I think that this idea needs to be discussed a bit more on its own, instead of being mired in legal talk. ^^;
Just my ideas for a 'city of hell RL'. Inspired by Urban Dead, Resident Evil 2/3, Dawn of the Dead, World War Z, Sauwn Of The Dead, and (of course) DoomRL.
Chargen
Characters in City of Hell RL will only have three stats: Body, Reflexes, and Intelligence. Body influences Hit Points, melee bonus damage, and carrying capacity; Dexterity influences to-hit in melee, to-dodge, and speed; and Intelligence improves to-hit ranged, sight range, and mental resistance.
Skills in City of Hell RL are likewise simple, and a few may be taken directly from DoomRL. Of course, there will be new ones: Strength to let you carry more stuff and deal more damage in melee, Constitution to let you resist the zombie plague better and have a longer life span when you do catch it, and so on.
Player characters are begun by picking an origin: Police, Soldier, Fireman, Teacher, Student, Scientist, Politician, Homeless, and so on. This determines your starting base stats, base skills, starting location, and initial equipment. After these bases are selected, you get to choose one more skill and distribute a few more stat points.
Experience
Experience is triangular: level 2 requires 200 XP, level 3 requires 300 XP, and so on.
Every level, you get a stat point and a new skill. Derived stats based on a stat go up when their linked stat does.
Starting Off
You begin in a fairly secure place -- or at least, it seems fairly secure. (Let's assume it's a home. Different origins will start in different places, naturally.) Soon, in your home, you will come across your first enemy, a shambler. Shambers are slow zombies, and they are easy to outrun -- and even if you get bit, it's only one. However, the zombies will soon be coming to your door, hearing the noise of a potential lunch, and you'll have to escape. The front door is too dangerous, but by going out the back door, you can escape.
Once you make it out the back door, you "remember" the direction to a safe place, such as a police station or fire house. (North, south, east, west, etc.) After running through the streets of your city, fighting off the occasional lone zombie (and using your line-of-sight judiciously to avoid the larger swarms), perhaps looting the occasional house or two for supplies, you will make it to your first clear zone...
Enemies at this stage: Shamblers (slow zombies).
The First Stronghold
At your first stronghold, you encounter similar survivors. You can strike up conversations with some of them, and learn things like what they believe about zombies, where they came from, and whether or not they think they can survive. How pessimisitic or optimistic they are depends on their nature and how the war is going.
For a while, it will be easy. There are always at least a few gunmen on guard, usually with better equipment than you (perhaps not if you started as a soldier, however), and there's food and medical aid. You can help the guards and let the XP come to you for a while, or explore the holdout building for any secret caches that have been left behind (hint: the Looting skill will help). Another few survivors might even join your group. However, as more people outside your stronghold are turned, there will eventually be a point where the defenses are breached and you and everyone you've come to know are eaten. Before this point, however, one of the leaders will talk to you and mention the next part of your quest.
Enemies at this stage: Shamblers (slow brain-munchers), Zombie Dogs (faster but not able to grapple), Zombie Cats (fastest but least dangerous, unless they critically hit your jugular).
Taking back the city
In order to save the rest of the survivors, you will need to take back the points that first got overrun: the hospitals, the police stations, the power stations. Getting enough of these clear again might even help create new safe zones for you to rest at... but you'll have to go through hell first.
Each complex (hospital, police station, power station, National Guard armory, etc.) is a different randomly-generated 'dungeon.' As you explore, you'll have to rely on your senses to determine whether or not the undead are still present: the smell of death, the shuffling footfalls of shamblers, the growls and clicks of zombie dogs, and so on and so forth.
Each location you clear will have an impact on the human survivors that are randomly generated in any nearby areas. Clear a Hospital, and new human survivors will have more hit points. Clear an Armory, and they may have better weapons or even armor. Clear a Power Station, and they'll have better AI (the effects of TV, radio, and Internet communications informing them) and the streetlights will turn back on. Clear a Police Station, and you'll have a new safe zone that combines a few of the above benefits. And so on and so forth.
You'll eventually discover the quarantine zone: great concrete walls with a broad napalm moat between you and it, and snipers atop the wall. The military, for some reason, was informed about the attack, and knows not to let any of the infected out...
Enemies at this stage: Shamblers, Gorgers (shamblers grown slower, but much more powerful and corpulent, on 'digested' human flesh), Zombie Dogs, Zombie Cats, Quislings (like weak runners; zombies attack these), LaMOEs (Last Man On Earth, the type that will shoot you out of paranoia; "nobody else could possibly have survived!").
Heading Towards The Source
Sooner or later, you'll find a part of the city that has more dangerous monsters: ones that are 'fresher,' and stronger. This will be a themed area: a corporation skyscraper, a military base, or an airport, indicating where the virus began. Clearing out this area will take longer, but if it does not get cleared, areas near it will continue to face attacks -- possibly organized. See, in the most infected areas, the disease has improved; it's not completely destroying the brain of those it infects, making them murderous, ravenous, and cunning.
If you can clear this area out, you will find evidence (unless you destroy it with area-effect weapons) of the creation of the virus; who created the virus is different each time. (Even if you accidentally destroy the evidence, cleaning out the 'zero point' will cause some survivors with knowledge to be generated; you can chat them up to find out the info, if you can find them.)
Enemies at this stage: Gorgers, LaMOEs, Runners (fast Resident Evil-style zombies), Zombie Giants (upsized Zombie Shamblers), Thinkers (zombies with intelligence; more dangerous AI, and randomly having human weapons and/or armor), Zombie Ravens.
Water Works
Even when you clear the origin point, your city's not safe. There's still at least one infected place (more, if you left anyplace uncleaned), and occasionally, someone will climb up from the sewers. Areas you've cleared may become infected again, especially if more than one area nearby is still infected (the zombie AI, even for dumb shamblers, is just a bit better than human AI in most cases; zombies advance, but humans will occasionally panic).
The city's water works, no matter how good the human AI's morale gets, will never be cleaned out, and will continue to spawn new zombies (and worse). You'll have to clear them out the hard way: by going in and clearing them all yourself. The water works are huge and labyrinthine. Just getting through this, itself, will require the best weapons, armor, and skills you've got. Eventually, however, you will reach your goal: the sewer entrance.
The sewers are labyrinthine and run throughout the entire city. Every city block will have to be cleared again, on a second level (underground), and unlike up top, other humans won't be retaking blocks; cleared blocks will randomly be re-infected, based on the number of infected sewer blocks (and whether or not you lead any undead to a block). Having a clean block below will help to protect the blocks above.
Enemies at this stage: Shamblers, Runners, Zombie Dogs, Gorgers, Zombie Giants, Zombie Thinkers, Zombie Gators (you know there'll be alligators in the sewers).
Demons?
Eventually, you'll come across a patch of the sewers that seem wrong. If you stop to investigate the walls or floors, you'll see runes and blood that defenately weren't put in there by Public Works. There are several of these areas, 'pocket Hells' that have integrated themselves with our reality. These demons are the ones hinted at in the documents you found earlier; their demonic blood and essences are the ones that created the zombie plague in the first place.
Once you find one of these hell pockets, these 'pocket hells' will begin to churn out demons. You'll now have to deal with two different infections: demonic, and undead. The time scale just got compressed...
Enemies at this stage: Collaborators (the source of the vampire rumours you hear; Satan-worshippers who willingly allowed themselves to be turned and aided Hell's agenda in return for demonic powers), Runners, Zombie Thinkers, Zombie Gators, Hellhounds (Demonic canines).
(To be edited/expanded later.)
