Aftermath!

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Aftermath!
Fgu4000.jpg
Aftermath! cover art
Designers Paul Hume, Robert N. Charrette
Publishers Fantasy Games Unlimited
Publication1981
Genres Post-apocalyptic fiction
SystemsCustom

Aftermath! ("Sunset on humanity, or dawn of a brave new world?" [1] ) is a role-playing game created by Paul Hume and Robert Charette and published in 1981 by Fantasy Games Unlimited.

Contents

It is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the characters fight for food, water, basic supplies, and shelter.

The nature of the apocalypse is up to the game master. An expansion, Aftermath! Magic!, is set in a universe dominated by dragons in the style of the film Reign of Fire .

Game design

Aftermath! is the second RPG produced by Hume and Charrette for FGU after producing Bushido. [2] It was also praised for its features, but often criticized for its complexity, a common refrain when discussing games from FGU. [2]

Aftermath! 101 (Courtesy David Harmer, Fantasy Games Unlimited)

Characters are rated on a set of six stats – Wit, Will, Strength, Deftness, Speed, and Health. These are rated as follows:

Characters also have a set of talents – Charismatic, Combative, Communicative, Esthetic, Mechanical, Natural, and Scientific. These talents govern the progress in skills, and can be used in a pinch as a “Natural Talent” instead of a skill.

Aftermath! is a true skill-based system, with no “levels” to artificially balance gameplay. A character has a set of skills that define the tasks that they are proficient in. Skills are rated on a skillscore, which is converted to a D20 roll (BCS) for convenience. If the D20 is under the BCS, then the skill test succeeds.

The combat system is a tiered system. The players only resolve the combat to the level of detail needed for the encounter; therefore, they can forgo using the more complex resolution methods if it benefits the game's current pace.

A basic attack is roll to hit (D20). If the target is an “extra”, there is no need to even roll for damage. An average attack (for a player attacking) is roll to hit (D20), and then roll for damage. A detailed attack is roll to hit (D20), roll for hit location (D100), then roll for damage. A personality attack (or an attack against the PC) is roll to hit (D20) roll for location(d100) roll for damage, and resolve any special effects as needed.

Each weapon or attack method uses a different number of "damage dice" to express its power. A muscle-powered or melee weapon, for instance, uses the character's strength statistic as its damage dice. Firearms, on the other hand, use a fixed amount of damage dice regardless of a character's stats, based on the caliber of the weapon.

Notable to this system, skill advancement (what might be considered "leveling-up" in other RPGs) is a fluid and ongoing process, based on the application of a talent during gameplay. A specific talent that is used successfully during gameplay increments in ability immediately after being used.

Most everything the player needs to know to play the game is summarized on their character sheet.

Contents

Reception

William A. Barton reviewed Aftermath in The Space Gamer No. 43. [3] Barton commented that "If your taste in RPGs tends toward simplicity or to systems that are easily playable without a lot of work, you'll surely want to pass up Aftermath, and stick to Gamma World or The Morrow Project . If you thrive on complexity, countless calculations and mounds of information, Aftermath will give you that - and more." [3]

Like its sibling, Bushido, Aftermath! gained a number of very positive reviews on its publication. In the Open Box feature of White Dwarf #34, Andy Slack gave the game a 10/10, comparing it favourably to both Bushido and The Morrow Project RPG. [4]

It received similar positive treatment in the pages of the short-lived Imagine magazine. The reviewer compared it favorably to Mad Max but disliked the use of Australia because it would not be well-known to North American or European players and suggested moving it to a more familiar location. [5] Baylis also compares the game to The Morrow Project and gives the adventure included a positive review.

However, Thomas Grant, writing for Different Worlds , was disappointed in the level of violence in the game, saying, "Although violence is gratuitous in RPGs there are parameters of context and quantity which Aftermath! seems to overstep. [The game] practically exults in its morbid meticulousness with every minutiae of killing." Given the 2-page flowchart to explain combat, Grant pointed out, "The unfortunate consequence of all this painstaking attention to detail is that the combat system has sacrificed playability for realism." He also criticized the organization of material, saying "little effort has been made to organize the rules and make them easily indexed. Aftermath! ... is a paragon of bad organization: the combat system is sprawled across all three books, and some of the information necessary for the player's design of their characters is in sections marked, 'Gamesmasters Only!'" Grant concluded, "Aftermath! as an idea has enormous potential; Aftermath! as a game buries its potential beneath a mountain of ultra-detailed combat rules, and it is up to the individual GM to make up for the gross inadequacies of the game taken at face value. The important question for anyone considering Aftermath! is, 'Is it worth the effort?'" [6]

In his 1990 book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games , game critic Rick Swan called this game "an interesting premise, but somewhere along the way, the game lost focus. Instead of exploring the rich possibilities of a postapocalyptic setting, Aftermath bogs down in a mire of rules, resulting in a game so complicated that it's nearly unplayable." Swan also felt that "there's an uncomfortable preoccupation with violence ... with virtually every facet of combat rendered in excruciating detail." Given the level of violence, Swna pointed out that the characters are not particularly robust "which is a big drawback in a game as violence-prone as Aftermath. A well-placed shot from a sniper or a bite from a poison cookie can instantly wipe out a character that it took a couple of hours to create." Swan concluded by giving the game a below-average rating of 2 out of 4, saying, "Though its drawbacks are many, Aftermath is paradise for players who thrive on detail or for thos who want to wring every last drop of blood out of combat encounters. But for thos emore interested in role-playing that in staging detailed fights, wading through the two-hundred-plus pages of Aftermath rules is hardly worth the effort." [7]

In a 1996 readers' poll conducted by the UK games magazine Arcane to determine the 50 most popular role-playing games, Aftermath was ranked 29th. Editor Paul Pettengale commented: "Aftermath can be a harrowing game. Still, in the hands of a decent ref, it can also be one of the most involving to come out of the pre-1985 boom, with plenty of scope for freeform campaigns." [8]

Other reviews and commentary

Scenarios

A number of add-on scenario and campaign books were published. Because of the detailed rules, it was possible to build extremely detailed and believable worlds around actual places, such as Sydney University, where for example every room in the University was modeled with lengthy descriptions of items in each room, and maps based on actual university blueprints.

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References

  1. ↑ Quote from back cover of box set,Fantasy Games Unlimited, 1981
  2. 1 2 Appelcline, Shannon (2011), Designers & Dragons (1st ed.), London: Mongoose Publishing
  3. 1 2 Barton, William A. (September 1981). "Featured Review: Aftermath". The Space Gamer . Steve Jackson Games (43): 26–27.
  4. ↑ Slack, Andy (October 1982), "Open Box", White Dwarf Magazine (34)
  5. ↑ Baylis, Chris (May 1983). Imagine Magazine. TSR Hobbies (UK) Ltd. 1 (2): 36–37.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  6. ↑ Grant, Thomas (October 1981). "Reviews". Different Worlds . No. 15. pp. 34–36.
  7. ↑ Swan, Rick (1990). The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games . New York: St. Martin’s Press. pp. –xxx31.
  8. ↑ Pettengale, Paul (Christmas 1996). "Arcane Presents the Top 50 Roleplaying Games 1996". Arcane. Future Publishing (14): 25–35.
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