The first edition of All Flesh Must Be Eaten (AFMBE) is perhaps the most well-known roleplaying contemporary implementation of survival roleplaying game settings, perhaps mainly because of its main antagonist component; zombies. Despite some claims to the contrary, it seems that popular culture has not tired of the zombie apocalypse setting, which really kicked off with 28 Days Later in 2002 and The Walking Dead comic series in 2003. In any case, AFMBE has been a hit and because RPGs are awesome and cutting edge, was published in 1999 before the rest of the world caught up. Two of its fiction supplements (Prometheus Unwound and The Book of All Flesh) have won Origins awards.
AFMBE comes in a 232 page B5 sized hardback with good stitching. The cover art is, unsurprisingly, a bunch of rampaging zombies of average technique. Interior greyscale art is also of the same quality but almost invariably as filler art rather than being contextually bound (the sample characters are an obvious exception). Text is provided in two-columns, justified, with a serif font with boxed elements. There is little waste in white-space yet page numbers and chapter titles are also mostly clear. The table of contents is minimal, but there is a four page index. The book is written in a style that is informal without become chatty, and provides information in a manner that is lucid and fairly precise.
There are six chapters to the book and an appendix (character sheet, glossary, skill list, source material). The first chapter is setting information, 'The Dead Rise' which contains a fiction introduction and a description of what roleplaying games are about and what AFMBE is about, along with elements like dice notation etc. The second chapter, 'Survivors', is character generation, skills, and pregenerated archetypes. The third, 'Shambling 101', is the game system, including combat because there is plenty of that in a game like this. The fourth, 'Implements of Destruction', is the various personal possessions that one may find handy in the zombie apocalypse setting. The fifth, 'Anatomy of a Zombie' discusses the various ways that zombies have come into being in a setting and the final chapter, 'Worlds in Hell', provides several fleshed out examples of zombie settings.
Character Generation
Character generation is based on selecting a character type, determining attributes, qualities and drawbacks, skills, metaphysics, and possessions. Several pre-generated archetypes are provided for instant play. It's a point-buy system with Character Type determining the general level of competence; Norms are average types who have just that little bit of experience and grit that's allowed them to survive the zombie apocalypse., Survivors are the truly tough characters who make up the heroic protagonists of the genre., and the Inspired are those who have a touch of supernatural ability but are typically not as tough as Survivors. Character attributes are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Perception, and Willpower with a typical range of 1-5. There are also secondary, derived, attributes for Life Points, Endurance Points, Essence Pool, and Speed. With the exception of Speed these are all notably resource characteristics which can change in play. There are some excessive break points in the Strength chart and some clunky rule twists for especially low stats to ensure that they fit in the game system, but as a whole it's fairly workable.
Qualities and drawbacks are just what one would expect that they mean, and are left with a fairly coarse definitions and a typical range of 1-3 points, positive and negative. One of the more unusual values is the 3-point quality for Artistic Talent, which also adds to a character's essence pool. There is a section on specifically supernatural benefits (e.g., Accursed, Inspiration) some of which are quite expensive and powerful. In addition to these there are skills, normally rated from 1 to 5 (at the same cost in character points in generation) but with a potential higher levels (with a graduated breakpoint at 5 in costs). Also costing a further investment are "special skills" which have an apparent intrinsic difficulty in learning (e.g., martial arts, medicine). In addition there are Skill Types, representing requisite specialisations that must be taken (e.g., Guns - Handguns) and optional Skill Specialties which provide a +2 bonus when relevant (e.g., History - Early Middle Ages), the latter of which may be taken at extra cost. There are just over sixty base skills, typically described in a paragraph or two, with occasional system use information. In addition to this, there are several metaphysical powers (Healing, Holy Fire, Blinding, Blessing) for those who run supernatural stories; understandably these do better on the system information.
For those in a hurry there are twelve archetypical characters of varying powers are provided; Athlete, Biker, Cheerleader, Detective, Goth Chick, Hacker, Police Officer, Priest, Reporter, Scientist, Soldier, and Video Store Clerk. They're fully developed characters with an often amusing personality background. These are also obviously all modern setting characters, which is a little unfortunate as one of the strengths of the basic narrative is the variety of historical settings it can be used for. I also grimaced a bit at the proposed female roles (Cheerleader, Goth Chick, Reporter); the Cheerleader really is an idiot (suitable for zombie comedy only) and the Reporter is depicted as self-centred and still wearing heels, which fortunately doesn't affect her Speed. The Goth however has the Inspired power to control the zombies; so if you're female in the zombie apocalypse, you'd better be the weirdo. All this is easily enough to change of course - the game system doesn't differentiate between male and female - but cringeworthy nonetheless.
