[AFMBE] Cool Idea or Car Wreck?

[BeZurKur]

Hey guys,

I'm been applying the GNS theory -- as best as I understand it -- to my games, and they have shown considerable improvement.  We are having more fun while also experimenting with some new games.  Now I'm thinking of a running a short All Flesh Must Be Eaten game. 

The idea came to me from reading the Zombies comic book where a bus full of convicts, two police officers, and a US Marshal are stranded on a road.  Of course there is a strange rain that has an even stranger effect on the dead.  I thought this was a cool concept and blatantly ripped it off for the start of a short AFMBE story arc.  I like that as PC's die, there is a standby for them to take control of.  I also think that the dynamics between convicts along with the 3 law enforcers can be fun.  I really don't have much more past this and I think that's okay.  The game system is simple enough to introduce new characters and antagonists as we go along.

However, I still feel I'm missing something and think while this could be very cool, it can also be a recipe for disaster.  My problem is trying to identify what.  I think it centers around the games basic goal of simple survival horror.  The combat system looks smooth enough to give it a cinematic feel, but something is still missing.  We'll be playing in about two weeks, so I hope there is time to work this out.  What am I missing?

Joel

[Zak Arntson]

You've first got to specify how you imagine the game to play out. Try scripting out a few example scenes of how you'd like play to read, without any mention of rules. Then, make notes where the AFMBE system would be used. Any place that you think there should be a mechanic to reach a result and the AFMBE system isn't used. Those can be potential trouble areas during play.

In addition, you haven't clarified just how you and your group would like to play it out. Two examples:

• Players & characters making tough ethical decisions under intense pressure. Who do we save, if we can't save everyone? Is an officer's life worth more than a convict's?
• Players show off their bad-assness to the group, all the while trying to keep their character alive longer than everyone else's.

"Survival Horror" by itself won't provide you with a solid ground for a GNS decision. You've picked AFMBE as your system which, frankly, I don't know much about, so I'm mostly useless there. You may want to figure out how you want out of play first and pick a system second.

[BeZurKur]

Cool, thanks for the excellent tips.  You gave me somethings to think about.  While I'd like to say that my goal is something as lofty as ethical decisions of between life and death, the reality is F that: it's about being BADASS!  So I thought how to reward that.

Anyone who has played an RPG, is familiar with core mechanic behind AFMBE.  It is your basic stat+skill vs target number.  The differences between it and other similar systems are subtle, but they do help with a descriptive flair.  The thing is: how do I reward being badass?  It can't be experience, because honestly, I don't expect many to survive.  It is, afterall, the nature of the genre. 

This is what I came up with.  The basic die is an exploding 1d10 (roll again on a result of 10).  There are two types of characters for the players to choose from.  There are Survivors and Normals.  Survivors are tougher and better.  Half the character list is Survivor and the other half Normal.  I'm giving anyone playing a Normal a dice pool of 5d10 to begin with.  Anytime they make a roll, they may choose to grab extra dice from the pool and take the best result.  Everyone gets extra dice to their pool for being badass.  Normals get them as well for saving their skin, particularly at someone else's expense!

Would that do it?  Also, I have to consider what exactly defines badass, or it could be arbitrary.

[Zak Arntson]

I went and read the quick-start intro at Eden Studio's AFMBE page. I'm assuming that the full rules include more gear, more skills, more monster stats, and an experience point system.

As far as your rules additions, I strongly encourage the players themselves give each other badass dice. This way it's not everyone impressing just you, but everyone working to impress each other.

An exploding die may cause too many successes. In survival horror, failures are a large part of the action. I think the badass pool would work fine enough.

You may also want to allow a "rewind" feature. If someone gives you a badass die, you can opt to not roll it now, but save it for a "rewind", where the player ups the badass-ness of his intentions and gets to use one or more saved up dice.

Chuck (with 2 badass dice): "Okay, Chief Striker hammers on the zombie's ribcage with the fire extinguisher."
[Rolls are made, it's a close failure]
Chuck: "Shoot. Let's rewind that. Chief Striker shoves the fire extinguisher nozzle into the zombie's belly before turning it on, exploding the fucker."
[Chuck adds his 2 badass dice to his failed roll, for a success. It rains zombie.]

Lastly, think in terms of the following results:

• No, And: A failure isn't just a "you miss", but has a flavor and furthers the peril. "The zombie writhes, grabbing the fire extinguisher from your hands."
• Yes, But: A failure (or close success) has consequences. "The zombie's ribcage caves in, splashing your eyes with rotten viscera. You'll be taking a -2 penalty on your next action."
• Yes, And: Success isn't just a "you hit for X damage", but continues the success. "Bones pop as the zombie's torso separates from his legs. He's down and out, and strapped to his twitching ankle is a small holster. And a gun."

