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bjacks14
2013-11-20, 06:04 PM
First off, I'd like to apologize if this in the wrong section of the forum. I'm just looking for a sounding board, so I thought it might fit better here than in homebrew.

Last night while working on a project, I had Adventure Time running in the background. And that's when it hit me. One of the more interesting things I find about Adventure Time is that it takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth. Civilization as we know it was wiped out during the "Great Mushroom War". I was thinking, what an interesting world it would be to tie this into a d20 game.

Imagine, a world where brave adventurers might explore ruins of ancient skyscrapers. It still has all the typical fantasy accoutrement such as magic and monsters, but it also has lost relics and artifacts from "modern" times. The only problem I can fore-see is feathering it all together. At what point in time did magic come about? How did these monsters evolve? You could go the take the clichéd path and blame it on radiation and mutation, but it just doesn't seem to fit the bill. I was thinking maybe a plane shift gone wrong, but I felt a little hokey and would lead to shoe-horning.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas how to make these ideas mesh. Looking over the Adventure Time wiki, there doesn't seem to be any "good" reason that the Candy People would have evolved, therefore I'm having trouble deciding why magic and such might evolve in this darker, more serious post-apocalyptic world.

Feel free to throw out any ideas you folks have! On the setting, the history of the world, or anything you feel might fit!

Jlerpy
2013-11-20, 07:42 PM
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110912014341/thundarr/images/2/26/Thundarr_Title_1.jpg

bjacks14
2013-11-20, 09:31 PM
Thundarr the Barbarian

Looking over the Wikipedia article, I definitely like the idea. My only issue is where does the magic come from? My favourite ideas so far are

a) The magic is really just old technology. This will take a lot of reflavoring and I'm a little worried it would change the feel of the environment.

b) Magic has always existed within ancient artifacts (eg Egyptian, Greek artifacts) and have been unearthed by enterprising leaders. Magic is rare and in the hands of the most powerful.

c) Mutation (can you spell cliché) has caused certain people to develop psionic abilities. This would simply require a little reflavoring on the part of sorcerers and such. Prepared spellcasters like Wizards might not exist at all.

d) Magic simply exists and the players can deal with it how they see fit. I don't think this is exactly fair to players, but it's an option none the less.

TheThan
2013-11-20, 10:01 PM
Well lets see you can look to mad max for inspiration… ok sorry, So I just can’t get beyond thunderdome.
Seriously though, look at Dark Sun. it’s basically a post-apocalyptic world in which the bad guys have already won. Even if you don’t use it, it’ll give you some ideas.
My personal post-apocalyptic setting isCaddilacs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr2iQ96em2w) and dinosaurs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillacs_and_Dinosaurs_%28TV_series%29)

Jlerpy
2013-11-20, 10:10 PM
Prepared spellcasters like Wizards might not exist at all.

I cannot begin to express how little I mourn their loss.

But if you do want them to still be a thing, there's no reason that the memorisation trappings of wizardry can't be elaborate psychic focussing techniques. You rest to meditate and focus yourself, then prepare by performing certain rites that keep a given effect floating in the periphery of your minds' eye, that you might snatch them forth at a moment's notice later in the day.
Material components are primarily associational, but some effects only work by being channeled through a given substance (hence you can take a Feat to ignore the basic stuff).

bjacks14
2013-11-20, 11:13 PM
I cannot begin to express how little I mourn their loss.

But if you do want them to still be a thing, there's no reason that the memorisation trappings of wizardry can't be elaborate psychic focussing techniques. You rest to meditate and focus yourself, then prepare by performing certain rites that keep a given effect floating in the periphery of your minds' eye, that you might snatch them forth at a moment's notice later in the day.
Material components are primarily associational, but some effects only work by being channeled through a given substance (hence you can take a Feat to ignore the basic stuff).

See this is why I posted here! Brilliant! Yes, maybe everyone has some sort of innate magical power, but most can't channel it without intense meditation and practice. I think it would depend on the players' desires though. If none of them are interested in wizards, I could just as easily hand wave them away. Most other classes could just be flavorized for the appropriate flare.

