"Awright, you primitive screwheads. Listen up."
The Army of Darkness game is published by Eden Studios Inc., using their Unisystem game mechanics. These mechanics are used in other Eden rpg's, so those familiar with the system can dive right in. For example, I reviewed the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG
back in '05. If you've played Buffy, then you'll be ready to use the AoD rules within a few minutes. Those unfamiliar with Unisystem will get the gist quickly and pretty intuitively. More on the system later, though.
If you've never seen the movie that this game is based on, then you need to rent it. Immediately.
"Well, helloooo, Mr. Fancy Pants."
In Ash's rpg world, there are
Heroes and
Primitive Screwheads. Heroes are stronger characters in the sense of having higher scores and more flashy abilities, and Primitive Screwheads are the Hero's loyal friends and followers. Primitive Screwheads aren't as super, but they're compensated in the game by having the ability to alter the outcome of situations more often. (We'll get more into this when we discuss Drama Points.)
There are several handy character templates, called archetypes, for you to choose as your starting PC instead of making one from scratch. Pick one you like, modify it to your whims, and name it. Of course, the book does include write-ups of all the major movie roles, so you can play the game as brash anti-hero Ash, or clever and jovial Henry the Red, or humorless and practical Arthur, if that's your thing.
For those of you wishing to design your own guys, the PC archetypes are a varied lot. You can choose to play an archaeologist, a folk hero (such as Zorro or Robin Hood), a private eye, an athlete, even a Viking or a Game Designer. Since the AoD takes place throughout time, you can really design any new character type from any period in history, as long as your GM gives it the ol' thumbs-up.
To design a PC, you'll start with a varying amount of points, depending on whether you're a Hero (20 starting points) or a Screwhead (15 starting points). You use those points to "buy" Attribute levels. The Attributes are pretty standard: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Perception, and Willpower. Attributes can be bought up to "5" on a point per point basis, but after that it costs three points per level. (So, having a Perception of 5 costs five points, but having a Perception of 6 costs eight points.) Most normal humans have scores between 2 and 3 in their Attributes.
Life Points dictate how much of an ass-whooping you can take before becoming a corpse yourself. Your LP total is found by doing some calculations with your Strength and Constitution scores, and usually range between 20 and 30 for Primitive Screwheads. Macho Hero types, like gladiators or gunslingers, have higher LPs, around 50-70.
Next, you choose Qualities and Drawbacks.
Frequent readers of my reviews will well know that I have never liked this game mechanic. I'm from Ye Olde Schoole of role playing, where gamers didn't get any in-game advantage from rolling up a sucky character. So I'm not well-disposed towards game systems where you can give your PC "bad eyesight" and get a bonus to your basket-weaving skill or some crap like that, which is the type of trade-off that most of these systems promote. I've never yet found a game where this mechanic added anything practical to the game.
However, in the Unisystem world, I can grudgingly make an exception. Army of Darkness is one of the few games that makes this work because the themes, mood, and attitude of both the movie and the rpg are reflected in the types of Qualities and Drawbacks offered.
So, you choose Qualities and Drawbacks, which are good things your PC gets, or things that hamper you. Heroes start with 20 Quality Points with which to purchase these shticks, and Primitive Screwheads start with 10 Quality Points. As in all point-based char-gen systems, cool qualities cost you points while disadvantages earn you more points to spend on skills or Qualities. The main purpose of these things is to make the PC more interesting and give players some hooks to build personality quirks on, or the GM to design plots around.
The list includes stuff like Acute or Impaired Senses, Attractiveness, Fast Reaction Time, Hard to Kill, Nerves of Steel, Natural Toughness, Psychic Visions, or Adversary. These are all pretty obvious in description. However, this being AoD, you've also got such classics as Big Chin (lets you add dice to someone else's roll), Buff Guy (tougher), Dullard, Nerd, or Schmuck (must make an Intelligence roll at critical times, or you'll mess something up. "Well, maybe I didn't say every itsy bitsy word exactly…")
"Chosen One" is a Quality for the very heroic, of course. If one or all of the players want to be The One To Kick Deadite Ass, then the GM may have you choose this Quality. It gives you a boost to your attributes, and gives you some bonus skills. You can still be a Hero archetype without being a Chosen One, however.
Once you've got yourself loaded up on character-building gimmicks, you get to pick Skills. You PC gets Skill Points like she got Quality Points, and Skill levels are purchased exactly like you spent points to buy your Attributes.
Skills can be any learned knowledge you want your PC to have, and book examples include Acrobatics, Crime, Driving, Getting Medieval (makes you better with melee weapons), Gun Fu (makes you better with ranged weapons), Kung Fu (makes you better with hand to hand fighting), Languages, Occultism, Sports, Science, or anything else the player or GM can think up.
PCs then get a choice of Combat Maneuvers. Basic attacks are listed by general types in Army of Darkness, but there's still a lot of choices. Your character may be skilled in the standard Punch and Kick school of playground roughhousing, but you might also be skilled in the interesting techniques of Head Butt, Groin Shot, Crossbow Shot, Decapitation, Break Neck, or Spin Kick. The truly Ash-like amongst you may know Chainsaw Ballet or Brain Shot, for taking out those ravaging Deadites.
We'll explain combat in a few moments.
Lastly, your PC gets a load of Drama Points. These are points that can be spent during the game in five ways: to improve your chances of successfully attempting an action, to heal injuries, to improve your fighting skills for a short time, to initiate a plot twist, or even to give the Grim Reaper the slip and come back from the dead. Heroes get 10 of these per session, but Primitive Screwheads get 20. This is the compensation Screwheads get for not having as many kick-ass skills as Heroes start with. It's rather expected in play that Screwheads will use their drama points a good bit, because most demons and undead are more than a match for a single Primitive Screwhead. Screwheads spend drama points just to stay in the game.
