This contains all you need to have a go at All Flesh Must Be Eaten apart from a few polyhedral dice and some ready-meals for your zombies... er, I mean players. It starts of by explain what is one of the main selling points of this game line: it has no setting! That sounds a bit odd, but what it means is that if you want to play a game about zombies, you can set it anywhere - past, present, future, fantasy, whatever - using these simple rules and maybe one of the array of setting books that are available. The adventure here is set in contemporary America, and it's suggested that for best effect the GM (or Zombie Master as he is known in this game) does not let on that the group is about to play a game about zombies, just hand out the Archetypes provided!

Next comes an outline of the rules - a version of the Eden Studios Unisystem - beginning with the concept of Archetypes, the way in which player-characters are described in the game. There are brief notes on what the character sheet means, then a collection of six - a doctor, an FBI agent, a gang banger, a good ol' boy, a marine and a soccer mom - are provided. A motley lot, perhaps, but the idea is that they are thrown together by circumstance and have to work together to survive. They are followed by some more rules stuff: task resolution, luck, getting scared, and of course combat.

Then comes the adventure itself, 'The Waking Dead'. It starts with our motley crew waking up in hospital after a mysterious disaster of which they seem to be the only survivors... and things go downhill from there. It's well constructed to both provide a thorough introduction to the workings of the game and be quite exciting in its own right! Neatly, it starts off pretty linear and becomes more freeform as it goes on, allowing the Zombie Master to take it in any direction - and use it, if desired, as a campaign starter rather than merely an introduction to the game.

The party awakens without equipment or indeed clothes apart from hospital gowns (the sort that leave your rear end hanging out!), so they will have to scavenge as they explore. There's an added twist that they are having strange dreams which may lead them to safety, but there are decisions to be made here, which sets this above many introductory adventures with a real feeling of accomplishing something, of getting somewhere.

If you are new to All Flesh Must Be Eaten this makes an excellent introduction. Likewise, if you want to kick off a contemporary zombie game in great style, this will serve very well - just add in whatever you need to steer the action in the right direction!

Return to The Waking Dead page.

Reviewed: 19 July 2017