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Krazzman
2011-11-07, 01:31 PM
Greetings playgrounders,

I for myself am a huge Zombie-Apocalypse setting fan. I even started building a campaign for Pathfinder. But seeing that I personally don't get the vibe from dming to play common npc's or sentient monsters I think I should stay with the Zombie Apocalypse setting and only dm those zombies and some lone survivors.

But now it comes down to stay with Pathfinder and just run with some subpar changes or switch to a more at the first glance appealing system.

all flesh must be eaten:

Now I just want to save money and am considering buying the AFMBE revised version for 22 Euros. But is it worth it? What do I get from this system? Is it the thing I seek? Please tell me if this is good for a start or completely playable with just the revised version. Entertaining/Funny/Cool moments of play would also be nice. Additionally what can I do with the system alone? How good are the supplements? Anyone really really gamebreaking or should I wait for a moment to get used to the system to buy the supps later?

Or is there another system that hits this theme? I know there is a similar Savage worlds system/supplement?

I hope you can help me invest/save my money.

Edit:
TL;DR: Is the revised version playable? Are there other systems? Better ones? Cheaper ones?

Elvenoutrider
2011-11-07, 11:34 PM
Others will disagree but if you want the zombie apocalypse genre you should look to get as far away from the d20 system as possible.

What you should know about AFMBE is that is is much more lethal than the d20 system. This is one of those systems where a single bullet or well rolled attack can kill off or cripple a character, which is a problem in settings where healing is hard to come by.

The other thing you should know is the system favors the players heavily. Skill checks are not difficult to roll in this setting. Even tasks that the book says should be left to masters are doable in short times in RAW.

Even though the system is made for specifically the undead apocalypse genre it is flexible enough to do just about any genre imaginable. If you buy the book you could use the rules for other games so you can definitely get your moneys worth on the rules.

Arbane
2011-11-07, 11:51 PM
Call of Cthulhu would be another good possibility. Like AFMBE, characters in it are _very_ fragile compared to your typical D&D hero.

Krazzman
2011-11-08, 04:39 AM
But with just the revised version we can start playing? I read something about deadworlds. And wanted to maybe start in the present time but later wanted to make a future and a past (medievil) campaign. Is this doable with just the core or should I consider buying supps then? (and I would like to stay away from CoC...it just gives me the creeps thinking about the stories i've been told x.X)

navar100
2011-11-08, 09:36 AM
3E can work. The Lost template from Magic Incarnum makes for good zombies. You can use it RAW using the emotion rage to simulate "28 Days Later". Otherwise, you can adapt it. Use hunger as the motivation. Fiat they can only be killed by piercing the head.

Since they aren't true D&D undead, that's your excuse as to why Turn Undead doesn't work, but that also allows critical hits to work. Fiat confirmed crits means you got the head and killed the zombie. You can still use normal combat. Damaging for enough hit points to 0 means you damaged enough body parts (arms, legs, etc.) that the zombie is no longer a threat. Flavor text that allows you to attack the head without danger as part of the attack that brought it to 0 hit points.

Emmerask
2011-11-08, 09:48 AM
Others will disagree but if you want the zombie apocalypse genre you should look to get as far away from the d20 system as possible.

What you should know about AFMBE is that is is much more lethal than the d20 system. This is one of those systems where a single bullet or well rolled attack can kill off or cripple a character, which is a problem in settings where healing is hard to come by.

The other thing you should know is the system favors the players heavily. Skill checks are not difficult to roll in this setting. Even tasks that the book says should be left to masters are doable in short times in RAW.

Even though the system is made for specifically the undead apocalypse genre it is flexible enough to do just about any genre imaginable. If you buy the book you could use the rules for other games so you can definitely get your moneys worth on the rules.


While I agree to stay as far away from d20 as possible my main reason would be that d20 has a very very abstracted minimalized skill system, for me a well fleshed out skill and character generation system would be the most important part of a good zombie apocalypse survival game.

