AFMBE Morsel - The Apartment Building

AFMBE Morsels

My living document on how I plan to create "morsels" is here:  http://derekas.blogspot.com/2017/06/villages-of-living-dead.html

The Apartment Building

These apartments were once a high class hotel. After the war, business dried up and the owners eventually closed it. Sixty years later, an investor purchased the properly and remodeled it into urban apartments. The décor is exposed wood and steel.

The building is eight levels tall with sixteen apartments on floors 2-8. The first level is a small grocer, drug store, conference rooms for rent and the apartment sales office. The basement serves as the home to all things maintenance and property management.

Sights

Person:  Miles

1.        Miles is Miles Rose, the investor who purchased the old hotel and turned it into the apartment complex

2.        Miles ransacked all of the apartments, collecting all of the alcohol he could find, prior to securing his hideout

3.        Mile is not from the area, but instead from where the vector originates

Place:  The Roof

1.        The only survivors in the building are on the roof

2.        A military crate missed its drop location; instead, it landed on the roof of a building where all the residents are zombies

3.        Prior to the fall, residents set up a mini-farm on the roof, complete with vegetable gardens and a chicken coup

Thing:  Water

1.        A water main broken somewhere in the building and water is free flowing inside the building

2.        The former survivors who lived here left behind a roof full of buckets and barrels to collect water

3.        There is an access point to the sewers in the basement; it was originally an access to coal tunnels, until those tunnels were converted

Threats

1.        The disease vector swept through the building very quickly and 85% of the residents are dead inside

2.        The handful of survivors in the building are all together (on the roof or in an apartment). They are not getting along and a major blowout will happen soon. They are not opposed to using the player characters to do the dirty work in a fight.

3.        During the rise, the inside of the building suffered a large amount of damage:  fires broken out, faucets were left in the on position, windows were left open allowing animals and the environment into the building, and residents broke through walls and floors in efforts to escape the zombies or the disasters.

Specific Locations within the Community

The Roof

Prior to the rise the roof was used by the buildings younger residents as a hangout. There is an old dinner table, moldy couch, 1D10 (5) buckets to collect rain, and 1D8 (4) Norm level archetypes on the roof. There is an access door to the stairs into the building. These are not the fire escape stairs to the ground floor. The door is held shut by boards shoved under the threshold. The fire escape is accessible from the roof.

Elevator Shaft

The elevator shaft does not contain a ladder. However, the support structure inside the shaft is such that ascent and descent is possible with several climbing rolls. The elevator shaft descends past the basement level by four feet. This area is filled with mechanical parts, machinery, and a century of trash. The elevator car is currently at the third floor. The top of the elevator car is latched shut and is opened with an easy strength check. The elevator car doors are open due to a mess of bodies in the way.

Two Bedroom Apartment 

This apartment was the residence of Peter and Emily Mclane. The couple retired from teaching a decade ago and decided to travel the USA and Canada. Their apartment is overrun with souveniers, chotchkees, oddities, no water, very little in the way of boxed or canned food, and no weapons. Native American masks line one wall in the living room and American Literature books that only a college professor could love line the other. According the calendar hanging in the hallway, they are in San Francisco until the 12^th of next month.

The Basement

The basement contains everything the maintenance crew would use, including spare motors and tools. The elevator engine room is also located here in the basement. A sewer manhole provides access to old steam tunnels. A partially bricked up door leads to the old coal tunnels, which now provide access to the sewer system. There is no food or drink down here.

Connectivity

Travel times and difficulties to nearby, known communities

Place	Travel Time by Foot	Notes
Airport	1D10 (5) hours	Surrounded by zombies
Big Box Store / Supermarket	1D4+2 (3) hours	Aggressive group currently controls this location
Community College	2D6 (3) hours	Weak defenses versus zombies, little to no defenses versus humans
Hospital	1D4 (2) hours	Some floors are safe, some are not, surrounding by roving bands of zombies
Hotel	1D4 (2) hours	Defenses are not the great, but the residents are nice enough
Office Complex	1D6 (3) hours	Poorly organized community with a Lord of the Flies feel to it
Police Station	1D4 (2) hours	Less than ten people here, none are police and all of the weapons were looted days ago

Morsels - Villages of the Living Dead

This article is to serve as a host for my outline for creating communities and adventures for All Flesh Must Be Eaten games. It is a living document and will be updated as I develop material.

