It all started in that wild and grungy era called "the Nineties". While listening to bad music from Seattle and wearing plaid shirts, a friend and I happened to watch a rather mediocre horror movie together. I forget which one exactly, but - as with similar movies of the time - it ended up with a gang of teenagers running around manically in the woods as some psychopath chased after them with impressively sharp examples of cutlery. Although successful in the end, the teenagers survived largely through luck and circumstance rather than any intelligent decisions of their own. This lack of survival skills triggered a conversation between my friend and myself, as we discussed the merits - or lack thereof - of the teenagers' tactics, and how we would do better were we unexpectedly thrust into a similar circumstance. A major thrust of the dialogue was our self-assured proclamations that a far better strategy for the wayward youths would have been to hole up in some fortified position rather than wandering haphazardly through the unfriendly wilds waiting to be picked off one by one.
If you have ever watched a horror movie with a friend, I am sure you are familiar with this conversation.
Now, as it turns out, my friend and I shared another common interest beyond the appreciation of poorly-written slasher flicks. We were both afficianados of table-top role-playing games and, in fact, played Dungeons and Dragons regularly with a small cadre of like-minded colleagues. And, being the Dungeon Master of that campaign and it being close to Halloween, the conversation referenced above prompted me to whip up a quick adventure in which the heroes of our adventuring encountered a small horde of infectious undead. I unleashed this unexpected encounter on my friends, and much fun was had slaying zombies with our broadswords and Fireball spells as they tore through the streets of the fantastical city of Carog. All unknowingly, we had just played our first game of ZOMBIEPOCALYPSE .
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