PA World Questions

[mayapuppies]

Hello all,

I'm not overly familiar with this genre (at least in the running a game side of it) and I'm running into some questions, as I set up a campaign world for my players. I would most certainly appreciate any help.

What kinds of Perks would be appropriate to this kind of genre (in general)?
What would be used for currency aside from barter?
Any suggestions on Plot Hooks (aside from the Mad Max movies)?

[UltraRob]

Hello all,

I'm not overly familiar with this genre (at least in the running a game side of it) and I'm running into some questions, as I set up a campaign world for my players. I would most certainly appreciate any help.

What kinds of Perks would be appropriate to this kind of genre (in general)?
What would be used for currency aside from barter?
Any suggestions on Plot Hooks (aside from the Mad Max movies)?

Err...by "PA", you mean "Post Apocalypse", right?

Rob

[mayapuppies]

Sorry. Yes, that is correct

[Lord Liaden]

This is actually a fairly popular genre here on the boards - there's been quite a bit of discussion about it over the past year, and even more on the earlier incarnation of the boards. I'd suggest you scroll through the "Other Genres" topic looking for appropriate threads (the Search function is a bit on the fritz right now, although Dan and Ben hope to have it up to speed soon).

For starters, I'd suggest you take a look at this thread. It has some good discussion, links to other threads on the topic, and a HUGE list of inspirational material - novels, games, movies, plus links to related websites.

[mayapuppies]

Gracias

[mayapuppies]

Ths what I originally came up with as a very quick description for my players. It's basically my Fantasy World in the future.

Still working on fluff stuff. The primary race is goblin with other races mixed in here and there.

No one knows how "the world ended" exactly. There was a strange atmospheric event that occured which vaporized most of the populace of the world and fried most electronics. The insuing fires and pollution covered the world in a thick cloud cover that resulted in a sort of nuclear winter complete with acid rain.

There are few metropolises and most people survive through surplus canned foods or rations that they've found, hunting, or underground hydroponic systems. Potable water is difficult ot find and a very expensive commodity. Suprisingly, fuel is very easy to come by.

Mutants are very rare and tend to have "powers" that resemble mutations more akin with animals and sensory improvements or degradations than your "traditional" X-Men type stuff.

There are several organized kingdoms, with arguably the most powerful being the Brotherhood, lead by Dume. They are a wierd pseudo-religious organization that believes that the flesh is weak and should be replaced by machines whenever possible.

Most people operate with a single name and these vary widely from standard names like we have nowadays (i.e. based on cultural styles) to nicknames or handles (i.e. like online handles and "military" call signs).

Religion is very prominent in some groups while others are pretty much atheistic. magic does exist but it either comes from spirit worship or the "gods".

Cybernetics, hacking and other cyberpunk stables also exist but are limited to the bigger cities. A world wide internet no longer exists but many of the bigger cities have re-established it locally.

The vast majority of the organized towns and cities are trying to rebuild, whether or not they go about it in a peaceful or conquest minded method, depends solely on the people in power.

The area's between cities are wastelands, populated with all manner of disturbing creatures, bandits, mutants and petty tyrants.

[UltraRob]

I ran a Post-Apocalyptic Campaign based (very) loosely on an anime called "Scryed" a year or so ago...it was my attempt at a PA:Superhero campaign where the players were inhabitants of a place called "The Zone"...following a "natural" disaster (earthquake) that did huge amounts of damage over a massive area, people in a 200km radius around the city of London, Ontario began to manifest superpowers. However, these powers only function within that radius, and only about 1:1000 of the people will manifest them....And of course of those, only 1:1000 will have any high level of power, and so on....These people became known as Power Users and were the other half of the reason many people fled "the zone" to live in the rest of the world, which is still quite normal.

The North American gov't established a fortress city at the former city of London site, and a special military organization to rule it called TOWER. The mandate of the city and TOWER was to bring order to the Zone, which is otherwise a lawless urban and rural wasteland and they have proceeded to attempt do so in a rather heavy-handed fashion, and with limited success so far.

So, we have a vast wasteland filled with all manner of people, mostly trying to just survive, while superpowered people roam the land as well, working for many sides.

My PCs ended up being troubleshooters working for a do-gooder merchant who sent them on all manner of assignments. Fighting TOWER's supers teams who tried to bully people as part of TOWER's reclamation project was a regular adventure, as was fighting gangs and cults. It was quite a wild ride, and one of my more memorable Superpowered games. Oddly enough, in the end the PCs actually ended up joining one of the villian groups, one of the PCs with power-amplication powers decided some "freedom fighting" villains were in the right....so she blithely used her powers to turn the leader's super charisma up to the point where everyone else thought he was right too!

