It's not the Malifaux rpg...

[Castlereagh]

but it's what I'll be playing until Wyrd writes one for me.

I've known about Unhallowed Metropolis for at least a year, but the original edition was prohibitively hard to get ahold of. Fortunately, a revised edition was released this month by Atomic Overmind Press.

In Unhallowed Metropolis, history as we know it was rudely interrupted by a zombie apocalypse in 1905. The rpg is set in an alternate London, a colossal stygian sprawl protected by towering fortifications on all sides. Dubiously secure from the surrounding plague ridden wasteland, the inhabitants of London suffocate in the fog of the city. Respirators are a ubiquitous sight on the classes that can afford them, but for the great unwashed, life is invariably nasty, brutish, and short.

Unhallowed metropolis absolutely oozes atmosphere. The setting is painted out for you in acrylic, rather than watercolor. By that I mean that texture and nuance are some of the strengths of the writing, at the expense of some brevity. Even though humanity has been decimated, the world has a very lived in feel to it. An imaginative Player or Gm should find oodles of little niches in the setting, crying out to be inhabited by their creations. You could easily style a character as anything from Herbert West, to Fagin, to Oscar Wilde with a gun.

Mechanically, unhallowed metropolis has more in common with the Rpgs of the late 90s than with popular light narrative games in the vein of Spirit of the Century. It reminds me of games like 7th Sea and various White Wolf titles that went out of print a few years ago. Character skills and attributes are point based, and there are no levels. The game is played with d10s, so it should appeal to players who've developed an aversion to linear probability.

Combat in Unhallowed Metropolis is notably lethal. There's no abstract, gradual transition from feeling ok to spilling your guts out on the cobblestones. Wounds are handled individually, so the first hit you take could kill you, or might just slow you down and make you an easier target. In fights against the walking dead, infection is a serious concern. Surviving an infected bite usually requires a roll of 17 or so, on 2d10, and those who fail have about eight hours to live. It's not just the players who can end messily, however. The tricks a PC can pull with their weapons can really tear things apart.

Edited September 20, 2011 by Castlereagh

[tadaka]

Sounds intresting might check that out

[Dolomyte]

I've actually played this game with the creators at templecon, they do demos there. It was really fun. Im not entirely sure how well you could convert malifaux to it, since its more of a zombie only type thing, but it is a fun game.

[Shae-Konnit]

Looks pretty cool to me, i'll need to check it out.

[Hermitpermit]

Game is a blast and the books are quite expensive. I have both Necropolis and Metropolis and played a game of it. Game was most fun I played in a while.

[Bad_Badger]

It does indeed sound very interesting - I've never played a specific zombie survival rpg before (only the Zombies board game).

I'd be a bit concerned about the longevity of the characters, however, with the survivability of an infected bite sounding so unlikely.

[Shae-Konnit]

It's starting to both look and sound like a Steampunk version of SLA Industries, which as far as I'm concerned is no bad thing!

Last campaign I ran for SLA had a zombie theme so this'll be right up my street.

[Keltheos]

I need to get me a copy of these. Always been curious how Soles' outside of Privateer RPG turned out.

[Bad_Badger]

There's also Call of Cthulu or perhaps Cthulu by Gaslight which is I think a Victorian derivative of the rpg.

The atmosphere and character templates would be well-suited for some Malifaux character types, however there's no game mechanic I'm aware of that would allow for more unnatural character traits such as spells and soulstone effects.

I've also played an rpg called Chill in the past which is a bit more gung-ho and less investigative than Cthulu, and some characters have access to the Arts (supernatural abilities) which with only a moderate amount of tweaking could be Mali-fied.

[EvilGinger]

Working on something using Basic Role playing as we speak as most of the stuff in Malifaux could be modelled either as super powers in the basic book or using the two magic systems in the book. The Game also has a basis for a Soulstone. Skils are straightforward & combat can be appropriately deadly

This is all because I draged two role players down to our regular Malifaux games night who where not struck on miniatures gaming but loved the background