I do plan on going and getting Dark Sun just for inspiration. Got to make a trip to a bigger city though lol.

Brainstorm! Well, sort of. I'm probably more enthused about it than you folks.
Humans begin developing magical talents (for whatever reason: genetic engineering, mutation, etc). Governments do what governments do and attempt to weaponize these powers. Things get out of hand, and suddenly you have an Armageddon on your hands. Just another idea to throw out there, maybe it will get your folks' brains a-chuggin'.

hiryuu
2013-11-21, 01:21 AM
Or you could just not mention what happened at all - most people wouldn't know, or it wouldn't be relevant to them. All they'd have are the ruins to tell the stories, and we don't really put big murals on our stuff. Most of the things that hold information about us are digital now, and anything that survives wouldn't be paper, and any signs would decay within a couple hundred years. That'd be pretty creepy - this vast, ancient, clearly global civilization appears to have had no language, and wrote nearly nothing on their walls. Their only records of what they were are the megalithic buildings they put up and the sparse words one can find hidden deep in some tomb. They must have all been telepaths, or gods, or even spirits. What destroyed them must have been far worse. They might still be around... somewhere.

As an example, Mystara is post apocalyptic Earth. You can tell which parts are which in some of the maps (http://digidownload.libero.it/Halag/images/brun.png), even (protip: North America in that last one).

Rhynn
2013-11-21, 02:05 AM
Fun fact: Dungeons & Dragons is generally post-apocalyptic fantasy (http://jrients.blogspot.fi/2010/06/imperishable-fame-part-2.html), although in a slightly different sense (it was a fantasy world before the apocalypse, not Earth). The worlds are usually littered with the ruins of glorious empires millenia past, their awesome magic lost, their treasures (incredible amounts of gold, silver, gems, jewelry, and magic items) buried and scattered. The Forgotten Realms is pretty explicitly like this (with the fall of Netheril being the most recent cataclysm). How far they've risen since the apocalypse varies, obviously. Sure, there's some similarities to the real world, but the collapses of empires in these fantasy worlds are almost inevitably cataclysmic, rather than slow processes over centuries like in the real world.

I didn't even know about Mystara, which hiryuu points out!

edit: Dragonlance is post-apocalyptic; the original modules and novels are set only about 350 years after the Cataclysm, and many of the major locations are pre-Cataclysm ruins. /edit

Also, several well-known fantasy worlds are post-apocalyptic. Shannara is Earth long after an apocalypse, and Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon novels (featured in Chaosium's Hawkmoon RPG) are set on a post-apocalyptic Earth.

edit: Also, Jack Vance's Dying Earth, which is one of the major inspirations behind D&D. Duh. /edit


Seriously though, look at Dark Sun. it’s basically a post-apocalyptic world in which the bad guys have already won. Even if you don’t use it, it’ll give you some ideas.

I went rather further with this, drawing on Dark Sun's obvious sci-fi roots (Barsoom, etc.) and running with that, and inspired by the inestimable Planet Algol (http://planetalgol.blogspot.fi/): the Cleansing Wars were fought with sorcery and hydrogen bombs, the depths of ancient ruins conceal enormous banks of computers and still-functioning ray guns, many of the bizarre monsters of the desert are mutants created by still-functioning ancient machinery (including the "Pristine Tower," a giant terraforming machine mostly concealed underground).

Basically it's a post-apocalyptic pulp-science-fiction fantasy world, for me.


Also, I agree with hiryuu about keeping the history secret. You can bury clues and hints in your adventures and locations, but don't make it obvious. Heck, bjacks14, look at how obscure the truth is in Adventure Time: we start out with the barest hints (the first IIRC is the view of Oo from space where you can sort of make out that some of continents look familiar), and even know we don't know what actually happened. Make your players work to get the truth, and don't put the pieces together for them.

Kaun
2013-11-21, 03:13 AM
Have you looked at Numenera (http://www.numenera.com/)?

