My "The Walking Dead" Zombie Campaign Rules

Hey all!

Well, I thought I would share my super-rough rules for a solo zombie campaign using Mantic's "The Walking Dead" as a base!

So... the objective of these rules is to provide a fun little narrative to play your games around.  It isn't some highly-tuned, competitive set, but is instead meant to be a bit fun!

In order to play, you'll want a d6, d8 and a d10.  If you don't have them, just improvise:)

Here goes!

Starting the Campaign

You begin the campaign with 60 points to buy your survivor group.

Then, mix the remaining equipment cards in with your supply cards.

You should then keep a piece of paper where you will record the following things:

# of Food Supplies (start with as many as you have survivors in your initial group)
# of Medical Supplies (start with 0)
# of Defense Supplies (start with 0)

Finally, plan out a board that will serve as your "home base."  This single board will be your players' camp if zombies ever attack you at home.  This is the only board you will use more than once.  You can use up to two cars and two barriers when constructing this board.  You should record where everything is (take a photo even) because you will need to recreate this board whenever you roll a Home Base Attack scenario.

Then... it's time to play the games!

Each segment of the game is divided into several sections:

1) Pick your "search team"
2) Roll the scenario
3) Play the scenario
4) Do the "wrap up" stuff

Pick Your Team

So, first up, you pick which survivors from your group are going to go out into the world, and which will stay home.

Any character that stays home gets to heal one life, up to max, UNLESS the scenario rolled is "Home Base Attack."  Damage in the campaign is persistent, so if a character goes from 5 health to 3 in a game, they STAY at 3 unless they "take a mission off" which allows them to heal up to 4.

You CAN switch gear back and forth as you wish when you do this.

Roll the Scenario and Play the Scenario

A few note about scenarios:

A) Supplies are placed randomly by the player.

B) Unless otherwise modified by the Scenario, every time you get a supply roll the black die.  On a blank, take a card from your mixed supply/equipment deck.  On a star, it is Food.  Roll a blue die and get that many Food supplies.  You'll need these between games; record those on a piece of paper that you will keep.

C) Players can, at any time, leave the scenario by moving off the board.  They can only leave the board at approximately the spot they came in at; you can assume that is the only safe approach to the area they searched.

D) If the Threat Level reaches max, you DO keep playing.  However, anyone on the Search Team who leaves the board will be UNAVAILABLE for the next game, either as a member of the Search Team or at Home Base, as they have scattered in panic and don't make it back home with the rest of the group.  They also take one damage (it's a rough world, being lost out there!) and cannot heal between games as if they were taking the game off.

E) When new zombies move onto the board, roll randomly to see which of the four corners they are placed on.  They CAN be placed on the side the Search Team came in on.

F) As mentioned, damage is persistent, except for healing between games (see "Wrap Up")

NEXT!, you roll a d8 and play one of these scenarios:

1-2  Food Supply Run:

(d6 supplies) 

Put your Search Team at the center of one edge of the board as the entry point.  

Then roll d6 (min 3) for how many zombies start on the board.  Place them randomly at the three sides that the Search Team does NOT come in on.

3 Surrounded! : 

(d6 supplies) 

Put your Search Team at the CENTER of the board.  

Then place one zombie at each of the four centers of each side of the table.  Then roll a further d6 for how many additional zombies (min 3) start on the board.  Place them randomly at the four centers of each side.  

4 Medical Supply Run: 

(d8 supplies) 

Put your Search Team at the center of one edge of the board as the entry point.  

Then roll d6 (min 3) for how many zombies start on the board.  Place them randomly at the three sides that the Search Team does NOT come in on.

When a player rolls a shield for supplies, they may take a blue-die worth of Medical supplies instead of Food supplies (see below for Medical supplies.)

5 New Survivor! : 

(d6 supplies)

Pick a random survivor card and place that player at the center of the board; they will not move or be engaged by zombies.  When any of the Search Team come into base-to-base contact with them, they join the Search Team and count as a survivor for the player.

Then roll d8 (min 3) for how many zombies start on the board.  Place them randomly at the three sides that the Search Team does NOT come in on.

6 Defense Supply run: 

(d8 supplies)

Put your Search Team at the center of one edge of the board as the entry point.  

Then roll d8 for how many zombies start on the board.  Place them randomly at the three sides that the Search Team does NOT come in on.

The first time a player rolls a shield for supplies, they may take a single Defense Supply instead of Food Supply (see Defense Supplys below).

7 Gun Stash:

(d8 supplies)

Put your Search Team at the center of one edge of the board as the entry point.  

Then roll d8 (min 3) for how many zombies start on the board.  Place them randomly at the three sides that the Search Team does NOT come in on.
Then, construct a "Gun Stash" deck of FOUR handguns, TWO long guns, and ONE gun supplement of your choice and put it aside.

When a player first rolls a shield for supplies, they may take a single RANDOM card from the Gun Stash deck.

8 Home Base Attack:

(no supplies)

Set up your Home Base board.  Put the characters you did NOT choose to be on the Search Team wherever you'd like on it.

Then roll d10 (min 4) for how many zombies start on the board.  Place them randomly at the four centers of each side.  

For this game, ignore the "Threat Counter Hits Max, Lose The Survivors Next Game" rule.  Instead, when the Threat Level hits max, no more new zombies can enter the game and you do not take any more new event cards for the rest of the game.  The game will only end when the threat level has reached maximum and then all of the zombies are dead, all the players are dead, or all the players have fled.  Players can flee on any side of the board.  If they do, they follow the rules for being unavailable for the next game and not healing.  If all the players flee, you lose ALL supplies you had saved up, and must create a new Home Base board with no barriers.

Do the "wrap up" stuff

Once the game is done, you can do the "wrap up" stuff.  

First, any player who did not go out on the search team can heal one life, assuming that you did NOT play a "Home Base Attack" scenario.

Then you have to "spend" one Food Supply for each survivor in your group.  If you do not have as many Food Suppies as you do Survivors, your group takes the difference in damage, but YOU can choose who takes the damage.  So, if you have five survivors and only 3 Food, your group must take two damage, but you can CHOOSE who takes them (the group is basically deciding who gets to eat and who will starve!)

You can also spend Medical Supplies now.  Record these as you would food supplies.  Each Medical Supply can heal 1 health, or remove one "bitten" result.

You can also spend Defense Supplies.  For each Defense Supply you find, roll d6 to see what it is:

1-2 A barrier:  You can place a new barrier anywhere you want on your Home Base board.
3-4 A damaging barrier (barbed wire, etc):  You can place a new barrier anywhere you want on your Home Base board.  When a walker makes contact, roll a red die; on a headshot, the walker gets hopelessly tangled and is counted as killed.
5-6 A door barrier: You can apply this to any door on your Home Base board.  No zombies can enter that door unless the player allows.

Then you can move on to the next game!




Anyway, those are my basic solo campaign rules.  I find that they are a fun way to give you a little "story" for your characters.  I also record, with a little dot of paint under each base, each survivors kills... it's fun to look back and see what they accomplished!

If anyone has any questions or wants some clarifications, do let me know!:)