Last updated:  06.16.2017

Morsels are quick write-ups about different communities, neighborhoods, and villages where the living still live and the dead walk the Earth. They can be expanded into meal courses by adding notes regarding Before the Fall, During the Rise, and After the Fall to the 30 second elevator pitch section and if desired, an archetype or zombie stats at the end. Detailing the entire location would make it a full-on meal. 

The Sights represent rumours (or truths) the player characters have heard about the location. You will notice they will contradict each other. The Zombie Master will need to decide which is the truth for their setting.

Threats are three optional threats to the community the Zombie Master can weave into the story. 

Connectivity is not yet finalized. I am imagining something similar to my subway rules, but I need to revisit it. This may be something that becomes its own minigame and not part of the morsel write ups. 

Goals are a separate structure, but operate similar to Morsels. Each goal will have three potential rumours to go with it. These can form the jumping off point for adventures. I will move these to their own post, eventually. However, until I work up their creation process, these are staying here.

Neighborhood Name

30 second elevator pitch about the location and community

Sights

Person

1.        Xxx

2.        Xxx

3.        Xxx

Place

1.        Xxx

2.        Xxx

3.        Xxx

Thing

1.        Xxx

2.        Xxx

3.        Xxx

Threats

1.        Xxx

2.        Xxx

3.        Xxx

Specific Locations within the Community

Up to ten

Connectivity

Distance and/or difficulty to other local neighborhoods or landmarks

Goals

Water

1.        Person

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        xxx

2.        Place

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        xxx

3.        Thing

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        xxx

Food

1.        Person

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        Xxx

2.        Place

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        Xxx

3.        Thing

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        xxx

Protection from the elements

1.        Person

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        Xxx

2.        Place

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        Xxx

3.        Thing

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        Xxx

Military strength / Defenses

1.        Person

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        Xxx

2.        Place

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        Xxx

3.        Thing

a.        Xxx

b.        Xxx

c.        xxx

AFMBE Discussion 2

The "how to" discussion regarding AFMBE came up, again. This time, I typed up a different response, but linked to the first one here on the blog.

All of this is YWWV. There is no tl;dr and I may wander all over the place. Another treatise on this is here.



If you can, read One of the Living and steal everything you can from it. If you steal nothing, read it and let it sink in. There are gems in there, even if you (and I) don't see them at first.

If you need a starting point, download the free demo scenario and use/modify it or purchase the Zombie Master screen and use/modify the scenario in there. It's nice to have someplace to start.



Sketch out an outline of where you want the story to go. For me, this means locations. Set milestones (signal flares, goal posts, whatever) of where they need to go.
Rise starts in a bank
Tease with a safe place
Escape to make-shift hideout
Escape town, hideout in the country
Join up with military base
Head for the coast



Don't just focus on the zombies. The real enemy is other people. Have the characters meet plausible NPCs who are either interested in joining the characters, avoiding the characters, or taking things from the characters. Make sure you know why for each of them. Not all bad guys are as big of murder hobos as the characters, but some of them are. Start slowly with the NPCs and build up to more, then wipe out a bunch of them. Rinse, repeat.



Look up spooky and abandoned places on the Internet, use them.

Google Maps is your friend. If you can pull up views of Google Maps during game play, half your work is done. No, the characters may not have access to the Internet, but your players do. The characters would likely know the town they are in, so let the players use Google Maps to know it, too. Let them do the heavy lifting of where they want to go, you just need to have encounters ready.



Know what caused the rise, how to cure it (if it can be cured), how it spreads, and how quickly it will spread. Does it take death and then they come back? Does it take infection and then in "X" hours they turn? Is it a combination? Is it supernatural in origin and only certain people turn? Are certain people immune? If so, what causes the immunity? (The "greeen flu" in Left 4 Dead is not contagious to everyone, including the characters. They only die from trauma.)