Kitten Champion
2013-11-21, 04:13 AM
You could do a Shin Megami Tensei setting (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei?from=Main.ShinMegamiTensei). Devil Survivor, Devil Survivor II, Shin Megami Tensei I through IV, Digital Devil Sega, the MMO Imagine -- all have apocalyptic scenarios where the sudden appearance of magic/demons/gods led to chaos and global destruction.

I'd recommend Shin Megami Tensei IV (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV) or Digital Devil Saga (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga?from=Main.DigitalDevilSaga) as they're well after the end rather than during or 10 minutes later.

Warlawk
2013-11-21, 06:04 AM
What you're looking for is a game called Rifts. (http://rifts.wikia.com/wiki/Chaos_Earth)


The end of the Golden Age of man was marked by massive world war. A war larger and more destructive than any that had come before. With the use of super-men, machines of war, giant robots, laser weapons, particle cannons, millions upon millions were killed.

With the killing of a living creature, it's PPE (Potential Psychic Energy) is released to the environment. Normally, this energy will dissipate and maybe have minor lingering effects (poltergeist, ghosts, strange feelings when in a location), or typically no lingering effects at all.

When humans were killed in massive numbers all across the world, all their PPE released to the environment would coalesce in Ley Lines. When enough PPE was released, the Ley Lines tore open Rifts, letting loose monsterous horrors from the beyond. These Dimensional Beings (commonly referred to as D-Bees) entered a world at war, and had no qualms about killing these violent creatures infesting this wonderous mystical place.

Basically it was a world just like ours, tech advanced and then came the war. The setting itself is a hodegepodge of tech and magic, literally with wizards and dragons fighting against or beside robots and mecha. It would be easy enough to take the same basis and simply further wipe out technology to closer fit the setting you wanted.

Just to throw this out there, the setting is very cool and a great place to sift through for ideas but you do not want the system. Do not touch the palladium system with someone else's 10 foot pole, it's that bad.

Pyra
2013-11-21, 09:01 AM
The Sword of Shannara series is a setting like what you're thinking about. Fantasy world, set after an apocalypse destroys the old world aka modern day Earth. And the characters in do occasionally trip over ancient relics from a bygone era. The Word and the Void trilogy and the Genesis of Shannara trilogy set up just how the transition from modern Earth to a four races with magic fantasy world happened.

Come to think, the Death Gate Cycle is also a post-apocalyptic fantasy series set after the destruction of a reasonable facsimile of today's world. There are probably other examples but those are the first two that came to mind for me.

Rhynn
2013-11-21, 10:59 AM
All right, going to write up a more detailed response.

First, this image is golden:


Imagine, a world where brave adventurers might explore ruins of ancient skyscrapers.

There's probably some initial conceits to get out of the way - even in the last two Fallout games (3 and New Vegas), everything is way too preserved (probably in the first two, though, although the world was much more of a wreck in those). Skyscrapers wouldn't last all that long, but that's boring, so we'll ignore it. Odds are your players won't know, think about it, or care.

Blanket disclaimer: science is out the window starting now.


At what point in time did magic come about?

Here we have a host of options.

Cycles of Magic (Shadowrun, Earthdawn)
Magic comes and goes from the world, according to some cosmic pattern; perhaps it is the position of our solar system in the galaxy, the influence of some greater stellar or cosmic object, or some internal cycle of a living Gaia. Perhaps magic courses through the entire world when it is resurgent, or perhaps it is something you are born with a connection to, something internal given to you by whatever awesome caprice control these cycles.

This is a simple answer, and doesn't necessarily make much of a story element. "It just came back." It goes well with setting the game far, far into the future.

Mutation
Maybe access to magic is a biological thing; whatever it is, humans haven't had access to it previously (or have they?!), but the nature of the cataclysm (radiation, mutation caused by biological or chemical agents, etc.) changed humanity enough that some (or all!) are born with a capacity for magic. Maybe it only affected part of the population; maybe it was a matter of activating "dormant" genes; maybe certain bloodlines now possess magic, and even breed toward creating more and more powerful sorcerers. Maybe, being a mutation, it is associated with other traits - a genetic predisposition to madness, or visible physical traits (lack of body hair, bluish skin, enormous throbbing veiny brain-shaped heads, etc.).

