Halloween has just passed, so I thought I’d drop a line into the good people at Eden Studios and see if I could find out more about their upcoming game All Flesh Must Be Eaten. The first thing I found out is that Flesh will likely be in your local gaming store by the end of November. Originally, the release was set for October 31, but Murphy’s Law took effect right on queue in the form of artist troubles. Translation - a short delay until the new artist can produce.

Going into this, I really only had a few basic questions. Like anyone else, they generally centered around wanting to know what Flesh was about, and why I, as a gamer, should be interested. All I knew was that it is a game about Zombies. Well, that’s a no-brainer, right? In the words of Alex Jurkat, Eden’s editor-in-chief:

“…the game can be whatever you want it to be. There are eleven possible story backgrounds (rationales for the zombies and the world) and several ways to approach each of them. That’s essentially what the last quarter of the book is all about. There are three general themes to a zombie story… .

The first is learning about the rise of the zombies, fighting them, surviving them, and learning something about them (mostly the best way to stop them — say, shoot them in the head). That’s heavy hack and slash, fight-fest usually.

The second is discovering how the zombies came about, and how to defeat them. That’s more investigative and sneaky. It may include combat elements, but you have to avoid some of that. There’s just too many to fight them all. When zombies go down, there are always more. When the protagonists go down, they are just one less (and the zombies may be one more).

These two may be sufficient for most stories. The third part complicates the other two - intraparty conflict. That’s where the stress of fighting zombies causes people to crack and turn on each other. Obviously, this is the best way for the zombies to win, or at least significantly winnow the party. We put in a short discussion of this aspect of zombie stories, with plenty of warnings about how dangerous it was for party survival. Some may see that as the best way to tell a zombie story, however. So, if the group is mature enough to handle it without hard feelings (this is supposed to be fun gaming session, right) — go for it.

…(A)nyone who is a zombie fanatic (and there seem to be a great deal of them) should play this game. They can play out all their favorite zombie stories, and do things as they would like to have seen the characters do. It breaks ground by placing zombies at the forefront of the game. Lots of games have zombies, but few focus on them. The game is different than most these days because we do not try to present one specific, detailed uberplotline. Gamers need not worry about fitting their sessions into an overarching storyline where certain events are set in stone. We provide suggestions, … but the games are really for the GMs (we call them Zombie Masters) and players to script.”

There is a lot of info in there. All I could picture now was the Night of the Living Dead movies. BRAINS!!! As it turns out, these movies, and others like them are at the core of the inspiration behind Flesh. I like that, but is it enough to make this game stand out from the rest? When I thought of it, I couldn’t think of any other true zombie games. The only thing that comes close is GURPS Undead, and it’s a supplement, not a stand-alone game. So who’s idea was this anyway? When I was Eden’s webmaster a few years ago, I remember that Flesh was already an idea being bandied about. In George’s words, this is how it all happened:

“Well, I was playing Resident Evil 2 last October and I said to myself this would make a nice Conspiracy X adventure if you changed the bad guys and story around a little. I called Christopher Shy late that night and we talked about the game. As we talked about Resident Evil and Con X, the conversation slowly turned into a conversation about zombie RPGs and why the industry really doesn’t have one that just deals with the zombie genre. So at first we discussed doing it as a Conspiracy X alternate world setting but as the night went on it took on a life of its own. I remember Chris jokingly saying “why don’t we make a separate game and call it All Flesh Must Be Eaten”. I laughed for like 10 minutes. The name was great. Over the next few days, we fleshed out some concepts while watching all 3 of the Romero Dead movies for inspiration. That’s when I decided the game can’t be like most traditional RPGs and have a set storyline and history. There was just too many cool zombie genres I would want players to be able to play in. If we gave it one storyline, we would have to ignore too much cool stuff — and we would be imposing our concept of zombies stories on the players. So the game took on a life of having multiple “deadworld” campaign settings to choose from. Then over the following months I contacted Richard Dakan and told him our vision of the game and he began writing the various world backgrounds.”

