Apocalyptic Settings and Breaking Settings

[Vanuslux]

This has gotten a bit off topic, but my original post was about imposing an apocalypse, about creating a post-apocalyptic situation in a setting/world where that had not been the case. This includes Star Wars following the Vong invasion, Dragon Lance in the Fifth Age, and Forgotten Realms 4E.

It is not about a setting always meant to be post-apocalyptic, such as Dark Sun and Exhalted, or some home game where it happens to the players.

I do not buy, for a moment, that breaking these setting and setting the bits on fire is anything less than an exercise in cruel vanity. I do not believe it is about discovery, unless vivisection is about science.

Okay, so this is limited to published settings then? You're basically stating that developers who make drastic changes to settings have no other motivation than to rape players of all previous joy they may have found in the setting, and couldn't possibly be a creative or marketing decision. It's all about the ruining the happy places of their customers because that gets them off.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

You're basically stating that developers...

Don’t make it sound like a “George Lucas raped my childhood” thing.

In the best case scenario, people break things because deep down people like breaking things. They like calling other people losers. They see someone doing something, they go and knock it over just to see what happens. They don’t establish their own new thing, they take from others and break stuff.

With all the setting I mentioned above (this is not just about 4E FR, but the real mentality behind destroying it and the other settings as well), there were simpler ways of updating them that demolishing so much of what made them good and appealing in the first place. But they were demolished all the same by people proud of the job they did of dismembering things.

 

[Mercule]

Don’t make it sound like a “George Lucas raped my childhood” thing.

I don't think he was the one making it sound that way.

I don't follow any of the settings you referred to. As far as FR, though, I expect it was a combination of three things: 1) What do we think will make money? 2) How can we add the new core bits and feel to our flagship setting? 3) Management says we need to publish FR first, but I really think these ideas would be too cool to wait on.

 

[Jack Colby]

• I stopped following the expanded Star War universe once Palpatine came back in the Dark Empire books.

Interesting, since that was, arguably, the very first piece of the expanded universe, debuting approximately the same time as Zahn's Heir to the Empire books. There were a few spinoffs back when the movies were originally out, but nobody called those "expanded universe" works.

And... I had always intended to do a post-apocalyptic FR setting. WotC beat me to it (because I am lazy.) The difference is I'd be basing it on the old gray box, and mine would be unofficial. I dislike it when a baseline setting for RPGs is updated officially in any way, except through optional add-ons such as modules, the result of which is still in the hands of players and GMs. "Official" updates are a sure way to bog down, then kill, the setting. Unfortunately I think these things sell better to people who want to follow a story, not people who actually want to game.

 

[takasi]

If you do not enjoy Apocalyptic Settings then why do you play a game founded by a backdrop that was inspired by the Dark Ages and fall of the Roman Empire?

 

[Jasperak]

That depends on how it's handled.

In my long-standing home brew setting, I've played through many different eras. The PCs who did significant things during previous campaigns have made it into history. Even if it doesn't make sense for the barbarian kingdom founded 1500 years ago to still exist in anything remotely resembling its founding glory, the founder's sword is still legendary and elements of his life are still retold to new PCs/players. There are many instances of this, IMC.

I wouldn't want to force the next batch of PCs to live in the shadow of the previous group. But, if the world never moves on, if the accomplishments of old PCs are sacrosanct, there comes a time when there is little choice. Sure, there is always the next cataclysm to thwart, but how many incorruptibly benevolent kingdoms can be founded before reason strains?

Keep the stories, but let the world move on. Evil occasionally wins. New heroes -- and new evils -- come on the scene.

I am all for moving a campaign in a new direction and do not have a problem with an apocalypse occurring in a campaign world when controlled by the DM and the players. What if I want to continue playing in the same Realms that I have been playing in for the past 20 years but want to change to 4e?

What bothers me is that my 20-year campaign and your 20-year campaign may have started out the same but quickly took on the style of the players. We adventured the way we wanted to and created the world we wanted. Now WOTC comes along and changes it so that if I now joined your group we'd be playing in the same game world. It makes the past 20-year exploits in our campaign meaningless.