System
The game system, covered in the 'Shambling 101' chapter, allows for two main resolution modes; a random (dice or card) based system, or a straight comparison of values against target numbers, which is termed "story-driven roleplaying". The random method is simply a d10 roll plus appropriate attributes and skills, modified, and if the total is 9 or more, the action succeeds (on average, roughly equal to a 'challenge' target number in the story-driven method). If the action does not have an appropriate skill, the attribute doubles. In addition, in the random method, die-rolls are open-ended with raw results 1 and 10, with additional rolls at -5 and +5 respectively and the penalty or bonus added as appropriate if it results in a negative or above 10, or, as a simpler option an additional d6-1. An outcome table gives a description of six-plus degrees of success, but with no equivalent for failures. In addition there is no equivalent for the diceless method either, although that should have been trivial to include.
One of the great stylistic elements of zombie films is people freaking out with regular and close encounters with the walking dead and the use of firearms to prevent being zombie food. Fear tests are used for the former, with a Difficult Willpower test for most charaters, and a Simple Willpower test for Inspired characters, with modifiers depending on gore and hideousness. A failed test results on with a d10 roll on the Fear Table, with a Willpower reducing effects, but with the hideousness and gore modifiers adding to it. Characters can lose Essence as a result of such encounters, and if reduced below zero they're pretty much useless or crazy.
Combat is carried out in turns of roughly one to five seconds. Turn sequence is declaration of intents, initiative (determined by the GM, or d10+Dex), actions, and damage resolution. Multiple actions are at -2 per action, including dodge. There are various spot rules for targetted shots, multiple shots, corrosives, etc. Damage is meted out in Life Points (or Dead Point, if it's a zombie), with armor reducing damage by a random amount. Weapons inflict damage multiplied by the Strength of the attacker, for melee, or by a number modified by range for ranged weapons.
There are graduated effects at seriously wounded (five or less) and unconscious (zero or less), or at death's door (negative ten). Obviously there are scaling problems with such absolute values, which may be of concern if your GM is inspired by the ideas of zombie elephants or zombie mice. There is also a short foray into vehicle and air combat rules, because running over zombies or straffing them is par for the course. The Life Point and damage range is quite high, which does suit the genre of gradually grinding down the protagonists. Overall, there's some likeable features in the combat system, but in actual play it lacks variety.
Throughout the system, random die roll are also provided with bracketed values for the diceless version of system resolution. All of them, however, make an "off by one" error per die). For example, a .357 handgun does d8*4 damage in the random method or 16 (4*4) in the diceless method. This is incorrect of course, as indices on a die start at one, not zero. The diceless method should provide, for example, 18 (4.5*2). Not a big deal? Well, when that Walker takes you out with 2 Dead Points left, just remember your grade school statistics.
Equipment, Zombies and their Worlds
Taking up about a half of the book are the three chapters for equipment, building zombies and campaign worlds. They are necessary supplementary material and as such can be described in some brevity. The equipment chapter has a strong bias towards modern settings, but does provide a very good range of items in the zombie apocalypse barter economy. Items are usually given a couple of sentences of description, an encumbrance value, a comparative cost, and a rarity rating. The equipment is broken up into electronics, medical, scientific, surveillance, survival, and miscellaneous, before breaking into everyone's favourite of melee, ranged wepons, and armour. There's also a notable selection of vehicles, from a bicycle to a Huey helicopter.
The Anatomy of a Zombie chapter is a relatively short selection of various options that a Zombie Master can add to their campaign world and scenarios. After all, there is good variety in the film and literature, and for a game there must be some means of evaluating the relative powers. Some require a head-shot to kill (classic), others are disturbingly fast, or worryingly strong, or with with the dangerous requirement to eat the brains of the living with alarming regularity. All these things make can zombie more powerful than a baseline version and as a result they 'cost' more points. For those who want every more colour and glitter to their game, there's a small selection of fantastic powers as well, including such things as x-ray vision etc.
The final chapter provides eleven zombie world settings, with a background history, specialised zombies, and a few tantalising potential story trajectories. These are all quite delightful to get the creative juices moving; one chuckles with glee at the appearance of the zombie cow in 'Rise of the Walking Dead', reaches for J.G. Ballard in the all-too-alive foliage in 'Sacred Soil', and prepares for alternate medieval history in 'Dead at 1000' or a weird war II 'Mein Zombie'. They are all excellent game-worlds, but surprisingly without a single fully-fleshed out (pun intended) scenario.
Overall
Physically it is a solid piece of work, presentable, quite readable, and reasonably well organised. AFMBE really picked an excellent time for their initial release and the authors clearly understood the style and thematic content of the genre that they picked, and they developed the main focus of the game system to suit that genre with notable acumen. The game system itself is actually fairly mainstream, (d10+stat+skill, hit target number, open-ended), but has a few unncesssary rough edges which can and do come up as issues and exploits in actual play.
Style: 1 + .7 (layout) + .6 (art) + .8 (coolness) + .7 (readability) + .7 (product) = 4.5
Substance: 1 + .7 (content) + .7 (text) + .6 (fun) + .4 (workmanship) + .7 (system) = 4.5