long time lurker, first time poster from Italy :). Sorry in advance for my english. I'm designing a zombie scenario for my campaign and I could use some help and ideas about its mechanics.
Let me explain: in my vision the party reaches a village overrun by an horde of blind zombies controlled by a mushroom hivemind and they have to reach the centre of the village to free an important NPC from the horde and acquire an important McGuffin for the campaign. The party will realize that it cannot win the horde by brute force and must resort to other means. It's an homage to TLoU and Romero's movie which I'm a big fan of. So it should not involve too much fight and be more about atmosphere and skill.
The quest should be divided in two phases. In the first phase they should reach the location of the NPC/McGuffin being as stealthy as possible. This part of the quest should rely on skill checks and RP situations where the overall performance of the party in avoiding to alert the horde hivemind will decide the amount of time at the disposal of the players in the second phase of the quest before the horde finally attacks and the party is forced to flee (or to fight to the death if they choose so).
Basically they will have a predetermined amount of time to RP the encounter with the NPC and acquire the McGuffin before the horde attacks. How would you award this amount of time in terms of mechanics? I was thinking to have a predetermined number of stealth and/or perception checks with growing difficulties (to simulate the fact that the zombie grow in numbers near the central location, like the classical mall in a Romero movie) while describing the scenario. I would add some kind of attack/grapples from the plants in the environment who are controlled by the hivemind too. There should be some exploraton too to acquire items who could be usefull for the second part of the quest (like arrows).
So, how would you handle the scenario mechanically? I would like to put pressure on the players and make them feel the tension of the situation and every idea is welcome!
A good way to me would be to have the party enter the deserted village unmolested, perhaps most that remains have hidden in basements, or inside their barricaded houses, with placarded doors and boarded windows. Once they reach the middle of the village is where the horde of zombie start to appears, swarming from all around. They could be hidden behind buildings, inside narby well or just appearing mystically from the sudden mist rising!
I would make sure to indicate that the zombies are fungi covered, and smell of death cap fungi to hint about their connections. The central well could also be covered with such fungi, almost like creeping plants along with the signature smell. This should promt the party to investigate it, descend inside and find cavern below where the BBEG is,perhaps working on its evil plans to corrupt villages with death cap fungi, similar to how a Yellow-Musk Creeper operates and create zombies.
This sounds fun! If the zombies are blind and controlled by a hivemind, this could be fun. The can start of by making easy checks to avoid roaming zombies using Athletics, Acrobatics or Stealth as desired. But then maybe it starts getting tougher. Harder checks, or checks made with disadvantage. Maybe they need something from one of the zombies?
If the hivemind is telepathic, a failure could alert the whole horde or part of the horde in the immediate area and all the zombies nearby start converging. Will the telepathy affect the party members?
A good way to me would be to have the party enter the deserted village unmolested, perhaps most that remains have hidden in basements, or inside their barricaded houses, with placarded doors and boarded windows. Once they reach the middle of the village is where the horde of zombie start to appears, swarming from all around. They could be hidden behind buildings, inside narby well or just appearing mystically from the sudden mist rising!
I would make sure to indicate that the zombies are fungi covered, and smell of death cap fungi to hint about their connections. The central well could also be covered with such fungi, almost like creeping plants along with the signature smell. This should promt the party to investigate it, descend inside and find cavern below where the BBEG is,perhaps working on its evil plans to corrupt villages with death cap fungi, similar to how a Yellow-Musk Creeper operates and create zombies.
The idea is to let them pass through the zombie like a squence in The Last of Us and yeah plenty of reference so they get that it's a fungi hivemind who controls them. The central place is located inside a threehouse so I was thinking that the giant mushroom has covered all of it except the entrance. Thanks for the great ideas.
This sounds fun! If the zombies are blind and controlled by a hivemind, this could be fun. The can start of by making easy checks to avoid roaming zombies using Athletics, Acrobatics or Stealth as desired. But then maybe it starts getting tougher. Harder checks, or checks made with disadvantage. Maybe they need something from one of the zombies?
If the hivemind is telepathic, a failure could alert the whole horde or part of the horde in the immediate area and all the zombies nearby start converging. Will the telepathy affect the party members?
