're pretty much dead, within 72 hours.
9) Betrayal is the name of the game.
Expect players to backstab each other. Encourage it. Remember that survival is winning here. If you can't eat, you starve. If you run out of bullets, you get bit. The larger the party, the more competition there should be for resources.
10) Zombies are, if anything, unpredictable.
Are zombies dead or alive? Are they slow or fast? Do they have any tricks? Do they act during the day? Can you "cure" a zombie? What made the zombies? None of these are particularly consistent across zombie fiction. You can have a field day messing with your players on this front.
Are you planning on running a zombie game in the wake of the past month? Tell us about it.
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