Retrospective Review: All Things Zombie / 5150

"Just play the game." - Ed Teixeira

We'll take these two together, as they are essentially the same game engine - from an earlier game called Chain Reaction - flavoured for different settings. Each spawned a series of related games, setting books, scenario packs, and there are at least two ATZ board games, but here I'm just looking at the core rulebooks. The author, Ed Teixeira, is a prolific writer, and it's entirely possible I missed one or two somewhere along the way; there are also quick-play editions, very short and simple, but for this post I'll stick to the full fat versions.

Although I'd previously dabbled in solo play for decades, it was only when I encountered these two games in 2008 that the light came on and I properly understood how to play solo. There are many other games from the same publisher, using essentially the same game engine for other genres; the games are equally suited to solo, co-op or head to head combat, and can handle one-off skirmishes or campaigns; but where they really shine is in long-running solo campaigns.

Core Mechanic

Roll 2d6 vs a target number; the number of dice which "pass" by rolling that number or less determines your degree of success. Various editions use various other mechanics, but this is common to all of them and is the one most often used.

All Things Zombie Editions

Depending on the edition, All Things Zombie begins either at the start of the zombie apocalypse - my personal preference - two years into it, or much later.

All Things Zombie (2005). This is the first edition, and won the Origins Award for the Best Miniatures Game of the Year 2005. 52 page PDF with fairly basic layout, of which 5 pages are Quick Reference Sheets (QRS) and 4 pages a combat example. This has the widest range of weapons and character attributes, as well as a point count system for balancing head to head combat and relatively complex rules for what loot can be found in which type of building; the start point is two years into the outbreak, and although there is a second phase starting after 10 years and a third after 20, those have only narrative effects. It's a tabletop-only edition focussed on miniatures and terrain. There are three main types of encounters, Raids to recover or destroy something, and Escapes or Pursuits following on from Raids. I played it solo for about a year, and switched over to Better Dead Than Zed when that came out.

All Things Zombie: Better Dead Than Zed (2009). This edition is a 92 page PDF with improved layout; 8 of those pages are QRS, largely because different kinds of people have different reaction tables. The game begins on Day One, with three introductory scenarios to teach the rules, a Day One scenario to kick off your campaign, then three encounter types - Discover (search), Raid (steal/recover), and Take Back (clear out a location). This edition is also focused on using minis on a table. Innovations include the introduction of overfishing (you eventually consume all resources in an area and have to move on), Challenges (a basic task system to handle anything that isn't covered in the rules), random events, and character classes (civilians, gangers, military, survivors). Attribute and weapons lists are simplified. I probably played more of this edition than any other, and it's the only one I played co-op and ran as a moderated game for my kids and their friends; good times.

All Things Zombie: Final Fade Out (2012). 106 page PDF, of which 12 pages are QRS. Game starts on Day One. This one has more complex encounter rules, which is probably why it spawned the Risks & Rewards Deck - I'm still using that. Innovations include adding skills (People and Savvy); pregenerated grunts for citizens, gangers and survivors, which were a huge time-saver; and I think this is also the earliest edition to split encounters into voluntary and involuntary. I played the game itself on and off for a few years, but it didn't enthrall me the way Better Dead Than Zed had.

All Things Zombie: Evolution (2018). 116 page PDF, of which 8 pages are QRS - the reduction is due to everyone using the same reaction tables. Innovations include Increasing/Decreasing Rep points; adding lycaons (werewolves), razors (from 5150), casters and vampires; the choice of battle boards or tabletop play, including a tweaked version for tabletop convention play; a greatly expanded selection of encounter types, which are now much more closely aligned with the ones in 5150 and are essentially about doing jobs for patrons; a town with NPC factions and a 5-encounter campaign; a supplement for vehicles and resources; and in my version, 12 pages of battle boards and one page of counters. This edition starts on Day One and I played it for a year or two.

All Things Zombie: End of Days (2022). 99 page PDF, of which three pages are QRS. By now, we're down to 12 attributes and classes are loners, sheeple, and gangers. This includes a 12-episode campaign with an optional scenario in a gated mansion, and rules for zombie golf. It introduces variant zombie types - smarties and ragers - but drops the lycaons, casters, razors and vampires. This edition starts many years deep into the outbreak, and I have played it relatively little compared to the others.

5150 Editions

5150 (2006): 128 pages spread over three PDFs, of which 21 are QRS. This first edition is unashamedly focused on tabletop skirmish warfare and covers a dozen or so alien races and human factions, each of which has their own reaction tables - that's why the QRS is so large. Book one covers the basic combat rules and military operations, including a wide range of weapons, armour, ground and air vehicles, fire support, and drop troops; it also covers military campaigns, giving the tech level and primary motivation of each race as well as an abstract way of handling the overall war which in turn drives the player's missions. Book two is what would become the core of the 5150 games I play, adding RPG elements to the skirmish game and allowing you to operate a small team of adventurers as they avoid the law (or not) while undertaking quests, raids, and stand-up fights. I think this is also the earliest game to include Challenges for resolving tasks outside the normal scope of the rules. It has more detail on the various alien races, their organisation, and their gear. Book three is the QRS and vehicle design rules. I bought this one but never played it; too complex, too much page flipping. However, it was promising enough that I kept an eye out for subsequent editions.

