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Do you remember your first time playing a resident evil game? I do. It was a dark October night when my cousin had come to visit, bringing a copy of the original Resident Evil on Playstation 1. Being nine years old, the game was terrifying to me. Trapped in a maze-like mansion, surrounded by creatures that seemed to soak up bullets while death came too easily to the protagonists. Over the years, Resident Evil has grown as a series, with various highs and lows in the game's releases. Now, after the big announcement trailer of Resident Evil VILLAGE (aka RE8), I felt it was time to dust off my gloves and play in the sandbox of the world once more.
The premise is simple: you are a resident in Virgil's Grove Oregon, a mid-sized city off the coast of the Pacific Ocean. It's not much of a tourist destination compared with the larger cities to the north (namely Portland and Seattle) but it does boast many modern city amenities. A beautiful central park, a popular zoo, a hiking trails up the mountainous eastern section of the city limits, and the beautiful coast, albeit ignoring the offshore research station that was set up ten years ago, run by a private research company. But that doesn't matter, what matters is that Virgil's Grove is a safe city, where people come to live their lives in peace and comfort.
Until of course, something happens. At first, it's a simple sickness, the hospitals fill up, people worry, quarantine and curfew are mandated throughout the city. It's what happens after it gets quiet; when the bodies start to move again. Suddenly the infection spreads at a rapid vector, and before any government or international groups can be called in, the city is undergoing a pandemic. The only option is to cordon off the city, blocking all passage in and out.
But it's never just zombies. Mutant creatures begin spreading throughout the city, and the danger only grows. With a rescue team mounted to try and evacuate any civilians out of the city, the residents have to find their way to safety and survival.
The setting is the heart of this roleplay: Virgil's Grove is an older city with century-old architecture being hit with a powerful storm off the coast. Weather will play a huge role in this roleplay, making it just as dangerous an enemy as the zombies and mutants the protagonists face. Flash floods can be terrifying, and can quickly destroy any fortifications that survivors have made to protect themselves from their hunters. Add to these severe winds and powerful lightning and the situation becomes incredibly tense. It also allows for interesting set-pieces for the roleplay.
Specific Locations:
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Characters remain important to a good Resident Evil story (unless your name is Ethan) and the cast for this roleplay should be well-rounded. Consider the forgotten classic Resident Evil games Outbreak and Outbreak File 2, and how the characters in those games ranged from a doctor to a waitress, a college student, a subway employee, and a repairman. This segways into my next point about characters: military and law enforcement backgrounds are the things I keep a very discriminatory eye on. Starting off packed with weapons and ammo goes against everything Resident Evil. I would prefer no one to be a crack shot or an expert zombie slayer, but I also have a secondary thing to prevent that from happening as well.
Consider who would live in a small city and what their job would be; and in turn, what skills that job would bring to the forefront. An IT guy may be great with technology, a nurse may be great at treating wounds. A construction worker may be excellent at using tools to defend himself and could be physically more imposing than the others. Also, consider what your character desires or needs in order to escape the city. Are they searching for a family member? Have they lost something precious in an evacuation attempt? Characters need a driving force to survive beyond simply "hide from the zombies".
I am not a rules guy. I don't enjoy making rules, since I am an old man who deals with rules every stinking day teaching. But when it comes to the realm of survival horror, I have to impose rules for the sake of the story.
- Zombies are bullet sponges. Sorry Daryl Dixons, this is not the Walking Dead. If you have played any recent resident evil game (or...really any) you should know that simply shooting the zombie in the face doesn't always work. To destroy a zombie, you have to destroy the head, and that means pumping many bullets into the face, hitting it with precious high power ammo, or crushing the head with something. One zombie should be a threat. Multiple zombies should be a death sentence in this RP, at least at the beginning.
- Character weapons and expertise: You are not Rambo, nor are you Chris "Boulders McPuncherson" Redfield. If you want this RP to play up to a power fantasy, I am not your GM. If you DO have some training in weapons handling, the only bonus I would allow it to give you is better accuracy and reloading with the gun. You do not get to one-shot a zombie because you took classes in how to do a proper fucking weaver stance.
- Warning: This RP Contains Scenes of Violence and Gore. A Resident Evil RP is not for the faint of heart or faint of butt. Characters will be hurt. Monsters will be gross. If you have hemophobia, helminthophobia, thanatophobia or tend to be a big weenie, this RP is not for you.
- Following GM Directions. I'm fairly lassiez-faire about my plot development, but in the case of this RP, everything is out to get the characters. Puzzles, pathways and permittable routes are run by me. If you decide to leap out of a window and try to railroad the plot away from where it's going, you're going to jump out into the gaping maw of a Hunter. Or a licker. Or some other weird shit I have in mind.
- Posting schedule. One post per week. If you can't keep up with it, let me know. If you ghost me, your character is dead and we move on.