Know everything about the zombies you plan to use. How long does it take them to decay? will they decay? Will they develop other abilities over time? If so, start thinking about what those are now, not later. Drop hints at it now. So, if they will develop claws or talons over time, make sure one of the characters gets scratched up real bad during the rise. It may not infect them, but they know those sharp nails exist.



How is the government responding? How do they lose control? The same general idea for the rest of the world. It's something for the back of your mind.



What zombie movies, TV shows, or other media do your players like? Can you work in a single scene in your game that is similar to one single scene from a movie? Similar, not exactly the same. fit it to your world.

Steal from everything you find. Left 4 Dead has specific locations in each adventure. You move from point a to point b. You start at point b and move to point c. It's an easy set up and something that many Zombie Masters don't do. It's structure. Even if they stay in the abondoned train car for a few weeks, eventually they will need to move on.



When the world ends, noises carry. Generator hums can be heard a mile away. Gun shots carry for a long ways. Car engines echo. Bad guys, desperate families, and the dead can follow those sounds (or ground vibrations).



Hurt them. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

Emotionally:  If they lose track of their family, make them deal with it. Maybe they cross off their family and it leads to their Batman/Punisher/Murder Hobo ways. Maybe they insist on breaking from the group to find their family. That's fine, let them, and go through it as quickly as is possible. A single roll or two to find them (Per or Int + Notice or Area Knowledge type of skill and if necessary a combat or drive test to get there). Let them fight through the danger on-site and discover they are either alive or dead. Now get them back to the group. Let the other players watch the situation and be just as immersed as the other player. It's gold for buy-in into the setting.

Mentally:  This shit breaks you down. where do we go? What will be there? What will be in the way? When do I get to sleep and who do I think will make a good watch person to make sure I don't die? Make them roll Fear Tests. If they have silly things in their background such as liking to take risks, make them roll Willpower to resist doing something really, really stupid - I mean awesome! Where can they find food? Who else will be there looking for food?

Write down their Qualities and Drawbacks. Make yourself make them role play through the situations where their Q/Ds are appropriate.

Physically:  Unisystem can be quite deadly. Let all of them take Hard to Kill. In fact, if they have any Quality points leftover and they haven't maxed out on HtK already, make them do it. Limit all of the other crazy, survival bonuses to 1 or 2 characters at most. No, you can't all have Fast Reaction Time. No, you can't all have Situational Awareness.

Do not let them have machine guns and the like. No one will leave them sitting around for random characters to pick up and they'll elevate the violance in the game to a level that is not sustainable and filled with survival horror. A 9mm pistol, a baseball bat, a hockey stick, a shotgun? Sure. Hand them an ammo sheet and remind them to mark off a bullet every single time they shoot that gun. Every. Single. Time. They will eventually tell you they are marking it off before you remind them. Until they do, "Lose a bullet from your ammo sheet." You can find those ammo sheets here.

Describe the damage they recieve. It's not just you got shot. It's you take 12 points of damage. How much does your bullet proof vest abosorb? Okay, so that leave 4 points through, which doubles to 8 once it hits flesh. How much are you down to? Then, you can tell them where the bullet entered and *if* if left the body. It's also the baseball bat hits you on the left arm as you try to dodge out of the way. You take 20 points of damage. Make a Difficult Strength test to avoid dropping your weapon. You failed, you hear a crack and feel unbearable pain as the bat breaks your arm and you drop your gun.

Keep in mind that combat kills. By keeping the weapons on the lower end of the damage scale, you can keep it somewhat realistic and the characters might survive. Remember, nobody wants to die. Not the characters, not the NPCs they are fighting. Some people might actually give up or run away. The most intense AFMBE combat I ran had 2 PCs on 2 NPCs. The NPCs had a shotgun and a baseball bat. The PCs had a .38 and a machete. The PCs thought they had the situation under control with the baseball bat NPC, until the shotgun NPC spun out from behind a tree and put the PC with the machete on the ground with one shot. The PC with the .38 got in a lucky shot on the shotgunner, but then the baseball bat NPC attacked the PC with the .38 with punches and kicks (he had been disarmed). There were several botched rolls and eventually the NPC climbed a fence into a neighborhood and got away.

