Hello folks,

I'm back after an insanely busy holiday season, over the course of which I picked up All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I really like it, but I'm unsure about the magic system; I don't really want to have to regularly make calls on whether  God (or Buddha, or the collective will of humanity, or whatever force an Inspired character believes they are Inspired by) approves of a particular use of Inspired powers or not, but at the same time the powers presented are sufficiently powerful that I suspect things would become wildly unbalanced if I simply let people use their powers whenever they liked, so long as they had the Essence to back it up.

So, what alternatives exist? Are there any interesting tweaks to the AFMBE magic system out there - or any complete alternate magic systems? What are the magic/psychic power systems in Witchcraft and Buffy and the Unisystem version of Conspiracy X like?

There are other Classic Unisystem books that contain alternative magic systems. I recommend Armageddon, Witchcraft, or maybe Dungeons and Zombies. Armageddon contains more magic systems than the other two books, but it's more difficult to find.

Some time ago it was possible to download legally and for free the Witchcraft corebook in PDF, not sure if it's possible anymore.

Hmmm, I'm a bit hesitant about Witchcraft because a friend ran a campaign where the powers got really out of hand. I assume I can scale back the power of the magic in that simply by limiting the extent to which players can invest XP in it, or is the system prone to running away even at fairly modest power levels?

I might suggest upping the Essence costs. Albeit I like Buffy's Magic system better--sort of, its a vague system where you determine the power of your effect and roll for controlling it--and the system tells you most spells will ONLY ever work once, or a limited number of times, by GM decree.

One thing to consider is to simply let a player have regular low powered effects cheaply, but anything which makes HUGE sweeping changes to what's going on? Costs.

Quote from: Silverlion;279185I might suggest upping the Essence costs. Albeit I like Buffy's Magic system better--sort of, its a vague system where you determine the power of your effect and roll for controlling it--and the system tells you most spells will ONLY ever work once, or a limited number of times, by GM decree.

This sounds even less suitable for my purposes in this case than the AFMBE system; I don't want to have to stop and think about whether I'm going to allow a spell every time someone casts something; that tends to work against a fast-flowing game. (Also, I want the players to have a fair idea of what resources and capabilities are available to them, since this campaign is going to have a fair amount of survivalist bullet-counting going on.)

I considered upping the Essence costs and/or increasing the rate at which Essence increases, but it didn't change the fact that a lot of the magical effects themselves strike me as being altogether too powerful.

QuoteOne thing to consider is to simply let a player have regular low powered effects cheaply, but anything which makes HUGE sweeping changes to what's going on? Costs.

"Huge sweeping changes" aren't going to be on the menu as far as magic is concerned (like I say, I think the default magic in the book is too powerful if it isn't tempered by the GM constantly ruling on whether particular applications are "allowed", like the rulebook says - and I would rather not be doing that). While I might have magic available in my campaign (I honestly haven't decided yet), I don't want any PC's character concept to be "magician" - I want magic which is potent enough to give you an edge, but is weak enough that if you focus exclusively on it you're not going to survive.