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INTRODUCTION

The name's Davenport. I review games.

And I'm here to tell you, Eden Studios reps stink.

No, I mean literally.

Well, some of'em, anyway. 'Bout half, maybe. Lately, seems like every time they send someone my way with a new job, it's either some swell dame – in which case, it's a Buffy job – or else it's some guy who smells like last month's tuna casserole, and looks the part, too – in which case, it's an All Flesh Must Be Eaten gig.

So anyway, there I was, coolin' my heels in my virtual office, waiting for my Eden Studios appointment to show up. Since I could smell'im as soon as he got off the elevator, looked like it was gonna be an AFMBE gig.

He might've been a little hard on the ol' schnozzle, but I had to admire his fashion sense. Trench coat and fedora. Guy knew his threads. The black eye mask was a bit much, but from what I could see of the guy's face, I wasn't gonna complain about it.

"Pulp Zombies," he says in this raspy voice, shambling forward to slide the book across my desk. "Review it, miscreant, or know the wrath of... the Corpse!"

"Pulp Zombies, eh?" I says, giving the book the once-over. "Y'know, there was a time not too long ago I'd've laughed you outta my office for bringin' something like this in here. I mean, how much use can a guy get from a screwball combo like that?"

The guy starts to get up and give me this "Evil-doer beware!" look. I told him to cool his heels.

"Look, pal, that's what I would've done," I told the big, smelly lug, "before I read Enter the Zombie. Now, there was an eye-opener: An All Flesh Must Be Eaten zombies-meet-genre supplement that not only pulled off a crazy mix with flyin' colors, but also worked just fine as a Unisystem genre supplement without the zombies. And as much as I love pulp – in case you couldn't figure that out all on your lonesome – and as much as I love Unisystem, you better believe I'll give this one the old college try."

He nods and sits back in the chair again. (Which reminds me: I still need to get that chair cleaned. And sterilized.)

"Good. Glad that's settled," I told him. "Now, is there anything else?"

"Yes," he says, leanin' forward and gettin' a funny look in his eye. "brrrrraaaAAAAAAIIIIIINSSSSS!!!!"

Sometimes, I really hate this job.

CONTENT

Chapter One: Introduction

Like Enter the Zombie, Plup Zombies begins with an extended game fiction piece, the quality of which I'll cover under "Style".

The chapter also includes brief explanations of pulp fiction and the Pulp Era, the latter being a nebulous period from the Stock Market Crash to the end of World War 2 during which all things pulp occurred in the order most convenient to the GM.

As usual, the introductory chapter ends with a description of the book's contents, conventions, and author.

Chapter Two: Pulpy Flesh

The first part of this chapter expands upon both pulp fiction and the Pulp Era. Regarding the former, the book emphasizes the importance of high adventure, unambiguously good and evil heroes and villains, and lots and lots of cheesy plot elements. As to the latter, the chapter goes into considerable detail about life during the Great Depression, including daily life, politics, entertainment, inventions, and crime. Popular brand names of the era and sample product prices also appear.

Character Creation

Pulp Zombies introduces two new character types to AFMBE: The Pulp Hero and the Legendary Hero.

Pulp Heroes have the exact same character point breakdown as do the Inspired characters from the main rulebook, but there are two important differences. First, instead of Metaphysics Points, Pulp Heroes get Powers Points. These can be spent on Attributes, Skills, Qualities, or Metaphysics, making the Pulp Hero much more flexible than either Inspired or Survivor characters, if not more competent. And second, Pulp Heroes have no cap on their Attribute scores – with sufficient points, Pulp Heroes can be literally superhuman. In essence, then, Pulp Heroes are only hyper-competent (as the book puts it) in comparison to Norms, not to the other standard AFMBE character types.

Now, for a Pulp Hero that's really pulp-worthy, on the scale of Doc Savage and his ilk, it's the Legendary Hero you want. Weighing in at 30 Attribute points, 20 Quality points, 10 Drawback points, 30 Skill points, and 30 Power points, and possessing a complete immunity to fear, these heroes are by far the most powerful standard (as opposed to cinematic/Buffy) Unisystem character type created thus far.

The chapter also touches on the issue of the pulp "adventure party" – specifically, the difficulty of rationalizing them. Suggestions include the "Adventurer's Club" model, the Doc Savage-like "Hero and his Sidekicks" model, or the "Thrown Together by Fate" model. Of the three, "Hero/Sidekick" presents a problem to the balance-concerned, as there's no equivalent here of the Hero/White Hat balance seen in the Buffy RPG.