However you handle things, please, let me know how it works out!

[Thomas D]

The idea came to me from reading the Zombies comic book where a bus full of convicts, two police officers, and a US Marshal are stranded on a road.  ...  I also think that the dynamics between convicts along with the 3 law enforcers can be fun...

However, I still feel I'm missing something and think while this could be very cool, it can also be a recipe for disaster.  My problem is trying to identify what.

I keep thinking it's going to be in the initial setup of the campaign.  My gut feeling is depending on who on the bus the players initially control will make or break the game. 

Without knowing your game group, I'd be wary of making all the players control convicts.  With all or some of the players in control of the police, you've got people in authority, people who are supposed to be in charge.  During the initial game sessions, the characters should think that rescue is coming, that this is a temporary thing, and that society hasn't collapsed.  As part of a long-term campaign, you'll have a settlement or safehouse where authority figures are forced to trust and live with the people they're in charge of incarcerating.  By the very nature of that type of campaign, you'll have a caste system in place which could be a springboard for a great many stories.

If you start them all off as convicts, they'll realize that the other convicts are on the same "team", making the police presence easy targets.  You're playing in early-rise, so the convicts won't have much of a feeling that they're in serious long-term trouble and that they'd need someone with a police officer's training to form part of the group.  The cops are just the guys with the guns you need.  I'd think that during the initial chaos, you'd have the convicts either overwhelm the guards or escape from them.  When that happens, you're missing out on Zak's juicy moral dilemna "Is an officer's life worth more than a convict's?"

Once the convicts deal with the police, the fact that they're convicts won't have any impact on the game.  At that point the basic setting information won't be important -- these guys just might as well be bikers, RenFair actors, or independent game developers.  You've got to keep that initial setting conflict going for at least a few game sessions.

[BeZurKur]

Damn Zak, that is some good shit!  I'm posting the "No, and... ; Yes, but... ; Yes, and..." guidelines to the inside of my screen.  The Badass dice with the players deciding who gets more is definitely the way to go.  I particularly like that the player must up the ante and badass quality to benefit from the dice. 

Thomas, that is an good observation of an all convict group.  I've been roleplaying with most of these guys since high-school and assumed one or two would gravitate toward the cops, but man, that would screw the game if they didn't.  Still, an easy fix now that I know about it.  Thanks.

I don't see this becoming a full campaign, but if the first few sessions go well and everyone wants to, I don't see why not.  The bus was orginally heading to a penitentiary, which can make an excellent fort.  I will post the results of the game.  I'm feeling good about this -- much better than before. 

Joel

[Zak Arntson]

Great! Can't wait to hear how it goes. One last point: You may want to come up with a method to limit the gifting of badass dice. Say, each "chapter" or "scene", each player has 2 or 3 badass dice they can give to another player. Something like that. Otherwise you may run into players gaming the system, and just constantly giving each other dice.

[Roger]

Here's my take on what could go horribly wrong:

GM:  Oh noes, here comes another wave of zombies!

Players:  We fight them off!

Repeat a dozen times.


The issue that I could see arising is that there's the risk the players will be totally reactive to what is happening.  They don't really have any interesting choices to make.  So, in effect, they're back on the railroad.

One idea to help remedy this:  give them a real decision to make about whether to stay put, or to abandon the bus and make for the small town nearby.  Or the nearer-yet farmhouse.  Etc etc.  That's just an example of my line of thought here.

This might not really be a real risk for your particular group, but I'd give it a bit of thought.


Cheers,
Roger

[Thomas D]

Oh, and the other thing to remember is that zombie movies aren't about zombies, they're about the survivors in the zombie movies.  They're bound to come across another group of survivors who might not take so kindly to having to share food, space, and ammo with a group of orange jumpsuit wearing career criminals.  After the initial scene with the zombies, I'd seriously think about having the zombies be more in the background and have main conflicts be between the police, criminals, and other survivors your group comes across.

[BeZurKur]

I've been wondering about the same, so I'm considering secret goals for each character in the hopes of getting some crazy synergy.  For example, the US Marshal's goal could be to get everyone to the penitentiary.  However, there is a mobster convict who believes if he can get to a landline and manage to stay in one place, his mobster buddies can bust him out.  I'm usually not to keen on preset goals because they feel artificial to me, but since this story arc has pre-made characters, I suppose pre-made goals aren't so bad.  This way the players will try to push the story to reach their goal and wrestle among each to do so.  Meanwhile, zombies will encroach closer as they argue amongst themselves.  The players must figure how to best stay alive while achieving the character goal.