This option presents the potential for enormous amounts of implied story elements, plot hooks, and world details.

It Was There All Along
Maybe magic was always there but kept secret or harnessed so rarely as to be discounted. This can be combined with either of the above; maybe prior to the cataclysm, magicians were too weak to do anything obvious and fancy.

This is possibly the least "interesting" option, which is not necessarily bad; if you don't want to bother making the mere existence of magic an important element, this is a good option.

Planar Crash (Rifts, Banewars, Stalker/Roadside Picnic)
There are different levels or dimensions of existence, and two or more crashed together. Perhaps this was the apocalyptic cataclysm, perhaps this was something separate. Worlds overlapped, and the energies of some magical dimension flowed into ours. These energies are still present. One way or another - perhaps by being infused by these energies, perhaps simply by exposure and practice - people have learned to control these magical energies. The idea of infusion is very interesting: perhaps it is done intentionally, exposing candidates to magic through some ritual (or simply by throwing them in a region of wild magic), hoping they survive and come out sorcerers.

There's a Finnish fantasy comic and RPG that uses similar elements: Borvaria was an enormous (possibly planet-sized) city of an ancient civilization of immortal wizards who harnessed the energies of countless other dimensions. Something went wrong, and a chain reaction caused all the portals to explode simultaneously, destroying the city in a maelstorm of cosmic energies (except for a small, specifically shielded region where the game is set). The city is a poisonous wasteland full of regions of wild magic and transdimensional influences and energies that create countless horrible mutants and monsters that swarm the ruins. Adventurers called Praedors enter the ruins looking for ancient treasure and magic items to bring back with them.

Areas of wild magic like this, and manifestations like seen in Roadside Picnic/Stalker (small regions and objects that don't obey what we think of as the laws of physics, time, and causality), could be common in a world like this.

Technology (The Dancers at the End of Time, Numenera)
Maybe we're far into the future, or there were awesome leaps shortly before the cataclysm, and there is technology that functions like magic. This suggests some kind of source of energy - perhaps extradimensional, perhaps actually physically stored somewhere.

This may have a very strong functional effect on the setting, if magic is tied to specific objects or other access to technology.

In Michael Moorcock's The Dancers at the End of Time, the inhabitants of the dying Earth (in a universe literally nearing the end of time itself) have rings that can transmute and transport matter, letting the few remaining people shape their world into their will. They indulge their bizarre obsessions and whims by creating whole environments and living, thinking creatures from nothing, changing their own shape, and so on.

My own Dark Sun setting has both magic and psionics. Psionics result from mutation and genetic manipulation in ages long past. I'm integrating many canon elements, so sorcerous magic ultimately draws on the power of the sun to create effects; most sorcerers do this by drawing life force from plants. This is, ultimately, why the world is dying; not only do entire regions of the world become lifeless ashen wasteland from major uses of magic, but the sun itself is dying from this abuse. (And as a related consequence, the planet keeps slowly moving closer and closer to the sun, exacerbating the environmental changes.) In the far future, the world will be a bleak wasteland of black sand and ash under a pallid sun, where undead sorcerers command armies of walking dead to wage meaningless wars.


How did these monsters evolve?

Radiation and mutation is a perfectly fine idea. In any case, we're talking some kind of bizarre evolution affected by some external influence - possibly magic (see above). Perhaps these creatures are survivors from another dimension and a dimensional crash or rift. Perhaps newly ambient magic has warped life to create them. Perhaps they are invaders from the stars or another plane of existence.

The monsters could also have been created, by magic, technology, or both. Maybe they caused the cataclysm; perhaps projects to create biological weapons ran rampant, perhaps turning animals into human-killing war machines backfired. Perhaps centuries of sorcerers have created these monsters in their countless wars since the apocalypse.