An odd end for an odd, but very cool campaign.

Rob

[Supreme Serpent]

Hello all,

I'm not overly familiar with this genre (at least in the running a game side of it) and I'm running into some questions, as I set up a campaign world for my players. I would most certainly appreciate any help.

What kinds of Perks would be appropriate to this kind of genre (in general)?
What would be used for currency aside from barter?
Any suggestions on Plot Hooks (aside from the Mad Max movies)?

Seems like you've got a good basic grasp - wild, uncivilized areas, petty kingdoms, freaky religions...heck, it DOES sound like a lot of fantasy games! Post-Apocalypse stuff can vary widely, but I think some of the general concepts are: scarce resources - scarce tech - very dangerous areas, including dangerous plants/animals - mutants - struggle to survive and belong/build a society/civilization.

Some good perks would be "member of X" with point value depending on the value of that membership. X could be a tribe, religious group, etc. Key is that being a member would give you access to help/shelter/etc. from other members.

Maybe a couple of competing secret world-wide organizations? One trying to manipulate the world to coming back together, peacefully cooperating, pull civilization back up, the other trying to tear down what's left, start wars, etc.

[mayapuppies]

I ran a Post-Apocalyptic Campaign based (very) loosely on an anime called "Scryed" a year or so ago...it was my attempt at a PA:Superhero campaign where the players were inhabitants of a place called "The Zone"...
<SNIP>
...Oddly enough, in the end the PCs actually ended up joining one of the villian groups, one of the PCs with power-amplication powers decided some "freedom fighting" villains were in the right....so she blithely used her powers to turn the leader's super charisma up to the point where everyone else thought he was right too!

An odd end for an odd, but very cool campaign.

Rob

Very cool stuff here

[mayapuppies]

Thanks Supreme Serpent. I'm still trying to lay the groundwork for the game area so that I can start writing up some packages and organizations. One of the players wants to play an android that was part of a previous secret weapons project and was "awakened" by some looters.

This tells me that the Brotherhood are going to REALLY want to get a hold of him once they hear about him.

[Trailblazer]

In addition to the link posted, you may find the PA Forge site at http://www.geocities.com/paforge/ and its brand new associated Yahoo group useful. The group is only about a week old but is already quite active.

I recently ran a 4th ed. adventure with some new RPGers using Metamorphosis Alpha as a backdrop -- PA on a lost generation colony starship. It was quite a success. Since then we've upgraded to 5E and are doing a fantasy campaign, but we'll probably venture back to the Warden or some other PA setting sooner or later.

Daryl

[mayapuppies]

Hey, thanks for the link Trailblazer. Great resource and introduction, for me.

[Toadmaster]

PA is a broad genre ranging from indistinguishable from Fantasy (the big whoops was so long ago that it is mythology, the old tech is basically magic, mutants are just monsters to the survivors etc) to almost modern day (Twilight 2000, the nations of the earth don't realize they are dead yet and are still fighting WW3). Gamma World (outlandish very unrealistic mutants, high tech weapons etc), Shadow Run (High Tech, Magic and monsters) or the Matrix are good examples of the in between.

Plots from Westerns and Fantasy work well in most PA games.

Survival usually plays a big part (the town water hole dried up, the air filter to the shelters broke down and a new one is needed, something is eating all the livestock etc).

A nice thing about PA is you can use almost any genre and then corrupt it for you needs, The Hoboken League of Superheros was a great computer game that mixed Supers with PA and alot of comedy.

[devlin1]

Every time I see this thread I think "Pennsylvania World," which itself is nearly as terrifying as a post-apocalypse world.

[Prometheus]

One PA setting I didn't see listed is the world of Xenozoic Tales by Mark Schultz. A bit unusual in its premise and themes, it's got plenty to tap for plot seeds involving nature, politics, and (of course) survival.

About ten years ago Kitchen Sink Press collected the existing comic series as Cadillacs And Dinosaurs, Dinosaur Shaman, and Time In Overdrive. More recently, Dark Horse Comics collected the same issues as well as those printed after TIO as two books, Xenozoic Tales Vol. I & II. Unfortunately, the new set leaves out some of the "extra" stories, favoring those featuring the main characters, and the storyline has yet to be finished despite being over a decade old. Still, they're a good read.