[BeZurKur]

I just finished our first session of Badass Zombies, and holy shit, it was a whole lot of fun!  I have to thank Zak and Thomas: you guys made it a success.  The Badass Dice went over awesome with players yelling BADASS as they were leaving to their cars.  They really liked the idea of tangible pool of dice keeping track of "score."  In fact, although I've played with this group for 15 years, I was surprised how competitive they were. 

Thomas, you diverted disaster: I did add the requirement that at least one player had to play the law and was shocked no one gravitated to them.  There was a roll-off, and low roll got to be the US Marshal.  Fortunately for him, he was one bad dude, because almost instantly it was everyone against him.  Of course, he was armed and they weren't, but man my friends are cut-throat.  I sprung the zombies earlier than I anticipated to keep them from killing each other!  They didn't know it was a zombie game, so when it happened they got a big surprise and laugh.

It was at this point that they were allowed to look at their secret goals.  Again, it went over very well.  There was very good synergy that I had not even planned.  I deliberately made the goals not necessarily contrary to each other, but obtrusive.  No goal has them fight over the same thing, but one person's goal (the mobster) is to stay put, while another convicts is to find a vehicle.  When they read their goals, they all realized they need to work together to achieve it and betray at the right moment.  Immediately, they started helping the US Marshal they were just minutes before trying to catch unaware.  I suppose brain-hungry zombies can cause that change of heart. 

Anyway, we are meeting again in two weeks.  Hopefully it goes as well as today's session.

[Zak Arntson]

Good to hear! Any chance you've the time to write up a play summary? You know, with notes on what went right, what went wrong, where the system helped, hindered your play goals, etc. etc.? I'd love to see that.

[BeZurKur]

Sure thing, Zak. 

Background
All right, I never ran a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, but the general mechanics are simple, so I wasn't too worried.  The group – usually five, including me – was only four that day.  They never played AFMBE either, so I thought I could use this to my advantage.  I told them we were trying something new, but I didn't tell them what.  I knew because they were going in blind, I needed to help set the atmosphere. 

Preparation
I should mention: I like stupid little gimmicks.  My prep for the game came in designing the pre-made characters for them.  Eden Studios' game is called Unisystem and they use it for all their settings, so it was easy to find a character sheet that did not make any reference to zombies.

I stuffed the character sheets into envelopes.  On the front of the envelope was the picture of the character, physical description, and their background, including what they were convicted for.  There was no game info on the envelope.  The pictures were famous people I grabbed from the internet.  Also inside the envelopes were folded pieces of card with their secret goal. 

The prep took me longer than I would have liked, but most of it was self-inflicted.  I edited the pictures to make them look more uniform as well as statted eight characters to a system I was unfamiliar with.  Character generation is point based and I stuck to making them "balanced" to avoid any bias I might have towards a character.  There are two types of characters: Norms and Survivors.   Survivors are built on more points.  There is an equal number of each on the bus.  Actually, I did note that part on the envelopes and told the players that the one with the mark are built on more points.

The secret goals were a sticking point too.  I wondered if this was too much like railroading.  I decided it wasn't.  There was no other prep to the game, such as maps to explore or a major villain to defeat.  The players don't even need to find out the zombie cause if they don't want to.  It is very open-ended, so I thought that structure in the form of goals would be okay. 

Some of the secret goals are RP in style, such as calling the mob friends and waiting for them to arrive.  Others are meta-game and can even grant some director stance to the player.  For example, there is a white-supremacist convict and his secret goal reads: You are a scumbag and deserve to die an agonizing death to zombies.  Get yourself killed to zombies and re-introduce yourself into the game at an appropriate point as a zombie to kill someone in the party.  If you succeed, take three Badass Dice for your character – uh, the living one. 

By the way, all the players have limited Director capacity.  If a player asks, "Is there a farmhouse around," lo and behold, there is a farmhouse.  (I think I understand and am using the Director stance properly.  Please let me know if otherwise.)

Introduction
I began the session by telling them about the Badass Dice pool and that they want to be badass.  I received a hint of what I should have expected here when a player asked is the goal to end with more Badass Dice at the end of the game.  I quickly thought about it and liked that you have to sometimes trade your commodity of points in order to obtain success, so I agreed to it.  "Sure, you want to win by having more dice than anyone else," I said.  This might bite me in the ass, however.  Because they award the dice to each other, I noticed a hesitancy to give them out.  I was hoping to have more of a conflicted attitude about the dice.  However, it might be too one sided.  It looks like I erred here: I'm not sure.

