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I've just re-read this and it does come across as negative, I want to stress that the feedback below is meant constructively and we did enjoy characater generation!

The evening started with fits-and-starts because I couldn't connect my fecking laptop to Aggro's network. I wasn't feeling great (suffering from a cold), so that didn't please me at all.

I explained the history of the game. Ecological disaster, EMP blast, then a war, then the Event - the players remarked how the setting is unique in its repeated hammering of humanity. There was nothing too complicated in there so we moved onto character creation.

Who am I?
The first difficulty that struck me was that there weren't any example character concepts. When setting the attributes, it's good to do so with a charcater example in mind. I explained enough about the system to suggest that certain attributes were handy for certain things. However, that doesn't tell you what sort of people are wandering around the Anarchy Zone.

This does depend on the type of campaign setting you're going to play. However, for the starting GM, there should be some example character types of your bog-standard Anarchy Zone scavenger/raider/"farmer"/hunter/builder. Government/military campaigns aren't the first kind of campaign that comes to mind when you read the setting because the AZ is more interesting.

We need some archetypes with example stats at the front of rules creation.

Secondary stat naming
There might be language difference issue here but we had some confusion (me included and I've read three versions of the rules through now) between the stats.

Tech is confusing. I know it's a shortened form of technique but it means technology to everyone else. Needs to be 'Skilled' or something.

Deadening doesn't really describe what it's for, which I believe is physical energy. As you get tired, your deadening drops off. It's really more of a Vitality attribute.

Pack feels more like what is held in your backpack than Uprise does. This was very confusing. I think Uprise would be better off as 'Pack' and then pack renamed to something else, such as "To Hand" or "Kit" (which is taken from multiplayer online games).

Skills and special abilities need work
Skill lists are the bane of most games. You need them because not all players can free-think a setting-specific skill list out of their heads for a game they've not played. I think the D&B Skill list need some updating.

Firstly, we know that the characters are all competent people. Therefore, you can assume that they can drive, use computers, ride motorcycles, know how to operate basic machinery and so on. However there is still a drive skill in there.

I'd rework the Skill and Special Abilities such that they represent the things that most charcaters will want to do in the game. Some of the Special Abilities (such as Drone Operator) are very military specific, which doesn't fit with a default AZ inhabitant. Skills need to be obvious in their use and if they're not (Herbology?) then you need descriptions with them. Given they are competent then skills should be those things that if you don't have it, you can't do it.

For typical AZ characters, Skills might include (riffing off the existing ones):

Buglary - expert in lock picking, spotting traps, safe cracking etc.

Construction - building shelters, repairing buildings, detecting structural problems, sorting out drains, wiring, heating and running water

Demolitions - using explosives to blow stuff up in a controlled way

Freerunning - Moving through a difficult environment without slowing down, include tumbling

Hacking - Using whatever data network there is to hunt for secret information

Medicine - Healing people at a faster rate rather than natural speed (and helping replenish Deadening). Should require a medical kit of some sort.

Navigation - using natural indicators, the stars, geology and so on

Oration - perusasion, negotiation, bartering and getting your way. A support to roleplaying.

Psychology - the brain version of medicine (help to improve lucidity - you can't do it to yourself, though).

Repair - Mending electromechanical things. Fixing cars, building gadgets, repairing guns.

Scavenging - knowing where to look for X

Stealth and Camouflage - hiding, moving without being noticed and blending into crowds.

Survival - staying alive by living off the natural world

Then for special abilities, there should be game affect with each one to make them special. Surgery is a good example, because you don't suffer a penalty if you have it (although I think surgery should be a skill). These special abilities can be the biproduct of latent nanites or just genetic luck. Some examples...

Thick skulled - double Deadening.

See in the dark (no modifiers for dark places).

etc. You're free to rip off the Icar psychotheatrics because I think many of the positive ones (after 50+) will work for D&B

Questions to answer
I like posing questions to the players but I think there needs to be a game around it. I tacked on a simple rule that they each take a question that they have either answer, pass on or answer in secret. Giving players a list of questions isn't very interesting when you're round a table because it's not interactive, it's a survey. Instead, make a game out of it or have them roleplay their first meeting with a zombie or something. This fleshing out process needs to be thicker.

Didn't like the character sheet
I'm going to make a better one. Fortunately, there was not a lot of stat-writing to do, so it's cool to get the players to rewrite them.

What do the aliens look like?
I couldn't answer that, must have missed it.

Everything else...
The group liked. The speed track was correctly identified as clever and I nearly made the mistake of getting a player to record ammo. Doh! We corrected that and I explained scarcity. I think the players generally have a feel for the setting (ish) and their characters. We have a sniper (The Deer Hunter), a skilled chap

Then we blew up our home town
Once we got over the shock of drawing on map (which is something we always were told not to do). I think my destroy-you-home-town list is OK but it could do with some more interesting ideas in the big list.

Ran out of time
We didn't get a chance to start, which is a mixed blessing as I wanted to get the combat going. However, I also get another week to do some more prep.

Looking forward to the next session!

Your commentary doesn't really come across as negative to me. It is mostly just pointing out that there is some work to be done in the transition from 20 page "simple zombie game" to 100+ page everything survival horror. Furthermore, I need to get to work on the actual Anarchy Zone books, since technically AZ and D&B are separate but closely linked projects.