My own answers in my Dark Sun setting are multitude: there's intentional creation (both during the Cleansing Wars and afterwards by the Sorcerer-Kings for their internal wars), twisted evolution (to survive on a merciless world), and mutation: in region of the Tablelands, there is a strange spire called the Pristine Tower. The tower is actually the visible part of a great machine of the ancients, possibly not even of Athas; it is a terraforming machine, meant to alter both the geography, climate, and biosphere of the world, but it does not function correctly (and never will; PCs will never "solve" the campaign setting by fixing it up). Either because of malfunctions or damage, or because it was meant to terraform the planet to the specifications of completely biologically different alien creatures, it poisons the environment and alters living beings that come near it into terrifying and deadly mutants.

bjacks14
2013-11-21, 12:19 PM
Fantastic post Rhynn, thanks everyone for the great ideas! Lots of legwork's been done out there by other campaigns and I'll have to skim them for inspiration.

Also, I agree with the ruins being too preserved complaint, but that was my exact thought: At some point, realism has to take a backseat for the sake of interesting adventures lol.

Especially excited to get my hands on Dark Sun now.

Yora
2013-11-21, 12:53 PM
I quite like Midnight. It's pretty much a regular generic fantasy setting, except that all the gods, angels, and demons have been permanently separated from the world of mortals and all priests and mages are gone. Except for the Big Bad God of Evil, who is trapped in the mortal world and his clerics still have all their power. Given these circumstances, he already conquered half the world and the rest really doesn't have any real chances of keeping his armies at bay forever.

The common description is: "Sauron won!" :smallamused:

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-11-21, 03:01 PM
Oh come on. How can you all not remember the Greatest Fantasy Epic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjSFujG6Uhg)? Wizards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_(film))!

bjacks14
2013-11-21, 03:02 PM
...his clerics still have all their power.

How do you folks handle clerics and healing in these sorts of settings? Do the players just have to be very careful or do you sort of create a backdoor for them?

Jlerpy
2013-11-21, 09:01 PM
How do you folks handle clerics and healing in these sorts of settings? Do the players just have to be very careful or do you sort of create a backdoor for them?

It's Savage Worlds (I think?), so healing's not as big a deal as it is in D&D.

Yora
2013-11-22, 02:21 AM
There is still some magic in Midnight, but spellcasters have much fewer spells than in regular 3rd Edition D&D. The mages of that setting can chose to get their spells from the druid spell list, which does have a few healing spells.
There's also some form of ritual spellcasting, which takes very long, but if you have enough qualified assistants, you can bring down the mana cost to 0. Which in the case of healing spells can heal up even larger groups of heavily injured characters, given enough time.

Arbane
2013-11-22, 03:35 AM
There's Under the Broken Moon (http://www.rpglibrary.org/settings/thundarr/), the Thundarr the Barbarian RPG.

Another post-apocalyptic non-Earth fantasy setting is Exalted - actually, they're currently post THREE separate apocalyptic-level events, and the assorted enemies of Creation have fourth, fifth and sixth events in the works.

bjacks14
2013-11-22, 12:32 PM
Haven't gotten a chance to get the Dark Sun source book, but am reading a wonderful article (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2297741)on the history of Athas and am definitely liking what I see. Really between all these links you all are posting I can hobble together something :) Has anyone run a Dark Sun (or similar) campaign? How do your players respond to the setting? I think something out there like this would wow my group, but I'm wondering what others' experiences are.


The mages of that setting can chose to get their spells from the druid spell list, which does have a few healing spells.

That's a good idea Yora. I use 4e for my campaigns (as my players are lax to learn a new system) but I love seeing these other systems. They always have good ideas that I can mesh into my campaign. If I remember correctly, PHB2 has a couple primal healers which could definitely come into play.

Rhynn
2013-11-22, 01:09 PM
Has anyone run a Dark Sun (or similar) campaign?

Many, many people. I've run several, but the one I've been working on and was writing about upthread is very much different. I started out by throwing out everything, re-admitting things on a case-by-case basis (e.g. so far, Sorcerer-Kings are not dragons; that may change at any time prior to PCs actually fighting one), and I am drawing more on Barsoom and Planet Algol (frankly a far more interesting campaign setting than Dark Sun, to me) than Dark Sun canon. I really recommend reading the Planet Algol blog (http://planetalgol.blogspot.fi/) for ideas.

