What is the lure of the Post-Apocalyptic genre?

[NickNascati]

All,
     I just spent a week painting up two very nice forces of the beautiful Indochina figures from Redstar. Now that they are done I am looking at them and trying to decide if I really want them!!!  I keep going back and looking at Post-Apocalyptic games. Something about the PA setting always seems to grab me, to the point where I am already thinking of selling the Indochina figures.  Is it me, or are PA games really a draw?  I do enjoy making the buildings and terrain for PA games.  Help, do I need to take a step back?

[Rhoderic]

I think most settings, themes, periods and wars have a "lure" when you see other people gaming them with good-looking miniatures on good-looking terrain. The very coolest thing, though, is to be the person that makes other people go "Oh wow, I want to game that as well!" by displaying one's own miniatures and terrain. Maybe that could be you with the French Indochina conflict? Just a thought - I'm certainly not trying to dissuade you from a PA project

[commissarmoody]

I like me both, I love history and the Indochina conflict is very interesting. Wish I could find more information in English about it honestly.
Post apocalypse is fun because you can use what ever you want to. You want magic? Psych powers or strange technology. You want monsters? We got mutants glory. You want to do what ever you like with out the police busting you? Don't worry there are no longer any law dogs.
It's a sand box that allows you to do what you want. Where as historical are set to a current time and place.

[Gailbraithe]

I absolutely love the Post-Apocalypse genre, to an utterly mad degree.  It's one of my absolute favorite genres of all time. I'm a particular fan of Z-grade knock off PA films, stuff like The New Barbarians, Battle Truck, World Gone Wild, etc.

The appeal of the genre, particularly for wargamers, is the way the genre lends itself so very well to skirmish combats.  It's a genre that allows for guns, even crazy sci-fi weapons if you go the Gamma World route, but also for swords and axes.  It's got room for power armor and salvaged sports gear.  Introducing ideas like cyborg, mutants, psychics and robots allows for a huge range of potential model types.

Post Apocalypse is a real kitchen sink genre that can allow for just about anything which is why it captures so many people's imagination.

[Brummie Thug]

Yep what Gailbraithe said! Plus you don't have to do tidy and orderly buildings and terrain

[Drachenklinge]

Apocalyptic boils down to three incredients
one - setting
An environment we do not know anymore, cause behind the horizon could just be anything, as said before. And since the old world is gone, no known rules apply.

two - possibilities
This gives us the feeling of exploring a new world, since we cannot really explore Africa or the arctic anymore. It is cartographed. The future is not. And in an apocalyptic world, it is not either, because there are no satelites. But maybe there are, we just do not know

three - reason
Any form of combat is possible, it is the apocalypse


That is just about everything a combat simulation needs.

[Vanvlak]

Mad Max.
And lots of other things ranging from aliens through zombies to dinosaurs.
But mostly Mad Max.

[6milPhil]

There's so much popular culture tied to it which I enjoy, games, cinema, books - I consider myself lucky to have kept it to 20mm and quite trim.

I'm a particular fan of Z-grade knock off PA films, stuff like The New Barbarians, Battle Truck, World Gone Wild, etc.

Ah a fellow traveller! 

[NickNascati]

All,
      Thanks for the comments and inspiration.  I have a problem though, I've had a collection of Dreamforge troopers that I have had for sale that I simple cannot sell.  Can I somehow re-purpose them to fit Post-Apocalyptic?

[6milPhil]

Fallout styled enclave?



Or the security forces of a totalitarian Lord of the Wastelands?

[zizi666]

All,
      Thanks for the comments and inspiration.  I have a problem though, I've had a collection of Dreamforge troopers that I have had for sale that I simple cannot sell.  Can I somehow re-purpose them to fit Post-Apocalyptic?

Basicly you can repurpose everything for PA.
(In Fallout 3, one faction is Ceasar's Legion. They base their society on the Roman Imperium en pretty much dress accordingly, but carry guns and power fists as well as short swords en spears)
Your Dreamforge troopers would indeed make a good faction with (limited) access to advanced technology.

[Redmao]

Like it was already said, the PA genre is pretty opened to anything you might want to add to your game.
You can even set it as a western or as an epic fantasy while sprinkling current technology here and there.
Your characters can come across people gone back to a primitive state or some very advanced closed up society.

[Rhoderic]

You don't have to do a "purestrain" PA setting, either. You could go for something more like the settings in Judge Dredd or Beneath a Steel Sky (an old computer game with a bit of cult status, originating from the same British cultural scene as 2000 AD and very similar in mood and style) wherein a dystopian non-PA society soldiers on in the big cities while the "flyover" regions between these cities are essentially a PA wasteland in every way. That would give you plenty of room for prim-and-proper high-tech soldiers alongside your wasteland desperadoes, cannibal mutants, motor-cultists, etc.

That said, my favourite style of PA setting is the style in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I like the idea of new medieval-style cultures (possibly retaining some venerable high-tech materiel) with long histories of their own having come into being hundreds or even thousands of years after the upheaval. I also like the weird ecosystem in the film, and the way the general mood of the setting juxtaposes hopelessness with genuine hope. IMO not even a PA setting should be all doom and gloom. A glimmer of hope for the future will give your wasteland adventurers a reason to have some spring in their step.

[Gailbraithe]

Beneath a Steel Sky (an old computer game with a bit of cult status, originating from the same British cultural scene as 2000 AD and very similar in mood and style)

Oh wow, I haven't thought of that game in years.  I loved that game so much.

[Drachenklinge]

if the populated islands where far apart enough or there might be whole continents wiped out in "the great war before the time" there is plenty of room for all sorts of cultures. Even very very alien ones, given enough time.
You also have options to what degree you want your inhabitants remember that time "before" ... even not knowing anything about it anymore can be a setting, where they explore something finding out about it in the process.