We recently played a two-session adventure of zombie horror using POMPEYO's Zombie Apocalypse rules here. My friend was the LM and, as he doesn't have forum access, asked me to post up his session report.

This will be the first of three posts, so sit back, make yourselves comfy, and enjoy!

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So I ran my first game as LM (or DM, or whatever) these last two weeks! Inspired by this post: http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...&showtopic=2970 , I basically took these rules and only slightly adapted them (basically, I didn't create the pre-generated characters using the exact rules posted, nor did I use the 'infection' rules on the zombie attacks exactly as posted, either).


We did a two-night session (about 3 hours each). Originally it was just supposed to be a one-shot game, but I suppose if we had 6 hours in a row to play, it could have been finished all at once. I pre-generated 6 characters based on the regular gaming group we have, but we only had 5 players, and the second night I expected 2 new players so I generated an extra, but unfortunately we only had 4 who could make it in the end.

We are planning on doing a longer campaign of The One Ring, so we thought it would be fun to get to know this system without diving head first into the real thing. I'm not the usual DM/LM for our group, so it was a nice break for him, and probably helpful to get an idea of the system as a player. Also, about 3 months ago we finished a 4e campaign that lasted over 1 year, and we've really wanted to get a break from an in-depth campaign and from fantasy, etc. before starting something else. Also, Tolkien is so different (ie better, ha!) than D&D fantasy, but elements from the latter could easily but negatively impact the feel/theme of TOR, we've wanted to get as much of a clean break as possible.

I didn't tell most of the players beforehand that it was going to be a Zombie Apocalypse setting, just modern day with some elements of mystery and spy vs. spy, or something along those lines. I said each character had secrets they needed to protect from the other characters, and while they would all have to work together, they would want to keep these secrets from one another, and yet find out as much as possible, as well. While this was true (that every character had secrets that the others might want to exploit), it was mostly a red herring. I thought the moment of revelation that it was a Zombie Apocalypse would be a fun surprise, and I didn't want everyone expecting the worst from the beginning.

Here is the cast of characters:
Sgt Forrest Grant (Soldier, currrently AWOL)
Bean Grant (12 yr old Boy Scout, son of Sgt Grant, suffering from voices in his head)
Jenny McCleod (Veterinarian, cheated her way through vet school)
Father Brown (Priest, friend and secretly the father of Jenny - unused)
Johnny Santini (Gangster, on a drug run who finds himself on the wrong bus)
Billy Dawkins (Policeman, who was just recently laid off, but got referred to a small town station, and wants to make a name for himself)
(Jake Cartwright - a Drifter - unused)

Though this was just a 2-night game, I did develop about a page of information for each character - their background and secrets, an explanation of their TOR cultural blessing, their traits and flaws, and the things they carried in their luggage.
Each character started with full endurance, but only half of their normal starting Hope (in this theme: Humanity) points. Most of them also started with 1-2 temporary or permanent Shadow (in this theme: Despair), depending on their background. For example, Johnny Santini, with quite a colorful background and a very dubious mission at the start, already had 2 permanent Despair points with the appropriate negative traits (I believe the 1st two that come with the "Dragon-sickness" Shadow weakness).
The goal was to have situations where the characters needed to spend lots of Humanity points, so that we could have at least one bout of madness, if not more. Their starting luggage/equipment was also important, since I wanted to create tension - a life or death scenario for the pcs, with limited resources, and needing to manage them with very conflicting personalities and somewhat conflicting interests.

The setting was a random group of people taking a Greyhound bus from LA to Phoenix, for their own varied reasons. Most NPCs were just the other bus passengers and of course the driver. All the characters intended to go to Phoenix, except the gangster, who had happened to take note of the seemingly well-off and beautiful Jenny McCleod and had managed to get on the wrong bus.
The first night, 5/6 pcs were used (only the Priest was not). The second night 4/6 (both the Priest and the Boy Scout).

