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When Eden Studios, which had already produced the generic zombie game ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN, as well as the slightly-humorous-action-horror BUFFY RPG (as well as ANGEL, TERRA PRIMATE, etc. etc. etc.) announced that it had rather unexpectedly acquired the ARMY OF DARKNESS license and was planning an RPG, my reaction was more curious than snobby. It's a great movie, with swordplay and skeletons and demons and chainsaws and explosions and other things that gamers like, and hero Ash's combination of macho bravery, craven self-interest, strategic planning and inept blundering is pretty much standard PC behavior already, but does the film have enough material to make a complete RPG in itself? The setting is a generic psuedo-historical medieval England, and most of the film's fame derives from its unique protagonist, a problem for a medium which focuses on small groups of characters working together. On top of it all, since Orion- the owners of ARMY OF DARKNESS- do not own EVIL DEAD or EVIL DEAD 2, the game wouldn't be able to draw upon material from those movies (beyond what's recapped and rehashed in the third.) For a long time it was a moot point as Eden had a lot on its plate and had trouble getting things to the printers, but finally, late last year it came out.
Once again, I'd been too pessimistic. ARMY OF DARKNESS is not only a complete and substantial game, it is, in itself, incredibly cool, capturing the energy and enthusiasm that makes Raimi's epic so irresistible. Built upon the foundations of Eden's tried-and-true Cinematic Unisystem, the AoD RPG builds on the basic concepts of the movie and takes them in some unexpected but entertaining directions. What it really does is bust open the setting, so that while you can play out the adventures of Ash in medieval Californ- er, England, you can also have your own funky action heroes taking on the relentless forces of the Evil Dead across the world and across history.
The book starts with a brief bit of fiction and your standard "What is Roleplaying/What is [Setting X]" introductory chapter. This includes a detailed summary of the movie, in case you either haven't seen it or want to check details. Then we get to character creation. Should the question "Who gets to be Ash" come up, there are some suggestions for how to decide that. But if you're going to have original characters, the game does a little back-run around the official canon. In the movie, Ash is referred to as the "Promised One" destined to fight the Deadites and bring peace to the land and so on. The way this book sees it, that's not just a title; Promised Ones are rare heroes chosen by some unnamed power and given the strength to fight the Evil Dead across time and space. If it sounds a bit like being a vampire Slayer, it sort of is, except there are a bunch of them, there are no gender restrictions and (apparently) no vampires. All it really means is that you can have a character as badass as Ash, but that's not the only route you can go either.
Unisystem characters are created by spending points for Attributes, Skills, and Qualities (and getting points from Drawbacks). How many points you get for each category is determined by your character type. You've got your Primitive Screwheads, just average folks drafted into the fight; they get fewer points for Attributes, Skills, and Qualities, but do get more Drama Points and can buy them more easily later on. Heroes get fewer Drama Points but more everything else, and Experienced Heroes- like Ash himself- get the most of everything. You've got six Attributes, all fairly standard (Strength, Perception, etc.) which range from 1 to 6 for normal humans. Skills are pretty broad, which I like as a matter of taste, and names like "Mr. Fix-It" and "Gun Fu" will be familiar to BUFFY players. It's Qualities and Drawbacks which really help distinguish your character. The Promised One quality is very similar to BUFFY's Slayer quality, boosting attributes (potentially above human maximum), making you harder to kill and being expensive enough that Primitive Screwheads probably won't be able to afford it. I've always liked how some Qualities in Cinematic Unisystem work as packages for certain character types- you can look at your character sheet and see that your PC is an Artist, Buff Guy (or Gal), a Nerd, Cop or Criminal, and so on. Needless to say, you don't have to be an S-Mart Clerk who went into the wrong cabin in the woods- characters can be Nosy Reporters or Occult Investigators or, really, anyone on Earth. Some specifically Ash-y qualities include the aforementioned Promised One, Big Chin (you can help other characters by being a born leader or stepping in to offer a hand at just the right moment), Tool Man (you've got some physical disability, like a missing hand, and have compensated by installing some handy gadget, like a chainsaw), and of course, Schmuck. Schmucks may be perfectly smart normally, but whenever given a critical mental task like repeating a magical incantation or taking just so many drops of a potion, they must roll their Intelligence or else screw up in a dramatic and funny way, with major consequences. The chapter finishes off with several ready-to-play archetypes which show off the range of characters available (including Archaeologist, Gladiator, a Zorro-esque Folk Hero, a Rollerball star from the near future, a lecherous Viking and a Game Designer.) Finally, we get official stats for the original cast- Ash, his best wench Sheila, medieval bigwigs Lord Arthur and Duke Henry the Red, and finally the Blacksmith and Archer Captain (who, because of the impoverishment of the Dark Ages and the discriminatory feudal system, do not have names.)
