Welcome to the world of
survival horror! Good luck!
Ah, zombies. What can be
said about zombies that hasn't been said a million times over by now?
Honestly? Not much. But,
in those early years of the zombie craze, a game named 'All Flesh
Must Be Eaten' was published. And it was good.
All Flesh, or AFMBE, is a
universal zombie system that covers all kinds of characters, genres,
and types of zombies. It's a point-buy system, for both the zombies
and the characters.
The system divides
characters in the three different types: Normals, Survivors, and
Inspired (later Powered or somesuch). This allowed the Zombie Master
(ZM) to create the tone for his games right off the bat. Since Norms
were the lowest in terms of points, they'd die quicker in games, thus
really creating a sense of dread for the players. Survivor were more
powerful, but that doesn't necessarily mean they could survive
longer, depending on the zombies. Inspired/Powered provides some
magical back-up for some settings. I haven't seen it done too much,
but you can have characters of different types. I avoid it because
people who play Norms are going to drop like flies, which can make
for hard feelings. Inspired are some where between Norms and
Survivors in terms of points (as they blow a lot of points for their
powers), but can be added in to groups of either. A group just of
Inspired would be interesting (and something I may investigate for a
future campaign).
If you can't come up with
a character, or yours died due to some bad rolls (this game isn't
forgiving for characters at all), you can pick an Archtype. Because
the game doesn't have classes, they created a solid list of Archtypes
you can use in a pinch or for inspiration. They made so many, there's
two whole books of them. There's Archtypes for cheerleaders, private
detectives, bikers, Game Masters, rich people, poor people,
urbanites, country boys, strippers, porn producers, necrophiliacs
(ew, mega ew), soldiers, video stork clerks, cowboys, inventors, and
anything else you can imagine.
Once you pick (or get
assigned) your character type, you get to put points into stats.
There's six of them in the game. The typical three physical:
Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. Then there's the mental ones:
Intelligence, Perception, and Will. From these you get your derived
stats, things like Life Points, Endurance Points, Speed, and Essence.
Once you get your stats figured out, you move on to Qualities and
Drawbacks. There's some Qualities you'd have to be stupid to not take
(like Fast Reaction Time) and some that you know you're probably not
going to need (stuff like Wealth and Resources). My real problem with
the game comes here, as it's very easy to abuse the Qualities and
Drawbacks if you know what kind of game you're going to be playing.
And aside from the ones you abuse for points, there's not a lot of
'good' drawbacks. By that, I mean the ones that really help you flesh
out your character and make them feel real, without crippling or
hindering them.
Lastly, there's skills.
And you're going to wish you had more points for them no matter what
type of character you have. Since this is a D10 system (Stat + Skill
+ D10 = Results, pray for 9 or better), you really need those combat
skills high to make sure you're going to be able to drop those
zombies before they drop you. But, you won't be able to have a wide
selection of those combat skills because each combat skill requires a
new skill for each weapon. If that confused you, let me break it down
like this: Let's say you want to be able to use shotguns and
handguns. If you want them at level 3, that's going to cost you six
points. Three for Handgun, three for Shotgun. If you want to be able
to fight, you can take Brawling. But, for two points per level, you
could take Martial Arts... Which next to no one does. And there's a
lot of skills you're going to want to have to survive. Dodge, so you
don't get shot. First Aid, so you can keep people alive. Stealth, so
you can sneak past zombies. You get my point. Unlike every other
resource, there's no way to get more skill points (at least from what
I've seen). Which is very frustrating.
When it comes to combat
and damage, things get kind of cool. Rather than having you roll 5d8,
you roll 1d8 and multiply it by 5. Since the multipliers can change
due to range or other factors, it makes it really easy to figure out
damage in combat. Different types of weapons, like slashing weapons
and bullets, do more damage to unarmored targets. If you want to make
combat to go even faster, they give you the average damage done, so
you don't even have to roll. In fact, the whole system can be done
without dice, but it's not quite as fun. One thing I really like is
how they did guns. Rather than giving you a list of guns that people
would argue about, they just give you the type of gun and caliber of
the round. From there, you can figure out the magazine size and
anything else you might need. Nice and easy. Of course, everything
besides the weapons are a little dated (cost and stats for a PDA,
when was the last time you saw, much less used, one of those?) but
still a decent list.