How quickly did creation go? Did any big questions about the setting pop up? It is a lot easier to focus on specifics people ask about than all the general stuff I know I'll need eventually. (Yes, Power armor needs stats, and those are only a few of the vehicles I need to write up. In case it comes up for you - PA straddle vehicles and personal armor, so they add a few extra circles to your animus track, rather than having one independent of yours. Assault PA tend to have an SDI around Four - a .50 caliber machine-gun is still dangerous - other types are just like standard armor, but give the advantage of integrated sensors/air conditioning and other integrated systems.)

Sample Characters
I'm not really sure where to put them, but I'm half inclined to provide a host of sample characters in the rules, and then use them in the various running examples of play. The question is where would such fit in the rules - at the end of the rise chapter to be samples/easy to find, a separate appendix, or somewhere else. Eventually there will be a book called "Antagonist Archive" that details NPCs, Raider Groups, Militias, and more PCs for the AZ.

Ability Names and Skills
Stats were generally named for the spooky theme (deadening, animus, lucidity) - but I can definitely see where players might be better served with the more mundane terms like "fatigue" or "adrenaline". Pack and up-rise might become "gear" and "dead weight", though those terms still sound a little off, so I'm open to suggestions. Technique might be better off as "Logic" or "Mechanical Aptitude", while wits would be more "awareness".

When the stats tended to average lower in the prior editions, more mundane skills did help to compensate for that, but I think your assessment of where they are now is fairly correct. "Driving" will probably be replaced with some sort of "stunt driver" skill for those used to demo-derbys, off-road vehicles, or running moonshine. Pilot and boating will probably be mundane, though "air combat" or "super-sized" may be SAs to mod them.

New Special Abilities would probably be more focused on boosting other people's abilities somehow to reinforce the group vs individual conflict set up by the AP system when it requires the investment of other people to improve a your character. (Which reminds me, I haven't mentioned before, whether the group can work together to buy upgrades or if it needs to come from one person's account. I'm thinking the former is a more reasonable way to mange it)

I find it a little funny that herbology is confusing, since that itself was a clarification someone else requested. (Specifically, does medicine only apply to pharmaceuticals, or holistic supplements as well.) I'll definitely need some sort of wilderness supply skill, but this apparently isn't it.

An Extra Stat?
In going over the various abilities, I came across the fact that only five of the six attribute combinations are used. Arguably, Tech and Wits are already fairly important, so making a true derived attribute based on them might disrupt the balance I was going for (anyone comment on that or the variety of attributes while I'm thinking of it?) However, a number of the settings I've been writing up have some sort of odd boost to them - transhuman abilities for some Tesla residents, SPHERE communications/awareness in the AZ, Combat drugs for Unit 2552 to name the most notable. So I was considering an optional rule where that last grouping is what determines the limits of these abilities (ie how many times you can boost your strength on a given dose or how useful the info you've gotten is) This pool would only refil when access is grained to the item in question as opposed to over time/with AP.

Character Sheet
So, what about the character sheet did you not like? I tend to make my own character sheets on lined paper and ignore the printed ones, so I might not be the best judge of how to lay it out. Lacking other ideas, I just wanted something clear with open spots for numbers and room for notes. My handwriting goes all over the page without lines to steady it - so I tend to include page elements to keep it steady.

Character Questions
I like the suggestions you offer, just probably not for D&B. Once again, this is straddling the line between D&B for survival horror and AZ "not just another zombie apocalypse" as separate but linked entities. While I wanted to give some hints as to how to make the character more than stats, they needed to be somewhat generic in the main book. Furthermore, creation should be fairly quick so replacements are easy - GMs shouldn't have to hold back because it will take an hour to replace characters. There is a subtle death spiral in the rules (initiative goes down, expending most of your fatigue impairs rolls) so it may be necessary.

This aspect needs more discussion and feedback.

Alien Appearance
Its mentioned in a few places, and I'm trying to update the pages of the blog actually include some information. Their general body shape is similar to a Mantis or Centaur, though more rounded than the former. (In universe, they are often compared to quadruped shrimp/lobsters in universe) The head is quite horse-like, though with large insect-like eyes (Not compound though) and antennas (with smaller eyes) to the rear. Think kind of a sea horse with its spine bent back so its kind of centaur in appearance, then give it four legs on the lower half, and four arms on the upper one. They're about the size of a medium to large dog.

Chitinous plates make them look a little lobster like, but PCs do have an internal skeleton. They are most emphatically not arthropods or insects however, though they don't really have an Earth analog, at least not one I can think of off the top of my head. They are warm-blooded (or something like it) so their metabolism isn't too linked to the environment/temperature. Color-wise, they tend to be a mottled brown or green (think river fish) though they do wear clothes which can vary between functional military camouflage to weird colors humans have trouble describing, since PCs see farther into the UV spectrum than Humans

Not everyone knows what a PC looks like though. Since they're only half as tall as humans, they don't like meeting homo sapiens face to face. At least some people might confuse them with their Ekaide piloted robots - which look a bit like (ie goat headed demon).

Thanks for that, I'll build it in tonight!

Put yourself in the shoes of most people visiting your site for the first time. From the point of view of a prospective GM, there should be no barrier to entry. They should be able to click and bang - a game ready to play. If they have taken the step to think about going to your site in the first place then make it as easy for them as possible to get started.

I think the nirvana of this approach is one book with everything you need to play. Extra modules, settings, skills and so on should be what they come back to the site for.

I think the core rules needs to have an example setting included. A very simple, grass roots setting that demonstrates the best bits of the system. I think that the AZ is just that. When describing the setting, the first images people get include Fallout, Walking Dead, Mad Max and so on. Those are tropes that are based heavily in the wilderness.

There is enough in the setting to set it apart from other wasteland RPG settings, so you can provide more support for the basic game.