Gaming Life: Return to War of the Dead Campaign Session 2 – Into the Fire
My Savage Worlds War of the Dead campaign has returned to the gaming table. Please find Session 1 here.
Our second session begins with the helicopter trying to make it to Atlanta, but running out of fuel over Augusta, Georgia and as the try to land in an industrial area, they hit some power lines and the helicopter goes in hard, spinning and landing on it’s side, warning sirens sounding and smoke filling the cabin. Outside, they can see figures moving.
This started the night with a great mad scramble of the PCs trying to escape the burning helicopter with their children and the wounded/unconscious Coast Guard crew and avoiding the zombies who were congregating on this burning wreck. This race to escape was coupled with wanting to loot whatever they could from inside the helicopter and rescue their unconscious children and the unconscious crew. It was an intense start to the game.
Unfortunately, one of the PC’s children pulled from the helicopter was eaten as the group tried to hold off the zombies, and another of the PCs got greedy and just barely escaped the brunt of the inevitable explosion of the helicopter three rounds into the session, only to be knocked in the opposite direction from everyone else. But, what could possibly go wrong with being alone? She struggled from building to building as zombies kept amassing around her, finally managing to climb up a dumpster/fire escape onto the roof of a neighbouring building.
The rest of the group made their way into one of the buildings, holing up for a bit to catch their breath while zombies pounded on the door. They noticed the place had already been looted. Escaping onto the roof, they saw the looter, a survivalist who is making it for his SUV at the end of the street.
While trying to get to him, the kid (grandkid of one of the PCs) who is extremely lucky and agile attempted running across some pipes between buildings. He figured, worst case scenario, he uses a couple Bennies and makes it faster than anyone else. Unfortunately for him, he rolled double 1’s (no Bennies allowed for double 1’s) and fell three stories, suffering three wounds and even worse injuries to his pride.
They managed to rescue the kid and everyone reached the SUV, speeding out with any more casualties. Shortly into their journey though, they decided to ditch the survivalist, shooting him in the leg first (even these loved ones can be murder hoboes!). This was a strange event in the adventure, but players do always surprise. You can be sure he will show up again.
On the road again headed toward Atlanta, they finally had time to find out what was happening from the FBI agent and CDC Tech who had come to rescue them in the Coast Guard helicopter.
She explained that she was tracking down patient zero who was on the cruise ship and had stolen a virus from UniMed labs. Their loved ones (the main PCs) were picked up by the Coast Guard and taken to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) HQ in Atlanta, but they’re not talking about what they know until their loved ones are brought to them. This is why the FBI agent came to get them on the boat, and she needs to get them to Atlanta so that she can find out what the (main PCs) know. In fact, the main PCs do have crucial information on the source of the outbreak, so this all does make sense.
Their next bad luck happened when the SUV broke down on the highway, only to have a gang of bikers show up and try to rob them. (The bikers were taken entirely from War of the Dead, I only added that one of the PC’s husband served time with the gang leader, so they knew each other – fitting with the fact that the husband is wanted dead by this gang!)
Just as things were getting tense and combat was imminent, the quick-thinking kid sitting in the SUV (which was just repaired) decided to take matters into his own hands and took to the wheel and slammed on the gas in reverse(!), running over the gang leader’s girlfriend and scattering the rest of the gang members. After a quick firefight, the gang leader and one of his thugs escaped on their bikes, and the PCs had scored a few new motorcycles and some extra guns.
It was a very intense evening! I was worried playing the PCs’ loved ones might not be as much fun, but the wives and children are proving to be some very interesting characters and the players all had a great time.
For this session’s game I again used many Heroclix figures and 1:43 scale vehicles.
The map for the first encounter is the City Slums from Dramascape. The second is a game mat from the Mars Attacks! miniatures game.
Finally of course, I use the markers from Stuffer Shack for noting shaken, wounds and multiples of characters.
Justin Schmid
Justin started tabletop gaming in 1983 with Basic D&D (red box) and never looked back. He runs and plays in a wide variety of games, including Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, Trail of Cthulhu and many, many more.
He also writes professionally for role-playing games, including writing and creating Night's Edge an Alternate Reality Universe for Cyberpunk 2020. He went on to write eight more adventures and sourcebooks in the Night's Edge line, adding vampires and other supernatural perils to the already dangerous world of Cyberpunk.
As a freelance writer, he wrote The Bermuda Triangle for Call of Cthulhu, Shadows of the Mind, and Psi Wars for Conspiracy X and contributed to Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPG, as well as to Cybergeneration sourcebooks, and many other games.
When he's not creating imaginary worlds for his daughter, he's running games for his friends and writing new adventures or designing new game systems. He currently lives in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
FYI: Your link to the first session links to the admin side URL requiring a login. You might want to fix that.
I was able to search for the article however, to get the answer to my question about what happens when the PC dies. I really like how you’re handling the dependents. That’s a cool way to maintain continuity, something I would worry about with a high mortality style game like this.
Thanks for the heads up and comments. I’ve fixed the link. It definitely gives dependents a far more important role in the game than I’ve seen before.