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OverWilliam
2009-04-05, 05:23 PM
I have just started running a survival horror game with two friends using the d20 Modern system. The theme is that of a Zombie outbreak-- now keep in mind that these are not your standard 'a wizard did it' Zombies that were created by magic or magical interference, nor are they the cop-out variety 'infected' Zombies, a la Resident Evil series, and they are certainly not of this new Professional Runner Athlete breed, either. These are old-school, B-movie, honest-to-goodness Living Dead, who abandon any semblance of individual effort or resilience for the plodding, unslowing, unswerving, unending Strength in Numbers approach that the zombies of my childhood had mastered to brilliant effect. The game itself, at this point, is short on story, big on combat, and puts heavy emphasis on remaining alive by any means necessary in a scenario that forces combat for my player's lives at nearly every turn. At the moment there is hope (in my players' minds, anyway) for escape from the city, but they will soon discover that they are trapped with the zombie menace with no where to go and time running out. The mood is, again, meant to be a survival horror that sours the fun of blowing a zombie's head off after the hundredth time with the nagging question of 'How much more of this can we really take?' 'How much longer will we hold out?'

The problem arises with the issue of Endurance. The players are meant to be in constant doubt as to whether they will survive this, but in the end the sun is going to come up, the gristled heroes crawl from the ramshackle barricades and piles of re-dead corpses and shell casings that they have constructed about themselves with blood, determination, and a good old fashioned 12 gauge shotgun, having survived the impossible and lived to tell about it, the threat defeated, and all once again right with the world. Then enter the sudden twist ending to pull them back in for the next campaign. :smallbiggrin:

But quite simply, at this point... They can't survive this. The key to this scenario lies in the constant onslaught-- they might get 45 minutes or an hour to bandage up and reload before getting tossed right back into the awaiting arms of the zombie horde, guns first. If they have any more time to recover than that it will only damage both the mood and the credibility of the scenario (that being a completely infested, for all intents and purposes inescapable city of the Living Dead). The Suspense comes from knowing that they defeated the last Dozen undead, but that that last fight took them down to half HP and they only have five shotgun shells left against the essentially unlimited forces of the hungering night. It's a game of resource management, weighing the risks of using only the Beretta 92F to finish the last two Zombies instead of using up the valuable Shotgun ammo, which is limited, against taking too much damage to make the effort pay off. When it comes to ammunition, I can have them stumble across some meager supplies when they need them, those concessions meant to feel of only pushing back the inevitable and being a temporary fix to a solutionless problem, but when it comes to HP there is no such simple solution.

The realistic feel of the system regarding injury and recovering hit points doesn't allow much opportunity for healing up between fights. The Treat Injury skill only allows a max of 1d4 points a day in such circumstances, which isn't really enough when I'm wanting to have them involved in five or six separate large scale fights a day, as well as various skirmishes with only one or two opponents to keep them on their toes. Each of those Large Scale fights is intended to be challenging, but also damaging to the players, so that they look forward with dread to the next one, frantically trying to prepare themselves and wondering if this time one of them won't make it. The problem is, without the Magical healing that has formed the basis of NOT DIEing in DnD, the idea of coming down hard off of the last fight and hurrying to heal oneself back up before the next is absent in the Modern era.

So the question boils down to this; How am I supposed to keep my players alive without relenting on the severity of their predicament?

Altair_the_Vexed
2009-04-05, 06:01 PM
In Night of the Living Dead, the protagonists ended up in a barricaded house. Zombies tried to break down the barricades, and the heroes repelled them. This technique means you have less attrition on the PCs, as the zombies spend their efforts on the barricades. Only when the zombies break through can they get at he PCs.
Also, give the PCs some resources. With a can of fuel, they could make a fire barrier to hold off the zombies for a while.

Here are the rules and some scenario ideas from a zombie board game that you could plunder for a working d20 game. (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/25529)

Aside from that, in the situation you've described, this variant might save you:
Reserve points - spend to regain HP (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedInjury.html) (there are some others in that link that might help, too.

Krrth
2009-04-05, 10:00 PM
Wound/vitality points work rather well. The have wound points equal to their con score, and vitality points equal to their normal hitpoints. Vitality points heal every hour (you can make it less if you like). Critical hits go direct to wound points and represent real damage, everything else goes to vitality points and represent bumps, bruises, strain, and the like.

kjones
2009-04-05, 10:29 PM
Wound/vitality points work rather well. The have wound points equal to their con score, and vitality points equal to their normal hitpoints. Vitality points heal every hour (you can make it less if you like). Critical hits go direct to wound points and represent real damage, everything else goes to vitality points and represent bumps, bruises, strain, and the like.

This, although it's worth noting that using a wound point/vitality point system results in an overall increase in effective HP, so plan accordingly.

OverWilliam
2009-04-05, 11:03 PM
Thanks for the replies, guys, I've been sorta dragging my feet on continuing with the game until I can get this figured out.

The Vitality points thing sounds very interesting. Is there somewhere I can read further on that? I'll probably Google it in a minute.

Don't let that discourage from other ideas, however, new thoughts are always welcome! :smallsmile:

Kylarra
2009-04-05, 11:12 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm#vitalityPoints
is what you want.