The Long-Awaited UnMet Review
Unhallowed Metropolis Review
Right, I’ve been promising this for a while, so here it is: my review of the most recent RPG release from EOS Press, Unhallowed Metropolis. I’ve only managed to run two sessions of the game so far, but based on what I’ve seen of the game in-play and what I’ve read in the rather shiny corebook, this is the collection of my thoughts so far. I’ve also rated the game’s performance in each ‘category’ of my review out of 5, just for convenience.
Setting (5/5):
I generally consider this the most defining aspect of any game, and I have to say that UnMet certainly delivers on setting, both in the overall aesthetics and in the details. Most of the corebook is actually dedicated to bringing the setting to life, and over 50000 words describe the history of the UnMet world before rules are even mentioned. The game designers have gone to a lot of effort to create a very rich, detailed and extremely cool universe in which to let loose the players’ characters.
To sum it up quickly, I’d probably describe it as “Neo-Victorian Cyberpunk with zombies”. A quick run-down on how the UnMet world differs from our follows here:
In the year 1905CE, the world ended…well, sort of. Civilisation as it was known ended, because almost overnight planet Earth found itself in the grip of the Plague, a monstrous contagion whose victims rose from the dead as ravening, flesh-hungry zombies (or ‘animates’ as the game terms them). The origins of the Plague were unknown, but its effect was horrific beyond imagining. Within a year or so, 70% of the population of mankind had succumbed to reanimation. Against the growing tide of undead, the inventiveness of the human race went into overdrive as people and governments sought a means to fight back against the seemingly endless zombie hordes. The result was the Reclamation Wars; a series of long and bloody struggles as humanity used new and ingenious military technologies to drive back the hungry dead, and begin to render cities once again habitable. The default setting for the game is London in the year 2105, when most of the world’s inhabited areas have been reclaimed and turned into fortified metropolises, but much of the former countryside is reduced to a barren wasteland populated by mindless animates. The world currently stands in the grip of the Neo-Victorian Empire; a monolithic society centred around London, and built in the image of the pre-Plague British Empire.
Sadly for the PCs, hordes of cannibalistic zombies besieging the world’s cities aren’t the only trouble. Since the original outbreak of the Plague, the disease of undeath has mutated and now there are Vampires, both feral and sentient, who pass for human among the squalid populace, feeding on the blood of those who won’t be missed. Ghouls - the descendants of mortals who took to eating zombie flesh during the Reclamation Wars when all their supplies ran out - gather in the sewers and the dark corners of the city, bartering for human meat to sustain the unholy appetites they have developed. Monstrous shape-shifting Thropes created by physiology-altering Serums prowl the wilds and hide in the cities alike, the animalistic rage within them threatening to unleash itself and repay mankind for its hubris in meddling with natural selection. Rogue scientists work to create genetically-altered artificial humans known as Anathema, or practice the illegal science of reanimation, turning human corpses into the alchemically unstable Mercurial Animates or galvanic Prometheans. Among all these monsters, human psychopaths stalk the streets, emulating the grotesque deeds of historical killers such as Jack the Ripper.
And that’s the world into which the player characters are made. It’s nasty, violent and corrupt, with little to offer in the way of trust and friendship, but plenty scope for passion, horror and intensity. It’s a world where a short life burns brightly, where half-measures just don’t cut it and where love, hatred and corruption consume the character’s entire being. The game places a considerable emphasis on how technology has shaped this dreadful new world, and the developers have gone to great effort to work extinct ‘sciences’ such Alchemy and Galvanics into the setting. Cities are powered by vast arrays of whirring Tesla coils. Life itself can be shaped and altered through application of alchemical principles. The game carries much of the steam-punk aesthetic without actually being steam-punk, and personally I love the way it has been written. The attention to detail is incredible, with the game going so far as to provide complete listings of monarchs and prime ministers to have governed London since the Plague’s first outbreak, and large swathes of the book describe the many and varied undead and “half-lifer” creatures that inhabit the world alongside humanity. Ultimately, however, the setting is going to be one that players love or hate. Much like Call of Cthulhu, this is a game where players will be into it from the first session, or will never enjoy it.
Character Generation (4/5):
The character gen system in UnMet is interesting. It has some definite drawbacks, but it does allow for the creation of very in-depth characters. The player begins with the usual stuff (name, concept, etc.) and the rules first come into play when you pick your Calling. Calling is a loose character “class” which dictates a few of the starting skills, wealth and stunts (special knacks that can be performed with certain skills) that the player has access to. Six Callings are detailed in the Corebook, with an optional seventh Calling in the later Wonders of Science chapter. The six basic ones are Aristocrat (decadent but charismatic ruling class of the Neo-Victorian Empire), Criminal (fairly self-explanatory), Doctor (pioneer scientists who seek out the secrets of life and death), Dhampir (half-vampires who posses scant few powers of their bloodsucking parent species, but come burdened with intense emotions and a murderous loathing of full-blooded vampires), Mourner (a highly selective guild who are hired to by upper classes to watch over their dead and ensure swift ‘remedial’ action if reanimation looks to be apparent) and Undertaker (government-licensed bounty hunters who seek out and destroy the undead). The optional seventh Calling is Anathema (vat-grown, genetically engineered clones with certain inherent instabilities).
As I mentioned, the Callings give access to certain free skill dots, and the ability to purchase their own list of stunts based around certain skills. A Calling by no means dictates what course of action a character must take during the game, and certainly a character is capable of taking on a new profession during game play which would have been covered by a different Calling at character creation, though they do not receive all of the benefits of this new Calling if they choose to do so.
