Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

[Arac-4105]

Since the announced release of PA Hero, I've had this idea rattling around my brain and I need to set it down, so I thought I'd share. The idea's more Apocalyptic than Post-, but here it is anyway.

 

For some reason, one solitary aspect of physics goes away. Electricity won't flow along metal conductors. Computers, cars, planes, trains, cell phones, electric lights, radios, elevators, etc all die. Just quit working totally. Batteries won't discharge, generators won't supply power. Lightning will still strike, electricity will jump an air gap just like always, but wiring is just so much inert matter. For reasons nobody may ever learn the whole world is thrown back to the start of the industrial revolution.

 

My problem is I don't know where to take it from there. Any thoughts, ideas, opinions?

[lensman]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

I like the concept. It could lead to many interpretations, I read your idea and immediately thought of the Day the Earth Stood Still.

 

As to where it could lead.

 

First you could apply, For every action there is an equal and oppisite reaction.

 

If one Law changed, was changed, did another one come in to existence, or another become stronger?

 

Are there researchers who Saw It Coming?

 

Financial collapse, no Long distance communication. Medications cannot be manufactured. Nation states of a certain size cannot be sustained.

 

If They Saw It Coming, could there be a Cabal set up to take over and Rule?

 

They could justify almost anything by claiming foresight.

Seeing your country collapse and turn into autocratic city-states?

 

Might be PC's could work for Them and in thier Name bring more areas into line, then realize who they, the PC's, are really serving and turn against Them.

or

The PC's might be scientists who are aware of the force behind the loss of transmission and harnessed a way to suppress the effect locally and try to figure out what to do with the knowledge.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Try reading the "Dies the Fire" series by S. M. Stirling. The story uses the idea that electrical devices, firearms, explosives, internal combustion engines and so forth no longer function, placing the world back on a pre-industrial footing. The author's take on the subject is that about 90% of earth's inhabitants die after the first year and the rest are scattered into isolated pockets where Neo-Feudalism and Neo-Tribalism is born. If you're open minded enough to tolerate the Wiccan angles (there's an entire chapter devoted to it in the first book), it's not a bad read. Of course, I'm anti-social enough to enjoy any book that kills off 90% of the world population...

 

Matt "Just-kidding" Frisbee

 

P.S. If you do read it, be advised the third book gets stupid toward the end and comes to a rather unsatisfactory conclusion (IMHO).

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Could you say there were massive solar flar activity from our sun and the Earth

was hit by these waves that acted like EMP pulses and knocked out all electrical

equipment. Plus over the next couple months the Earth kept being hit by these

solar pulses and almost all electrical hardware was fused and destroyed.

 

You could also state that these solar pulses also brought a strange radiation

that cause many people to get sick and coupled with a loss of all or electrical

tools and the radiation that many people died. Those that survived were the

stronger folks and some were changed at the gene level. Then as time moved

on the new children born to man, most were normal but sum were mutants.

 

Penn

[Arac-4105]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Thanks for the feedback. Especially to Matt Frisbee for telling me about the books. I didn't realize I'd stolen the idea from "The Day the Earth Stood Still," but it's impossible to deny.

As for the ideas of mutations, solar flares and balancing laws of physics -- They're all cool ideas but I'm not looking for balance. Part of the thing about disasters and apocalypses is that they're never fair, never balanced, and people usually don't have any warning. Certainly not enough to set up shadow governments and such. (At least, that's my opinion)

[Blupe]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

PA Hero just showed up at Pegasus Games in Madison, WI, so I finally have a copy.

 

I've been reading the "Ember" series-- the one which starts with "Dies the Fire"-- by S.M. Stirling, and have really been enjoying it. I will second the recommendation. (For one thing, the villain is rather interesting-- a sociopathic history professor who had always longed for something like this to happen!) I haven't read the last book, yet, so no real opinion on the ending of the first trilogy (a second one is coming).

 

I am kind of reminded of the fantasy novel from the 1980s called "Ariel: A Book of the Change", in which technology stops working one night and magic starts. In that book fantasy creatures appear at the same time as magic. I have forgotten the author's name (Boyett?), and some parts of the book worked and others didn't work so well (I didn't like the lighter-than-air, hydrogen filled dragon). Still I figure that there may be a way to pull off a similar setting for a game.

 

Another prospect is one of the alternative settings presented in "The Slayer's Handbook" for Eden Studios "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" role playing game. In the setting, Buffy didn't get the dimensional tear Glory opened shut in time, and Earth got invaded by many demon armies, so technology, while it still works, lies in ruins due to the sheer casualty rate humanity suffered and the collapse of civilization. I think that would be a fun setting to game in, with or without Buffy.

 

Just some thoughts.

 

 

Brian.

[Gary Miles]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Since the announced release of PA Hero, I've had this idea rattling around my brain and I need to set it down, so I thought I'd share. The idea's more Apocalyptic than Post-, but here it is anyway.

 

For some reason, one solitary aspect of physics goes away. Electricity won't flow along metal conductors. Computers, cars, planes, trains, cell phones, electric lights, radios, elevators, etc all die. Just quit working totally. Batteries won't discharge, generators won't supply power. Lightning will still strike, electricity will jump an air gap just like always, but wiring is just so much inert matter. For reasons nobody may ever learn the whole world is thrown back to the start of the industrial revolution.

 

My problem is I don't know where to take it from there. Any thoughts, ideas, opinions?

