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View Full Version : New To AFMBE, Tips needed



BRC
2010-01-25, 11:33 PM
So, I recently got my grubby little hands on a game called All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I've read through the rules, and believe I could run a game (Albeit, with rule-checking every so often until I get things down). None of my group are veteran role players (We've played 3.5 DnD, but nothing else).

What I'm asking is, is there any advice for somebody just starting this system, Things to watch out for, nifty tricks you learned. Do you think it would be better for a beginning party to play as Norms or Survivors? What limitations should I put on my players? What advice should I give them? How should I handle Character Generation (Alot of skills that make perfect sense for a character to have seem fairly useless, a player in a MinMaxer mindset (None of my players are, but they also arn't into roleplaying enough to intentionally spend points on things there characters know but are useless), can build somebody with loads of Combat skills easily enough, which works if you're playing an anti-zombie SWAT team, but isn't as good if you're going for the standard "Group of citizens trying to survive the zombie apocalypse". How about equipment, should I let everybody start with an Assault rifle and enough ammo to overthrow a millitary junta, or limit everybody to pistols and baseball bats?

Signmaker
2010-01-25, 11:37 PM
CharaGen - It is easy to optimize everything for points. The sooner this is understood (and somewhat discouraged) the better.

Equipment - Give them what suits their backstory. If they need guns they can always attempt to raid a gunstore (which may or may not succeed). Pray that at least someone in the group can drive a vehicle. Be wary of giving them access to a local Wal-Mart, as they will be quite 'creative' with the sheer versatility of a chain-store.

Norms/Survivors - For an entry game, make them play as norms. That way they get some experience, and you can later make another game with survivors (but this time bringing in specialist zombies). It's really not that hard to make a badass norm, so survivors may be a bit overkill for a new party.

BRC
2010-01-25, 11:58 PM
CharaGen - It is easy to optimize everything for points. The sooner this is understood (and somewhat discouraged) the better.

This is the tricky part, as I said, none of my players are really Min-Maxers, but it's easy for somebody with a basic idea of what the game involves to create the perfect character for that. Besides looking at their character sheets and saying "No, this character needs more points spent towards things that will be useless in the game" , how do I encourage that.

The "Keep things reasonable" option dosn't work, because they can easily come up with characters for whom it is "Reasonable" to have those skills. What's more, I need to keep all the players at the same level. If I hand out character sheets, and get back a Plumber, a Science Teacher, a Bartender, and a guy who was in the army, what do I do there? Army veterans are just as reasonable a character as Plumbers or Science Teachers, and yet one of these people is going to be able to fix a sink, another is going to be able to talk about Erosion, one is going to be able to make a wicked cocktail, and one is going to be able to shoot zombies in the head at a range of 200 meters. Unless the zombie's weak point is Well Maintained Water, Education ,or Alcohol, I don't see the first three being as useful as the fourth.

I don't want it to be "What's the best character I can slip past the DM", but I also want to avoid hard and fast rules designed to gimp the players.

Signmaker
2010-01-26, 12:06 AM
The "Keep things reasonable" option dosn't work, because they can easily come up with characters for whom it is "Reasonable" to have those skills. What's more, I need to keep all the players at the same level. If I hand out character sheets, and get back a Plumber, a Science Teacher, a Bartender, and a guy who was in the army, what do I do there? Army veterans are just as reasonable a character as Plumbers or Science Teachers, and yet one of these people is going to be able to fix a sink, another is going to be able to talk about Erosion, one is going to be able to make a wicked cocktail, and one is going to be able to shoot zombies in the head at a range of 200 meters. Unless the zombie's weak point is Well Maintained Water, Education ,or Alcohol, I don't see the first three being as useful as the fourth.

I don't want it to be "What's the best character I can slip past the DM", but I also want to avoid hard and fast rules designed to gimp the players.

AFMBE is actually not all about zombies, when you think about it. Yes, that's the driving mechanic, but you can craft your story to incorporate the professions of the others. Yes, the man in the army will probably single-handedly hold back most of the zombies, but can he pick a lock? No, but if a person rolled up a professional thief, he can. My character was a mechanic that did nothing but drive and fix vehicles for the party. She contributed in making sure that the party didn't fall victim to having to walk, which is never a pleasant idea in a zombie apocalypse. So you don't have to worry about certain professions one-upping others, because people are useful when they're useful. If the science teacher can raid a local store and rig up some explosive or flammable substances to ward of zombies, he's doing something. If being a plumber comes with knowledge of the sewer system, there's a new avenue of travel to attempt.

And yes, AFMBE has a very simplistic generation system when it comes to points. Factoring that in which how EXP is generated,, it's easy for a person good with manipulating numbers to 'squeeze out' a few more stats than others. Stuff like this is what you'll probably want to watch out for.