"Ash Rules" sets out the workings of the Cinematic Unisystem. The core mechanic is a simple one- you roll a d10, add your Attribute + Skill (or just the Attribute doubled in most other cases), and try to beat 9. Rolling significantly above 9 gives you multiple success levels, which translates into good things. For resisted actions you compare totals. Since attributes can go as high as 6 and skills don't have a cap (though they get more expensive after 5), characters will succeed at most tasks for which they have some aptitude, which is appropriately cinematic. Rolls can be modified if a task is easier or harder than normal, but this is rare. Combat works on the same system, but gets more ornate- you're not supposed to just punch things over and over, and there are 31 separate combat maneuvers, from Chokes to Dodges to Kicks to Head Butts to Disarms to Decapitations to Targetting Limbs (fans of the EVIL DEAD series will remember that the only way to dispose of a Deadite is through dismemberment), to Feints to the ultra-stylish Chainsaw Ballet. Most manuevers have some negative modifier to the standard attack roll, with either a damage bonus or some special result should you hit. It's crunchy enough that what moves you specifically make matter, but not so much that the rules will prevent you from trying cool things (NPCs, or "Guest Stars", have fixed numbers for certain tasks so you don't have to roll for them all the time- the PCs just have to beat their total). Damage is a simple matter of running out of Life Points, though there are physical penalties for falling below 10 (far less than half for most characters). Rules for weapons, armor and vehicles are also here.
It's really the Drama Point system that sets the Cinematic Unisystem apart. Lots of RPGs have some kind of fate-altering point system, but this is the most useful and versatile I've come across. A single Drama Point can be spent for a Heroic Feat, meaning a +10 bonus to any one action (or as a damage bonus in combat.) I Think I'm Okay lets you heal half the damage you've taken so far. Plot Twist nets you a minor convenience, like finding a weapon or not being killed by a group of bad guys who have you beaten and helpless. Righteous Fury lets your hero get really pissed off during a fight, giving him a bonus for the rest of the combat if he's got good cause to be pissed. Finally, Back From The Dead does what it says on the tin- for 5 Drama Points, your character emerges from certain death with only a major injury to show for it- for 10, he comes back with nary a scratch (the example for this section is titled "Come on, I've Got His Brain on My Shirt.") Drama Points can be bought with Experience Points (two-for-one for Heroes, one-for-one for Primitive Screwheads), and/or earned back by delivering cool One Liners, performing self-sacrificing Heroic Acts, playing out emotional/mental problems, and finally and most contentiously, letting the GM do bad stuff to you; if the plot really requires that a flying demon make off with Sheila or that someone steals the Necronomicon, the Director (or GM as he is called in other games) can make it happen and give the players some DPs to compensate. Obviously this shouldn't happen all the time, and the book says as much, but there is no set limit on just how frequently it can be used (though "in-" is a fair bet.) The chapter also has rules for character advancement and a nifty example of play featuring a fight between Ash and Evil Sheila (played by "Bruce" and "Embeth", respectively.)
The next chapter deals with a new set of mechanics, the Cinematic Battle System. Since the climax of ARMY OF DARKNESS is a big ass fight between the undead and a bunch of medieval soldiers led by the Promised One, the Cinematic Unisystem needed a system for mass combat, and here we are. It'll never be mistaken for WARHAMMER, needless to say, but it has enough detail to pass for tactical. To start, the Director has worked out the strength of forces for each side, dividing them into groups depending on "unit type"- archers, knights, foot soldiers, etc. The players get handed the numbers for their forces and devise a plan- any clever strategizing will yield bonuses later on. The fight itself happens on two levels. Individual PCs roll once for each round (which is longer than a turn) to see how well they do while they're fighting countless enemies; a table determines whether you add a bonus to your side overall and whether you take any damage from the other side. If a PC is gunning for a specific enemy character, he can spend a Drama Point to force a confrontation. On the macro scale, there's a Battle Test, rolled using Intelligence + Influence (or an NPC's "Brains" score) and modified by things like tactics and troop strength. Both sides roll for casualties, with the losing side having a negative modifier for troop survival- casualties always work out at 10% per "unit" (so if you had 20 knights to start, you lose 2 each time they fail a test.) Note that it's possible for the winning side in a round to lose more men than the losers, and for the losers to take no casualties- it's an interesting oddity, but may even out in play on account of troop losses being fixed. Finally the general for the losing side has to make a morale check for his side. Like the rest of the system, this seems to have enough abstraction for the source material; it encourages planning, but the characters still get caught up in the fog of battle and dramatic ass-kicking should ensue.
