The Walking Dead Universe Starter Set review: "Death, dice, despair… all it needs is more depth"
Mar. 13, 2024A comprehensive starter set
High-quality, stylishly designed game components
Captures the desperation of the game world well
Dreary tone makes it a drag for all but the most dramatic players
Gaps in information about NPCs can leave new GMs floundering
Underdeveloped Survival Mode scenario adds little value
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The Walking Dead Universe Starter Set
The Walking Dead Universe Starter Set: Features & design
Beyond its bold red and black accents on its dice and threat meter, The Walking Dead Universe Starter Set is dominated by greys, greens, and browns. These muddy hues are evocative of a looted army surplus store, the natural landscape of Washington, and the ashy color grading of the AMC TWD series. Chef’s kiss, Free League. When it comes to creating a set that is aesthetically pleasing and bang on theme, you’ve done it again.Style is delivered in spades, but what about substance? In taking inventory of what’s included, you’ll find plenty of game elements to enhance your experience as a new player.The most essential of these is the rule booklet, which delivers a heavily stripped back version of The Walking Dead RPG’s Core Rulebook. It may be 120 pages shorter than the Core Rulebook and omit things like extra lore, solo play instructions, information on character archetypes, and lots of roll tables, but it certainly has the essentials and it delivers them with the same gorgeous illustrations and smart layout. Everything you need to run your first campaign is in there, provided you’re satisfied with not rolling up your own character.
There are nine pre-constructed characters to choose from, three of which are characters featured in AMC’s The Walking Dead. Each sheet has information filled out in a faux-handwriting, which is a really charming touch. Thankfully, this is also printed in a more dyslexia-friendly font on the other side of the page. (A welcome sign that Free League are not about to sacrifice accessibility for aesthetics.)
Chef’s kiss, Free League. When it comes to creating a set that is aesthetically pleasing and bang on theme, you’ve done it again
One area of The Walking Dead Universe Starter Set where art definitely isn’t lacking is its maps. There are three small maps showing areas relevant to the Survival Mode scenario and two larger maps of North East Georgia and South West Virginia respectively. These are not particularly necessary for play given that the system very much encourages theater of the mind. However, they’re valuable illustrative tools that can reused for multiple campaigns and, thankfully, the excellent quality means it’ll hold up across all those sessions.
The Walking Dead Universe RPG uses a slightly modified version of Free League’s Year Zero engine, which is worth diving into more when reviewing the system’s Core Rulebook.In the meantime, what I can say is it’s exceptionally easy to get to grips with and can be pretty much summed up in four sentences:1.Roll some dice and if you get any 6s, you did the thing successfully. Good job!2.If your character has Attributes, Skills, or Gear which make them better equipped to do the thing, you get more dice.3.If your character is freaking out, they get stress dice.4.Roll a 1 on a stress die and awful things happen.There is obviously alittlemore to it but for our purposes, that’ll do. You can put these mechanics to practice by playing through the Survival Mode one-shot included with the set.
The scenario, titled The Wolves' Den, opens with a betrayal. Two members of your party have eloped and decided to take a car carrying heaps of supplies as their wedding present. You start tracking these thieving lovebirds but they’re nowhere to be found and have been seemingly been kidnapped by – you guessed it – The Wolves.
This cult-like band of raiders from Season 5 of The Walking Dead should be the big bad of this campaign, but they feel tragically underutilized. You don’t meet a single Wolf until you’re over halfway through the scenario and it doesn’t seem as though any significant foreshadowing happens up until this point. For much of your playtime, it will feel like the main antagonists are the two double-crossing lovers who should have been your allies.
Some of the preconstructed characters also sport pretty gnarly secrets which necessitate them secretly working against the interests of other players. These range from homicidal intentions to plans of abandoning their fellow survivors, and can make for some majorly tense roleplay moments.Secrets are double edged sword, though. While they can make for fascinating drama, having players be constantly suspicious of each other can undermine any desire to truly cooperate, and adopting an ‘every man for himself’ perspective is one sure fire way to lead to a character death. As Glenn Rhee once said, “We can make it together. But we can only make it together.”
When you factor in the length of these adventures, it’s hard not to feel short changed.
There are plenty of NPCs in the scenario (friendly and otherwise), but bizarrely, NPCs don’t come with much, if any, information regarding their dice rolls - I saw only one instance where you’re given the number of dice used for an opposed roll in a specific situation. This is a seriously significant oversight that had me second-guessing my own understanding of the game’s engine. How, exactly, could I put together an accurate dice pool for NPC actions or contested rolls without knowing each character’s Attribute stats? In each case, I shrugged it off and took a wild guess.
It might sound ridiculous, but the real stars of this set are the lovely maps and custom dice which alone retail at $40. Obviously, any d6 can work as a stand-in for these so if they really don’t catch your eye, you may find the Core Rulebook a better place to start with this system.However, buying the Starter Set is a total no-brainer for those who want an intro to a gritty, rules-light TTRPG, pretty dice, and a whole load of extras in a box that’ll make a pleasing addition to any collector’s shelf.
✅You want a rules-light RPG experienceThere’s no need to calculate things like proficiency bonuses, armor class, or movement speed – just pick up the right number of d6s and pray to see a bullseye.
✅You and your party take roleplaying seriouslyBy immediately prompting inter-party conflict, the included one-shot gives you no time to play happy families. However, if you embrace the tragedy and melodrama and are willing to go all in with committing to your character, you’ll have a ball.
❌You like to play nice with your partyIf you’re the type to be peeved by social deduction games and would much rather take a purely cooperative approach, you’ll likely be put off by how much treachery is woven into the scenario and the game world as a whole.
❌You’re a newbie GM who wants lots of guidanceWhile I was rolling for my NPCs, I was content with picking up a handful of dice and going, “Eh, that seems balanced enough”. But GMing by the seat of your pants isn’t for everyone. If winging it when it comes to NPC stats and characterization sounds like its own kind of apocalypse for you, this set will let you down.
Abigail is a Tabletop & Merch writer at Gamesradar+. She carries at least one Magic: The Gathering deck in her backpack at all times and always spends far too long writing her D&D character backstory. She’s a lover of all things cute, creepy, and creepy-cute.
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