All Flesh Must Be Eaten

[Jib]

Have any of you played All Flesh Must Be Eaten? How is it? I noticed it has dozens of splat books out. Thought it might be fun. Of course I'd rather do something more serious in a Zombie invasion, more like the Walking Dead than say Shaun of the Dead.

[Megan Robertson]

It has an interesting approach. By and large, the reason why there are zombies roaming around, and what they want - apart from brains, of course - are left up to the GM. The splat books are intended to be taken separately as each gives you a setting - dungeons, the pro-wrestling scene, the old west, etc - in which you can let your zombie hordes loose. It scales quite well to allow either a one-shot horror-fest or a full-blown campaign in which the characters not only have to survive but can find out what's going on and put paid to it.

[Sigil]

My big objection is that the splat books should have been more fluffy. It is something you could bring into any game, so having lots of crunch just made it a game i do not have time for.

Pathfinder zombie apocalypse? Easy enough
4e zombie apocalypse? Easy enough
GURPS zombie apocalypse? Easy enough
1st edition zombie apocalypse? Easy enough
Call of Cthulhu zombie apocalypse? Easy enough

The only system I cannot readily imagine is zombie apocalypse for "Toon" and even that could be done I am sure.

Anyway, I just was never clear why I needed to learn a new set of rules to play a genre game.

[Audrin_Noreys]

It's been a while since I've played the game but I have a positive impression on it and recommend it. I may be misremembering but the only complaint that I had with it was some of the rules for skills were a little too specific and separated. If I remember correctly, you could make a soldier skilled with an assault rifle but if he found a bolt action hunting rifle he would have no skill in at at all or suffer some fairly extreme penalties. It's been about seven years since I played it so I may be mistaken here.
Otherwise, as a dedicated zombie apocalypse game it does a really good job and the rules allow you to run anything from a Romero zombie fest to a Return of the Living Dead style game as well as mutant super zombies.

[Stefan Hill]

It's awesome. We only ever use the Core Rulebook and the Players Book* (whatever it is called). I too prefer my Zombies a little more serious and intense. The combat system and depending on the method of becoming a Zombie do this nicely. The system works well for any modern setting however.

Good luck,
S.

*Not really needed, but it does have some nice things to help players develop their character.

[TigerDave]

I've always considered tone something that I have control over. For instance, I ran a Paranoia campaign for a long time. Only difference was that I ran it in "serious" mode rather than tongue in cheek, and even called my sessions "Justified Paranoia". I'm sure you can do the same here.

I've been told that the Unisystem is pretty good and very maleable. I personally won't get involved with Eden Studios' games because their production of gaming material is brutally behind the power curve. While I strongly support the "game will be done when it's done" line of reasoning, they've been what I call catastrophically late on several products that have become the literary equivalent of vaporware. I have a hard time getting excited for a game company that has this much difficulty bringing materials to shelf, regardless of the reason. Again, I don't fault their intentions, but I wouldn't get wrapped up about any future product listings as "must-have" material to be looking forward to; you'll be waiting a very long time.

[Dennis Harry]

I have played it a few times and always found it very enjoyable. Not sure how it runs as a system though as I was only a player and have not played it enough to really remember the mechanics.

[P.H. Dungeon]

I've run it a few times, and overall I like the system. It isn't probably the best system around, but it does modern games pretty good, and it is pretty straight forward ruleswise (similar to d20 except rolling d10s and adding modifiers). Firearms have the potential to be very dangerous, which is IMO a good feature in a modern game. I think I would prefer running Unisystem than d20 modern. I'm not sure if I'd like it better than Savage Worlds though.

It does serious as well as more light hearted.

[feytharn]

The Zombie books are more or less a way to do an original approach to a úniversal system.

Sure, Zombies are the "Core Enemy" presented and the zombie worlds in the splatbooks are variations of zombie apocalypse, but you can use the unisystem to run almost any game you want with the splatbook giving you tools to work wit (starships and futuretech in all tomorrows zombies, martial arts in enter the zombie etc.)

I ran a Serenity game (no zombies, no aliens) with the rules without any problems.

If you want to take a closer look at the unisystem, of which "all flesh must be eaten" is just one incarnation, the Witchcraft RPG is a free download. It contains the core unisystem rules and rules for some supernatural stuff not found in the AFmbE books.