Character Creation: Dead Scare

This one kinda hurts.

The Game: Dead Scare
The Publisher: The OtherDev Productions
Degree of Familiarity: Never played it
Books Required: Just the one

Back in the heady days pre-cancellation, I used to write reviews of people's RPGs. I'd even run a one-shot because games generally come into focus at the table, not just being read. Dead Scare was on my list to review, and then I read it, and...my goodness. 

The premise is great. It's a zombie apocalypse game set during the 1950s and focusing on the women and children, the people who weren't killed in the first wave of Soviet-created (but possibly actually McCarthy-created) zombies. The book points out that these women just came out of WWII and everything that they were asked to do during that time, and that by itself is a really solid hook. Combining zombies with normal life is the cornerstone of the horror in a lot of zombie properties, and of course, a game that deliberately makes not-dudes as the protagonists is already more interesting than yet another chance to play Grizzly McStubble. 

But good gracious this game is badly designed. It's nominally a PbtA game, and yes, PbtA is less a system than a philosophy, but Dead Scare doesn't seem to understand that philosophy especially well. There are fifteen basic moves, and they don't have triggers. An example: 

Also, why isn't this a Preacher's Wife move?

See? When would I roll this? And how does a miss move the story forward? Hell, how does success move the story forward? There's no discussion in the book about what a move is and when you'd roll for them. There's no discussion of how to run the game (there are sample scenarios, but like, no GM - sorry, NWC - principles or agenda). The game seems to be designed for the very few people that already know not only how to run PbtA games but how to design them, and it utterly fails to live up to the promise of its concept. Oh, and, it's badly edited (President Eisenhower changes to President Truman in the space of a page; maybe turning into a zombie also turned him into a different dude). 

Anyway. Let's make a character. Nice thing is that this should be quick. (He said, with an appropriate amount of trepidation.) Oh, dammit, no downloadable playbooks that I can see. Maybe the ones in the book work. Let's just start at the beginning of character creation. 

Discussion of gender, explaining why characters in this game are assumed to be women or children (of any gender). OK, sure.

Discussion of race, sexuality, and so forth, reminding us that not every character has to be June Cleaver. OK, sure. 

Character concept! Pick a playbook. Also think about race. OK, but what are the playbooks? Do they...nope, nothing. Moving on. 

Children and a discussion of their relationship with adults in the '50s. 

Picking moves and using moves, neither of which tell us what moves are. Fuck me. And now we start with playbooks. 

Well, I think I like the Nurse (rather, I don't like any of the playbooks because they're badly designed, but I like the idea of playing a nurse). Specifically I like the notion of playing someone who wasn't necessarily a nurse during the war, but became one after moving the States post-War. If she was, let's say, 10 in 1944, then in-setting she'd be about 19. Let's bump her up a few years and say she's 25. Further, we'll say she's French by birth, and named Marguerite (she goes by "Margo" amongst Americans). 

There is no character creation process. OMG. There's some stuff on the playbook (which is actually multiple pages), so following that, I get a First Aid Kit and two things off a list. I shall take ammonia and cod liver oil, why not. Maybe I could make some zeds slip on the oil. 

For moves, I pick one of the three types of nurse, and then two moves. OK, then. Combat nurse, school nurse, big city nurse. These moves are all terrible. I'm gonna take big city nurse since it's the closest to in-concept (that is, someone who completed their schooling recently). I'm just gonna write moves in the margin of the character sheet because I ain't wasting any more ink on this than necessary.

Anyway, pick two moves. WAIT THERE ARE ONLY TWO. Well, there are a few "Advanced" moves, but can I take those to start? I don't know, because they are never defined. Jesus Christ. Fuck it, I have Sterilization and Beside Manner. 

OK, now backgrounds, I guess? I don't know how many I get. I'd guess just one, but the text says "backgrounds" when it mentions them. I'll just take one because that'll make this faster. Lived Abroad lets me speak more languages, so I'll do that and say I speak English and German in addition to my native French.

Stats, I guess? OMFG. Check it out. Here's the (only) discussion of what stats mean:

Here's the example stats for a starting character:

And here are the stat blocks on the playbooks:

Anyway. Let's assume that I get two at -1, two at +1, and the remaining on is 0. I think I'll put Congeniality and Heart at -1 (Marguerite isn't heartless or compassion-less, but she's foreign and she's lived through the War, so she's a little shell-shocked at the best of times). I'll put my +1 in Spunk/Moxie and Smarts, and that leaves the 0 in Brawn. 

I think I'm supposed to pick bits of gossip, too, but I...don't want to. There's nowhere to put that on the sheet, but then again, there's no "infection meter", even though the infection rules say there is. 

OK, I think we're done. Sorry, Marguerite. You deserve a better game than this.