Funnily enough, Brom's art is even more applicable to my gonzo sci-fi fantasy Dark Sun: images like this (http://www.artemisblacks.com/darkage/images/bromart/Brom%20-%20Father.jpg) (adventurers!) and this (http://lcart2.narod.ru/image/fantasy/brom/brom_coil.jpg) (templar!) or this (3d49031956e1aa8514db3a31e0bfb605) (desert elf!) and this (http://gallery.egyptsons.com/data/media/3/brom_ratsden.jpg) (a defiler; note the computer, its databanks full of arcane lore!) fit even better than the official Dark Sun art, such as this (http://gallery.egyptsons.com/data/media/3/brom_ratsden.jpg).

Another enormous source of inspiration is Caves of Qud (http://forums.freeholdentertainment.com/showthread.php?10-Welcome-to-the-Caves-of-Qud-beta), which anyone who's ever played a roguelike has to play right now. It's set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland of mutants and monsters where you scavenge ancient ruins for technology (from revolvers to laser rifles to time cubes) and delve into such places as Golgotha, an infernal waste disposal plant (where you must fight your way on conveyor belts through endless chute crabs to finally fall to the heaps of filth at the bottom), or Bethesda, a cryogenic facility filled with strange healing liquid wherein slumber Lovecraftian horrors from beyond the stars.

Also, obviously, everyone who's into fantasy RPGs needs to read Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom novels, but they're particularly applicable here, since Athas is pretty much a renamed Barsoom with the scifi stripped away. (I injected it back.)

I've also drawn inspiration from Gamma World (in its earlier, more serious incarnations), and, well, countless other things. My version of the Pristine Tower was inspired largely by the decidedly bad Mutant Chronicles movie. The infamous Carcosa sourcebook (presenting a post-apocalyptic setting - perhaps Earth, perhaps not - where the Great Old Ones of the Mythos subjugated humanity long ago) is an influence, largely through Planet Algol.

None of this is to say you can't run Dark Sun straight; that's awesome, too. No doubt my approach is partly motivated by boredom with an official setting that has become familiar, but my love for Planet Algol and Barsoom, and my general desire to re-envision all settings (such as the Forgotten Realms) and rebuild them from the ground up during play, are the bigger factors.

I guess you may be jaded when cannibal halflings are no longer sufficient to tickle you.

What I want to emphasize is the history of the world: Tyr is built over the ruins of ancient cities dating back to before the Cleansing Wars, and its many wells draw water from ancient moisture-collecting machinery and water pumps deep beneath Under-Tyr. Adventurers frequently act as scavengers, entering Under-Tyr or the ruins buried in the desert to seek out ancient technology and even plain scrap metal, most useful metals having long since been put to some use by the Ancients, leaving countless played-out mineshafts to be inhabited by monsters.

In the desert, awesome relics of ancient glories still tower, defying the brutal environment: in red "rust plains," red metal-eating vines grow iron spikes by devouring the rust, clinging to the bent struts of long-collapsed skyscrapers; a massive metal head sits, mouth agape, daring adventurers to explore within. In the Obsidian Plains, countless undead walk under acid rain and through knee-deep ash, and jagged cracks issue forth toxic gases. Swashbuckling heroes fly ornithopters over the heads of cursing templars, jumping onto a balcony wielding a serrated bone sword in one hand and a lethal raygun in the other. Ancient art-deco androids (http://sillof.com/images/Customs/SW%20mquarrie%202/c-sw-Smcq2-C3po.gif) and robots (http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/5107/theirongiantzf7.jpg) lie discarded in ruins buried deep beneath the sands, preserved by the dry desert air trapped within. Sorcerer-Kings hoard magical libraries and psionic crystals, as well as baths of rejuvenating salts and injectors filled with anti-aging drugs. Decadent templars lounge on floating divans partaking of black lotus dust or intoxicating radioactive metals.