Elvenoutrider
2010-01-26, 12:16 AM
Ha im running an afmbe game in my school right now and i love the system. As to norms or survivors it depends on the kind of game u want to run. If u want horror have them play norms, if u want action have them play survivors.
- As to the problem of optomization my solution was to premake 7 characters and have my 4 players choose which ones they wanted to play. My players loved this as they could start play immediatly. Make sure to spread out the skills so each player has a specific purpose. Not everyone needs combat skills to be useful in a fight.
-As to equipment this also depends on the setting. I wanted horror so while some of my characters had skills in certain weapons they had none at the start of the campaign.
-One thing you have to know if your new to this system is that it is a horror first, action second system. Characters are VERY vulnerable. One gunshot from anything bigger than a 22 is likely to put one of your players below 0 life points. This game is meant to keep your players moving and hiding. Make sure your players know how vulnerable they are before they decide to take a risk.

SpikeFightwicky
2010-01-26, 09:25 AM
This is the tricky part, as I said, none of my players are really Min-Maxers, but it's easy for somebody with a basic idea of what the game involves to create the perfect character for that. Besides looking at their character sheets and saying "No, this character needs more points spent towards things that will be useless in the game" , how do I encourage that.

1- Don't make those skill points useless. If someone wants to make a one-dimensional character, that's fine. But don't make your game one-dimensional. Zombie combat is almost inevitable, but there are a TON of things in the dead world that require non-combat resolution. Opening locked doors, building a good barricade, etc... In your example, the bartender is VERY likely to have some social skills, which is good for dealing with non-zombies (and figuring out if any other survirors/norms are on the level). The science teacher will be able to concoct weapons out of household chemicals and proper disposal of diseased corpses. The plumber will be good with his hands and can likely build barricades and crush skulls with pipes and wrenches. Even the army character can have more dimensions than just shooting. He can shoot... great... what else can he do? Maybe he trained in radio operation or to be a field medic. He likely has some urban and wilderness survival skills (very valuable in AFMBE!!!) Was he an officer? If so, he's probably more valuable keeping the team working cohesively than simply shooting dead things (if he can earn their trust). If the army guy sunk all his points into weapons skills, it's a bit unrealistic.


2- Ration the ammo. Can Army kill a horde of zombies from 200ft? Good for him. He can only keep it up as long as he has ammo. If he's running low, he'll have to think less shooty, more sneaky. As the GM, you can control this. Don't ammo starve him, but don't keep giving ammo because he keeps running out. He only has a clip left? There was a crashed cop car a couple of blocks ago that 'might' have some kind of ammo in it. Does it have what he's looking for? No... the cops only had their sidearms and a couple of shotguns in the trunk. But hey, better than nothing, right?

IMO (and in the opinion of a couple of other posters), AFMBE isn't a 'shoot-em-up' zombie game, it's a survival horror. The simplest way to prevent 'combat gods' is to try to have a decent amount of non-combat content in your game (so the player thinks -> I should have spent some of those 20 points on stuff other firearm skills... but not enough to make him feel completely useless. Again, his combat training involves WAY more than pulling triggers) I recently ran a game where only one character had any firearms skill, and it was shotgun based, but they didn't start with a shotgun (due to circumstances). Yet, the character had PLENTY to do that didn't involve shooting zombies. For the first 2 sessions, they fought a total of 3 zombies and cleverly evaded untold hordes. The last part of the first session involved a fight against a single zombie (the first time the group saw a zombie). The 'build up' was entirely non-combat, but the players were really into it (they knew what was coming, and OOC they knew they were being screwed by FEMA).

Anyways, (to take your examples in consideration) try to balance your game so that the bartender, plumber and science teacher have as many things to do as the army guy.

BRC
2010-01-26, 10:41 AM
Alright, it sounds like I'll have to default back to my old Shadowrun GMing instincts rather than my DnD instincts. It also sounds like It would be worthwhile to just pre-make some potential locations that may serve as challenges for the PC's.

My current plan is this, the PC's start in a town split by a river. Zombies started showing up one one side of the river, but the government got itself together, did a decent job of evacuating that half of the town, barricaded the bridges, and has generally been doing a pretty good job of keeping things together. It's not the best of situations, the barricade is made up of cars and mainly manned by cops and civilian volunteers, but all things considered it could be worse.
Then it is.
The Air Force decides to bomb the town, but they mix up which side of the town to hit (Zombies are everywhere, people are operating in a blind panic and not bothering to double check things). This trashes most of the town, and breaks up the barricades (and the people manning them, no longer supported by a competent local government), accusations are thrown around, and things fall apart. With the Barricades unmanned, the Zombies begin swarming the town. This lets me not seem lazy when I don't write up a full town, just a few locations that survived the bombardment. Also, it lets my players who don't make Cops or army guys or gun nuts start with some firearms training (They volunteered to take a turn on the barricades, and so received some basic training. Nothing fancy, but enough to make it more likely for them to hurt a zombie than themselves)
Here are some locations that the Survivors may find useful, comments and more suggestions would be nice.
Gorn Firearms: The Shop owner has barricaded himself inside, he's going crazy and is shooting at anybody he sees. PC's could try to kill him (Tough, he's well barricaded, and has lots of guns), talk him down, or sneak in (He has to sleep sometime). Obviously getting in here will be very useful, but it should be a considerable challenge.

