Forbidden Rpg's OSR Commentary - How To Run 'Resort of the Dead' In An Invisible College & Wretched New Flesh Post Cards From Aviladad Campaign

 "Zombies, yeah, I know, they have been done to death… But there’s a catch, these are beach zombies. Ok, that was already covered by a few video games. Wait: it’s a George Romero and J.G. Ballard crossover about a Zombie Apocalypse set in a formerly luxurious – but now decaying – summer resort in Portugal during the 1980s. That has never been done, right? Phew, that was a close call! Resort of the Dead provides you with a sandbox-type location and a cast of characters to run your zombie apocalypse scenario. You can use the Wretchploitation rules, or you can run it in other games. (53 pages)"

I'm getting tired of constantly reviewing OSR titles for a while now and we've been working on getting an 'Invisible College' & Wretched New Flesh rpg campaign off the ground. Now according to Resort of the Dead back  blurb; "All around, there are pristine beaches, crystal clear waters, lovely cafés and restaurants, drunken Brits, sunburnt (nearly overcooked) Germans, and obnoxious American tourists complaining, in broken Spanish, to the lazy-ass Portuguese manager about some minor issue, such as the room’s TV set not working properly during the Armageddon. We do understand Spanish here, by the way, but it’s not our native language. Just to make that clear! Anyway, we are here to provide you with the perfect spot to be killed by zombies. Well, not that perfect; the Torralba resort has seen much better days. But at least it’s cheap. However, we’ll screw you over the restaurant bill, and watch out for those cab drivers, too; they’ll rip you off. Welcome to sunny Portugal, have fun being devoured by the undead hordes!" 

So if we go with the 'Invisible College' & Wretched New Flesh Post Cards from Avilidad rpg route then the origin for the zombie plague is easy and concise. A rift into the Beyond  is going be down to a fool of a cult of Typhon member opening a door to let in a necro plague virus life form into our reality. Now in the past I've run the original Resort of the Dead as a one shot and it worked really well with my players. 


The players who were playing 'Blackguards' time/space mercenaries who gated into the resort and had no idea what was happening until they were almost eaten by the zombies. The original game stretched into three or so sessions after I threw in an NPC that had to be saved. The first time we ran it there was a bit of a party wipe. And this is to be expected. If we were to run it now we'd simply have the resort be an Eighties themed resort in Portugal where the guests can get away from all high technologies & this way we can incorporate in Orbital Decay. 

Is Resort of the Dead worth the price of admission?! As a quick one shot to get your PC's into the world of the Wretchedverse?! Yes it is and there are several reasons for this. One it's a very simple and easy to run adventure. Two it's not cluttered by huge back story and required thinking. And three zombies as a rule work on almost every level. 
Pull out  Orbital Decay & then simply switch things around so that the players have no idea that thier gonna be in for the ride of thier lives. We incorporated the 'three lives' rule just like a video game where the player's PC's woke up trapped in a time loop with things counting down in various parts of the hotel in the first 'Resort of the Dead' and this trick works great. 

We also used 'Resort of the Dead' as an opener for Wretched Darkness when the rpg came out. The PC's were trapped as the resorts undead came to activate when the sun went down. An option that scares the Hell out of the players because it doesn't conform to 'zombie rules'. 
We also gated in PC's from 'Wretched Apocalpyse to help replace some that were slaughtered. 
Simply having the player's PC's from the invisible college to close the rift into the 'Beyond' that was causing the zombie plague was another option. This of course was before the nukes fell on the place to keep the horrors contained.