CoffeeIncluded
2013-11-22, 01:58 PM
I'm just going to throw something out there, to turn some ideas upside down in peoples' heads. Maybe. I dunno.

Do you want a world and setting where it's pretty obviously post-apocalyptic from the start, or do you want the PCs to discover that they're living in a post-apocalyptic world, in a massive wham episode?

Rhynn
2013-11-22, 02:10 PM
Do you want a world and setting where it's pretty obviously post-apocalyptic from the start, or do you want the PCs to discover that they're living in a post-apocalyptic world, in a massive wham episode?

I think this is generally the best idea, especially if your starting point is Adventure Time, where at first it's not clear at all that this is post-apocalyptic Earth, but then bit by bit it becomes more apparent and eventually totally confirmed.

Similarly, there's no way I'm going to just tell my players the history of my setting and how it got the way they did. Probably they'll never know all of it, but they could learn a lot if they wanted, over time.

One of the worst parts of official Dark Sun material was the adventure in the revised boxed set that pretty much just drowns the players in revelations about the Blue and Green Ages for no reason at all. Really?

TheThan
2013-11-22, 03:14 PM
You don’t have to tell them everything off the bat.

Make up a myth that is common knowledge about how the world ended up the way it did. Maybe a massive calamity, or war or something, it doesn’t really matter. Make it Myth, legend even a children’s tale they were all told when they were kids. it's common knowledge everybody is at least passingly familiar with.

You could make it completely fictitious and let the PCs discover the truth about the world they inhabit through the course of the game. However I think it’s better to sprinkle some truth into it.

For example for a Cadillacs and dinosaurs inspired game I ran, I told the players that there was a cataclysm a long time ago and dinosaurs have returned to reclaim the earth. I didn’t tell them why or how, I just put forth the common knowledge that there are indeed dinosaurs and people living together.

bjacks14
2013-11-22, 06:18 PM
Make up a myth that is common knowledge about how the world ended up the way it did. Maybe a massive calamity, or war or something, it doesn’t really matter. Make it Myth, legend even a children’s tale they were all told when they were kids. it's common knowledge everybody is at least passingly familiar with.

That was going to be my method. I don't plan on informing the players of everything, I just find it better for me in the long run if I have a nice established historical framework to work off of. I find meta-gaming becomes to prevalent if the players know too much. They become omnipotent librarians of sorts, and what's the fun in that?

TuggyNE
2013-11-22, 06:32 PM
Make up a myth that is common knowledge about how the world ended up the way it did. Maybe a massive calamity, or war or something, it doesn’t really matter. Make it Myth, legend even a children’s tale they were all told when they were kids. it's common knowledge everybody is at least passingly familiar with.

You could make it completely fictitious and let the PCs discover the truth about the world they inhabit through the course of the game. However I think it’s better to sprinkle some truth into it.

I really really love legends that are true from a certain point of view. If they're completely made up, that's kind of lame, and if they're straightforwardly true but no one believes them anymore, that's worse. But if they're true in a way that hardly anyone would understand these days, it's pretty awesome.

Kitten Champion
2013-11-23, 02:07 AM
I really really love legends that are true from a certain point of view. If they're completely made up, that's kind of lame, and if they're straightforwardly true but no one believes them anymore, that's worse. But if they're true in a way that hardly anyone would understand these days, it's pretty awesome.

I like that sort of degraded knowledge trope. Pivotal events in history are maintained by word-of-mouth and human memory, but the details are all but lost and it becomes more of a myth or legend.

Wheel of Time is a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting -- the characters talk of the two great giants, Mosk and Merk, who fought with huge spears of flame, and the long cold period which followed. The setting has had several apocalyptic events since then, our age isn't even a proper myth contextualized in history, but a series of children's story passed along because of the colourful imagery. For instance, Sally Ride and John Glenn have become Lenn and his daughter Sayla, tales are told of their flight to the stars on the belly of a flaming eagle in the same way we talk about Little Red Riding Hood. Even finding artifacts of our age, they're just curiosities in some noble's collection.