Yes I was thinking to give them a pool of 5 "units of time" at the start of the stealth sequence. Every couple of success in the checks add a dice to the time pool, every failures remove a dice. When they reach the central place every action/dialogue sequence consume a dice and this add tension. When they reach zero the zombie attacks and they can resist and escape but they cannot ultimately win (at least it's very unlickely with the zombie mob stat block I'm going to use). The NPC will heavily suggest to run away off course. Yes, too many failures (or too much time) and the hivemind orders the zombie to attack. The telepathy should not affect the party members (only if they die and become mushroom zombies :) ). But it's a nice touch: they could have visions a la Mass Effect :). Thx!
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Hi,
long time lurker, first time poster from Italy :). Sorry in advance for my english. I'm designing a zombie scenario for my campaign and I could use some help and ideas about its mechanics.
Let me explain: in my vision the party reaches a village overrun by an horde of blind zombies controlled by a mushroom hivemind and they have to reach the centre of the village to free an important NPC from the horde and acquire an important McGuffin for the campaign. The party will realize that it cannot win the horde by brute force and must resort to other means. It's an homage to TLoU and Romero's movie which I'm a big fan of. So it should not involve too much fight and be more about atmosphere and skill.
The quest should be divided in two phases. In the first phase they should reach the location of the NPC/McGuffin being as stealthy as possible. This part of the quest should rely on skill checks and RP situations where the overall performance of the party in avoiding to alert the horde hivemind will decide the amount of time at the disposal of the players in the second phase of the quest before the horde finally attacks and the party is forced to flee (or to fight to the death if they choose so).
Basically they will have a predetermined amount of time to RP the encounter with the NPC and acquire the McGuffin before the horde attacks. How would you award this amount of time in terms of mechanics? I was thinking to have a predetermined number of stealth and/or perception checks with growing difficulties (to simulate the fact that the zombie grow in numbers near the central location, like the classical mall in a Romero movie) while describing the scenario. I would add some kind of attack/grapples from the plants in the environment who are controlled by the hivemind too. There should be some exploraton too to acquire items who could be usefull for the second part of the quest (like arrows).
So, how would you handle the scenario mechanically? I would like to put pressure on the players and make them feel the tension of the situation and every idea is welcome!
Thanks in advance.
Federico.
A good way to me would be to have the party enter the deserted village unmolested, perhaps most that remains have hidden in basements, or inside their barricaded houses, with placarded doors and boarded windows. Once they reach the middle of the village is where the horde of zombie start to appears, swarming from all around. They could be hidden behind buildings, inside narby well or just appearing mystically from the sudden mist rising!
I would make sure to indicate that the zombies are fungi covered, and smell of death cap fungi to hint about their connections. The central well could also be covered with such fungi, almost like creeping plants along with the signature smell. This should promt the party to investigate it, descend inside and find cavern below where the BBEG is,perhaps working on its evil plans to corrupt villages with death cap fungi, similar to how a Yellow-Musk Creeper operates and create zombies.
This sounds fun! If the zombies are blind and controlled by a hivemind, this could be fun. The can start of by making easy checks to avoid roaming zombies using Athletics, Acrobatics or Stealth as desired. But then maybe it starts getting tougher. Harder checks, or checks made with disadvantage. Maybe they need something from one of the zombies?
If the hivemind is telepathic, a failure could alert the whole horde or part of the horde in the immediate area and all the zombies nearby start converging. Will the telepathy affect the party members?
The idea is to let them pass through the zombie like a squence in The Last of Us and yeah plenty of reference so they get that it's a fungi hivemind who controls them. The central place is located inside a threehouse so I was thinking that the giant mushroom has covered all of it except the entrance. Thanks for the great ideas.
Yes I was thinking to give them a pool of 5 "units of time" at the start of the stealth sequence. Every couple of success in the checks add a dice to the time pool, every failures remove a dice. When they reach the central place every action/dialogue sequence consume a dice and this add tension. When they reach zero the zombie attacks and they can resist and escape but they cannot ultimately win (at least it's very unlickely with the zombie mob stat block I'm going to use). The NPC will heavily suggest to run away off course. Yes, too many failures (or too much time) and the hivemind orders the zombie to attack. The telepathy should not affect the party members (only if they die and become mushroom zombies :) ). But it's a nice touch: they could have visions a la Mass Effect :). Thx!