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All Flesh Must Be Eaten has it all.
Plenty of different zombie archetypes. Lots of blood and guts. Simple and clever rules. Colorful campaigns (not just one, but eleven of them), great atmosphere and artwork.
When there is no more room in the movies, the dead will flood the RPG industry. ... Read review
Advantages: Refreshing rules, bleak setting, zombies everywhere! Disadvantages: Might get boring pretty fast if you are not a zombie fan.
...game).
All Flesh Must Be Eaten has it all.
Plenty of different zombie archetypes. Lots of blood and guts. Simple and clever rules. Colorful campaigns (not just one, but eleven of them), great atmosphere and artwork.
When there is no more room in the movies, the dead will flood the RPG industry.
In short ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN, is a role playing game which allows players to role-play in a world ... ...extra flavour during roleplay. If all this seem to complicate to beginner rpgers, there are pre-constructed characters, or templates, that players can use, and quickstart their session.
In every RPG there is a Game Master, a player that directs the whole session. In AFMBE he is called Zombie Master, and a whole chapter in the rule book is dedicated to the role of Zombie Mastering. Extra rules and hints are included for the ZM in order ... more
I am a zombie fan. I love zombie movies. I also love role playing games, so what's not to love about a zombie themed rpg (role playing game).
All Flesh Must Be Eaten has it all. Plenty of different zombie archetypes. Lots of blood and guts. Simple and clever rules. Colorful campaigns (not just one, but eleven of them), great atmosphere and artwork.
When there is no more room in the movies, the dead will flood the RPG industry.
In short ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN, is a role playing game which allows players to role-play in a world like that of your favorite living dead horror movies. Players can choose out of three categories. Norms, Survivors or Inspired. Norms are normal people, just like you and me, survivors are a bit more heroic and powerful, such as Ash from the Evil Dead series. Inspired characters possess superhuman or magical abilities. Usually, if you want to run a horror themed campaigned, you would chose to play with norm characters. They tend to die easily and thus are more appropriate. On the other hand Survivors are suited for action-themed gameplay, and Inspired characters are suited for supernatural gameplay. Before a game session begins, players have to 'create' their characters, using a very quick and easy to learn process in order to chose abilities, skills and equipments. Additionaly, players chose a qualities and a drawback. This gives an extra flavour during roleplay. If all this seem to complicate to beginner rpgers, there are pre-constructed characters, or templates, that players can use, and quickstart their session.
In every RPG there is a Game Master, a player that directs the whole session. In AFMBE he is called Zombie Master, and a whole chapter in the rule book is dedicated to the role of Zombie Mastering. Extra rules and hints are included for the ZM in order to edit the zombie templates (you want Romemo-type slow moving zombies, you go it. You want fire-breathing space shapeshifting zombies, no problem), create his own adventures or even campaigns and such. I haven't had time to actually play the game yet (I just read the rule book and I am waiting for my players to finish reading theirs), but I am already thinking about many possible campaigns. Pretty much all of my favourite zombie movies can be adapted, Evil Dead, Braindead, Re-Animator, Lifeforce, any Romero zombie movie… the list can go on indefinitely.
A good RPG can be successful just by having a great setting. A zombie setting might not be for everyone, but it works great for me. However it has to be supported by a solid system, the mechanics of the game if you'd like. This is where AFMBE shine. Also, have in mind that this is the revised version of the rule book, having not read the first one, I am not really sure what is revised. I suppose the D20 modern conversion is added here in order to become compatible with WotC's D20. AFMBE's system is call Unisystem, where basically a D10 (ten sided dice) is used in order to resolve the success or failure of a task, after certain modifiers are taken under consideration. If you think that is sounds like WhiteWolf's Story-Telling system you are not far from the truth, but there are some welcome variations.
There are a couple of flaws that I keep hearing from other players about AFMBE. Killing zombies can get pretty boring, however I beg to differ. It can get as boring as killing orcs or dragons. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be a point in the campaign. The dead are walking amongst as, and there is nothing we can do except survive. But then again, that's up to the ZM and the group to decide and change the focus of the campaign. I believe that if you are into that sort of theme, you will not get bored. If you are not, then it would be a nice one-off campaign that will not last for more than a couple of session.
AFMBE stands out for me as the most detailed and thoughtful survival horror RPG in the industry (however the designer is greek and so some may say that the review is biased, but you should not believe them, this rpg has sold out his second printing and is now running the third one).
Advantages: Simple, Fast, Fun rule system Disadvantages: A mix of a lot genres might alienate hardcore RPGers
, and constantly think of better or more heroic ones. In general the core rules are no more than 20 pages, including character templates, skills, attributes (Body, Mind, Chi and Reflexes) and special abilities.
As in almost every RPG (expect those diceless ones), task resolution is accomplice through the rolling of dice. Instead of rolling 10 sided dice (D10) as in AllFleshMustBeEaten RPG which was previously reviewed, in Feng Shui, players roll 2 six sided dice (D6). Those two dices have to be of different colour, since you subtract the value of one the other and then add to it a modifier derived from Attributes and Skills that the player character has. And that's about it. No complex rules, no time wasting searching for the optional long range combat errata. It is simple and fun. Restrictions and game mechanics that apply to other rpgs are set ...