Experiences with Apocalyptic Settings

[Jimp]

I was just wonder what peoples' experiences were with apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic settings in any systems. Did the sessions go well, what kind of house rules did you use, what was the setting like, etc etc.
I'm asking because I'm thinking of running an apocalyptic game at some stage and wanted to hear about other player's experiences with them.

[Raum]

I'm currently running a post apocalyptic game, it's been going since January. Which is kind of surprising since I expected less than half a dozen sessions. :) We're using Savage Worlds rules, so I'm not sure any specific house rules will help you. As for general changes, don't make scavenging too difficult - I did initially. That did lead to some amusing role play though, one of the players is now known for his skill with a sling.

The setting is modern day with few survivors, most turned into zombies. Of course there are other horrors out there as well... That leads into the second suggestion, constant zombie attacks got boring. They still happen now but are seldom played out. The characters are too practiced at killing zombies, no need to play every encounter. After the first few battles against the same type of creature, hand wave them unless the player characters are at a significant disadvantage.

Hope that helps answer your questions!

[Cainen]

At the moment, I'm running a Dark Sun game which involves a breach in the Gray and accidental planar travel. Oh, it's going to be brutal, alright. That's how Dark Sun works and has always worked.

[EvilElitest]

Dark sun and the Dustlands (the latter being a very good homebrew on these forums) are great. But i'm trying my own, and i like it very much, but i love that genre. I love the whole making do with junk to live sort of appeal
from
EE

[Jack_Simth]

I was just wonder what peoples' experiences were with apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic settings in any systems. Did the sessions go well, what kind of house rules did you use, what was the setting like, etc etc.
I'm asking because I'm thinking of running an apocalyptic game at some stage and wanted to hear about other player's experiences with them.
You run it much like you would any other setting. It's as fun as any other setting is, played with equal skill (although making it different in ways the players aren't used to has it's own fun factor).

I had a player-caused (sort of) apocolypse. See, the player attacked and broke one of a set of seven artifacts. Trouble is, they weren't artifacts per se, they were keystones to matching elements. Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Positive Energy, Negative Energy. Seventh was the keystone for a particular ritual involving bonding to them and gaining extreme mastery over them, and they didn't encounter it until it was used in the ritual.

They hadn't researched the artifacts, and didn't know this. Player didn't specify which color he was shooting his arrow at, so I rolled randomly, and got Brown (Earth). Gem shattered, and all earth vanished. Everyone fell about a hundred feet before Mr. T put it back together ... at which point, most earth came back (it didn't reappear where there was something - and living critters got a bubble based on number and hit dice... not that it mattered, for the majority, with the suffocation rules...). Stone construction was uninterrupted - it vanished, and reappeared in the exact same place. Everything else (except air) ended a hundred feet underground - including most of the water, plants (including crops) and animals. It had been a high magic campaign. Fast-forward a little bit, players ended up trapped in a non-place with a deity. Who was equally trapped. I found the end of that campaign.. interesting, to say the least. One player had hit 21st. Perfect timing, really.

Next campaign took place a thousand years later, with level 3 gestalt characters (nasty soul release when BBEG of last campaign was killed in about round 7 of the final battle - he'd been feasting... including nibbling on a deity). Now all the magical stuff is buried (or most of it), and civilization is centered around oases - places where a mage (the same mage, for all of them, but that's neither here nor there) created a periodic trigger widget of Control Weather - to create a pattern of gentle rain every afternoon.

So you've got smallish (2 mile radius, as I recall) areas that are actually airable, a few days' walk apart. The underground races have water, but no light for growing crops. Airable land is strictly limited, so you end up with cyclical cities - someone finds useful land, builds a small settlement around it, and proceeds breeding. A while later, they overpopulate and things get ugly. Shortly thereafter, you have a low population area again....

Campaign broke up when the players were just getting to the point where they were figuring out exactly what those kobolds were doing with all that slave labor they'd been raiding towns for....

Pumping water to the surface for irrigation. Not a nice way to rebuild civilization, but one that'll eventually do the job.

[bosssmiley]

Post Apocalypse gaming experience: "Twilight 2000", "Gamma World", "After the Bomb" (the TMNT post-apocalyptic setting), "Dark Sun", "Cyberpunk 2020" (you think not? Re-read the England or Nomads sourcebooks: they talk about cannibalism in the UK and "Mad Max" in the US Midwest), "Fading Suns", "Paranoia", a brief bash at a "Cold Steel Reign"-flavoured "Deadlands" game. None of the above used the D&D system.

Post-apocalyptic settings can be really great games so long as the players get their head around the idea that sometimes even just survival = victory. Telegraph to people that they aren't playing heroic fantasy, even if they're using the D&D mechanics. Spit-roasted dog or salvaged cans of beans for dinner, schizotech (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchizoTech) and people watching the fire burn in the wreck of their TV are iconic images. :smallamused:

Mad Max II is required viewing before you play a game of this type. Fallout (1 and 2) required CRPG source.