Characters improve by gaining the ever-popular experience points. Usually you'll get 2-5 XP per session. These are used to buy up new levels of skills or improve attributes, or they can be exchanged for Drama Points.
Your mighty demon hunter is now ready to take on the hordes of evilness unleashed by the Necronomicon!
"Your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and…things with molecular structures."
The Unisystem mechanics are simple. Basically, roll a d10, add the level of the skill you’re using, plus whatever Attribute is appropriate, and try to beat a difficulty number for the action set by the GM. If there's no skill involved, you just double your Attribute score and add it to the d10 roll.
Most times, any roll of 9 or more will succeed. The higher you roll, the more "successes" you get. Once in a while the number of successes is important to how well or how fast you accomplish whatever you're trying. A chart in the book lists how many successes you get depending on what your final rolled score is.
For example, to raise a rusty drawbridge before the Deadites storm into the castle, the GM decides that your PC needs to score three successes using the bridge winch, based on your Strength score. You take your Strength score of three, roll a d10 and get a "4". There's no skill involved, so doubling your Strength ("6") and adding your rolled four gives you a total of 10. That's one success, according to the chart. The drawbridge creaks upward a few feet, but doesn't raise the whole way. You try again, and this time you roll a "9". Adding your doubled strength gives you a total of 15, which according to the chart equals four success levels; more than you needed in the first place. The winch spins easily now in your hands, raising the bridge, but it took you two rounds. Maybe some undead got inside during that time?...
For contested actions, such as trying to outrun a flying demon, or wrestle the Necronomicon from a zombie's grasp, whoever rolls the highest score wins.
"Come get some."
In combat, attacking characters roll against the Dodging ability of their target. Dodging scores depend on Dexterity, and possibly useful skills like acrobatics or kung fu. If the attacker's roll beats the defender's dodge roll, the attack hits. Damage is done according to weapon type, but one extra point of damage is added for each success level the attacker got on his roll.
In Army of Darkness, heroes may have modern automatic weapons or Medieval blades, depending on whether they've been time-traveling. For some damage examples, let's look at some common weapons. A .38 caliber pistol does 12 damage points. A short sword will do three times your Strength in damage, while a Big Ass Sword will chop off something for five times your Strength. Spinning kicks do 2 times your Strength, plus 2.
(Yeah, yeah, I know you all need to find out… a boomstick does 20 points of damage.)
That's really all you need to know. You're good to go and begin playing in the world of Ash Williams!
Hail to the king, baby.
The GOOD
Character creation only takes up half the book. The other half is dedicated to a BUTTLOAD of information about the movies, and running AoD games and campaigns. There are sample monsters, sample adventures, sample vehicles; everything the GM could need to run a rowdy game of evil thwarting. The rule book is packed with material related not only to role playing in general, but it's basically an encyclopedia for the movie as well.
The rules manage to carry the tone and manic fun that is the Evil Dead movie trilogy. For goofy adventures of time-traveling, wise-cracking Joe Shmoes everywhere, you need look no further than this game.
I absolutely must mention the Mass Combat rules for this game as an outstanding feature, and the one bonus not found in other Unisystem games yet, such as Buffy or Angel. The mass combat system is simple, but effective. Want to replay that scene where hundreds of Deadites are storming the castle, defended by a handful of scruffy archers and soldiers with catapults? This system lets you do just that. And PCs actually have a say in the action, influencing events. I say it's good because strategy and scheming and good leadership will have an impact on the action, and the game play, so while the system is designed to quickly and effective produce results, that doesn't mean that there isn't time for cunning plots and clever use of resources by individuals.
The same basic mass combat system was used in Savage Worlds, an rpg I reviewed earlier, and written by the same author. I plan on porting this system into all of my other rpgs where massive body counts on a large scale are going to happen.
The NEUTRAL
The tone of this book, much like the Buffy rpg, is written in the chattery, too-talkative style of a caffeinated B-movie actor. Now it works for a film, but reading through it for 230 pages in a book tends to wear on the nerves. Being curmudgeonly, I sorta' like my rules written in clear and concise language. It's just sorta' distracting trying to sort through all the lines of jabber to find the useful information on game mechanics.
Also, honestly, there's a bit too much emphasis on following the movie very closely. While there's lots of material in the book, a lot of it is summaries of scenes from the film, suggestions on running your players through the movie plot and scenarios, and stats for the film critters.
While these may be useful, I really would have preferred some more original material. I was sick to death of reading about the Watcher, which really isn't that big a deal in the movies, just an unseen plot device to move Ash from one scene to another. I didn't need to know about its motives, its powers, its favorite breakfast food, etc. I would much rather have had some stats for more interesting monsters, perhaps some stuff not shown in the movies.
The EVIL
The DEAD!!
Ha ha ha ha ha hahahaha hee heee hooo!
Ooooh, man, sometimes I crack me up.
OK, seriously, as much as I like the Evil Dead movies, this is obviously a game based on a really limited source. For legal reasons, Eden could only use the material from the third movie for their rpg, but even if they'd had the rights to all three flicks, there's only so much you can do with such a limited story line.
GMs will have to be creative in developing their own world (and times in history) for their players to traipse around in. Ash was pursuing the Necronomicon, but that storyline gets old after a few game sessions, so the GM will perhaps have to think up another story arc for her campaign. For this reason, I actually recommend that gamers choosing this as their primary rpg may want to invest in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or All Flesh Must Be Eaten zombie-fest core books from Eden. The Unisystem is mostly the same in all books, but the material and ideas each add to the whole, and those two games would probably add greatly to your AoD inspirations.
So, overall I recommend the game, what more can I say?
Gimme some sugar, baby.
Review Summary