You can go overboard with this. Plenty of SF in particularly tends to hit you non-stop with the dramatic irony when these sort of apocalyptic or far-future stories come up. Where the future people through hilarious or depressing misunderstanding come to worship Mickey Mouse or some such. We make all sorts of mistaken assumptions about history, and certainly old traditions and ideas are divorced from their original meaning adopted into the new for various purposes, but we're not really illogical or naive in doing so.

bjacks14
2013-11-23, 07:25 PM
Where the future people through hilarious or depressing misunderstanding come to worship Mickey Mouse or some such.

What a fantastic idea! I'd maybe go with something more serious. Then again, maybe their image of Mickey Mouse is some sort of perverse, twisted demon rat, and the players get to realize it's actually Mickey Mouse through some obscure moment of hilarity. Then again (again) I wouldn't want to de-rail he campaign too much. But a moment or two of humor would add a good deal of depth to the environment.

Wheels of Time is a book series, correct? I've seen the name pop up a couple of times in the thrift store I buy my books from, but I've never picked them up and actually looked at them. What are the two giants with lances of fire in actuality? Just for curiosity's sake lol.

On an off hand note, how do you folks introduce your players to the campaign setting? I typically just start the campaign out and flesh it out mid-campaign, but if I'm going to create a campaign like this I'd like to somehow give them a background on their world (as far as what they know, I mean, not an entire history). I was thinking of just making a cute little brochure that they could read through, but I figured you guys might have some great ideas (as always).

Kitten Champion
2013-11-23, 09:11 PM
What a fantastic idea! I'd maybe go with something more serious. Then again, maybe their image of Mickey Mouse is some sort of perverse, twisted demon rat, and the players get to realize it's actually Mickey Mouse through some obscure moment of hilarity. Then again (again) I wouldn't want to de-rail he campaign too much. But a moment or two of humor would add a good deal of depth to the environment.

Wheels of Time is a book series, correct? I've seen the name pop up a couple of times in the thrift store I buy my books from, but I've never picked them up and actually looked at them. What are the two giants with lances of fire in actuality? Just for curiosity's sake lol.

Oh, Mosk and Merk are very likely Moscow and America, fighting with ICBMs -- flaming spears.

The Wheel of Time series is almost entirely high fantasy, the post-apocalyptic nature is not exactly evident, it only comes up in like two or three paragraphs among thousands of pages and no one in-universe shows a glimmer of acknowledging it outside of some garbled references. It had to be confirmed by the author that it's indeed our Earth.

I would not do something as obvious as have like a plastic Mickey statue that they worship, but something like this...

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111118044402/disney/images/9/90/Mickey_Logo.gif

Or

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQgyY5nAGMWhQaWwVFxo1UAhp9KimfHy 21chxtl6g6WGvP8UAStjA

Or even...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Superman_shield.png

And describe it as a religious icon or governmental/family seal would be interesting.

Doorhandle
2013-11-26, 06:04 PM
Oh, Mosk and Merk are very likely Moscow and America, fighting with ICBMs -- flaming spears.

The Wheel of Time series is almost entirely high fantasy, the post-apocalyptic nature is not exactly evident, it only comes up in like two or three paragraphs among thousands of pages and no one in-universe shows a glimmer of acknowledging it outside of some garbled references. It had to be confirmed by the author that it's indeed our Earth.

I would not do something as obvious as have like a plastic Mickey statue that they worship, but something like this...

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111118044402/disney/images/9/90/Mickey_Logo.gif

Or

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQgyY5nAGMWhQaWwVFxo1UAhp9KimfHy 21chxtl6g6WGvP8UAStjA

Or even...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Superman_shield.png

And describe it as a religious icon or governmental/family seal would be interesting.

For bonus points have the last group follow the teachings of Nietzsche.

...On a related point, I'm beginning to think there are more post apocalyptic fantasies than otherwise. So I'm adding another t the pile with bonus patriotic fervour.: American Barbarian. (http://www.ambarb.com/?p=35)

Mutazoia
2013-11-29, 09:13 AM
Can't help thinking of this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyIKVAx7D9A)....