Baffled by Post Apocalypse games

[AndrewBeasley]

 

[Connectamabob]

Most PA media I've seen, the setting works a lot like pre-medieval civilization, with tribes, small city states, etc. On occasion (insert New Vegas reference here) you have something that's functionally similar to a frontier, colonial, or banana wars setting.

So to me it seems like one could easily port many common historical and fantasy scenarios into the PA setting just by changing names and such.

[Connectamabob]

At a certain point though, the apocalypse just becomes history. I mean the fall of Rome was arguable pretty apocalyptic in its day (and region, I suppose), but we wouldn't consider medieval Europe PA, much less the modern day, even if they were in many ways founded on the aftermath.

[dinohunterpoa]

And in modern times, we have real PA settings in several places of the world! 

[Connectamabob]

Yeah, unfortunately true. Between natural disasters, and 3rd world warlord "governments", there's modern day stuff that fits as well.

[carlos marighela]

And in modern times, we have real PA settings in several places of the world! 

I take it that you have been to Adelaide then?

[dinohunterpoa]

I take it that you have been to Adelaide then?

Not yet... but heard some horror stories!   

[eilif]

If you think about it PA has almost the same levels of freedom a genre like Sci Fi gives the gamer.

One could even quite successfully argue 40k is a post apoc sci fi game. The apocalypse being the chaos led civil war in the 30K's

I definitely agree about the freedom.  I personally lean toward a Mad-Max'ish PA where there's enough lacking to be worth fighting for, but also enough tech around to be interesting.  However, there's so many great variations on PA that it's a great sandbox to play in.

As for 40k, it's a fair argument, but if civilization has recovered enough "Post Apocalypse" to be more advanced than modern times than I'd call it Science Fiction.  It's an arbitrary distinction, but it helps to avoid confusion. After all a HUGE amount of Sci-Fi has a timeline that includes some sort of catastrophic apoclypse and a rebuilding.

[eilif]

is not the 41st century a dark age where technology exists because knowledge is retained by rote and all that? Also is the tech not a mere shadow of what they once had and finding a STC is quite a momentous thing as it might reintroduce lost tech?

To a tech priest saying the prayer of awakening is just as important as anointing the most sacred joints with the oil of holy lubrication and flicking the switches in the most holy and correct order as set out by the liturgy of powerup when activating some old robot in the 41c for example. What is just nonsense jibber jabber and what is actually part of an ancient activation manual is lost in time.

anyways miles off track now but a most interesting discussion.

Sounds like a pretty accurate description to me. 

I only push it into general Sci-Fi (I've actually described it to many folks as Sci-fantasy) since so much of the technology is still beyond what we have today, there are aliens and it has space travel.

[AndrewBeasley]

...

anyways miles off track now but a most interesting discussion.

Worry not it’s still part of the original question as we need to understand the fall and how it creates the scenarios.  Let’s see where we end up

[Momotaro]

Hi Andrew,

The old Traveller: The New Era RPG is a great example of post-apoc science fiction background.  An interstellar empire was brought low by an intelligent computer virus.  With communication travelling at the speed of ships, very often the ships bringing the bad news were the bearers of the infection as well.  Only distant backwater sectors, low tech worlds, or worlds behind travel bottlenecks had time to prepare their defences.

Players were members of the exploration and military arm of a group of 12 worlds that had dragged themselves back up to the level of interstellar travel.... oh ok, they were basically Starfleet.  There were a number of themes to the game, so it's worth mentioning them:

* Exploration and re-exploration;
* Recovering lost tech (with the possible risk of reactivating the virus);
* Re-civilising the wilds - more than occasionally at the point of a gun.  A chance to find many weird and wonderful civilisations, from techno-dictatorships to mad machine-worshipping natives or machine empires);
* Trade and tech-swap if you want it;
* Adventures at a human scale - with the high-tech seen as a source of danger, and with the players often being the "only ship in the sector", their actions were what made the difference;
* No backup - your decisions have consequences, and sometimes you have to retreat, lie low and take a different approach;
* Planning, building a base, expanding slowly is an option, or you can go for "planet of the week";
* Not repeating the mistakes of the past (and not unleashing it again).  Players as the "rats in the walls" of a mighty fallen civilisation;
* Finding out what had become of the virus-infected ships and planets, dealing with them (sometimes aggressively, sometimes peacefully - remember, a lot of that old kit is far more capable than the players).

The game rules were rubbish, but many of the supplements became classics.

So:

* Play goals can be extremely varied, even within the scope of a single campaign.  Survival, loot, negotiation, firefights, exploration: all can be important at different stages;
* Player agency - their ability to effect events - is high;
* Consequently, player decisions are important.  Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and run;
* Everyone loves cool loot and new toys.  Even if it occasionally eats you;
* Fancy something different this week - here you go!
* Here be dragons...

The survival angle is often underplayed in campaigns - maybe I've played too many survival computer games recently.  I'd recommend the campaigns in Two Hour Wargames' rules as a good example of rulesets that provide for "negotiations gone good (or bad)", resources and base-building, looting trips and showdowns.  They offer some extra survivability to the main heroes in each group, and work well as co-operative games too.

Cheers,

Derek

[Connectamabob]

As for 40k, it's a fair argument, but if civilization has recovered enough "Post Apocalypse" to be more advanced than modern times than I'd call it Science Fiction.  It's an arbitrary distinction, but it helps to avoid confusion. After all a HUGE amount of Sci-Fi has a timeline that includes some sort of catastrophic apoclypse and a rebuilding.

I'd argue that it's not an either/or thing, but rather a combination thing. Like how a Sci-Fi story can also be, say, romance, or horror. You wouldn't split hairs over whether "Alien" is a horror film OR a sci-fi film, 'cause it's both at the same time.

For me, 40K is more in the same category as "Dune": not post-apocalyptic anymore, but permanently influenced (or scarred if you like) by the events.

Aaah, for those who haven't read "Dune": in that universe there was an apocalyptic Terminator/Matrix style machine war around 10,000 years before the events of the books, which resulted in a deep cultural taboo against computer tech (the boundaries are not clear, but I always read it as "analog good, digital bad"), which in turn is the reason why society in Dune is oppressively neofeudal and all the kit seems like a weird retro flavor of high-tech.