And running a good combat scene is hard. It's just as hard as plausible NPCs. However, mediocre combat is easy, if not as emotionally intense.

You need to decide if your game will involve PC death. If it does, make sure you players understand this. If it does and they are newer to Unisystem and AFMBE, make sure they understand how much damage they can do with a weapon you expect them to see in the game. When I Zombie Master at conventions, one of the things I do before we jump into the game is have everyone roll damage with any weapons on their character sheet. Then I have them compare it to their Life Points and ask how many are below 50% of their starting LPS and how many are nearly dead. This puts it in perspective.



Don't forget about the chaos swirling around them. Car crashes. Fires burning out of control with no fire department to douse them. Crazy drivers trying to get out of town. Police and military trying to contain everything - people, zombies, disasters - and being overwhelmed.



There is one final character, the world. In Westerns, the land is often a character. I tend to do this in games of AFMBE, as well. The land and the animals will take back the cities. They will run amock in the fields. This will bring back predators such as the wolf. It will expand the coyotes' already large hunting areas. Bring in coydogs, coywolves, and wild dogs or mixed packs of all three.

I include weather with the terrain. Torrential rainfall could lead to flooding. It certainly drowns out sounds of movement. Buildings decay and collapse. Radiation zones are dangerous in ways most people cannot fathom. Drought kills crops and that affects meat food sources, too. No water or sunlight, no vegetation. No vegetation, no bunnies or deer. No bunnies or deer, no predators. None of the above? No people.

AFMBE discussion

The question of where to start with All Flesh Must Be Eaten came up in a FB group. I was asked to provide some input. I thought I would share it here, as well, for anyone who may be interested. 

Let me start with, what works for me, may not work for you.

First, you have the corebook and that is all you need for gameplay. The other books may help, and we'd love the sales, but you only need the corebook.

Please keep in mind, the game was originally designed for one-shots, not campaigns. Having said that, I've run 2 or 3 campaigns that lasted over a year, each. 

Have you read the Deadworlds section of the AFMBE corebook? If so, which setting are you thinking of using? My suggestion is to go with something modern. If it's easier to sell your players on a different setting, then do that. 

Decide when you want the game to start, in regards to the rise of the zombies. Right before, during, or after the fall of man. If you are trying to ease an apprehensive group into the game, my suggestion is during or after the fall. This eliminates the work of building up to it and working through the reality breaking, "OH my god, there are zombies!" part of the game and moves it into, "Oh sh!t, zombies. Run!!!" aspect of the game. I have started with right before and during the rise, for campaigns. For one shots, I've done all three. 

Decide where you want the game to be set. Is it where you live? The advantages are everybody knows everything about it. The disadvantage is the same. I usually try for a larger or large city. Jacksonville, Atlanta, NOLA, Chicago, etc. It gives you more room to play, but the players can still leave the city for the country, if that's what they prefer. Use real cities whenever possible. Yes, it's fun to make up towns and such, but if you use real cities, you have info at your fingertips. What was this town known for? Are there pictures of this building that sounded really cool in Wikipedia? Goolge maps is your friend.


After the rise starts, the real problem is other people. Let's assume, for now, the player characters will all get along. Well, introduce them to other people. In Dawn of the Dead (2004), we get other people in the mall making terrible decisions. In 28 Days Later, we get a military who does not care what you think or want. In TWD, there's an idiot in charge of Hilltop, there's Negan, the relationship between Amanda and Dale is troublesome, there's Terminus, etc. 

If the players get to a safe place, take it away from them, or encourage them to give it up for something that appears to be better or the right thing to do. If we go back to Dawn of the Dead, they tried to help Andy in the gun shop. That went sideways real quick. Chance exposes risk. 

If the players hold up in their "bunker" and refuse to leave, then bring the party to them. Have they started a fire, giving off the smell of smoke? Have they run a generator, providing a smell and sound? Do they hunt for food? Have they fired a gun or started a car. All of these things draw the attention of others. Other people, other zombies. Just like your player characters may encounter a "wandering monster" in D&D, NPCs looking for supplies may enouncter your player characters as their own wandering monster. Imagine a group like the Wolves or the biker gang from Dawn of the Dead (1978) finding the place. What would stop them from trying to take it from the characters or burning it to the ground if they can't have it? Don't forget the Governor. 