But, I think we all know
where this system is going to shine: That's right, the zombies. While
it's a little confusing at first, it's amazing once you figure it
out. In addition to giving the zombies stats and skills, you can also
figure out their weak spot, what the feed on (and how often they need
it), how they make other zombies, and other cool powers. Spread
throughout the books, there's a great amount of fun and unique
powers. Things that make it so technology doesn't work around them,
they can taint the ground when they die, they can even move their
detached body parts. Using this system, you can make any zombies
you've seen in fiction, from the fast and furious 28 Days Later
zombies, to the classic Night Of The Living Dead slow and purposeful
flesh eaters. And you can mix and match. You could make slow but
smart zombies, fast and strong zombies, zombies that can track the
living themselves and tear open cars to get to the delicious bits
inside. You can also throw your players for a loop. Imagine your
players taking careful aim at the zombie's head... And having it keep
walking with its skull blown open because the weak spot is the spine.
If they have one at all. The system can also handle weirder things,
like vampires, be they like the Last Man On Earth type (the original
I Am Legend movie with Vincent Price, a true classic of zombie and
vampire cinema) or some real horrific monsters. Sparkly pretty boys
need not apply. By fudging things a bit, you could probably make
werewolves and aliens, too. In fact, one of the supplements, All
Tomorrow's Zombies, includes rules for making playable alien races.
Using the various books, the Zombie Master (a GM by any other name)
and the players can have a lot of fun coming up with unique
characters and monsters.
If you're worried about
balance, you don't have to. As you add stats, skills, and other
abilities, you add to the zombie's Power. The total power is roughly
how powerful a zombie is. You total up the points for a Norm or
Survivor, by adding together the same things (skills, stats, and
Qualities), and see which one is higher. That's enough to figure out
how many zombies you need to create a threat for the group.
When it comes to setting,
AFMBE doesn't have one, it has tons. Deadworlds, as they're called,
are plentiful. In the core book, there's six unique and interesting
Deadworlds to choose from The first one is the standard Romero style
zombies and outbreak. But, there's one during World War Two, another
at the turn of the last millennium (the year 1000 AD), and another
that's decades after the end of the world as we know it. Two of them
are set as the world is ending, including a set of religious/divine
zombies. The last one lets you play zombies. How's that for
different? Each one of the supplements gives you even more Deadworlds
to play with, as each one usually includes two or three more. That's
not including the one that's nothing but Deadworlds. It's great for a
pick-up game or for those of you who can't come up with a setting on
your own. There's no shame in that...
Speaking of supplements,
there's quite a lot of them. The ones I strongly recommend are One Of
The Living and the Book of Archtypes (both one and two). These books
add in so much more to the game and several rules you really want to
have. One Of The Living helps you take the game from a “Beer and
Pretzels” type game to a full campaign. It helps your players make
better characters and helps the ZM think long-term about the game.
Not only goes it give you the science of how a corpse decays, but how
people react when under stress for long periods of time and start
losing the things they need and want. It's something you don't see in
a lot of RPGs. Mind you, you probably don't need stuff like that in
most other games.
The other supplements boil
down to “(Blank) but with Zombies!” Things like wrestling (which
has some surprisingly in depth information about wrestling and some
terrifying Deadworlds), Kung-Fu Action stuff (which caused the
Shaolin Soccer Mom Archtype), a sci-fi setting book (that has a “Star
Wars but with Zombies!” Deadworld), and one that is titled
“Dungeons and Zombies.” Take a wild guess what that's about. The
good news is that no matter what you're thinking about, there's
probably a supplement and a Deadworld you can use.
When my gaming group is a
player short, and we know in advance, I'll come up with something
using AFMBE. Recently, I came up with an idea for zombies in Vietnam.
I call it “Tet of the Undead” as the game takes place during the
Tet Offensive. What's worse than Communist rebels in the jungles of
Vietnam? Undead Communist rebels in the jungles...
I'm also using this system
to develop a Silent Hill game. The rules are flexible enough to
handle the bizarre and terrifying monsters, to give you mechanics for
the effects of fear, and even rules for psychic powers.
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