I kicked off the game by describing them (as in the actual players) alone having the house to themselves.  The wives and girlfriends are out for the day and they've set the personal goal of staying indoors with nothing but their boxers.  The only exception is when the delivery guy arrives with the pizza.  They reach for the remote, go to their favorite movie channel (some funny jokes here about $14.95 later and Playboy channel) and catch the start of a film.  They missed the title, but the prologue is some arrests, followed by court scenes.  They think they recall the name of the movie: Badass.  I place a folded piece of paper on my screen facing them.  It reads Badass.  I figure every time they look in my direction, they get a brief reminder of what they should be doing. 

Also, we are playing in the living room.  It is very relaxed and I'm using the ottoman for my screen and books.  Other than that, it probably looks more like hanging-out than playing. 

I then reach for my I-pod and the stack of character envelopes.  They read the fronts while I play Nine Inch Nails, Burn to help set the mood followed by Marilyn Manson, Cake and Sodomy.  I tell them to pick any character but that someone needs to play the US Marshal.  I'm really grateful to Thomas for pointing that out because apparently they were all leaning to convicts.  One player asks if they can all be police officers.  This threw me for a loop.  I say, yeah but they'll be pussies if they did.  Undermining their masculinity seemed to work because they nodded and continued through the selection.  Two of the three players get a big kick of the character list but the third player seems a bit uninterested in them.  He is the biggest zombie fan, though, and I trust that if I can keep him just marginally interested for a little while, he'll have the biggest bang. 

They pick their characters: US Marshal, Dwayne Jefferson (picture is Samuel Jackson); mobster hit man, Anthony Diluca (John Travolta), and general sociopath, Zeke Rowling (Big John Stud).  It takes us a while to finally get here, but it does a lot for the mood and we had fun so far. 

The Game Begins (Finally!)
There all in the bus heading to the penitentiary.  It's early in the morning and the sun is rising, trying to break through the storm clouds.  It's been a stormy night and the bus is on a winding road in PA.  The storm is somehow playing havoc with the communications.  Neither the CB nor cell-phones are working.  This is the part ripped-off from the comic. 

One of the player-controlled convicts notices that something is up and begins to act up.  The players have not looked to their secret goals yet; I've reserved that for when the first zombie shows up.  Still it doesn't prevent this player controlling Anthony Diluca, the mobster hitman, from already trying something.  He begins howling he doesn't feel good and they're going to have to pull-over.  Dwayne Jefferson, the US Marshal, is a far-from-the-book kind of guy.  He orders for the bus to pull over and everyone is stunned.  Anthony stands all smug-like and Dwayne punches him, knocking the hand-cuffed Anthony back into his seat.  "Feeling any better, Diluca?"  Says Dwayne and then orders the bus driver to continue.  That was unexpected.  The player running Anthony calls for a Badass vote and we all agree that it was Badass.  While it was cool and worked, the rules were standard AFMBE.  The Dwayne player made a good roll and benefited from it. 

The bus then rounds a bend and there is someone crossing the road.  It's actually a zombie, although no one knows it yet.  The bus driver swerves, flipping the bus, and everyone goes unconscious.  That's it.  After this point I have nothing scripted.  From here it is up to the players.  They make their rolls to recover.  I affirm that anything can happen and gesture to the stack of character envelopes.  They roll and fortunately for Dwayne, he recovers first.  When Anthony wakes up, he realizes the bus is on its side.  The player makes a perception check and from his position between seats, can see Dwayne trying to revive the other two cops.  He figures this is his chance and charges.  The other player controlling Zeke Rowling (the huge sociopath pictured as Big John Stud) follows. 

Notice that Zeke hasn't done much.  Like I said, despite everything that has happened, the player is only mildly interested.  However, I didn't think the other two players would be so much at each other's throats and controlling the story.  I know if I can get to the zombies, his interest will spike.  I need to find a lull between the other two to do so. 

Dwayne makes his perception checks draws his gun and attempts to wing the charging Anthony, but he misses.  The player announces he's going to use his Badass die.  Okay we rewind to Anthony charging and remind him that it needs to be more Badass.  He settles for standing and planting the barrel of the 10mm onto Anthony's forehead then saying, "Coming to help, Diluca?"  We agree that's pretty Badass and he rolls, succeeding. 

At this point I'm thinking I need zombies and I need them now, otherwise, these guys will kill other and it'll just be player vs. player.  As Anthony slowly starts backing away, Anthony and Dwayne hear something overhead (which is actually the bus' side since it flipped.)  I had described earlier in the session that the bus driver was thrown from the bus through the windshield and was lying dead in the street and rain. 