Ridley Bro's Hardware: The Ridley's are smart, they used the supplies in their store to build lots of barricades and traps, both in their store and in the surrounding area. They and their employees have stayed rational, and may prove useful (If you can get past the traps to talk to them).

Our Lady of Mercy: Before the Bombardment, many of the refugees from across the river were staying in this church. During the bombardment, the buildings on either side were destroyed, but the church survived with barely any damage, the priest has taken this as a sign from god and whipped the people staying there into a frenzy. The Priest is their undisputed leader of the group, and refuses to let anybody who was not in the church at the time of the bombardment into the group, his followers patrol the surrounding area in groups, gathering supplies and killing zombies (And occasionally other survivors), they are in various stages of rationality, some are convinced that they have been chosen by god, and that anybody else who survived the bombardment could only have done so by making a deal with the devil. Others are simply sticking with the group because it's a good way to survive, and understand that supplies are thinly stretched as it is.

Gov't Parking Structure: A criminal gang has set up a headquarters in this building, going on salvage runs by hot-wiring the cars there. They're probably doing the best in the town, they've even powered some electrical devices by hooking up car batteries. The way they see it, they rule this town now, and have no reason to help anybody unless they're getting something serious in return.

Elvenoutrider
2010-01-26, 05:35 PM
Consider some encounters for a gas station and a grovery store. The survivors are going to want to hit these at some point. Look into mapping out about 3 random houses in case they get stuck in a residential area or if they start building hopping to avoid the hordes.

BRC
2010-01-26, 06:16 PM
Consider some encounters for a gas station and a grovery store. The survivors are going to want to hit these at some point. Look into mapping out about 3 random houses in case they get stuck in a residential area or if they start building hopping to avoid the hordes.
Oh, BTW, here are the Zombie types I was going use.

Standard: Slow, bites people, dies easily, you know this guy.
Bruisers: Bulky zombies with incredible strength, usually slow but can Lunge, weak point is in the spine. Taking one on in a direct confrontation is very stupid.
Wiseguys: Smarter zombies capable of using some tools, but otherwise not much faster or stronger than normal humans. Mainly dangerous because people underestimate them.
Packhounds: One of the most dangerous Zombies around, Packhounds are fast, can leap and climb, have sharp claws, and a basic animal cunning. As their name suggests, they tend to move in groups, usually of 3 or 4. Their preferred method is to find a small number of survivors and then follow them to a larger group.
Hotheads: Perhaps the strangest undead variety, Hotheads are immediately recognizable by the number of burns covering their bodies. They are physically very weak, and not too bright, but they can spew flames and have a habit of exploding when shot, making them tricky opponents to defeat. If you want to kill one, do so from a considerable distance.
Alright, let's think here are 3 gas stations.


Gas 'n Grub: Food AND fuel in one spot, it seems like this would have been one of the first places looted. Unfortunately, a group of Hotheads seem to have moved into the area, snacking on survivors who try to get at the fuel or non-perishable food kept there. Because of their explosive personalities, people are unwilling to kill one while they are close to the fuel tanks for fear of blowing the entire place sky high. If the PC's want to get to the goods they'll need some way of handling these fiery pests without them blowing up the station.

Fuelstop: The Churchfolk from Our Lady have secured this gas station, and usually have snipers watching it from the building opposite. The Gangers from the parking structure want to get their hands on it (They have plenty of cars, but not much fuel) but so far have been repelled each time.

Greaseoline: a truck stop near the edge of town that combined a gas station and a diner serving food guaranteed to clog your arteries within a week. The station has been overrun with Zombies, while a few people are barricaded within the diner. So far the zombies have been unable to get inside, and food supplies are pretty good, but with the exception of a few handguns, various cooking implements, and Frank's aging shotgun they don't have any weapons, and they're running out of ammo.


And for grocery stores (only 2 because the Gas n' Grub counts as one).
Wendle Grocers: this grocery store is very well secured, all the doors are locked, windows are too high or small to get through and the walls are thick. Also there are enough zombies in the area to make gaining entry Via some lengthy process a bad idea, anybody who wants in will have to do so quickly and quietly.

Skymart: A big chain grocery store under the control of the criminals from the parking structure. They blockaded the front doors with cars and put guards at the back. The Churchfolk from Our Lady have tried several times to take it, but have yet to succeed.

Signmaker
2010-01-26, 06:28 PM
If you're going to use Wiseguys, I ask of you to run at least one Home Depot scene. :smalltongue:

BRC
2010-01-26, 09:12 PM
If you're going to use Wiseguys, I ask of you to run at least one Home Depot scene. :smalltongue:
There's a reference here that I'm not getting.