AFMBE Session Report & Episodic Horror Gaming

So, I ran a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten (AFMBE) on Thursday. It was my first game in over a year, and first time using that system.

It was a blast!

It was also my first salvo in an attempt to get regular gaming jump started. My plan is monthly gaming using AFMBE to run horror one shots with rotating DMs (or ZMs in this case). We are all in our 30s or 40s, busy with family and work and random interests, and weekly gaming locked into a storyline curated by one person just seems impossible. So, horror anthology gaming, kind of like the Twilight Zone. We use pregens every session, but XP accumulated by players stays with them, and can be used to modify their character in whatever session. This incentivizes continued presence without punishing absence. New players or one time only appearances by people is also encouraged, avoiding the hard feelings of spotty campaign participation, but also adding a little spice to the proceedings.

Admittedly, AFMBE has a lot of whistles and bells, so it was also a good chance to test drive the system and slowly learn it. There wasn't too much looking things up, and now I am familiar with the rules and how they run. If the seasons take off, ZMs can also draw from the Buffy RPG, Terra Primate (basically Planet of the Apes), The Evil Dead and CJ Carellah's Witchcraft besides AFMBE books. That is a lot of gaming potential there.

Anyway, on to the adventure!

Most people I know are off somewhere for summer holidays, but thankfully my mates Casey and Paul were around and agreed to give AFMBE a spin. I decided to let them have two characters each, and run them through an adventure I had made entitled "Generation Kill Zombies," based on the miniseries Generation Kill about the 1st invasion of Iraq. The synopsis I wrote for myself is at the bottom.

First, for characters we used the Soldier template (corebook pg. 78). I encouraged Casey and Paul to come up with one word personality descriptors they could use like Risus cliches for their characters. They did not disappoint.

We began with four characters:

Casey
1) Billy, a 'techie' from Georgia in the USA. +1 to Int and tech rolls, starts with a taser pistol.
2) Ricky the Rat, NYer like Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy. +1 Per and searching, always has the right gewgaw when needed.

Paul
3)  Father Ted McBride, parson-like figure from the UK. +1 to people skills, also carries various medicines all the time.
4) Bobby Staunton, contractor from Manchester. + 1 End/Str, good with munitions.

PART ONE - THE SET UP

07:00-07:30
I informed the players it was February, 1991, and they were soldiers in the coalition invading Iraq. They began with their mission briefing in a tent. A commander Grenfell greeted them then ran them through the covert mission they were given.

First, they were shown this photo:

Grenfell informed them that the Iraqi army was in disarray and that US and ally troops were now rushing to final objectives before a peace settlement and withdrawal. Their mission would be to go to the Al Muthanna R&D facility, which had been bombed and partially destroyed by US airstrikes, and recover strategic assets. Only the bio-toxin building and animal house were intact and showed minimal activity, and otherwise most personnel had abandoned the area after the bombing run. They were looking for 3 things:

1) data on the Scud missiles and nerve gas they contained
2) any cash 'repatriated' to Iraq during its unlawful invasion of Kuwait
3) any of the 3 'chemical brothers' or A-list war criminals in the US army deck of Iraqi VIPs to be captured, and who all have a bounty on their head

The PCs would be given a Humvee mounted with a machine-gun and whatever gear they requisitioned. They thanked the commander and were on there way at 07:30.


PART TWO - ON THE ROAD

07:30-10:30
Three hours later, deep in Iraqi territory they received a radio transmission from a convoy of three US trucks that had stopped to fix a flat tire and started taking sniper fire. The CO of the convoy was requesting any nearby unit to help neutralize the sniper, and the PCs realized they were the closest. Without hesitation, they agreed to go help out. This is the scene I sketched for them:

The team pulled up on the far side of the village away from where the sniper was and 1 klick from the stranded convoy. Stashing their Humvee behind a dune, they humped over to the village, incurring a 1 Endurance loss from the heat. The village was a lump of low thatched huts made of baked clay surrounding higher buildings with flat roofs. It looked like this:

I informed them they could easily climb on top of a thatched roof, but a flat roof would take something more. They elected to go through the main entrance quietly.

A few Stealth rolls later and they were through the village entrance and up a central stairwell onto the rooftops. They catch a glimpse of the sniper at the far edge of the roofs moving between hanging laundry and reed partitions, and Billy & Father Ted decide to close the distance with tasers drawn while Ricky and Bobby cover them with their assault rifles. The plan works, and Billy shoots his taser leads into the sniper from behind.

To their dismay, the insurgent turns out to be a boy of 13 or so, and Father Ted quickly realizes a taser jolt intended for an adult male may be the reason the boy is turning blue. Using his knowledge of medicines recreational and legal, Father Ted stabilizes the young insurgent, who they carry downstairs.

