One of the most common daydreams is wondering how you would react in the face of some massive, society-shattering disaster. This is no surprise to fans of The Walking Dead, who have followed the heartbreaks and triumphs of various survivors across comics, television seasons, and video games. Whether you’re a fan of  looking to dip your toes into tabletop roleplaying games for the first time or a veteran roleplayer looking to survive the bleak realities of the zombie apocalypse, making a player character (PC) for The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is a smooth, step-by-step process. In short order you can make a dynamic, morally-complex survivor who can tell interesting stories at your game table (and probably break your heart in the process).

Choose An Archetype

Your Archetype represents the core idea of your character - one word that would describe them to an outsider. It’s who you were before the outbreak, and has an impact on your starting abilities. The core rules gives you 12 archetypes to choose from: Criminal, Doctor, Farmer, Homemaker, Kid, Law Enforcer, Nobody, Outcast, Politician, Preacher, Scientist, Soldier. This is the starting point for your character’s identity, not the endpoint, so feel free to pick based on vibes rather than optimization. A group of survivors who all start out as Kids can end up being just as dangerous as a squad of Soldiers - the end of the world has a great equalizing effect!

Choose A Name

This one is fairly straightforward, but not something you want to rush through without some thought. While characters in The Walking Dead have broadly the same kinds of names as our world, there are also various aliases, pseudonyms, and handles to consider. Others will be referring to this name a lot, so make sure it’s something you don’t mind hearing over and over again, and make sure it matches the overall vibe of your group.

Choose An Issue

We all have issues and your Walking Dead character is no different. While it might seem counterintuitive to deliberately add a “flaw” into your character concept, in this setting it’s important that characters remain grounded and human. Your character Archetype has some suggested Issues, but you can also just make one up. Your Issue is primarily there as a roleplaying tool, but your Issue coming up during a session can also earn you a bonus point of experience for improving your character, so there is a silver lining even to your flaws.

Choose Your Drive

While your character is a normal person thrown into the worst possible circumstances, if they didn’t have something to keep them going then they wouldn’t have survived this long into the zombie apocalypse. The thing keeping them going is their Drive, and it is incredibly important to keep them from falling into despair (or losing their mind). The biggest gameplay impact on your Drive is that once per game session you can use it to gain two dice to a skill roll, which can make a huge difference. But you are still human, so if you become overwhelmed by fear or emotionally crushed by events, your Drive might change, or even be lost! Such is the life of a survivor.

Distribute 13 Points Among Your Attributes

This is where the math starts, but thankfully it is all very easy. Every player character has four Attributes that indicate your overall strengths and weaknesses: Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy. At character creation you get 13 points to split among these Attributes, with a minimum of 2 points in an Attribute and a maximum of 4. Your Archetype gives you a “key” attribute, which lets you go up to 5. Each point represents one additional die you’ll get to roll as you face relevant challenges throughout the game, so whether you want to be as well-rounded as possible or someone with great strengths and glaring weaknesses is totally up to your playstyle.

Distribute 12 Points Among Your Skills

Whereas Attributes are your overall abilities as a character, Skills represent your specialized training and knowledge. Each Attribute has three Skills tied to it.

• Strength: Close Combat, Endure, Force
• Agility: Mobility, Ranged Combat, Stealth
• Wits: Scout, Survival, Tech
• Empathy: Leadership, Manipulation, Medicine

You can put up to two points in each Skill, or a third point in the Skill that your Archetype specializes in. As your character accrues experience during play you can improve Skills all the way up to five points, allowing you to accomplish incredible feats. 

Choose A Talent

A Talent is a special trait or trick that you have up your sleeve. Some Talents give you bonuses to your rolls, while others let you attempt things that would otherwise be impossible. Each archetype gives you three Talents to choose from, and as you play the game you can spend experience points to purchase additional Talents to represent your gradual evolution into a hardened veteran of the post-outbreak world.

Roll For Your Gear

This is where the outbreak starts to take its toll on your character specifically: there’s no functional economy remaining to buy or sell stuff, so you start the game with a random assortment of gear. Each archetype has a table where you roll a six-sided die to get three different starting items that represent things you’ve carried over from your old pre-outbreak life. You then get one roll on the Scavenging table in the back of the rulebook to represent something you’ve scrounged from the wreckage of civilization. That’s it… good luck!

Define Your Relationships To the Other PCs

Your archetype gives you three suggested options for you to choose regarding your feelings for the other PCs. You’re required to make sure the other player is ok with the chosen relationship - not everyone wants to have a character secretly in love with them, and that’s ok! If none of the options feel appropriate or you’re feeling inspired, you can always define new possible relationships so long as the player on the other end approves it. The only gameplay impact on your relationships is a possible bonus experience point at the end of the session if it comes up during play.

Choose Two Anchors

Now you pick two characters that are exceptionally important to you: one of them being another PC, and the other being a non-player character (NPC) played by the GM. You can only have two Anchors at a time, and one must always be a PC and the other must always be an NPC. You want to protect your Anchors, and not just because once per session you can do a short scene with one of them to relieve all of your accumulated Stress (a dangerous form of bonus dice that can lead to disaster if they roll a 1). Losing an Anchor can also push you to the Breaking Point, which can fundamentally change your character in horrible (but interesting) ways!

Describe Your Starting Haven

Survivors need somewhere to survive, and you’re no different. But the sort of havens that you start with tend to be either poorly defended (a bus on a hill, an abandoned villa) or somewhere not typically suited for habitation (an old factory). Each haven has two ratings: Capacity, which represents how many resources it has, and Defense, which represents how well-protected the inhabitants are. No starting haven is perfect, so a lot of your group’s business will focus on either trying to improve (or just maintain) Capacity or finding ways to improve Defense before a rival group (or an enormous swarm of walkers) finds a way through.

And that’s it! You are now the proud owner of a brand-new Walking Dead character. Now you just need a group of survivors to start playing the game…

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Nate is a writer and game designer living in the D.C. area.