Role-playing game review of Civilization Gone

Civilization Gone is a supplement to the Dead Reign role-playing game by Palladium. It begins with an overview of the types of personalities that inhabit the new apocalyptic world, and most of it is actually "fluff," i.e., role-playing tips. In a refreshing change to Palladium's crunch-heavy system, these archetypes provide few rules changes – they aren't classes or races.

Except for the Zombie Killing Maniac, who gets a whole pile of bonuses for really, really hating zombies. I imagine most players will immediately classify their characters as Zombie Killing Maniacs, because although he's a maniac, he's actually a pretty nice guy. In fact, his zombie-killing frenzy kicks in whenever facing a "life and death situation with zombies" or ten zombies or more. The Maniac's rage lasts until every zombie is destroyed or "until he must retreat or die himself." In other words, Maniacs are actually quite reasonable people who get bonuses to killing zombies. Not much of a downside.

There is a new list of phobias and obsessions, which occasionally gets awkward as not every phobia has its opposite in an obsession. Fear of dumpsters makes sense; an obsession with dumpsters makes less sense—the character gets a bonus to kill zombies lurking in one.

The next section details other threats: raiders, bandits, and other human filth, as well as a wide range of psychopaths and natural threats: bugs, disease, starvation, etc. There are two additional zombie types, big ones (Juggernauts) and little ones (Trash Crawlers), which are basically variations on regular zombies. The remainder of the book covers a wide variety of random tables for what can be found in houses, where zombies lurk, survivor communities, and zombie population density.

Overall, this is a useful supplement for any apocalyptic game that takes place within five months after the failure of civilization. Short and sweet, it infuses some much-needed human drama to Dead Reign games.