I would say Gurps would do fine ^^

Djinn_in_Tonic
2011-11-08, 09:53 AM
Parts of Deadlands might be gritty enough (and cinematic enough) to adapt to the purposes of a Zombie survival game. You could probably also get a lot of mileage from the World of Darkness Core System (not any of the splat-books). Both these systems are fairly gritty and feature death spirals, which helps get across the idea of fighting against staggering odds and being slowly worn down.

Krazzman
2011-11-08, 09:59 AM
I would say Gurps would do fine ^^

Nope sorry, Gurps is one of those systems that are too broad for my taste in what I want. I tested it once but it felt meh. That being said it can certainly be cool but we made a monster hunt team but somehow it just felt utterly wrong.

We might have the 3rd Edition Core and DMG book, along with sword and fist I think but as mentioned I will probably make another test run. But can't come up with good rules to make the zombies a lethal thread past 2nd level and it comes to be high powered, even for mundanes.

I thought about only allowing Fighter, (changed monk) and a Changed rogue, maybe the Gunslinger variants of everyone or something like that. Aimed shots with melee weapons for the head the only way to do damage etc.
But since this all feels a bit...artificial I sought a better system, especially asking for AFMBE since this seems to be good. (Even if everyone I know only said "Yeah I heard of it...but don't know if it is good." and the Awesome-RPG-Recommendation Thread didn't mentioned it....)

Hope you can help me further.

Edit:

You could probably also get a lot of mileage from the World of Darkness Core System (not any of the splat-books). Both these systems are fairly gritty and feature death spirals, which helps get across the idea of fighting against staggering odds and being slowly worn down.
Yeah, oWoD/nWoD was a thought of mine too but we only have the obscure oriental vampire book and afaik there was nothing about Zombies...

Dingle
2011-11-08, 04:18 PM
Yeah, oWoD/nWoD was a thought of mine too but we only have the obscure oriental vampire book and afaik there was nothing about Zombies...

That's unfortunate. It's not a great place to start because it's like a combination of 3 or 4 other owod games.
in D&D terms, it'd be the "class compendium", with every non-core class and PrC in existence, and the spell lists to go with them, but no mention of how to calculate AC, or what a core skill covers, or what a full-attack is.
In fact, barely any mention of a d20...

it wouldn't be too bad if you'd played a few games of any owod system,
but the main problem is that the core mechanics that you're missing are all you'd need for a zombie game.

humans are humans (just basic stats, skills, backgrounds, and willpower)
zombies are vampires without disciplines and anything else you feel like changing (1/2 bashing, soak lethal, maybe keep frenzy and rotschrek)

beyond reality
2011-11-08, 06:53 PM
A lot depends on what sort of Zombie Apocalypse you're going for.

If you want something desperate and gritty and horror-filled then I'd recommend Unknown Armies or Call of Cthulhu. These both give you very "realistic" power-level characters without the complexity of something like GURPS. Their combat system is robust enough to handle zombie fights but it's also simple and won't get in the way. Characters are fairly fragile and will mainly need to survive by their wits. They've also got sanity systems to help represents the horror of the setting (

Savage Worlds makes a good "Action Survivor" game where you've got people who were accountants or used car salesmen suddenly pick up shotguns and blow rotten brains across the room. The damage system is harsh enough that injuries are significant and even highly skilled characters are significantly threatened by even "basic" zombies. At the same time player's get enough skill and "action resources" to be very effective and can usually hold their own even against major threats. This lets you deal with zombie hordes or freaky mutant zombies (like you see in resident evil). Another great benefit is the fact that it's really cheap. You could probably grab the explorer's edition for under 10 bucks and that's really all you need.

D20 (say d20 modern or perhaps 4e) can be good for "cartoonish zombies". Something like Dead Rising. Where you literally carve your way through hundreds of enemies with relatively little consequences.

World of Darkness is a good "in between" option when using mortals. You won't be quite as fragile as say Call of Cthulhu but you won't be as much of an action hero as a Savage Worlds character. The major problem is that the combat system doesn't handle large numbers of characters well so it won't work the best for a "horde" game.