User Blog:
What We Should Play - Shambles

Shambles is a new offering by Duane O'Brien.

It offers a new angle on the traditional zombie game: You play the zombie. In fact, you play an unremarkable and pathetic excuse for a zombie. You play a zombie that's so very unremarkable that people pass by every day and don't really pay attention.

Shambles uses the unique "LAFF System" for dice rolling. That stands for "Light, Adaptable, Fast and Flexible." It is what it advertises. It's a very simplified dice pool/target number system (think World of Darkness or Shadowrun,) with a high amount of player involvement through a mechanic called "LAFF Points." LAFF Points are given for all those things a player does to make the game cooler, be it making people laugh, driving plot or even chipping in a disproportionate amount for pizza. It's versatile and easy, allowing a player to help or harm both the other players and the GM.

Characters, as mentioned, are supposed to be bland and uninteresting, while still being interesting in their own ways. Character creation emphasizes giving nice little personal touches to your zombies. Characters are represented by six basic statistics, these are of course very zombie-centric including "Lurch, Flail and Clutch." The system's real shine comes from the rules for rotting. Yes, your character rots. This combines with normal hit point style mechanics for a bit of depth in the otherwise simple system. It's zombies, so hit locations matter. Crippling occurs, but it doesn't stop a character. How do you get hit points back? Good you asked: You eat brains. (I thought that was a no-brainer.)

Characters mostly fit in with the world. But, they rot. So, there's a chance that anyone meeting you will be weirded out or frightened. That's if they even notice you in the first place.

The combat rules take up about two pages, and are very streamlined, focused mostly on the art of brain-eating. On the other end of the LAFF Point spectrum, characters earn Brain Tokens for successfully eating brains. These have a number of functions, including demanding a good idea from the GM.

Most importantly, the game is very freeform. It's set up to run however you'd like. Your zombies can emulate whatever media zombies you want, or can cover your own concepts. So long as they're undead and want brains, you can cover it. The book's rule, as quoted: "We don't care if you use that rule (or any of the rules) so long as you Have Fun and Roll Lots Of Dice."