"Director's Cut" is the GM advice chapter, which focuses on setting up and running an ARMY OF DARKNESS campaign. Just as character generation encourages a wide variety of Heroes and Screwheads, this part of the book points out that an AoD game can be set in a large number of places and times. Medieval England is an option, of course, with your cast either playing through the events of the movie or dealing with things after Ash has skipped town. But you can also set the conflict in a number of other places and times. Where BUFFY has the Hellmouth as the central Plot Device, AoD has the Necronomicon Ex Mortis- an evil ancient book that has the power to summon armies of the dead and awaken demonic spirits- and the Watcher in the Woods, an ancient entity which is usually after the book so the souls of the Evil Dead can possess human bodies (living or dead) and conquer the world. The Watcher shows up in just about any clump of Woods available, and the book travels just as far and wide, so theoretically a campaign can take place anywhere, or even follow a group of Promised Ones across different places and times (like a gory QUANTUM LEAP.) Since a single movie really isn't a good model for an entire campaign, this game instead adopts the approach of BUFFY and ANGEL and suggests you structure things as a TV series, with single scenarios functioning as "Episodes" and story arcs being structured across "Seasons." Arcs can be centered on locations if you're doing the travelling bit, or on individual slightly-sub-Watcher baddies (like Evil Ash in the movie), or on other things- the rules don't require a Season/Episode approach, but it is a very nice model for building up a campaign.
The next chapter, "Lands of Darkness", presents us with "Circa England", the setting for the movie and the default setting for the campaign. It's different in many ways from the actual historical medieval England, which, among other things, didn't look anything like Southern California. Basically, it's to the real England what the HERCULES and XENA tv shows were to Ancient Greece; you don't need to sweat the details, or pay that much attention to them at all. The movie had scenes in a desert, after all. Specifically the action centers around the realms of Lord Arthur and Duke Henry the Red, longtime rivals whose fathers are probably off fighting the Crusades or something. All the locations seen in the film- Arthur's Castle, the Misty Forest, the graveyard where the Necronomicon was kept, etc.- are detailed, and there are stats for most of the folks we saw on screen. This chapter also contains information and stat blocks for the titular Armies of Insufficient Light. The Watcher in the Woods gets his full write-up here- he's noncorporeal most of the time, but can animate the woods to attack people, possess bodies and turn them into deadites, perform gory tricks like spewing blood on people, and occasionally manifest himself as a giant tree monster. Also, he can only be harmed by a weapon made from his own flesh. We also get the block for your standard Deadites- these are the sadistic Kandarian Demon-possessed folks you see in all the EVIL DEAD films. There are also winged demons, skeletons, simulacra (the book says simulacrums but I'm pretty sure they're wrong) like the Tiny Ashes and his full-grown Evil counterpart, as well as Evil Sheila. There are some relics statted out here, like the Necronomicon itself, the Spear of Destiny (a non-canonical weapon made from the Watcher's own bark), and the Back Stabber, a nasty little knife which appears throughout the trilogy. The rules say that a Promised One killed by the Back Stabber can't come back even with Drama Points, which seems extreme, but there's no reason you have to use it.
Using the ARMY OF DARKNESS RPG to run ARMY OF DARKNESS as a one-shot or the start of a campaign may be a no-brainer, and the last eight pages of Chapter Six specifically address this situation, breaking the film down into its major sequences (getting captured, being thrown into the Pit, etc.) and suggesting how they might be tweaked so as to surprise players who've seen the movie (like the movie-based adventures from the old JAMES BOND game.) I particularly like the section headlined "Competent Players", dealing with what happens if your PCs are too smart to screw up a certain incantation.
The next chapter, "Worlds of Darkness", is where the game really shows off, with three original campaign settings for an AoD campa- er, series. "Gilga-Ash" sets the action in Circa Mesopotamia, at around 3000 B.C., where the Necronomicon is supposed to have first been written. (For non-fans, the Deadites are known more formally as Kandarian Demons, Kandar being where the book was found.) Urigan, high priest of Erishkigal, is putting the Necronomicon together with the aid of the relatively-young Watcher in the Woods, also known by the locals as Humbaba. The suggested Series arc roughly parallels the epic of Gilgamesh, even quoting from the saga at a couple of points. The fit is good enough to make me wonder what knowledge of Sumerian myth Sam Raimi had when he was writing the movies. "War is Hell" is the obligatory WWII setting- Hitler and his occult-lovin' Reich pals have found the Necronomicon and struck a pact with the Watcher, enabling the Deadites to join the Nazi hordes. In lieu of a campaign arc, there are a number of European theater locales (Ardennes, Malmady, etc.) as well as operations and objects (like the Spear of Destiny) to build a series around. Centering the threat at Neuschwanstein- the "fairy tale" castle of King Ludwig the Mad- is a nice touch, and there are some new Deadite types- werewolves, Death's Heads and "Screaming Mimis"- to make things more interesting. Needless to say, there's plenty of WWII gear statted as well.
