This is the product that made me want to run D20 Modern.
As a long term gamer, I've built up a fair library of RPG products in print and in electronic format. As a dedicated buyer of RPG products in PDF format (for cost and usability purposes), including well over 100 PDFs from almost 40 different publishers, I've had the opportunity over the last few years to read a lot of PDFs that vary in quality from "waste of money" to "money well spent - I'd spend it again". This product sits squarely at the money well spent end of the scale.
Year of the Zombie (YotZ) has 8 chapters spread over it's 152 pages (including 1 cover page, 1 advertisement page and 2 pages for the OGL) that cover the world as it would be if George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead movies had come to "life". YotZ is the first in a series to be released by UKG Publishing.
The chapters are as follows:
Chapter 1 - Campaign Types: what kind of zombie game are you running?
Chapter 2 - Time of Death: beginning the zombie campaign
Chapter 3 - The Dead Walk: zombie templates
Chapter 4 - Those Left Alive: new player classes
Chapter 5 - Cause of Death: additional threats and hazards
Chapter 6 - Lands of the Dead: locations of interest
Chapter 7 - We?re Jacked Up & Good to Go, Sarge!
Chapter 8 - Alternate Rules
Beginning with Chapter One, the author addresses the type of zombie game that a GM intends to run. While these may seem obvious, the 4 different types of zombie campaign give a clear direction as to where the author envisions this product being usable. Ranging from one-shot "Nobody Walks Away" games to long-term "End of Civilization" campaigns, the author ensures that each form of zombie involvement in your campaign is well covered and seeds several ideas for a GM as they read through. This chapter also covers variations to the style, including Dark and Gritty, Heroic and Mysteries After Death (an Arcana focussed style).
Chapter Two covers the timing of the zombie contamination threat. Advice for meshing YotZ into pre-existing campaigns as well as starting off with YotZ as the basis for a campaign is included, as well as more detailed examinations of beginning a campaign, ranging from a beginning a few days before the outbreak starts to a post-apocalyptic vision of the world overrun by zombies.
The first two chapters are pure gold for a GM intending on running a zombie contamination game and are well worth reading more than once.
Chapters Three and Four begin the "crunch". Various zombie templates are covered, including everything from the slow shambling zombies of Night of the Living Dead to the energised sprinting zombies of the newer Dawn of the Dead movie. The author made a conscious decision here to avoid the Return of the Living Dead zombies for several reasons, principally because a game involving them would be short and ugly for the players (intelligent, unkillable zombies? Unnecessarily nasty and uninteresting for a long-term game). The classes included in Chapter Four are, with one exception, designed for a YotZ game. Only the Lawman prestige class could reasonably see use outside of a YotZ or post-apocalyptic game. While new classes and feats are seen by some as almost obligatory in D20 products, these classes are flavourful and seem well balanced.
Chapter Five continues the flavour mixed with "crunch" and is focussed upon other hazards and threats in a YotZ world. Biological, chemical and nuclear warfare are covered (though the author does caution against heavy-handed use of these weapons), foreign troops on US soil, rogue military units, police, army, navy and air force troops are here and post-apocalyptic favourites such as slavers and raiders are included. Sample statistics are provided for every type of NPC threat. Disease, food/water and radiation are also covered, often with detailed tables relating to their use. Reference is also made to the Blood and Guts series of PDFs from RPGObjects as useful additions to a campaign that may be focussed on militarily inclined PCs (another good set of PDFs, if not narrowly focussed).
Chapter Six covers locations of interest. Everything from various types of military installations to mortuaries to airports are detailed here. Almost every likely (and even unlikely) destination for a group of survivors is detailed.
Chapter Seven covers new military equipment, including weapons, vehicles and other survival equipment. This is a solid chapter and gives a good jump-off point for anyone looking to increase the military flavour within a YotZ campaign.
Chapter Eight provides a series of alternate rules, including systems for bartering, improvised armour, specific hit locations, horror and insanity. Another good chapter of crunch targeted squarely at the zombie campaign flavour.
Throughout YotZ, sidebars provide specific advice for other areas that a GM may intend to include. Advice for robots, cybernetics, Arcana and Shadow-based D20 Modern games is given, along with brief discussions on how they may be implemented and affect the YotZ campaign.
One touch that I particularly liked throughout YotZ was a running story written as diary entries for a character named Becka. Through these diary entries, we gain a clear picture of how Becka (and the other characters) are affected by the crunch and flavour being described in the main text. The effects of radiation, the jubilation and trepidation of finding a military bunker and the disgust we should feel for slavers is all described in an engaging manner by Becka. These diary entries also help break up the intensity of taking in the amount of information we're given in YotZ.
There are very few editing errors for a product of this size and certainly none that made any descriptions unclear or unusable. The one pet peeve that I had was the poor bookmarking. With PDF technology being very customisable, I'd expected better bookmarking in this product. With only a listing of "Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3...", I found it a pain in the rear end to go back to the table of contents, and then use the bookmarks to jump to the page. The bookmarks should really have been a copy of the table of contents. Of course, if you intend on printing it, this won't be a problem.
The artwork is flavourful, spaced well and generally simple, though there are a couple of choice pieces. Some pieces are photographs of equipment or locations, while others are simple black and white drawings. Though the artwork is not the focus of this product and most of the 152 pages is given over to descriptions, advice and crunch, the artwork provides a good page balance while reading and gives a clear impression of the author's intentions on any particular page. There are also a handful of colour maps in the style of other UKG map products, meaning that a high quality is maintained in those few included in YotZ.
In short, I liked it. The concept is engaging, the crunch is flavourful and virtually all of the non-crunch information is directly applicable to games of this style, even those not using the D20 Modern system.
Go buy it already !
<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: A lot. Money well spent that I'd spend again in a heartbeat.
The concept is engaging, the crunch is flavourful and virtually all of the non-crunch information is directly applicable to games of this style, even those not using the D20 Modern system.
Read my review above for more details of why this is the product that inspired me to run a D20 Modern game.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The bookmarking was my pet peeve here. PDF bookmarks should be a copy of the table of contents.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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