Keep in mind, unless you want it, there's no magic in this game. Yes, there are rules for magic, but you don't have to use them. Just like there are rules for various types of zombies, but you only need to use one type. I rarely use more than one type. The time I did,it was due to the cause of the rise mutating the zombies.

The zombies serve to force the players to:  make decisions, get along or not get along with others, move to a different location. They are the vice that clamps down when the players are doing too well. 



If your group is apprehensive about the game, don't lie and tell them they are playing something else. It tends to irritate players when you suddenly switch games on them. 




What else may help you? If you are looking for books by Eden Studios, I would start with 
 - The Zombie Master Screen (comes with a scenario set in modern time). 
 - After that is One of the Living for material orientated for after the fall of man. It comes with a sample community set up in a jail (there's a TWD tie-in if I ever saw one). Given your background, you can likely improve on the setting. 
 - If your players struggle to make characters of if you eat through them like a character funnel, Book of Archetypes 1 is great for modern games. The second BoA focuses more on genre book archetypes. 
 - Eden Studios Presents volume 2 includes "Dead Ops," a scenario for military characters. 
 - After that, it comes down to genre books. 
 - There's a demo pack for AFMBE that may help you. Link is at the end of this post. It includes a quick synopsis of the rules, archetypes for players, and a scenario. It may give you ideas. 

I do not recommend purchasing non-zombie books from Eden Studios (says the guy helping publish books), until you are comfortable with AFMBE. Buying non-zombie books will only give you more ideas that may not necessarily help you. Now, if you really want magic in your games, go buy Dungeons & Zombies or download WitchCraft. Start there. Several of the other game lines are not designed to contain zombies, but the rules are all very similar, so the books work with each other. 



Links:
Character sheets and ammo trackers
AFMBE demo pack

Random charts:
AFMBE page
Texas Zombie and Evan
Right here on Harvester

The Large Farm: a location for survival horror roleplaying games

Large Farm

This farmhouse was old before the apocalypse. The American Prairie Foursquare style suggests early twentieth century, but the add-ons suggest well used through the century. A covered porch lines the outside of the house. The front and a side door both stand open, welcoming all visitors – even the raccoons and squirrels who have claimed squatters’ rights. One or two windows are broken or missing, but the outside of the house is in good, overall condition.

A gravel drive leads from the country road to the front door and then on to the work yard where several out buildings await. Small trees dot the front lawn and large conifers line the drive, whereas maples line the country road. Two tractors sit next to a large barn. A baler is connected to one tractor and a cultivator is connected to the other. Inside the barn is equipment to work on the tractors and other equipment around the farm. There is also a broadcast seeder, row planter, harvester, a parts tractor similar to the two outside the barn, and a blue, 1973, Plymouth Fury.

A smaller barn sits off to the side of the larger barn. Dead bodies fill this smaller barn. The bodies contain sharp farming implements in their chests and skulls. The bodies were placed here a very long time ago. This barn was used as storage for hand-held equipment.

A curtain barn for pigs and a livestock barn for beeves are further back on the property. There are skeletons of animals here, but nothing living.

The fields for this farm once ranged over several hectares. Most of that land is gone to seed or taken over by trees and brush.

The Good:  the inside of the farmhouse is in good condition. Animals have come and gone, but nothing currently resides inside the building. At some point, a recent resident installed equipment to create a heated pool of water in the backyard, which feeds into the house to the shower. 

The basement contains food stores. Most of it is cans of soup no one likes. There are canned beans, mushrooms, carrots, peas, and pears lining one wall of the basement. There are many tables and chairs in the basement.

The upstairs of this farmhouse contains one full size bathroom, one master bedroom, and four smaller bedrooms. There is a set of stairs in the master bedroom leading to a finished attic. The finished attic contains boxes of memorabilia of several generations. This includes pictures, school jackets, wedding gowns, jewelry, and books. The bedrooms are all outfitted with clothing and bedding ruined by time and moths. It will take some work, but the bedrooms can be cleaned up and used properly. The bathroom on this level is not connected to the heated water source. However, it does contain several large mirrors and fine quality grooming tools.

