Die Zombies! A 200 Word RPG

zacharyMay 24, 2018

Last week, we learned of a cool contest, the 200 Word RPG Challenge. The contest is exactly what is sounds like. You must make a tabletop RPG using no more than 200 words. We thought the idea was fun and decided to try our hand at making one.

The game isn’t that complicated and the test plays we had while designing it were pretty fun and often intense. Our game isn’t focused with stats or anything, just some quick fun with dice. So without further ado, here is our entry. You can thank my son for the punny title.

Die Zombies!

Can you survive the zombie apocalypse? Guide a band of plucky survivors to the last remaining secure settlement.

A game for two players. One controls the zombie encounters and rewards, the other controls the team of survivors.

Player 1 gets one d10 and 1 d6. Player 2 gets 5 survivor tokens and two d6s.

Play starts with player 1 describing the encounter, and rolls the d10 to determine the number of zombies encountered, a roll of 0 is 10 zombies. Both players roll for initiative with 1 d6 each. If player 1 rolls high, it is a surprise encounter. If surprised, player 2 rolls only one d6 during this encounter, if not, player 2 rolls 2 d6s.

During the encounter, both players roll their d6s. Players compare highest rolls. If Player 2 wins, ties going to Player 2, one zombie is killed. If Player 1 wins, one survivor token is killed.

If all zombies are killed, Player 1 describes what they win, either food, ammo, medicine or even additional survivors. Play moves to the next encounter. If all survivors die, the game is over. If Player 2 wins 10 scenarios, they win the game.