 

 

Try the book "Ariel" by Stephen Boyette.

 

Gary

[Susano]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Try the book "Ariel" by Stephen Boyette.

 

I read that. It was... okay.

 

But it is exactly what you're looking for.

[chrome_gnome]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

There is the free 600 page E-Book(pdf) about the ramifications of American Society after several EMP Pulses blanket the nation. It is told from the point of view of a father who lives in suburban San Antonio.

 

It is fairly well written, a few typos and there are a couple of places it seems overly preechy about the author's beliefs but overall it was an interesting novel. Don't let the page length bother you, it is formatted to avoid "WALL OF TEXT" and making reading it on a computer easier. I'd say it is probably around 200-250 pages of comparable printed paperback.

 

http://www.survivalmonkey.com/SF%20books/LightsOut!/LightsOut-Current.pdf

 

This doesn't quite match your premise of a physical law becoming invalid but it is an entertaining and somewhat eye-opening look at how people may react when power stops.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

In a sideways fashion, this scenario reminds me of Giant Robo.

[Maur]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Try reading the "Dies the Fire" series by S. M. Stirling. The story uses the idea that electrical devices' date=' firearms, explosives, internal combustion engines and so forth no longer function, placing the world back on a pre-industrial footing. The author's take on the subject is that about 90% of earth's inhabitants die after the first year and the rest are scattered into isolated pockets where Neo-Feudalism and Neo-Tribalism is born.[/quote']

 

I'm acutally about 2/3 of the way through "Dies the Fire" (the book, not the whole series). He has some interesting concepts, but while rapid expansion doesn't seem to work (guns), slower expansion should. So steam tech should be doable (heat water in a closed container with a fire). I'm not sure if Internal Combustion doesn't work because the cars are all dead from dead electronics (computers dead, spark plugs don't fire, yet gas still ignites).

[Blupe]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

I'm acutally about 2/3 of the way through "Dies the Fire" (the book' date=' not the whole series). He has some interesting concepts, but while rapid expansion doesn't seem to work (guns), slower expansion should. So steam tech should be doable (heat water in a closed container with a fire). I'm not sure if Internal Combustion doesn't work because the cars are all dead from dead electronics (computers dead, spark plugs don't fire, yet gas still ignites).[/quote']

 

 

IIRC, he addresses this a bit more in the second book (I have just started the third book, so I can't say about it). There is the rumor that he explores what happened more in the second trilogy.

 

How many people here have read all of the books listed in PA Hero's bibliography? (I have read only a very small fraction, I fear! )

 

 

 

Brian.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

I'm acutally about 2/3 of the way through "Dies the Fire" (the book' date=' not the whole series). He has some interesting concepts, but while rapid expansion doesn't seem to work (guns), slower expansion should. So steam tech should be doable (heat water in a closed container with a fire). I'm not sure if Internal Combustion doesn't work because the cars are all dead from dead electronics (computers dead, spark plugs don't fire, yet gas still ignites).[/quote']

 

S.M. Stirling delves a little deeper into the subject in the second book -- I think -- when the gadgeteer guy tries to get some steam engines working. (The author had someone help him with the explanation of the rubber science on this.) His take was that steam engines work, but so poorly that it's like 1/2 horsepower per ton and so much fuel that they are inherently impractical. That would seem to indicate a fundamental change of how matter in a fluid state interacts with the environment.

 

Makes me wonder if whistling tea kettles still work...

 

Matt "Rubbery-scientist-NOT" Frisbee

[Arac-4105]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

There is the free 600 page E-Book(pdf) about the ramifications of American Society after several EMP Pulses blanket the nation.

 

http://www.survivalmonkey.com/SF%20books/LightsOut!/LightsOut-Current.pdf

 

This doesn't quite match your premise of a physical law becoming invalid but it is an entertaining and somewhat eye-opening look at how people may react when power stops.

 

Thanks very much for posting this!

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Try the book "Ariel" by Stephen Boyette.

 

Gary

This is an average book based on a great idea, that I think would make a great game. I ran a one shot based on this in high school using Runquest rules and a cobbled together magic sytem. I think that Hero Systsm would be a much better fit, but it really didn't exist except for first edition Champions when I tried this.

 

It is basically a fantasy game, set in a PA environment. If I remember correctly, there was never an explanation in the book for why technology stopped working, and you had to do some willing suspension of disbelief. The chemical reactions and principles involved in gunpowder are not any different than those involved in starting a campfire. Fuel + oxygen + heat = combustion. Lightning is electricity and metal conducts it, so why can't a generator work if a storm can generate lightning. It's not like a more traditional fantasy setting where peple just haven't figured out how things work yet and superstitous explanation are the order of the day. There are going to be physicists and engineers floating around who know why things used to work the way they did, and they are going to try to put things back on an even keel.

 

In the Ariel scenario, you almost have to say the the laws of magic overwrite the natural laws of physics.

[ThothAmon]

Re: Yet Another PA Campaign Idea

 

Do the reverse of the phsyics tweak in David Brin's novel 'The Practice Effect'. In that story the laws of thermodynamics are changed so that material things get better the more you use them as opposed to degrading through use (a quantum / thermodynamics fudge).

 

If the thermodynamics tweak goes the other way then man-made devices will have a shorter lifespan due to hugely increased effect of wear-and-tear. Natural occurrences would not be subject to such a quantum observer effect

 

* BOING *

 

Yes, it's rubber pseudo-science but the required effects are not wholly logical...