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The Book
of Archetypes is a handy little sourcebook for Eden Studio’s
All Flesh Must Be Eaten rpg. It’s
one of my favorite supplements that I’ve ever picked up for any game
system... and I’ve had a lot of supplements over the last 30
years, my friends. Coming in at under 50 pages, it’s one of the
least physically imposing sourcebooks I’ve ever owned for a game,
but the small size belies the usefulness of the contents. The bulk
of the book is chock full of pre-made characters, one per page,
which can be used immediately for pick-up games, conventions, or
when zombies have eaten half the party and you need some replacement
characters, pronto.
The selection of archetypes is
varied enough in power level, trappings, skills, and theme that
players can easily find something to slip into just about any All
Flesh Must Be Eaten game and start hacking up zombies
immediately. At the very least, the archetypes could be used as a
starting point for tweaking your own ideas for a character, rather
than starting from scratch. The simplicity, speed, and usefulness of
TBoA, along with its enticing $15 MSRP price tag, make this a
near-impossible supplement to pass up.
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There are
forty archetypes presented! FORTY! Each one on its own page
with complete stats and equipment, and a black and white picture.
Aside from the game material such as Skills, Qualities and
Drawbacks, each archetype has a short personalized background story
so players can get an immediate feel for how the character could be
portrayed. Each character also gets a quote, which gives you some
insight into that particular zombie-fighter’s outlook on life during
the undead apocalypse. The dudes are finished off with a short set
of possessions; some of the more feisty ones have guns or other
weaponry, but more often than not, you’ll have to make due with cell
phones, tape recorders, and briefcases as your equipment for
defeating the flesh-chomping menaces. Good luck, O Wielder of the
iPad.
The
archetypes are a mixed bag of Norms and Survivors, so
there are a number of options no matter what power level your game
is set at. Norms include the everyday citizens like soccer moms,
angsty teens, gun store owners, and ham radio operators. For those
who’d like a Norm with a little bit of an edge to them, some of the
types are more geared toward apocalyptic action than others: the
vigilante, paramilitary gonzo, and target shooter are obviously more
gung-ho and proficient at combat than the taxi driver, stripper, or
gamemaster, but every Norm has a set of Skills and Qualities that
could make them useful in the right setting and shouldn’t be
overlooked. After all, when the bullets run out, your safari
hunter’s shooting talents aren’t going to be worth much.
The
Survivors are just as flavorful, but of course are a little hardier.
Retired spies, professional thieves, gang members, and terrorists
sound like they should be rough and tumble, of course, but we also
get the garbage man, college student, and porn starlet who are
better prepared than Norms to whup some zombie butt.
Inspired
types get the short shrift, I must admit. There’s the priestess of
Ishtar for the exotic cult flavor, or the crusading preacher for the
more standard miracle-slinger. Aaaaand that’s all, folks. Perhaps
Eden assumes magic-users will be very rare in All Flesh
games, but I still think two out of forty archetypes is a rather low
representation of a viable character type. Where’s the gypsy fortune
teller? The hotline psychic? The wizened purveyor of Wiccan totems?
Not to be found, I’m afraid. I’ll note that, oddly, there’s a Norm
archetype for “fireman”, and a Survivor archetype for “fire
fighter.” It seems to me that one of those could have been omitted
in place of another Inspired.
Just the
selection of characters would make the book worth the price, but it
doesn’t stop there. The last few pages offer up new equipment,
armor, weapons, skills, Qualities, Drawbacks, and a new Miracle. All
the of entries come from the archetypes in the supplement, but are
of course applicable to any other character you create using the
core rules. There are only a few items of each category, but that’s
still fun, and the extras are worthwhile. Stats for a new assault
rifle and an armored personnel carrier are available, as well as
those for fire axes and fire hoses. (In case your zombies need
wetted down.) Some secret agent goodies are included such as
briefcase pistols and night vision goggles, and for your athletic
type PCs, gym equipment can be used to increase your character’s
physical stats over time. I like that the extras are specifically
directed at the archetypes from the book; with only a handful of
relevant extra stuff, The Book of Archetypes keeps its focus
firmly on the ‘types and doesn’t become just a catalog of copious
random new material.
While
they’re written for the Classic Unisystem, it’d be easy to port the
ideas over into the Cinematic version as easily as anything else
ports over between the two. Also, the characters presented are
obviously designed for a modern-day campaign setting, the default
AFMBE background, so making them work in some of the dead worlds
from other eras presented in more recent Eden sourcebooks may not be
very easy. I can’t quite imagine how a Porn Producer or a Paramedic
would fit into a Fistful of Zombies setting, and the
Industrialite is going to be a bad fit for a Dungeons & Zombies
game, for example. However, while not totally compatible with every
dead world offered by the AFMBE line, this is an excellent
resource for any standard contemporary or even futuristic dead world
campaign. I’d have no problem fitting any of these into my Unisystem
sci-fi setting that’s in the works, or perhaps my next Conspiracy
X mini-campaign.
So don’t
hesitate to check it out when you find yourself needing some
zombie-slayers. You’d be surprised how much fun you can have when
your Good Ol’ Boy gets his hands on a 20mm cannon.
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