In the beginning, I will admit, as someone who has never played a TTRPG, this game design task seemed like it would be an uphill battle, even with the expertise of our single TTRPG player, Noah. A game where it focuses on roleplaying and player’s imaginations? That sounds like there’s very little control for the designers. Where does one even start?
So, when our group meet up on Zoom for the first time, we decided to brainstorm what we could control, and what we could control the most was the theme. Ideas such as horror and mystery came out, but it was Giorgio’s idea that we ended up liking best: Zombies.
The Plot (aka our game theme)
Locomotion of Death (name courtesy of ChatGPT— sorry, Ashlyn, we weren’t feeling very creative!) is a TTRPG influenced by the movie Train to Busan which— if you haven’t seen it— is essentially a film set during a zombie apocalypse and taking place mostly on a (you guessed it) train. For our game, we adopted the idea of zombies as opponents and the train as our setting, but, after that, we let creativity fuel the process.
Train to Busan movie cover (below)
Screenshot from our shared Google Docs (below)
The Process
After brainstorming the essential idea, we started thinking about the main features we wanted to have in the game and came up with the following ideas:
Predetermined Character Bases: To make things a bit easier for our players (and save time), we decided that we wanted to make pre-made cards that could be drawn in the beginning before gameplay to give the players initial starting characteristics/skills.
- These pre-made cards ended up being (1) a base character (including name and attire), (2) attributes/personality feature, (3) occupation, and (4) skills. In all of these features, some cards include increases (or decreases) in base stats (see picture for example) to add to the versatility of the game. From these character basics, players could then get creative in building up their personalities and backstories.
Physical Boards for Spatial Awareness and Environmental Interaction (that’s a mouthful!): Secondly, we decided that we wanted to have a physical board to better orient players and have it feel more like a zombie film with its limited setting/ space to move. In this way, the game is simplified to its core: ally with players, fight zombies, and don’t turn into one.
- An interesting aspect of this feature is that the GM has their own personal environment board where, at the beginning, they determine what’s in each room, where zombies are, etc while the players only get to see the train cars they’ve been in/through on the “public board” that the GM helps match up to their own personal board.
First draft (above); Polished prototype (below)
Zombies (enough said): Zombies are the main enemy, controlled by the GM overlord, if you will. However, zombies aren’t just there to fight, they’re also there to infect. After ever battle with a zombie, the GM will secretly roll to see if they got infected, and, if they have been, how severe the infection is. Players can ask (secretly or publicly) if they were infected and how severe it is. If a player is infected, they will begin to show signs, and, depending on how severe they start, they will only have a few more turns to play before they get zombified. However, the good news is, they can then wreck havoc and start to attack the living players as a zombie!
Campaigns: Like many TTRPGs, we had to give our game a goal, aka a campaign. We brainstormed many, from kill all the zombies to take control of the train. And, while we think all those campaigns could be utilized in different gameplays, we decided to keep it simple for the prototype and go with “make it to the front train car to stop the high-speed moving train and escape” which also implies the goal of “don’t turn into a zombie”.
Wrapping Up
Finally, after determining the big parts of our game we got to work on our rules (which certainly took the longest time). We determined base stats (and their descriptions), movement and environmental interactions, battle mechanics, weapons, zombification mechanics, as well as the GM’s role and involvement. And once all that was hashed out as best it could be, we had our prototype!
So, what started as a simple idea of “let’s make a TTRPG based off a zombie movie” became a playable (hopefully— we’ll see today!) game of survival.
May the best man (living or dead) survive!
