Sunday, February 26, 2012

Super-Secret Biotech Lab Breached!

A few weeks ago my usual game group wanted to give a zombie game a try.  I built a super-secret multi-level underground biotech research facility out of balsa and foam core board for them to explore and came up with several parties for the players to run.  There was facility security trying to keep people out of the building, the in-house biohazard containment unit trying to contain the crisis, local law enforcement responding to a call of strange goings-on, a spec ops team sent to find out what IS going on, a group of G-men with a warrant to find out what's going on, a bunch of local thugs who had heard the place was abandoned and just wanted to explore, and a group of local survivalists who also heard that the place was abandoned and decided to make it their new headquarters.  It seems to me there was a group of dedicated zombie hunters who had heard that they could find the cure here as well.

Each group had a different mode of entrance as well - except that I ran out of entrances. Security and the biohazard team were already in the building.  The thugs, cops and G-men all went in the front door.  The spec ops team went in the air vent - and I think the zombie hunters did too - and the survivalists went down the chimney.  The survivalists found themselves in the crematorium, adjacent to the mortuary and juts down the hall from a fractured containment unit.  They spent the entire game fighting a handful of zombies from when they jumped into the room without looking where they were going first.  The spec ops team spent almost the entire game in the air vents, moving from room to room watching what was happening and gathering intel.  Near the end of the game, they rifled the executive offices and bugged out without anyone seeing them.  Everyone else was involved to some extent with battling zeds for several turns before they finally managed to kill all the escaped zeds and contain the disaster.  I forget which team it was that found the containment room and discovered that that was where the zeds were escaping from.  They kept shooting zeds in the room and stray rounds would knock out other containment units and release more zeds.  Finally they retreated into the hall and waited for the zombies to exit the room before shooting. 

The survivalists in the crematorium fighting zeds hand-to-hand


The zombie hunters intelligently taking on zombies in the labs.
At the end of the hall are the elevator (left) and stairs (right)
connecting to other levels.


The spec ops guys on the right, having exited the air shaft to
explore a room and the biohazard containment team searching
for zeds.


If I'd had more time, I would have built some simple furnishings for the rooms, just to give them some 3-D obstacles.  I have an idea of how I wanted each room laid out, so it would just be the time of building the little things and glueing or at least sticking them in place temporarily.

I thought I had some pics showing the whole set-up and complete floors, but I must have blanked them from the camera, as lighting was bad.  At any rate, you get the idea.  I might shoot them again just to put here, and/or use them in another setting.  (Hmmmm, top secret facilities in Yerbouti?  Not that anyone in Yerbouti knows about!)