This paragraph here requires the use of spoliers from the movie, specifically the Director's Cut, so skip it if you're so inclined. "The Future Dead" takes place in the postapocalyptic London we see briefly at the end of Sam Raimi's edit, after Ash has overslept. In this setting, the third and last one for the chapter, the Evil Dead have already risen and taken over the world (and some nuclear exchanges as things started to go crazy helped make life nice and radioactive on top of it all). The few survivors are huddled in London, trying to scrape together a last stand against the Watcher; they know where he's lurking and have some idea how to kill him, but getting the resources to do the job will be a long struggle. The major survivor characters are statted as NPCs, though they might work as Cast Members too. There are also several bigger, nastier Deadites, like a giant shape-changing monster made up of corpses and jet engine parts stalking Heathrow Airport, and Deadites which spew radioactive vomit. Normally I'm not a huge fan of postapocalyptic settings, but the suggested campaign here is a good 'un, and of course it's also ideal for playing out your own version of EVIL DEAD 4.
The book finishes off with "Once More Unto the Breach", an introductory scenario set back in good ol' Circa England. Taking place shortly after Ash has split town, it centers on an attempt by the Deadites to reclaim the Necronomicon and raise another army; not the most original turn of events, and I would have liked a scenario that was a little more off-the-wall or dropped a few more plot hooks. It also puts a couple of potential Drama Point 'bribe' situations back-to-back, which could frustrate players. Still, it does set the tone pretty well and use some familiar elements in an interesting way. Finally we've got Conversion Notes for other Unisystem Games, an Appendix of useful quick-reference tables, some ads for other Eden products and finally a character sheet.
As with Eden's other licensed games, this is a nice, glossy full-color book illustrated with plenty of photos from the source material (a few images are recycled a bit, but in fairness, it is just one movie.) There's some nice interior art for the Archetypes and other original creations as well. The edges of the pages are made to look all crinkly and such, and the chapter names and numbers are printed sideways on the margins to make searching easier. The index covers most of the important bits, but I had to do some hunting to find the write-up for the "Death Coaster" (the jury-rigged auto Ash uses in the final battle.) Turns out it's in "Lands of Darkness" under the entry for the Blacksmith's workshop, which is a bit odd. Similarly, I'm not sure having the "Playing the Movie" section in that chapter was the most intuitive arrangement ("Director's Cut" seems like a better place for it.) Some of the text in the rules and GM sections is repeated from the BUFFY game, though I don't have that book with me to do a side-by-side comparison. In the plus column (for me at least), the game makes extensive use of Ash-speak, which is a bit like the Buffy-ese of that respective game, but more macho. (They've gotten especially creative with the example headings, such as "Tell Me More," "I Wanna See It In Action," and "Without the Sexploitation This Time, Please.") It's funny, casual, and doesn't obscure the meaning of the text- quite the opposite, really.
Of course, if you own BUFFY or ANGEL or both, you're probably thinking "I like the Cinematic Unisystem, and God knows I like funny horror action games, but what does ARMY OF DARKNESS do that I can't do with these books?" Well, there's the mass combat, the stats for Ash and the Deadites, the setting info, the new settings, and some nice photos of Sheila. Mostly, though, it's a stylistic difference, the same as with the source material for all three games; ARMY OF DARKNESS is more aggressively over-the-top, more campy and more epic. It's high-octane action craziness, and the book is specifically geared towards providing that kind of experience. There's some overlap, to be sure, but it does stand out as its own game.
A great RPG makes me want to rush out and play or run it, and that's the feeling I got reading ARMY OF DARKNESS. A great licensed game can renew or heighten my interest in the source material; AoD accomplished this as well. By pushing the limits of the license and focusing on capturing its feel, Eden Studios and Shane Lacey Hensley have created a surprisingly open-ended and freewheeling addition to its Cinematic Unisystem game series. It's been a considerable wait to see what this would turn out like, and I dare say it's better than expected. If nothing else, it deserves some kind of special prize: "Best Licensed Game Based on Less than 100 Minutes of Material".
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