George Vasilakos and Christopher Shy did the original creative work, defining the scope, direction, feel and focus of the project. George also put together the intro text on the zombie/survival horror genre. The core charters, which include such things as how to create a zombie and the eleven world backgrounds were written by Richard “Ricko” Dakan. Ricko has worked on many previous Eden projects, including many of books in the Conspiracy X RPG line - as well as done work on Deadlands, Star Trek, Dune, Kult and Mutant Chronicles. Al Bruno, an inspiring horror writer and long-time friend of George, wrote the fiction and archetype personalities. Lastly, Shane “Deadlands” Hensley graced All Flesh with an excellent forward about Zombies. Alex Jurkat did the editing, proofing, some game design, writing where needed, and a bunch of other development work. He pulled all the work of all the various authors together and smoothed it all out. Alex has been Creative Director for Eden since the beginning and has overseen the text side of things for all of Eden’s product.

On the art side, the cover art is done by Christopher Shy, who has graced Eden with his gorgeous covers in the past. Christopher also did a fair chunk of the interior art as well. He has done work for White Wolf, Propaganda Publishing, Gold Rush Games and The Apophis Consortium. Mike Osadciw of Battlelords RPG fame has been working with Eden for a few books now and added some gorgeous art as well to the project. A newcomer to Eden is Brad Quigley, whom George met at GenCon and says his portfolio “blew me away. So I put him on Flesh as a test and now he’s working on the Flesh supplement and various WitchCraft projects. A very nice style.” George did the layout, graphic design and a bunch of illustrations as well, not to mention a bit of writing which is a first for him.

I wanted to know more though, so it’s on to the system. From visiting the official website [ http://www.allflesh.com/ ] I did find out that Flesh will be using the Unisystem, developed by CJ Carella, who has written for Steve Jackson Games as well as a ton of material for Palladium. For anyone who has played the WitchCraft or Armageddon RPGs, this means that you won’t have to learn something new in order to enjoy Flesh. That’s a nice plus. When asked if he could say anything more about the game mechanics, Alex replied:

“The Unisystem is pretty straight-forward. CJ’s design philosophy for game mechanics is to be as unintrusive as possible. After the first couple of sessions, the mechanics should become second nature and fade into the background. He likes the focus to be on the story, not the rules. As for content, the most innovative thing to me is the Anatomy of a Zombie chapter. It allows Zombie Masters to pick and choose zombie powers and create their own unique nasties to through at players. Ricko ran through many aspects of a zombie, from its weak spot to its strength to its diet to its sense, etc. I then went through and added in game stats and a power level, so different features could be compared. In the end, you add up all the power levels and you get an idea of how serious a threat the zombie is. It’s a way for Zombie Master to keep their players on their toes. We then used that zombie creation system when running through the stats of the zombies in each world background. It came out very nicely.”

Something I didn’t find out on the site was whether Flesh will be supported beyond the main rulebook or whether it is a ‘one-shot’ sourcebook. Fortunately for all you zombie lovers out there, it is the former. There will be supplements. The first is Enter the Zombie, combining high action martial arts and the walking dead. The second under consideration is a magic supplement, focusing on zombies and different magic traditions, from ancient world to dark future. Another under consideration addresses Nazis, 1930-40s pulp and the undead, following up and expanding on the Mien Zombie background presented in the main book.

One more nifty thing - anyone who orders their copy direct from Eden will receive an All Flesh Must Be Eaten chocolate bar. Where’d they come up with that one?

“George was surfing websites for merchandising stuff (and) found a candy bar maker… All of a sudden it came to us - All Flesh Must Be Eaten candy bar. We were laughing about fleshy chocolate with a crunch all day after that. We did some pricing and talked to some distributors and everyone agreed it was a great idea. We were so psyched we didn’t even realize that the (then) planned Halloween release fit perfectly with the candy bar until one of our distributors mentioned it. That basically cemented the promotion.”