The game gives characters 5 basic attributes in which to spend their points (Intellect, Charm, Wits, Vitality and Coordination) and one derived stat, Prowess (which is the sum of Wits and Coordination). Characters begin with one dot in each attribute, and to buy the next dot the player spends a number of points equal to the new rating. Human and Dhampir characters begin with 25 attribute points, and Anathema begin with 30. As in games like Legend of the 5 Rings, however, the way in which attribute points are spent means that those points disappear very quickly. Skills are purchased in exactly the same way, and all characters begin with 25 skill points. The skill list is truly exhaustive, and for every dot of a skill that a character possesses, they can take a specialty (which adds +1 to dice rolls involving that specialty) or a Stunt, if their Calling gives them access to Stunts for that skill (for instance, the Criminal stunt list pertains to the Streetwise skill, Aristocrat to Etiquette, et al.). As with Lo5R, the system rewards characters with competence in a few specific areas over generalists. The fact that a character receives a stunt or specialty with every dot of a skill bought means that character generation can take a LONG time to get through skills; for this reason, UnMet character gen really is much easier to do in groups, rather than explaining to each individual player how this works. The upside is that you get a very intimate feel of how your character operates, and the various things they can have done in their past to make them what they are at the start of the game.
With attributes and skills sorted, the next step is Corruption. UnMet revolves partially around the Victorian idea that Corruption can be a real, physical thing which infects and overcomes the mind (and in some instances, the body). All characters begin with a dot of Corruption, which can be put in one of three paths: Physical, Desire or Drive. These paths reflect the way in which a character’s inner demons torment him, and during the course of the game a character is pretty certain to give in to these vices more and more often, gaining additional dots of Corruption as he does so. Once a character attains six dots in any given path of Corruption, they cease to be playable and (usually) end up destroying themselves.
Corruption is not without its benefits, however; a character gets a number of “second chances” (dice re-rolls) per session equal to their Corruption, as they strike deals with their inner demons to achieve things above and beyond their normal potential. Every time a character takes more second chances than their highest Corruption path, they gain another dot of Corruption. There are certain instances of course, where no amount of dice re-rolls will get the character out of a situation. When the character is stranded in the middle of a rickety bridge with ravening Thropes closing in, that’s the time to break out Devil’s Luck. Devil’s Luck allows the character to escape from a certain-death situation, but in doing so they gain an immediate dot of Corruption and loose any remaining second chances they have for that session.
Characters receive a number of bonus/freebie points with which to customise their characters, and they can take merits and drawbacks to add extra flavour. Point-for-point, drawbacks tend to be very harsh, and a few of them should probably be restricted depending on what sort of game you’re looking to run. It’s seldom good, for instance, to have PCs dropping dead from Syphilis in the middle of the big fight scene. The final category for the character is equipment, and as with skills the list of shiny gear is very extensive. Luckily, each Calling also makes mention of living expenses, so it is entirely unfeasible for a character to spend their entire wealth budget on guns, blades and combat gear.
Gameplay (3/5):
My first impression of the system used in UnMet was that it would be far too random for my tastes. Tasks are attempted by rolling 2D10 and adding the appropriate attribute OR skill (as opposed to systems like Unisystem, which roll 1D10 + attribute + skill). Since most characters will have skills averaging at three or four, it struck me that almost every task attempted will be far more at the mercy of the dice rolls than at the character’s competence in that area. In actual play it’s not nearly as bad as I first feared, and the characters do succeed at most basic tasks, which have a difficulty rating of 11 (this as opposed to, for instance, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, where starting characters generally have a less than 50% chance of succeeding at any given dice roll). More difficult tasks, with difficulties of 14, 16 or 20, are far less reliable for the characters to achieve, but having those skills and specialties makes a significant difference.
The games does skimp on mechanics in some places, but personally I like abstract systems which place the outcome of dice rolls in the hands of the GM rather than in extensive tables and charts. Okay, there are significant tables and charts present for the combat rules, but the combat section of the UnMet sourcebook bears a certain similarity to Cyberpunk and Call of Cthulhu in that is hammers home how easy characters can die. There are no hit points or health levels; every hit a character takes can translate into a Flesh, Serious, Incapacitating or Fatal Wound, and a fatal wound is precisely that. This is a game where characters can die from just one unlucky dice roll, and suddenly those second chances and Devil’s Luck seem very appealing. Incapacitating Wounds need to be treated quickly or else the character may suffer long-term complications such as crippled limbs, a weakened heart or dementia; also, if a character suffers a number of Incapacitating Wounds equal to their Vitality attribute, they are dead. Serious Wounds and Flesh Wounds are not fatal to characters, but taking damage at all in UnMet is not done lightly - especially as taking a Serious Wound from the fangs of a Zombie, a Vampire or a Thrope may mean joining the ranks of the undead (or half-lifers, in the latter case).
Corebook Layout (4/5):
The only reason I didn’t give this category of the review 5/5 was because the book sadly does not include an index. What it does have is a very detailed Contents page which actually allows me to navigate the corebook far more easily than, say, the average White Wolf release. The chapters are organised in a fairly logical progression, and the fonts used are easily legible from start to finish. None of the artwork actually sucks (which tends to be a factor in many RPG books) and a lot of it is very good, including some decent monochrome photography which helps to bring across the feel of the game. Even the line-art isn’t bad by any measure.
Aside from the lack of an index, my one objection to the book’s layout is the occasional redundancy of information. Dhampirs, for instance, are detailed both in the Callings section and later on in the Anatomy of Horror chapter (the one which details the various monsters). None of this actually draws anything away from the game however, so at best these are minor flaws in the writing.
Conclusion:
So that’s it; my review of Unhallowed Metropolis. As a seasoned GM I’m definitely enjoying running it, and I’m pretty sure I would find it just as enthralling from a player perspective. The three players in the game I am running have all given me positive feedback thus far, and I look forward to more supplements for this game in the future. The game’s website can be found at www.newdarkage.net