“If you kill the brain, than you kill the ghoul, and it’s motor functions… Aim for the Head.”
– Aim for the Head by Creature Feature

Everyone knows that there are a fair few staples of the zombie genre, including the zombie infection and the need to destroy the brain. There aren’t exactly clear 1 for 1 rules in Basic Roleplaying, and not exactly in line with what I wanted for our game so… I did what any home group with a wild idea that doesn’t have exactly have a rule for what we want do – I homebrewed!

Infection Rules

The heart of a good Zombie story is the drama of was I infected or wasn’t I? Well, in narrative roleplaying, you instantly know if you got bit or scratched, or not. We went a slightly different to keep the thrill of the fight up without instantly TPK-ing (total party kill – check out the link for some info on how 6 why that happens). A bite or a scratch isn’t instant death – it has to enter the blood stream proper without just being a localised flesh wound. Enter, the infection rolls.

In our TTRPG (Check out Episode 2 – Walking Wounded), after the combat encounter, anyone who took melee damage from a zombie – bite, scratch, bodily fluid exchange – will have to roll against the Infection Number.

To avoid infection, the player will roll five Infection die, and will need to roll under the Infection Number. The Infection Number starts at 10, decreases by 1 if no one is infected, and then resets when someone is infected. Multiple bites/scratches in a single encounter will only require a single roll.

If you roll under the infection number, than huzzah, you get to live another day. If you roll above… oh… dear.

If you fail the Infection Roll

The GM will describe the infected wound as spreading dark lines. You feel sick, fever with chills, shakes and difficulty remembering things. The character will mechanically lose 10 in every characteristic if you use Call of Cthulhu, as a base or 2 if you use Basic Roleplaying, until a characteristic hits 0, which is death. Offer your player a chance to have a last thought before everything goes dark.

At this point, the GM will take the character sheet and perform a roll.

Basic Roleplaying Rules on Diseases

On pages 146 and 147, there are some incredibly good rules on diseases. Ones that can kill you via characteristic damage, inflict HP damage and on how to use medicine to affect the outcome of the various CON rolls needed to get over your disease. Alas for us, rules that allow surviving… not great for the zombie affliction.

Secret Are they immune roll?

The GM will roll a d20* – with a 1 determining that they are infact – immune. If they are immune, they slowly regain their lost characteristics at 10 per hour until back to their original value, will never again have to roll an infection roll AND if they die, cannot come back as a zombie.

If not immune, hand them a zombie NPC sheet with instructions to eat all humans – or if you’re into it, dramatically tear up the character sheet before handing them back the zombie sheet.

If they are immune, describe the darkness, the emptiness and returning light, pain and misery, but alive. And return their character sheet with the secret tickbox ticked.

* A minor caveat is if a character is related to someone with immunity as it can pass through families. d2 for children/siblings, d4 for grandchildren.

Another big staple of the genre is the need to destroy the brain to stop the ghoul. I looked over the rules and opted for faster, intense and high chance since zombies are hard and hordelike.

1/3 or 1/4 of the creature’s hitpoints can be asigned to its head.
You can directly hit the head if you get a level of success above what was asked for. Critical is always a headshot.
Otherwise, you hit the zombie in a non vital area. If all the hit points are depleted, then the zombie is dead.

Eg. Buff Zombie with 12 HP

3 is assigned to it’s head. If it takes 1 HP to it’s head, then its not dead, but it only needs 2 more head damage to die.
It’s HP would be 11. It could then be killed with 11 or more damage to a non vital area, or 2 more damge to the head.

Why not use the BRP’s Hit Location / Aimed Attack mechanics?

None of those rules are bad per sey, but, one means its harder to get that satisfying headshot, and the other slows combat down and makes it… difficult… to achieve what is needed. With hordes of zombies, life is tough enough in that situation, and in the interest of balance and not losing the frantic scary energy in the meta of the game, I created rules that felt faster and more satisfying that also takes into account the family’s growing skills.

Besides, aren’t they always looking to perform a headshot?!

The Optional Rule for Hit Locations means that after a successful hit, you would then roll a d20 to determine where the hit lands. Alternatively, using the Aimed Attack spot rule where you can choose where you hit, the attack becomes difficult.