Speaking of which, there's no equivalent to Buffy Drama Points, either, nor are there any special rules governing cinematic stunts. So, as in Enter the Zombie, cinematic prowess on the part of the heroes relies upon their actual prowess as compared to their foes, and upon GM fiat – all the more reason to go with Legendary Heroes, in my opinion.

And speaking of prowess, let's take a look at the special abilities Pulp Heroes may possess:

Qualities and Drawbacks

After tweaking the Minority Quality and the Resources Quality/Drawback to fit the Pulp Era, the chapter presents seven new Qualities/Drawbacks, four "normal" (for pulp) and three supernatural:

• Animal Companion
• Danger Sense
• Force of Law
• Gadgetmaster
• Hyperlingual
• Mentalism
• Trademark (e.g., "The Mark of Zorro")

I'll cover gadgets and mentalism below. I do have one general observation here, however, and it's that this section shows some disturbing signs of the dreaded "See Supplement X" syndrome. For example, there are no animal stats in this book. So, want an Animal Companion? Well, you're stuck with a horse (stats provided in the core rulebook), unless (1) your GM makes up stats for your animal-of-choice or (2) you buy Terra Primate (with its bestiary). And what about martial arts or gun tricks (such as the two-fisted firing demonstrated by the hero on the cover)? Pulp Heroes can spend their Power Points on Chi Techniques to cover such abilities… but then, of course, you'll need to purchase Enter the Zombie.

One other note: I was surprised to find that the book doesn't cover undead pulp heroes. An undead Shadow seemed like a natural combination to me.

Gadgets

Pulp Heroes may purchase a number of levels of the Gadgetmaster Quality limited by their scores in the Mechanics and Sciences skills. Gadgets have a Gadget Rating based upon their Complexity Level (+0 for Pulp Era, +1 for Modern Day, and +2 for Futuristic) and Utility Level (+0 for normal, everyday use, +1 for specialized use), along with modifiers for miniaturization, onerous requirements in time or materials for use, horrible consequences from malfunctions or dangerous side effects for normal use, and combining multiple devices.

The rules limit futuristic devices to those that will be possible at some point – no lightspeed rocketships, no time machines, etc. Aside from being a little presumptuous, this seems to preempt an awful lot of the wacky fun of the pulps. No time machines?? C'mon! And besides, what about that "X-12 Zombie Ray" gun the Doc Savage lookalike brandishes in the illustration on page 26? At what point in the future do anti-undead ray guns become feasible?

Furthermore, the Gadget Rating scales are so coarse as to be next to useless. Suppose you want to make a hand-held Destructo Ray. Okay, it's definitely Futuristic, so that's +2 Complexity Level, and personal weapons fall under "specialized use", for +1 Utility Level... but is it miniaturized? How would you know what the standard size of a Destructo Ray is? For that matter, how much damage should a Destructo Ray do? Essentially, there's no cap there. We've already maxed out the Gadget Rating, so there's no way to distinguish between a Destructo ray that can destroy an individual or a fortress with one shot. Heck, if the GM decides that even in the far future, a hand-held Death Star would count as "miniaturized", that's still only an additional +1 to the Gadget Rating.

Gadgetmasters can either produce their gadgets in the lab, which takes time but requires no roll, or can choose "spontaneous" gadgets, which require a Science or Mechanics roll but are available immediately. (They aren't actually created on the spot, but are "retconned" into existence.) I like the way that rule rewards forethought without unduly penalizing spur-of-the-moment creativity.

Spontaneous or not, the total Gadget Ratings of all current gadgets created by a given inventor cannot exceed the inventor's score in Gadgetmaster – his "Gadget Slots". If the inventor has insufficient free Gadget Slots for a new gadget, he'll have to use up or dismantle an old one. Now, I understand that the book is trying to prevent gadgets from overwhelming any given pulp setting, but I have two substantial problems with this approach.

First of all, it's very, very limiting. Consider the weird scientist archetype offered in the following section, with her very respectable Gadgetmaster score of 5. She has two already-created inventions – a flying car (Gadget Rating 2) and some microexplosives (Gadget Rating 2). That leaves room for one more gadget with a Gadget Rating of 1, of which the only example in the list of sample gadgets is the mercy bullet. Not a very impressive arsenal, there.