My previous comments don't even mention how much of a cliche it has become to end a campaign setting with an apocalypse so one can start a new campaign in the same world but with new rules. I firmly believe that if one has to tear the world to shreds to make the new rules fit, leave the bloody world alone. If I am told to make new characters because I will not be able to convert my old ones over, why should I bother converting the world over as well? What is the point of continuing to play in the Realms at this point; is it even recognizable anymore? Why take a high fantasy setting and turn it into a points-of-light setting?

My point is this. Why make me change my setting so I can use the new rules? If the old setting doesn't fit with the new rules, then maybe the new rules are so different that the old setting should be left behind for a new one. Build a new setting that conforms to the new rules.

 

[SSquirrel]

• I stopped following Star Trek after they killed Data – while this does not qualify as an apocalyptic event, it was a silly bit of pointless destruction. I know there have been no more movies, but there have been books and the Enterprise series, none of which I bothered with.

Brent Spiner is getting older and it's harder to pull off the unchanging android, so Data was killed and he got to be a hero one last time. I was sad they killed him, but I understand it. Then again, I didn't miss it when they killed off Chewie really. Drove Han off the deep end in an impressive way.

 

[thundershot]

Brent Spiner is getting older and it's harder to pull off the unchanging android, so Data was killed and he got to be a hero one last time. I was sad they killed him, but I understand it. Then again, I didn't miss it when they killed off Chewie really. Drove Han off the deep end in an impressive way.

Yeah, but with Data, it was already explained that he was subtly modifying himself to give the illusion of age. In fact, I think it's mentioned in the last movie. So what do they do? Get a NEW FRESH DATA that's still played by Brent Spiner. It made no sense...




Chris

 

[Siran Dunmorgan]

Elder Evils?

Grumpy Celt, have you considered the impact of something more like a planned, intentional—as opposed to imposed—cataclysm on a world?

Wizards of the Coast's Elder Evils has some excellent material for playing through an actually apocalyptic campaign, in the sense that most of what the characters experience over the course of their careers as adventurers is the gradually increasing effect of the Signs of the end times. Only when the end is indeed near do the adventurers truly understand what has been happening for the previous months or years of the campaign. They experience apocalypse, that is, revelation in the most accurate sense of the term, as part of the campaign.

Not necessarily because the Dungeon Master wants downtrodden players—though anyone working with a pre-4th Edition sphere of annihilation is certainly courting disaster—but because this is what is called for by the drama of which they are a part.

In some cases, even if the heroes are successful in destroying the Elder Evil, the world to which the adventurers return is drastically different from the one they left: the waking of Leviathan has re-shaped mountain ranges and coastlines; some areas that were deserts are now swamps, and other changes have come to the world.

In one scenario—and I am not making this up: it's in the book—if the adventurers fail in their quest, all of existence simply winks out.

In other scenarios, the only people left alive are the refugees who managed to get off-plane before the world is consumed.

As I understand it, the objection that you have to scenarios involving cataclysm or the catastrophic re-making of a world seem to be when such scenarios are imposed on the game, rather than being the deliberately crafted climax, the inevitable culmination, if you will, of a long-running narrative, the signs of which had been posted many adventures before, sometimes a dozen levels before the end of the campaign.

In any event, the concepts in Elder Evils, while not quite presented with a Lovecraftian flair, are admirable views into what apocalypse—what revelation—can be.

—Siran Dunmorgan

 

[the Jester]

I do not enjoy playing characters that endless run in circles. Yet that is what playing in an apocalyptic setting is… it is not possible to accomplishing anything and the characters are essentially (if not literally) running in circle.

This is quite a generalization, and ime (and imc) it has not always held true.

Characters in an apocalyptic setting might be able to restore some degree of civilization; defeat the apocaypse's instigators; found a kingdom of their own; become a god... the list goes on.