CRASH!  The bus driver drops through one of the side windows and onto Zeke.  This was the best part of the session.  I describe the scene and a player asks, "You mean... like a... like a zombie?"  I answer exactly like a zombie and as they are watching the movie at home, they realize they've seen the trailer to this move.  The movies' full title is Badass Zombies!  I then lay another bent card over my screen so the full title reads.  They were surprised and we all had a good laugh, including the Zeke player.

After our small break, we picked up the action again.  Zeke is wrestling with the zombie and Anthony dived between two seats to take cover.  Zeke is strong and realizes this thing is strong too as he keeps it from biting a chunk of flesh from his face.  Dwayne calls to the bus driver and after hesitating for a round, decides to take the shot.  The players did this on their own.  There are rules in the book for fear and surprise, but because they simply rolled with it, I didn't feel the need to find those.  Anyway, Dwayne fires, blasting the jaw off the zombie, but the thing is still up.  It drops Zeke and lunges at Dwayne.  I make the roll and botch it.  Looking to the post it with Zak's idea of "No and... Yes but... Yes and," the zombie falls between the seats onto Anthony. 

I forgot to mention, at the appearance and realization that the bus driver was a zombie, the players read their secret goals.  Zeke's goal is to find a vehicle and escape in it.  Anthony's goal is to call the mob and bring them to him.  Dwayne's goal is to get as many of the convicts to the jail – alive. 

As Anthony is scrambling with the zombie, he uses sleight of hand to pocket the driver's cell-phone without anyone noticing.  The player told me this action when Dwayne's player stepped away for a few minutes.  Normally I'm not keen on player secrets.  I figure after the years we've played, we can distinguish between player knowledge and character knowledge.  However, considering the goals are secret (although the actions they take to complete them aren't) the player controlling Anthony got the short end of the stick a few times, so I didn't think much harm if Dwayne's player had no knowledge of the cell-phone.  He makes a killer roll and snatches the phone.  The action picks up again when Dwayne's player returns. 

Anthony is screaming, "Get this thing off of me," and Dwayne pulls the zombie off.  Meanwhile, Zeke is doing a pull-up through the broken window.  He looks around and asks if there is a farmhouse near with a pick-up in front.  It sounds reasonable, so I say sure.  This is the mild director stance I mentioned earlier.  Zeke wraps the shackles around the bumper and pulls, snapping the chains.  Inside the bus, Anthony is still screaming at Dwayne to kill the zombie.  The player makes an observation how he is now cheering for Dwayne instead of trying to kill him.  Dwayne makes the shot and finally puts the zombie down.  Outside, Zeke is running for the farm while Dwayne grabs a Mag-Lite and shotgun.  The two officers are finally up.  Dwayne tells them to guard while he goes to chase Zeke, and we call it a session there.

That's it for now.  Let me know where I need to clarify.  Thanks for help, guys.

Joel

[BeZurKur]

I've been thinking about this game, why the first session worked, and how the Forge applies to it.  The Forge has taught me to empower the players and craft with them.  I think this session did that in Sim fashion.  I didn't consider which aspect of the creative agenda I was going to address when I had this idea, and that was risky on my part.  However, I did work it in when I was prepping for it even if I wasn't aware of it on a conscious level.  I simply recognized it as effect. 

Although Ron make it a point in his essays that no style of play is better than the next, it just is what a group chooses to address in their game, I get the vibe here that Nar play is indeed the better form.  I'd agree that it is harder to achieve, but I don't know if it is better. 

I think of Quentin Tarantino's films, particularly his latter ones.  They drip style.  Consider the Bride character in Kill Bill.  Yeah, I'm sure you can draw some theme of vengeance and when it is enough, but Tarantino doesn't really explore that until the last scene in Vol 2.  Up to that point, while there are some mild allusions to it, the films are about kicking a whole lotta ass.  Jackie Brown on the other hand explores the characters more and the choices they make.  Still, I'd rather watch Kill Bill.  (Quick aside: Pulp Fiction combines both and a result is his best film to date as a result.)

To bring it back to gaming, I guess I'm saying that a session of good Sim play is better than an average session of Nar play.  While I recognize that Nar play is more difficult and as a result more rewarding when it pays off, we shouldn't scratch off Sim games or games that favor Gamism.  While I don't think my session was Nar play, or that I ever aspired it to be, the techniques I picked up here at the Forge with the suggestions of poster helped make it a success.  Thanks.

[BlackTerror]

the films are about kicking a whole lotta ass.

Actually, this essay makes a convincing argument that there's much more going on in the story than might be noticed at first glance (and not a simple vengeance tale). Yes, through the entire movie, not just the last scene. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that.