To begin, the pcs were in line to get on the bus. The driver came by each one and welcomed them and took their luggage to store in the cargo-hold under the bus. Of course, the pcs had their own personal reasons for keeping their luggage with them, but for meta-game purposes it was important they kept them nearby, for quick access. For example, the soldier did have a couple of weapons (dis-assembled rifle and pistol) with him, but only in his luggage. Stored in the cargo hold, they would be much harder to reach. The pcs were allowed a Persuade (or Awe) roll to convince the driver to break company policy/security and allow their luggage to be brought with them on board. Three of them succeeded, except the Sgt and his son.

Once everyone was on the bus, they started off on their way to Phoenix, when the Gangster found out he was on the wrong bus. (The player knew this would happen beforehand). There were a few NPCs that the players could have interacted with during the 10hr bus ride, but they pretty much didn't. The was an old man with a radio (which ended up being extremely helpful later), and a few others.

As evening drew on during the ride (they were in the middle of the desert at this point), all of them had to roll Awareness. At that moment, the bus driver had a heart attack, and collapsed onto the steering wheel.
A simple success would indicate a pc had noticed and had quickly braced themselves for the worst.
A great success would enable a pc to not only notice what had happened, but have time to do something about it
Extraordinary would enable the above two, plus warn another PC (so they could either brace themselves or do something).

Out of the 5 of them, only Jenny the vet didn't notice anything. 1 succeeded and stayed put, 3 rolled great successes - the Sgt stood up and ran to the driver; the Boy Scout followed, and the Gangster stayed put at the back of the bus and braced himself. The Sgt managed to push the unconscious driver to the floor, but failed his Lore roll on how to drive a bus, so the bus went careening off the side of the hwy off road, and straight into a hill of sand and rock. The vet, the sgt, and scout all had to roll the Fate die, and take the equivalent endurance damage, be wounded on an eye, or manage to come away from the wreck unscathed on a G. No one rolled an eye, thankfully for them. ;-)
At that point, chaos on the bus ensued, as several passengers (npcs) were wounded. One passenger who hadn't seen the driver collapse only witnessed the sgt stand up, throw the driver to the side, and then proceed to crash the bus. He was extremely accusatory of the pc, and was telling the policeman (pc) to arrest him. The sgt was trying to take control, but since his character was in question, had no way of calming the crowd.
The policeman had a chance to do an inspire roll to calm the crowd, and was successful (if he had failed, it would have been much harder, later, to convince the crowd to follow the pcs off the bus).

The front door of the bus was jammed shut (but not completely blocked), but the side door was accessible. The gangster decided to leave, and climbed up the roof exit and waited there. The vet helped one npc who was unconscious, and they tried to help the driver, but he was beyond help. They found one npc who was a mechanic and sent him to look at the smashed and smoking engine. They tried their cell phones, but all the phones were dead. Only the radio seemed to be working, but it wasn't two way, and all they heard were some news reports of riots in LA.

At this point, night had fallen. While sitting on the top of the bus, the gangster noticed some humans coming toward the bus in the distance, and called out some funny remark about how they needed to come over and help clean up the mess. He received no reply. The figures were hard to see in the dark, but they approached slowly. One figure seemed closer than the others. The gangster continued to call out, but it was only quiet. Finally, when they had come close enough, he could tell that the humanoid slowly shambling it's way to the bus was something he'd only seen in the movies - a zombie.
This was a fun moment, when everyone in the group was a little surprised, or saying, "I knew it! I had a feeling it was this!" or something along those lines.