At the base of the stairs they are confronted by a woman wailing at them and gesticulating at their prisoner. Father Ted realizes it is probably the boy's mother, and in his poor Arabic somehow manages to calm her down. Although the village seemed nearly deserted at first, the four soldiers can now see women, children, and the elderly peeking at them from cracks in windows and doorways. The players muse about whether the boy was just trying to protect his village or really a soldier.

Still, wartime is hell and firing on a convoy makes you a combatant, so they radio the convoy to bring an interpreter and pick up their captive. This done, they continue on to their objective.


PART THREE - ANIMAL HOUSE

12h30-13h30
At the gates of Al Muthanna, the team decided to visit the animal house first. They pushed straight up to the front of the building, guns ready under the noonday sun. Nobody was there, and the front double doors were slightly ajar. They scouted the perimeter and found a well-used civilian car, which Billy immobilized by taking its spark plugs.

They crept inside the double doors to find a small flock of sheep sheltering from the baking sun in the now shitstained lobby of the building. After a brief search they turn towards the closed double doors leading to their interior of the building. Ricky motions the others to silence and presses his ear against the doors.

He hears the opening beats of Madonna's 'Justify My Love', which was dominating the Top Forty at the time. The others listen as well, dumbfounded. (I had started the song on Casey's cellphone, so it became the soundtrack of this portion of the adventure). Ricky eases the doors open and sees a hallway leading straight in, with a door on either side about 15 feet down, and a barricade made of desks, chairs & equipment twice that distance further down.

The team decides to advance down the hallway and simultaneously breach both doors. They inch down the hallway, then Fr Ted and Ricky break left while Billy and Bobby break right. On the left, they find the building's kitchen, now a mess of food crates, dirty dishes, and garbage. On the right, they bust in on a young Iraqi male lying on a bed, dressed in a dirty lab coat, Madonna T shirt and boxer shorts reading books on a bed.

"Don't shoot, please!" the young man pleads in near-perfect English. They tie his hands and he explains that he is Mustafa, a research assistant here in the animal house who learned biochemistry at Michigan State University. He tells the soldiers that all his colleagues have fled since the bombing, but that he stays to care for the sheep, read and listen to music.

They ask Mustafa about the barricade, and he is quiet for a second before responding. He reports, "They tested gas on a monkey down there. Three of my coworkers came in, none came back. I could hear the screams and sounds from here. Luckily, the doors are all auto-locked. So I made the barricade and don't go down to the research labs anymore." The four soldiers agree to follow Mustafa's example.

They ask about the Bio-toxin building and Mustafa draws them a map.

Mustafa explains that the small platoon stationed at the facility had left after the bombing, but that a small group of a half dozen Republican Guards (RG) stayed with the facility head, Sayid. The players show Mustafa the kill or capture card for Chemical Sayid and Mustafa confirms this is the man they are looking for.


PART FOUR - THIS IS A SHOWDOWN

13:30-14:30
The PCs load Mustafa into their Humvee and drive to the bombed out barracks down the road from the Bio-toxin building. Ricky creeps through the ruins to the side closest their target and peeks out to confirm a heavy machine-gun nest and two RGs guarding the front doors of the facility.

He reports to the group, and they decide to let Mustafa return to the animal house on foot while they sneak around to the rear of the building. The team inch across the dunes on the far side from the machine-gun nest.

Coming to the far side, they note the balcony on the roof as one possible entrance, and Ricky decides to climb up using a grappling hook and line he happens to have in his gear bag. The rest of the team decides to wait until he gives the all clear before climbing up.

But the signal never comes. Instead, Ricky knocks over some furniture on the patio, alerting Chemical Sayid who waits in the office beside it. Sayid begins firing 3 shot bursts at Ricky, the first a critical (if I recall) that tears through Rick's armor and his life points. Rick returns fire

Meanwhile, on the ground the remaining team members take action. Father Ted goes to scout around and see if the front guards are coming. (I secretly roll that the soldiers there and on the roof have been ordered by Sayid to stay at their posts or die, and so they will not come looking for the PCs, but only engage when the PCs enter their location. Lucky for the team!) Billy does the same on the other side.

At this time, Bobby tries to breach the wall with an explosive charge, but in his nervousness he fumbles around for a few rounds until succeeding. The wall blows inward, and Bobby slips in to find several civilians with horrid chemical burns staring at him unmoving from inside holding pens (the zombies, taken from Nazi zombies on p. 191 of corebook) on the left, a corridor to the lobby straight ahead, and a door to the stairwell besides the elevator on the right. He opens the stairwell door and clears the area, while the returned Billy goes to the elevator and Fr Ted comes back from scouting and starts clambering through the smoke filled hole.