And second, it's a mechanic with no setting rationale – something that always irritates me to no end. "Dr. Genius! Can you build me a Force-Field Belt??" "Uh, sure... I'll just need to drink the last of my Invisibility Juice first... to, uh, clear my head..."

Mentalism

This is simply a recycling of some – but not all – of the Seer powers from WitchCraft, albeit with their "real" names rather than that annoying "Mind______" naming convention. Other changes include the absence of Mindheal and Mindkill, no rule for "pumping up" powers with Essence, and no requirement for Mentalists to purchase the Gift Quality. The latter makes some sense, given that Mentalist powers aren't necessarily considered "supernatural" in a pulp context and that there may not be anything supernatural in the setting for those with the Gift to detect. It's also one extra advantage Pulp Heroes have over the Inspired in terms of the relative costs of their abilities.

I don't fault Eden for the re-use of their house psionics rules in this supplement. As I mentioned in my AFMBE review, I think they would have been a better choice to include in the core rulebook than were the miracle rules, and they certainly fit the pulp mold. My only reservation is in regards to the limited scope of these powers – noticeably lacking are powers to turn the hero invisible (a la the Shadow) or to produce illusions (a la Mandrake the Magician). Once again, another book – in this case, Terra Primate – contains those abilities.

Archetypes

The chapter concludes with seven appropriately pulpy Archeypes:

• Academic Turned Explorer (Pulp Hero)
• Daredevil (Pulp Hero)
• Human Mountain (Pulp Hero)
• Masked Vigilante (Legendary Hero)
• Masked Vigilante (Pulp Hero)
• Private Dick (Pulp Hero)
• Scientific Wizard (Pulp Hero)

I really like the selection. The Human Mountain is particularly entertaining: a superhumanly strong giant bald black guy who's almost as good at painting as he is at brawling. I still have to say, though, that the Pulp Heroes really don't seem as powerful as I'd expect heroes in the genre to be, especially given the lack of any bias in their favor built into the rules.

Chapter Three: The Hollow Earth

Warning: Spoilers follow from here onward.

Like the "Deadworlds" featured in Enter the Zombie, many of those in this supplement tend to resemble adventure outlines rather than setting outlines. This first offering is a perfect example.

The PCs help a globetrotting archeologist search for a set of priceless relics, fending off attacks by clever and determined cultists along the way. Once they move the final relic, however, they learn to their dismay that the relics formed a mystic barrier that was all that stood between the surface world and an underground empire of zombies. As the world reels from a series of devastating earthquakes followed by invasions of flesh-hungry undead armies, the PCs must descend into the depths of the earth to re-energize the relics and destroy the zombies' power.

It's a great and ambitious idea, combining Indiana Jones with Edgar Rice Burroughs. In practice, it will call for a lot of work from the GM, especially when it comes to the quest into the earth. There's a random table of events, but relying on it really wouldn't do such an epic adventure justice.

On a particularly cool note, the heroes have the chance to encounter zombie dinosaurs, with stats for a zombie T-rex provided. Now, when I first heard about this, I'd hoped that Eden would take this opportunity to rectify a hole I saw in their zombie creation rules – namely, that Weak Spots get the same Dead Points regardless of the size of the zombie. Alas, no. They simply fudge the Dead Points of the zombie T-rex and glibly say that such a creature is beyond the scope of the zombie-creation rules. Well, yeah... that's why you make new rules.

Chapter Four: Zombies, Inc.

Another adventure outline Deadworld, bordering on being an entire campaign. If the previous adventure was Indiana Jones territory, this one's custom made for pulp superheroes like the Shadow, the Spider, and Doc Savage. In fact, the adventure centers on Zaxor, "Pinnacle of Humanity" and the setting's answer to Doc, who has sailed right off the deep end after accidentally discovering the means to re-animate the dead. So what does the poor guy do? Why, he begins creating an army of the undead to make himself the greatest criminal mastermind of all time, of course.

The heroes, unaware of this tragic turn of events, must trot the globe to trace the resultant crime wave back to its unexpected source, meeting such underworld luminaries as Frank Nitti and "Lucky" Luciano on the way to the climactic showdown with Zaxor in his zombie-infested mobile island headquarters.

