Deathmatch Island vs Eat the Reich - a Review

I ran Deathmatch Island and played Eat the Reich. Both had similar systems, you rolled lots of dice and narrated what had happened, but I felt one worked really well and the other didn't. So, I pondered why and came up with the following.

I'm a fan of Battle Royale. A bunch of teenagers from the same class are dropped on an island, issued random items including weapons. Are told to kill each other over 3 days and the sole survivor gets fame and fortune. The previous year's winner is shown, a blood splattered little girl with a psychotic smile. To force the kids to kill each other, they're given a map and over time, the safe zones are eliminated. Kids left in a prohibited zone die as their explosive collars detonate. Each day, the list of dead students are announced over a PA system. The movie is about friendship, betrayal, savagery of man, survival.

Battle Royale begat Hunger Games, Squid Game, and Survivor. Those shows begat Deathmatch Island.

The mechanics are interesting. You roll dice based on various stats add the highest two dice rolled. Also roll a handful of d4s (for items used) take the highest die rolled; there's a level of diminishing returns as the max is 4 and there's no reason to use up too many items; add this to the previous die roll. GM rolls dice and that's the Target Number. Compare all the numbers. It's a roll once and done system. Losers narrate first, winners in order of lowest results narrate first. So, the ultimate winner narrates last. Part of the narration is weaving in the skills and items you've used to try to accomplish your task. 

We found the system doesn't really work. It's functional, but broken. We found the system works well with people who are good with improv. But still, the Player weaves a tale of how they used their skills and items and then have to come up with why they failed. In their mind's eye, they have a brilliant plan of how all the items used worked. Then after the die roll, they have to ret-con in their head what had happened. This is too much to ask. Players would tell a story about how they used each item, roll the dice, then retell the modified story. Of course, the system was designed so you're supposed to only narrate after the die roll, but it's hard to break that habit.

I found the illustrations with all the generic items and the random charts amazing, but as per my play group said, "We'd play this once a year." The other downside was I wanted a packet of NPC portraits because the enemy teams had tons of NPCs and it's a lot of work for the GM to come up with them.

Now, on to Eat the Reich. You're a bunch of vampires dropped into Nazi Occupied Paris and are tasked with hunting down Hitler and drinking his blood. Since vampires exist, so do Übermensch. As you visit scenic and fictionalized bits of Paris, you kill Nazis and various Übermensch until you reach Hitler.

The mechanics are simple. You roll a dice pool of d6s based on your stats and equipment. 1-3 = failure, 4-5 single success, 6 = double success or activate special. You may use as much equipment as you want: a knife, a flamethrower, a machine gun, a car, etc. Just like Deathmatch Island, you can narrate how you use all these items.

The GM rolls a pool of d6s which is the damage the Nazis do to you. You can chose among 5 ways to spend your successes: Advance to an Objective (a set number is needed to get out of the current scene), Eliminating a Threat (killing Nazis or hurting Übermensch), Defend Yourself (reduce damage), Feeding on Nazis (gain Blood points which are sometimes needed to activate Specials, including healing yourself), Activating Specials (super extra abilities). The difference between killing Nazis and Feeding on them is you can kill them with bullets and such, but to feed on them, you need to drink their blood (and you gain a Blood point).

Even though both systems are a roll as many dice as you want and THEN narrate what happened, Eat the Reich actually works. I think it's because there's the next step of picking your effects based on your number of successes. And the Objective, Threat, Damage, Blood points are advancement resource tracks that need to be filled before the scene ends (with teamwork), so there's a feeling of progress and accomplishment which you don't get with Deathmatch Island's roll once and done.

Eat the Reich also has great graphics and interesting locations. I really enjoyed this and would play this again (more than once a year).

Both Deathmatch Island and Eat the Reich have a limited map and locations, so after a few plays, everything would have been explored. Deathmatch Island does have 4 Casts of NPCs (different groups to fight against, thus my complaint about a lack of NPC portraits), so there's more variety; and an expansion has 9 replacement islands.