So, there you have it. That about wraps it up. For anyone interested, Flesh will be released as a 232 page, hardback, in a 7.5″ x 9.5″ format - the same size as Eden’s other Unisystem books, but with the added feature of hard cover.

One last note. I have not seen the manuscript for Flesh, and by extension have not played it. Hopefully, that will change soon. As soon as the game is released, look for a review right here on GO.

Ever since George Romero’s groundbreaking NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was released in the late 60’s, zombies have held a special place in horror film history. Romero followed up this breakthrough film with the equally impressive DAWN OF THE DEAD, a film which ignited a horde of imitators. The zombie film as role playing game combines two of the hottest genres around: apocalyptic gaming and horror gaming. Not only are the zombies terrifying creatures, but in most films their arrival is associated with a general collapse of society as government proves incapable of protecting its citizens. When great-grandma Edith shows up to eat your brain, the first guy to the gun shop is most likely to live. Law and order be damned.

What we have here are the basic elements of a good story: there’s plenty of opportunity for conflict and motivated folks (read: the characters) have a chance to make a real difference in the world.

Researching the Subject

The best way to get a zombie apocalypse game going is to sit down and watch a few films. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to focus on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD. These films are superior zombie films not only for their sheer horror and suspense but because George Romero also focused on the conflicts between his human characters, a necessary ingredient if you don’t want a game set in this genre to devolve into endless die rolls as characters hunt and kill zombies.

I Was a Teenage Zombie (and Here Are the Game Stats to Prove It)

Here’s what we know about zombies from NIGHT and DAWN:

• Zombies hunger for human flesh. They will shamble towards humans on sight and will continue to attack until destroyed or their prey escapes.
• Zombies have elevated strength. They are able to tear flesh from their prey with both their teeth and hands.
• Zombies have extremely limited cognitive ability. They have no capability to plan attacks or predict human actions. They tend to move towards the last spot they saw a living human and are determined pursuers.
• Zombies can only be destroyed by massive head trauma, such as a gun shot or bludgeon to the head. Zombies will ignore all pain, though of course blowing off their limbs might make them a little less effective.
• Any human bitten by a zombie will die and arise as one of the walking dead within 72 hours after the wound was inflicted. At the GM’s option, the human will not perish if the wounded limb is amputated up to 10 minutes after the human is wounded. Yup, you’re out of luck if you get a bit on your head or torso.
• Any human who dies with his brain intact, no matter what the cause, will arise as a zombie within 6 hours of death.

Translating This into Game Stats

First, don’t try working out stats for every zombie in town. There’s going to be thousands of the critters all over the place. Instead, keep a rough count of how many are after the players. Any successful attack is a head shot. Most games treat shots to the head as called shots and penalize them, but zombies don’t make any effort to shield their heads from harm. Also, their slow, jerky movements make them easy targets.

The Meat of the Issue

Zombies don’t make great villains. The zombies are more of a plot device than anything else. They just shamble around looking for food. Horrifying, yes. Dramatically satisfying, no. Your human characters are what will make this sort of game entertaining. So who do we call on to provide drama and tension? Good old reliable humanity

In the zombie apocalypse, only the strong survive. At least, that’s how a lot of people feel in Romero’s films. The characters could easily go that route, scrounging for food, ammo, and secure shelter while duking it out with anyone who gets in their way. Or maybe they’re in the army, or they’re cops, and they feel some sense of duty to protect and serve even as society collapses. Maybe their sense of duty is magnified as people need protection now more than ever. There’s a lot of story goals you can use. Here’s a few examples:

• Survival Uber Alles
  
  With anarchy in full swing, it’s every man for himself. In this case, the characters have pretty much given up on civilization. If they want to survive, they’re going to do it on their own. The characters may strive to build something out of the wreckage of society, a community to weather the zombie storm. Or perhaps the characters give up on society all together and simply seek an isolated place to eke out a living on their own. Whatever the case, they’ll face a lot of challenges. The government may actively round up anyone not in a refugee camp, especially if martial law is declared. Remember that a lot of other people will seek the same resources and hideouts as the characters. Sure, everyone may want to get along, but if there aren’t enough bullets/guns/cans of Spam to go around, things will get ugly, fast. A major theme in both Romero films is the fundamentally selfish and destructive nature of man. Nobody can get along as it is. With the zombies around, things are only worse.
• Serve and Protect
  
  In this story line, the characters are members of an organization, typically governmental, that existed before the rise of the zombies. Not only do the players have to watch out for themselves, but now they have to worry about saving others. There’s a lot of potential here for dramatic conflict. Perhaps the organziation that the characters work for is riddled with incompetence. Maybe politicians bicker and squabble while the zombies claim more victims, or the soldiers that are supposed to be evacuating the ‘burbs are too busy looting downtown. Keep in mind that protecting the defenseless does not necessarily mean the party has to wade into the fray both guns blazing. They could be relief workers, doctors at a hospital swamped with casualties, or the leaders of a small town trying desperately to come up with a plan to avert disaster. Take any real world occupation, add the zombie problem, and think of story lines that would logically follow.
• Rip Sh!t Up
  
  The ultimate beer and pretzels game. Pick your poison: outlaw bikers finally given the chance to act out Mad Max; suburban middle managers gone postal; religious cultists reveling in the apocalypse that finally decided to show up. Play it up for laughs, as the players abuse zombies and beat on other equally maladjusted survivors. The biker gang from the finale of DAWN is the perfect template for this sort of game. Shoot zombies. Loot malls. Dust off that copy of Car Wars and run down the zombies that ate Midville. Whoever gets overwhelmed and eaten with the most stuff stuck in their pockets wins!

Rules to Use

There’s a lot of games that are easily adaptable to a zombie movie game. GURPS works wonderfully with the genre no matter what slant you put on it. Call of Cthulhu is good for those GMs that want to emphasize horror over wanton destruction and character conflict. My personal favorite, especailly for a dramatic zombie game, is Unknown Armies. What makes UA good for a zombie game is its insanity rules, which give guidelines for insanity caused by isolation or self-doubt. The zombies themselves are not necessarily terrifying a la Call of Cthulhu. It’s the situations they force people into that tend to produce stress and strain. In both NIGHT and DAWN, the main characters have more problems dealing with the social and psychological reprecussions of the zombie menace than fear of the zombies themselves. Whatever set you use, I’d suggest going with a cinematic, rules light approach. The action in both NIGHT and DAWN is fast and furious. Don’t ruin the feel of the movies by getting mired down in complex rules.

Starting Your Game

This is where basing a game on a movie really plays off. Instead of sitting your players down and explaining what’s going on, set aside your first gaming session for a little work in film studies. I would suggest that you work with your players to figure out what tone you want the game to have. Run the game types I detailed above by them and see which one really catches their interest. Now, create characters and immediately put them aside. With their characters in mind, it’s time for your players to watch NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD. If you don’t have time to watch both, I’d suggest DAWN, since the story is a bit grander in scale and thus gives a bit better big picture view of a zombie-infested world. At the end of the movie, your campaign is ready to roll. The players have a good idea about what’s going on, and, if they have any taste in horror movies, they’re pumped up to start kicking zombie butt. This is why movies are a great resource for campaigns. They immerse your players and set them up perfectly for your own masterpiece. So get out there, watch some zombie movies, and make your own unique mark on the genre.

Just remember, always shoot for the head!

Resources

• http://www.homepageofthedead.com
  
  Gives a good overview of Romero’s zombie trilogy. A wealth of fan fiction gives GMs plenty of inspiration. In particular, the piece titled FM-101-97 makes a great hand out for in-game use.
• http://www2.gol.com/users/noman/
  
  Features amusing write-ups of some of the zombies from DAWN OF THE DEAD. A good resource for those looking to add a humorous slant to their zombie game.