Again, this is a great idea that will take a lot of work to actually use. You get a solid description of Zaxor and his modus operandi, stats for both the major and "generic" NPCs, some key locations in his global network of crime (with others left to the GM to define), and a selection of Zaxor's inventions. (The latter blithely ignore the gadgetry rules, by the way – Zaxor somehow manages to pass out many of his deadly inventions to his minions, dodging that pesky Gadget Slot rule. And how many Gadget Slots does that floating island of his take up, anyway?)

Chapter Five: They Want Our Women

A classic campy Martian invasion scenario in the vein of Mars Attacks!, complete with huge-headed women-stealing Martians armed with flying saucers, death rays, and insidious mental powers (which do include a brain-busting version of the otherwise absent Mindkill power, by the way).

If there's anything wrong with this one, it's that by the chapter's own admission, it's much more 1950's movie sci-fi than it is 1930's pulp sci-fi. Trying to shoehorn it into pulp just doesn't feel right to me. (Heck, the term "flying saucer" wasn't even coined until 1947.)

Oh, you're probably wondering about the zombie angle. Well, there is one... sort of. You see, after the Martians do... whatever it is they do... with Earthling women, they leave the victims in a mindless, zombie-like state. No, these "zombified" women don't eat brains or flesh or anything. They're victims, not hazards. So, insofar as there are zombies in this "Deadworld" – which is a bit of a stretch – they aren't even opponents.

In my review of Enter the Zombie, I wondered about the value of AFMBE "Genre + Zombies" supplements if you want to explore the genre without the zombies. In a way, "They Want Our Women" seems like the writer's answer to this quandary: So long as you include something resembling a zombie (however vaguely) in any capacity (however inconsequential), you are still in the "Genre + Zombies" zone, and are therefore still playing AFMBE. Insofar as that is the idea here, it seems a little weak; however, it doesn't detract from the quality of the scenario.

Chapter Six: Scattered Pulp

These are three smaller scenarios, both in terms of length and scope.

War of the Worlds, Part II

Another alien invasion story – sort of – this one is a takeoff on the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Only this time, instead of giant meteorites dropping out of the sky and sprouting Martian war machines – which would be a little redundant, given the previous setting – we have animated, brain-hungry, and practically indestructible human corpses dropping from an orbital UFO, remnants of incomprehensible alien experiments. In short: Re-Entry Zombies!!

I adore the premise. My only quibble is that aside from the outrageous source of the zombies – even by zombie story standards – there's not all that much to distinguish this scenario from a generic AFMBE scenario. Sure, the zombies arrive from orbit, but once they land, they're just unusually tough brain-munchers.

Anyway, it might well be amusing to drop (pardon the pun) this scenario unexpectedly on your group of pulp adventurers who think they've seen it all.

The Chinese Menace

Tainted rice turns the denizens of Chinatown into flesh-hungry living zombies. The heroes must find out who's behind it and put a stop to his evil scheme!

This was, perhaps, the most frustrating scenario of the bunch. Why? Well, because the trail leads to a Chinese sorcerer hiding out in a massive underground warren, very much like Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China. Trouble is, there are no rules for magic. A sidebar says that such rules would be "beyond the scope of this book" and that "it is not possible to detail the precise powers and capacities" of the sorcerer and his henchmen… yet somehow, Enter the Zombie managed to offer some sample spells under nearly identical circumstances. Which brings up another point: EtZ already has a Big Trouble-themed adventure, making this one seem rather redundant.

I do like the fact that the zombies can "get better", putting the PCs in a rather awkward position when it comes to fighting them. Do they dare slaughter the zombies, even in self-defense, knowing that the condition is only temporary?

The Maltese Zombie

In a tribute to film noir, an aging millionaire businessman hires the PCs to solve the disappearance of the adventure's eponymous heirloom – a statue that can create zombies. What makes this scenario particularly clever is that the millionaire's zombie servants are fully intelligent, lifelike, and not at all hostile by nature. In fact, unless the players know they're playing a Pulp Zombie scenario, they may not realize that they're dealing with zombies at all!

Hannibal East: Re-Animator

What would a pulp sourcebook to a zombie game be without a tribute to Lovecraft?

The heroes are called upon to investigate bizarre goings-on surrounding an obsessed scientist. Of course, you can probably guess what his obsessive experiments entail. The heroes will have to decide how best to deal with a scientist who refuses to stop his dubious work, even when his "failures" are hiding out in the woods plotting his demise.

