Eat The Reich

Eat The Reich is a roleplaying game about killing Hitler to win the war. Players are a group of crack vampire commandos, coffin dropped into occupied Paris. Being a single, very contained theme of ultra violence towards nazis, it gets to build everything around delivering on that theme. How does it play?

Eat The Reich cover, depicting a vampire commando inside a drop coffin, with only part of their face visible through a slit in the box. The slit in the box is a cutout, with the vampire peering in from the page underneath, creating a three dimensional effect. If you open the flap, you can see the inside of the coffin cover, as well as a full body image of the vampire inside. It's very immersive.
Eat The Reich cover. The physical book is such a beauty, they went all out on the print finish and layout. It could be more usable, though – there is no index, and I struggled to find specific rules during play (Advancement is under Übermensch.)

How it plays

The players are dropped in one corner of a Paris map, and told to get to Eiffel tower, where Hitler’s zeppelin is moored. To advance from a location, you need to clear its Objective. These are outlined in the book. On your way are Threats: different kinds of setups of nazi invaders.

Each turn consists of a player vampire doing something, and the Threats opposing that. You roll off, and the player spends their successes (4+ on a D6 in most circumstances) on negating damage (GM successes), clearing Threats, advancing the Objective, drinking blood, or activating Specials on their sheet. If any successes remain on the GM roll, the acting vampire takes damage. Then it’s the next vampire’s turn.

I made cards for the Objectives, Secondary Objectives, and Threats, as well as most rules, for easy reference during gameplay. I used poker chits to track the remaining points on the Objectives and Threats, and glass beads for blood. I really recommend the poker chits, as they are easy to handle, have a satisfying heft to them, and are easy to read from across the table. (Side note: a laminator can really up your handout game for little cost. All cards and such feel a lot more substantial, and are way more durable.)

The game moves at a fast pace. Players need to be active as they have to come up with a description of their action, detailing how they use their successes on each roll. All players found the initially simple sounding rules surprisingly crunchy and tactical in practice, and really engaged with the rolling.

Some Threats have special rules, and about once per map sector (there are three) you run into a mini-boss: a nazi übermensch, an occult super soldier with heavily themed powers. There’s a well telegraphed werewolf, a cyborg (very Wolfenstein), an entropy witch (my personal favorite), and a corrupt actor.

Self made Objective cards for the game. I put them together in Google Slides, printed out, and laminated.
Adding to the board game feel, I made these cards for objectives, enemies, and specific rules like flashbacks and secondary objectives. We used poker chits to track the objectives and threats, and various other markers to depict changed attack ratings and such. Poker chits worked really well, as they are satisfying to handle and easy to read from across the table.

How did our game go?

I had five players. That might be too much, as the vampires were so powerful that even the supposed boss fights were over before everyone even got a turn. If I were to run this again, I’d consider limiting seats to four.

The initial fight was hard, and every scene after that arguably too easy, especially as the vampires’ powers amassed with the advancement rules. I didn’t get to use the enemy reinforcement rules once, which feels odd, and not the way this is supposed to play.

It turns out I had missed a crucial rule, with the active Threats’ Attack ratings going up by +1 every turn. This would’ve changed the dynamic.

My players couldn’t think of a mechanical reason to kill the nazis, and instead focused on advancing their objectives in most cases. It is suggested that the GM should be strict on what counts as advancing the objective – usually you shouldn’t be able to Shoot, Brawl, or Terrify your way to it, as that’s what the Threats on the table are for. At the very least this should slow down the players, as the vampires’ best stats tend to be in violence.

We were confused about how Abilities contribute additional dice. Turns out there are three types of Abilities that all work differently, but they aren’t labeled in this version of the rules. I would talk about this in advance with your players to manage expectations, going over their specific Abilities to be clear on how they’re supposed to come into play.

3D printed skulls in a a 3D printed crater, primed in black.
Bonus skulls. I 3D printed these, planning to use them to mark Threats, but found them too light and fiddly. If you want to try this, find some way to add weight to them.

Timing

We played two scenes in each sector, plus the zeppelin scenes (the vampire hunters and the werewolf). In terms of amount of content that felt about right, but crammed into a single session, it was rushed. To be fair, the game clearly says it shouldn’t be crammed into a single session. I knew what I was getting into!

In a rerun I’d extend the length to two sessions to leave room for non-combat content and roleplaying. That also leaves a lot of content on the table, if you only play this once. I had to drop so many good scenes – can’t wait to run the fairground.

Looking at the player feedback, the videogame/board game type advancement from stage to stage towards the big bad, with mini bosses on the way, was both appreciated and lamented for lacking in surprise factor. I liked how it focused everything on the table and the goal was plain for everyone to see. The lack of a surprise factor is fair feedback, though.

Players were a little unsure if this is a board game with roleplaying elements or an RPG with heavy structural elements, and that affected their approach to the game. I’m sure this can be helped by just giving the game a bit more breathing space, allowing the characters to come through, and drawing some of the attention away from the game components on the table.

Future plans

We plan on playing again. You might think that being such a contained and on the rails scenario, this would be single use entertainment, but the boardgamey nature of it invites replay, as do the scenes that you just won’t have time for in a single playthrough. The mechanics made us think and discuss, and everyone was eager to try approaching things a bit differently the next time.

I’ve been reading FIST, and find it an interesting comparison with these rules. Both are going for fast paced, violent action adventures. The rules powering Eat The Reich are being developed as a standalone system, the Havoc Engine, and I expect we’ll see some compelling games based on that in the future.


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