Back on the roof, Ricky starts firing back into the office with his grenade launcher, missing Sayid directly but kicking him around and setting his office ablaze. Rick gets initiative and with an aimed shot brings Sayid down. He debates opening the door to the front of the building, but smartly decides to stay still and bandage, missing an encounter with the two Republican Guards stationed on the other side.

Returning downstairs. Billy's investigation of the elevator is seen on camera by the guards in the security office, who remotely lock the elevator and unlock the cage to the chemical zombies, who immediately begin to rush out. The next few rounds are a flurry of dice rolls as Father Ted is jumped and Billy and Bobby begin firing at the other zombies as they emerge from the cage.

Father Ted is choked and punched, but manages to survive and take out a zed while Bobby and Billy mow down the others as they come out of the cage. Just as they finish and before they can move further into the building, Ricky calls down, drops the suitcase of cash to them, and starts painfully making his way down.

Lucky, lucky, lucky! They decide not to push it and sneak back around to the barracks the way they came before getting in the Humvee, picking up Mustafa and heading for HQ.


PART FIVE - YOU CAN'T GO HOME

14:30-19:00
The PCs drive back the way they came, Father Ted's face busted up by a zombie, and Ricky covered in bloody bandages over his gunshots and shrapnel wounds. Although Chemical Sayid has been obliterated and they have destroyed or left any data on the chemical weapon and its strange effects, the one success is the suitcase of 1.5 million USD that sits on the backseat of their Humvee with Mustafa.

They pull into their base to find huge billboards proclaiming VICTORY! and HUGE USO SHOW!  They park and return to their briefing tent, but Grenfell is not around. The base seems nearly deserted, with only a few essential personnel on duty. Music blares from the nearby amphitheater, so they make their way over.

As they climb the stairs into the arena, they see a huge crater with the remains of a SCUD missile strewn in and around it. The 1000 strong crowd in the amphitheater all stand eerily silent amid the blaring music, their faces bubbled and oozing like the Iraqi test subjects the team had run into at Al Muthanna. Suddenly, a zombified George Bush senior on stage points in their direction and howls, and the crowd moves en masse towards our heroes.

Fade to black.


REFLECTIONS

Yeah, I took it easy on the guys. The zombies were non-infectious, and enemy soldiers only engaged when PCs entered their zones. I have no problem with any of this - the session was just a test drive of the system, as well as a taste test to drum up interest for monthly horror sessions.

If there is a next time, nobody will be so lucky, including me if someone else ZMs! If I can't rustle up a local group, I may run sessions on G+, so drop me a line if you are interested.


RESOURCES

Generation Kill Zombies
Scenario synopsis

This is the adventure outline I wrote for myself to keep me on track as ZM. Feel free to run it as is or punch it up with more details or events as you desire.

Events

• Radio call out from a platoon pinned down by sniper fire, PCs choose to go or ignore. 15 year old sniper on top of village huts.
• Going through factory ruins, run into zombie-like old caretaker.
  
  

Locales

The Animal House: One caretaker is still here feeding the animals, some sheep and some rabbits. He has info. about the Bio-toxic facility (zombie features, 6 soldiers, Chemical Sayid)

The Bio-Toxic Facility: Outdoors, 2 soldiers man a machinegun and sandbags.

First floor, 2 soldiers with AKs behind bulletproof glass in security office of lobby, iron door to hallway. Hallway leads to security office door, then locked electronic door to holding pen filled with 2d6 gassed civilians, and turn to elevator at end. Video cameras everywhere. Sayid will shut down elevator and open pen doors when PCs pass turn.

Second floor, main hall with three offices on right, cafeteria and prayer room on left, d6+1 zeds here, and stairway to third (top) floor at end.

Third floor, stairway has 2 soldiers with AKs at top. Door on left is maintenance, right is balcony leading to roof, middle is general office with d6+1 zeds and door to Sayid's office at rear. Lots of Scud and zed gas data here. Sayid has $1.5 M USD in his office safe, will slip out to balcony and climb ladder to roof to escape by rappelling down. The controls to elevator and auto locks are here, as well as Scud firing remote control, which Sayid uses when PCs enter general office. Office shakes, mechanical noise, sound of blast off from Scud in underground silo behind facility.

Motor pool: Next to Bio-Toxic Facility, has two jeeps hidden under tarps.

Denouement: PCs get the money, info, or POW if they survive. They drive back with no incident until they get to the camp, see "Victory!" signs everywhere, hear music blaring from USO ampitheatre. Go in, zeds turn on them, end of session.