The great strength of this scenario lies in the sheer variety of zombies for which it allows. Because each zombie is the product of yet another experiment, you can have everything from quick and intelligent zombies to mindless, shambling zombies to skittering animated hands, all with their own powers and weaknesses. There are animal zombies in the mix as well, including a zombie bear. This is a great way to mess with the minds of players who've grown accustomed to the idea that all zombies in any given Deadworld are pretty much the same.

Pulp Zombies follows the standard AFMBE 7.25" x 9.25" softcover format, with the cover image surrounded by the game's signature "guts red" border. I appreciate both the nicely portable size and the way the cover art makes the whole line hang together visually.

And speaking of visuals, the interior black and white art is all over the place in quality. Some of the illustrations couldn't be more perfect, such as the one depicting a Shadow-lookalike standing with twin .45s drawn, his Kato-like sidekick in a crouched martial arts pose in the foreground, katana at the ready. On the other hand, the pastoral scene of the "They Want Our Women" Martians setting fire to a herd of remarkably apathetic cows hurt my eyes. (Yes, I know cows tend to be pretty apathetic, but even a cow will take some action when set ablaze.)

The writing, while technically proficient, didn't quite grab me somehow. I just didn't get the little surge of excitement I usually get from pulp-related subjects. The opening fiction, "The Night Chicago Died", is case in point: While it's well-written, its nihilistic and morally ambiguous nature seem almost entirely at odds with the two-fisted, good-vs.-evil approach encouraged by the book. The story also commits one of the cardinal sins of game fiction: It includes abilities that cannot be duplicated with the rules in the book itself. (In this case, the involuntary ability to make a person see his worst fear when standing nearby.) At any rate, regardless of the quality of the fiction, as was the case with the fiction in EtZ, I thought that the amount of space the story took up could have been better used.

Organization and layout are up to Eden's usual high standards. The book includes an index, and the appendix features a Pulp Era weapons table, new Quality and Drawback summaries, and a list of gadget creation modifiers, as well as a bibliography of pulp-related resources and suggestions on finding pulp stories.

My expectations were all over the map regarding this book.

When I first heard about it, I felt some degree of disappointment that the first and possibly only Unisystem foray into pulp would be part of the AFMBE line rather than a stand-alone game. It's not that I don't like zombies; rather, I love both Unisystem and pulp so much that I wanted to get the most mileage possible from a combo of the two. I figured that being an AFMBE book, it would focus on the zombies at the expense of the pulp.

Then I got my copy of Enter the Zombie, the Hong Kong action AFMBE supplement, and I was overjoyed at the way it covered both the genre and the genre + zombies with equal zeal. And my expectations for Pulp Zombies suddenly shot through the roof! If EtZ could be equal parts AFMBE and general Unisystem Hong Kong action sourcebook, maybe Pulp Zombies would do the same for pulp!

Sadly, no. On the contrary, Pulp Zombies is what I feared EtZ would be: an AFMBE genre supplement that puts insufficient effort into covering the genre itself.

Now, one could argue that it doesn't have to do the whole genre justice, being a pulp zombies book. And that's perfectly true. That's why I gave it an "average" rating on substance: It does what it sets out to do. But where Pulp Zombies gets by, EtZ excels. Where the former offers thin gadget rules, recycled psionics, and directions to other supplements and games for setting elements not covered, EtZ creates innovative new martial arts rules, expands zombie powers, and includes a simplified magic system for those without access to the magic rules in WitchCraft. In short, EtZ set the bar too high for Pulp Zombies.

So, who should get this book? Well, if it's Unisystem mechanics you're after, I can't really recommend Pulp Zombies over WitchCraft, Terra Primate, or even Buffy (especially given the super-science rules in The Magic Box supplement). Not unless you're dead-set on sticking to the AFMBE line, at any rate. If you're more interested in setting info, you're on firmer ground, especially if you can get some use out of more than one of the scenarios.

As for myself, I will continue to eagerly await Beyond Human and hope that it has a pulp supplement of its own.

• Setting
• Quality = 3.5
• Quantity = 3.5

• Rules
• Quality = 3.0
• Quantity = 3.0

STYLE:

• Artwork = 4.0

• Layout/Readability = 4.0

• Organization = 4.0

• Writing = 3.5

• Proofreading = -0.0

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