There was a definite bit of chaos, but then the pcs quickly tried to get whatever weapons they had (the gangster, still on the roof of the bus, was the only one with two weapons on him; a pistol and sawed-off shotgun; well, the policeman, too, had his pistol). The Priest, had a player been there to play him, carried a cane sword. The vet had a medical scalpel. The Sgt and the boy scout had failed the persuade roll earlier, so their luggage was stored in a random cargo hold. Thankfully the sgt was thinking quickly and grabbed the keys from the bus driver's body before opening the exit row window (on the other side of the bus, away from the approaching figures) and trying to find their luggage (without the keys they would have had to attempt a craft roll and since there were several luggage holds, a chance that their luggage wouldn't even be in the one they chose to open). However, in the sgt's luggage was a rifle and pistol (dis-assembled) and a baseball bat and swiss-army knife for his son.
More than half the pcs succeeded on their awareness roll, so they were not ambushed. On opening volley, the policeman immediately started firing. The gangster just waited... since this character was pretty much "I only care about myself", he didn't really have any interest in 'wasting bullets' when he was pretty safe high up on the roof.
There ended up being 4 initial zombies who attacked. 2 of them came through the accessible side door, while two tried (very unsuccessfully) to climb into a window or onto the roof. Eventually, the sgt and his son got their gear, but the boy continued to fail the fear tests that the zombies were causing (spending 1 pt of hate to activate a special ability). So the sgt and policeman were firing from (mostly) forward; the vet remained in open and did a lot of rally actions, the boy, basically hid, since he was afraid anyway (he also had the virtue "act of disappearing" so even if the zombies had been able to get at him (they were blocked at the side door by the two characters in forward), they wouldn't have seen him).
Also, on the other side of the bus three more zombies appeared and started (also unsuccessfully) to climb through the now-open exit window. One of the zombies also approached the front of the bus, and the pcs soon hear a scream (the mechanic). A zombie or two eventually succumbed to failed protection tests from the gun fire, while the gangster continued to hold back. That is, until the zombie that had gone to the front of the bus started walking along the hood and then the roof, toward him.
The policemen was almost knocked unconscious, and several of the pcs suffered being grabbed and bitten, but we weren't playing with infection rules (at this point). Both the mechanic and bus driver were shot, too, just to ensure they didn't turn into extra zombies. Other than the policeman though, most of the pcs just suffered a moderate amount of endurance, and that was the end of the battle. The main thing that enabled 5 pcs to defeat 7 zombies (esp. since only 3 of them had guns), is that they used rally a lot, and the bus provided a natural defense, so at most only 2 or 3 of them were engaged with the zombies at once (and not all 7 at once).

The crowd was of course very afraid, and even more wanted to hole-up on the bus, but of course that was a bad idea. The group could use inspire to convince the crowd to leave the bus to seek shelter... away from the zombies, and were successful. (I had also reminded them of the following great quote (From "Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain" by Von Carr): "Zombies are like pre-apocalypse cockroaches. If you saw one, there were probably a thousand more somewhere nearby.")

They thankfully left the bus quickly, because there were obviously more zombies coming. They grabbed all the luggage they could and started walking (mostly along the highway) toward the nearest "town" (Desert Center). Throughout some of these events, they had to make 1-2 Despair tests, since the reality of the situation was surely hitting, and the pcs were being tested in their ability to move on without being overwhelmed. I noticed that while the players were using Hope (Humanity), they weren't using the fellowship points this first week much.

The old man (the passenger who had been listening to a radio earlier) managed to survive, and with an amazing Craft roll (TN 18 I think), the boy scout managed to convert his radio into a two-way radio. They didn't make much use of it, but it proved key toward the end of the 2nd night. (They did try using it, and could hear communications and rumors of chaos in cities back toward LA, but no one seemed to be able to hear them...at this point.)

They decided to go to this nearest town, in hopes of finding vehicles, or other help. Going back toward LA was out of question; because it was very far, but also because the gangster flat-out refused (going back to LA meant going back to his boss, who would be wondering why he wasn't answering his phone and why he got on the wrong bus...appearing as if he ran off with the 'goods' in tow).
After walking for several hours (leading the other passengers as well), they came within site of darkened silhouettes of buildings. They decided to send a scout ahead, and since the gangster wasn't really a team player (though he had the best Stealth skill), they sent Sgt Grant (who had a probably 2 ranks in Stealth) to find out if there were vehicles/help in Desert Center. He rolled poorly, and upon coming closer to the glorified gas station in the middle of nowhere at night, found that there were a couple of vehicles, a burned-out building, and many bodies on the ground. He decided there was no way it was safe to stay, started to leave, but saw a nearby car, and decided to look inside for keys. Once he was in the cab looking around, he was surprised by a Zombie sitting in the back, who grabbed at him. Thankfully (for him), it missed, and he ran for it, and came back to camp.

That was the end of the first night. To be continued...