I used them as part of the Pathfinder Serpent's Skull AP. It was part of the first jungle adventures where the PCs are stranded on a jungle island. The rules for disease and camping are well done, and the PCs worked hard to make good camps and keep everyone insect-free. Some of my roomies (fellow gamers) gave me a hard time about it, but I thought it made the jungle real. It was a sandbox island in many ways, and I didn't pull punches. They either survived it or died trying.

I would use disease in a grittier game and hand wave it in more cinematic one. I think a Zombie Survival game or Post-Apocalyptic genre are good candidates to bring disease in. Safe food, water, and cleaning injuries should be some of the challenges. In WFRP, it's present to give the world that gritty medieval feeling, and most GMs running it for me have not spared us. I have used it as a backdrop (a town was beleaguered by the plague in a fantasy game) but spared the PCs anything but some worry (and good reason to move along!). Disease creeps me out, so my hope is that when it comes up it's creeping out the players. :-)

Disease happens in my fantasy games, but it occurs more often as part of the adventure in my science fiction games.

Yep, I use it.  I'll also use poison-as-a-disease over 'save or die' poisons, too.  Though I guess that's the 'mummy rot' category.  As for plagues, it has featured in games of each genre.  RIFTS and Star Wars, in particular, made for interesting 'quarantine' games where the players had to 'solve the puzzle' before they could leave.

In AD&D, I do monthly rolls for disease and infestation for PCs (with the chances as per the rules in the DMG).  We've had a few skin infestations, a cold, stuff like that.  *

I've also been using the Oriental Adventures "campaign event" system, so larger outbreaks are a possibility.

Edit:  I should also point out that, with a middlin'-level druid in the party, these are now minor annoyances, but I still like the feel it imparts.

I've used some local myths, legends and stories from the times of the plague in my games from time to time.

There's one ghost story I particularly like from Vernham Dean, a village a few miles away.

When the plague came through the parish priest took the infected up onto a nearby hill and promised he would bring them food and water daily.

In the end he did not. He was too scared of the plague.

The villagers stayed on the hill and died.

The priest's ghost is supposed to pace up and down the hill eternally in penance.

In some versions he was one of the few to die of the plague in the village below the hill.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;629587In AD&D, I do monthly rolls for disease and infestation for PCs (with the chances as per the rules in the DMG).  We've had a few skin infestations, a cold, stuff like that.  *

I've also been using the Oriental Adventures "campaign event" system, so larger outbreaks are a possibility.

Edit:  I should also point out that, with a middlin'-level druid in the party, these are now minor annoyances, but I still like the feel it imparts.

Glad to hear someone else uses that chart.  I changed it for my system, but I always use it.

I rarely every use disease, except as some have said, when the PCs are specifically in a place mentioned as being plague-infested, or if they intentionally engage in very unhygienic behaviour.

The exception was Aquelarre, which kind of required disease to be a part of the ultra-realist setting.

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