5150 New Beginnings (2011): 176 page PDF, of which 16 are QRS - again, different "troop types" have their own reaction tables, although these are simplified from the first edition and paired with a random NPC generator on the same page. This restricts the available races to six (basic, grath, hishen, razor, xeog, zhuh-zhuh) which will be stable for the next few editions and significantly reduces the range of armour and weapons available. Innovations include adding skills (Fitness, People, Savvy, Science), professions and classes; buildings and their floor plans; a more detailed description of New Hope, the usual base planet; being arrested, tried and possibly imprisoned; media crews; and cybernetic enhancements. The military adventures were split out into 5150 Star Army and related games; the publisher had understood by now that their customer base was split into those playing skirmish wargames and those who wanted rules-light RPGs (I'm in the second group). I played this edition a fair amount, usually solo, until Urban Renewal came out.

5150 New Beginnings Urban Renewal (2014): 132 page PDF, of which 10 pages are QRS. This is broadly similar in content to New Beginnings, but now New Hope City is split into zones on a transit map, with each zone having different characteristics depending on what the time of day is. Other changes include a faster way to generate NPCs. I played this one a little; I vividly remember meeting the same pickpocket multiple times on the mass transit system. However, it is similar enough to New Beginnings that I find them difficult to separate in my memory.

5150 Fringe Space (2015): 106 page PDF, of which 17 pages are QRS. This one really grabbed my attention, because for the first time it added spaceships, travel between worlds, and associated patron missions. Other additions include betting on the Competitive Violence League (I always envisioned this as Rollerball), counters for people and ships, and quite a lot of setting material; the "tabletop" is by this stage a 12" x 12" area with no actual terrain, although there is a bonus section with more normal tabletop rules. I played this quite a bit until the next edition came out, and thoroughly enjoyed myself with it, although the ship combat system was not to my liking, relying as it did on drawing cards. I was very fond of the settlement and ship maps, and still use them, although I was less enamoured of the interstellar map and system rings.

5150 No Limits Maiden Voyage (2018): 81 page PDF, of which 8 pages are QRS, two are a battle board and counters, and a starter campaign with pre-generated missions and NPCs. This is the fastest, slickest and tightest version of the game, and the one I enjoyed playing the most. It includes a campaign in 16 episodes, and by now we are fully committed to the battle board, as well as having simplified pretty much everything to do with ships.

5150 New Beginnings (2021): 269 page PDF. This one is so big because it includes Alien Fight Night (boxing matches you can fight in or bet on), tabletop combat as well as battle boards, robots, psionics, computers and hacking, mining, more detailed setting information, more aliens than you can shake a stick at, and a campaign with a pre-generated crew, NPCs and missions. There are also two pages of counters and several battle boards. I've played this a little, but it's big enough to put me off, especially the huge number of alien races.

World generation, ship rules, racial features, and the description of the base world (New Hope) vary from edition to edition, so you either need to pick one and stick to it or not worry about these aspects changing under your avatar's feet.

Changes Over the Years

These games have always sat on the border between skirmish wargames and RPGs, with scenario and campaign rules which justify the battles and link them together. Over time, the focus has shifted away from the tabletop combat to a more narrative style where the important thing is the story linking encounters together.

As the author says, gamers have changed over the years, and his games have changed with them each time. Partly as a result of that, and partly through decades of refinements in play, the rules have become gradually more simplified and streamlined. In parallel, the layout of the games has improved, becoming more legible and easier to use.

The combat focus has shifted back and forth between classical skirmish wargaming on a 4' by 4' table, and highly abstract engagements using counters on an 8" by 11" battle board, with some rulebooks favouring one approach, some the other, and some presenting both and letting the player choose (my preference, as I like the option to play games at different levels of abstraction depending on my mood and the available time).

Stars (the players' avatars in the game) always have some advantages over Grunts (NPC extras and mooks), but what those are exactly varies from edition to edition.

The number and type of encounters have also varied from edition to edition, but seem to have stabilised at one involuntary encounter per month (which can't be avoided) and one voluntary one (which can, but usually you don't, because you need the resources or the Rep points).

Pros and Cons

These games have a very different feel from most skirmish wargames...

• The activation system varies from edition to edition, but turns are of variable length, with figures interrupting and reacting to each other in a way more dictated by the rules than the player's orders. This aspect of the game makes it obvious why the original rules were called "Chain Reaction".
• You only have control of a single figure, with the others being influenced by him but reacting as the rules and dice dictate. Sometimes they do what you want, sometimes they panic and open fire when you didn't want them to, sometimes they freeze and zombies eat them alive, quite often they decide things are getting too dangerous and run away.
• The AI controlling enemy figures is brutal, and ruthlessly punishes poor tactics.
• The system of Possible Enemy Forces is an elegant alternative to hidden movement and the fog of war; sometimes a PEF is a pushover, sometimes it's too tough to handle, sometimes there's nothing there at all, you were just imagining things.
• Characters are very simple both to create and play, needing only one or two short lines of text to detail them fully.
• The campaign system excels at creating background material procedurally, with ongoing plots and recurring allies and enemies emerging seamlessly from the dice rolls, and allies drifting away from you if your luck runs out.

On the downside, the rules are so different that it can be difficult to make the necessary mental shift, and it's hard to understand the campaign rules as there is no overview of them - I've tried to create one many times and never succeeded, you just have to dive in and trust the process.

All of that's like Marmite; you'll either love it, or you'll hate it. Personally, I love it.

My Future With ATZ/5150

Over the last few years, the author has been gradually winding down, handing over his stable of games to Rebel Minis and involving others in writing both rules and setting material. We're broadly similar in age, so I get that, I'm refocusing too.

I can see myself returning to either or both of these games in future, as they give me a lot of enjoyment for very little effort; but maybe not the latest editions, maybe something one or two iterations back. For ATZ, I would probably pick Evolutions, and for 5150, probably No Limits Maiden Voyage, although Fringe Space has more setting material and a title I prefer; in each case, this is because everything I do use is in one book, with minimal page count devoted to things I don't use. You might want different things, in which case you might be better served by another edition.