The ground floor of the farmhouse contains a large kitchen, good sized dining room, smaller bathroom (which is connected to the heated water source), and a living room which extends across the front of the home. The kitchen is filled with pots, pans, plates, cups, silverware, spatulas, and even knives. The dining room has a table that will seat eight comfortably. The living room is large enough to entertain relatives for the afternoon. Poking around the closets on the ground floor, an old, small caliber, bolt-action rifle is found. It needs oil, cleaning, and bullets.

The Bad:  a pack of coyotes claims the property as their own and is sleeping throughout the house. They will fight player characters who attack with hand-to-hand weapons. They will flee from gunshots.

There is no canned food in the basement. There is no source for hot water. The utensils in the kitchen are mostly broken and the flatware is rusted. All of the knives are gone.

The bodies in the small barn are not all dead and begin moving about after the player characters walk away. Old, dried blood covers the farming equipment.

The Ugly:  the house is as described, but as the player characters move throughout the house, they get the sense someone else is living here. Water drips from a faucet. Fresh clothes lay out on well-kept beds. The kitchen floor is smeared with something wet. Maybe it is mud, maybe it is something else.

Once the player characters are fully convinced they need to leave, the residents of the property arrive.

The house is the base of operations for a group of cannibals referred to as, “The Animals.” They are named for the fact they all wear different animal masks. They do not use vehicles, preferring to hunt their prey on foot. They do not like to use firearms or blades when hunting or fighting, as they prefer their meat tenderized by blunt instruments. Additionally, if they capture their prey far from home, they would rather force the prey to walk home than carry it home.

The leader of the group is Pig Woman. She wears an old, rubber pig mask, and a pink wedding gown. Her preferred weapon is a rolling pin, but she also carries a machete and a medium caliber pistol. Pig Woman has seen too much to go about the world without a gun. Pig Woman is often seen with Rabbit Girl, Horse Head, and Unicorn Man. While there are others in the group, these are Pig Woman’s right hoofed partners.

Rabbit Girl is adept at using escrima sticks to stop her prey. She typically wears blue jeans, low-top shoes, and a faux fur jacket. It is impossible to tell Horse Head’s sex, but the body is built like a horse and the person not only likes to use a wooden axe handle, they are also very good at setting leg traps. They wear work boots, sweatshirts, and well-worn blue jeans. Unicorn Man was a martial artist before the fall and continues to hone his skills. When those skills fail him, he will resort to using an Intratec Tec 9. Unicorn Man wears loose fitting clothing that allows him fleet movement. The clothing is using of dark color, but he really does not care. 

Action Points - Alternate Drama Point rules for Unisystem games

Action Points (Alternate Drama Points)

Cast Members have three points per session. This amount cannot be changed with Experience Points. If they are not spent during the game session, they do not add to the pool in the next game session.

The inspiration for these comes from wanting something more movie magic than TV magic. A few feel over-powered and I may need to drop them. I plan to try these out in a 2- or 3-shot game I am running soon.

Healing

Roll With the Punches:  Spend point to ignore all damage taken in one hit

Barely Touched Me:  Spend point to heal half of all damage at the end of a scene and before the next scene

A Good Night’s Rest:  Spend point to heal half of all damage after s standard sleep cycle

Die Rolls

I’m Better than That:  Spend point after the roll to raise the success level by one; for example raise a botch to failure or a failure to a success, etc.; cannot be used with damage rolls

Shiny and Chrome:  Spend point before roll for a +10 to the result; cannot be used with damage rolls

·     Fuck It:  Spend point and break a piece of essential equipment for a re-roll (equipment breaks after the roll, as the cast member uses it during the roll); further points may be spent to raise the success level or for a +10 to the roll

·    Other  

      Where Did That Come From?:  Spend point and have a piece of equipment to use that the character could reasonably had the opportunity to pack (or steal) and have on them at this point in time of the game