How Do You Like Your Post Apocalyptic RPGs?

[Reynard]

So could the PCs choose to get on a ship and leave - head back where they came from? If so then in my mind its not really post apocalyptic. Even if they cant, they now have a colony ready for them to explore, exploit and populate - imho thats space exploration/colony building rather than post-apocalyptic.

I mean, you're just arguing semantics. If there's space travel, there's space travel.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Boy, this poll is so noisy, it looks like there will be little consensus other than "holy crap, don't go to space."

For me, part of it is that there's not just one post-apocalypse I want to enjoy.

Sometimes I want Walking Dead (well, something better written than that). Sometimes I want Mad Max. Sometimes I want Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. I probably don't want all of that in the same game.

 

[Reynard]

Sometimes I want Walking Dead (well, something better written than that).

Zombie post apocalypse games are interesting because they are usually just apocalypse games: they are about the outbreak and the immediate aftermath. I don't think I have ever seen one that takes place, say, 40 years after the outbreak, let alone 200.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think even the very first edition of Gamma World had pre-collapse human society capable of interstellar flight, largely as a Metamorphosis Alpha tie-in (itself a post-apocalyptic game where space flight is definitely present, although probably not important in the day-to-day adventures aboard the Warden). Later editions held out the promise of getting up to space stations, the Moon and Mars, as I recall, although nothing was supposed to be in great shape.

So it can work, depending on the apocalypse.

Heck, spaceflight is a big part of Y the Last Man and Last Man on Earth. (Boys and their avoiding of deadly pathogens by being in a space station, am I right?)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Zombie post apocalypse games are interesting because they are usually just apocalypse games: they are about the outbreak and the immediate aftermath. I don't think I have ever seen one that takes place, say, 40 years after the outbreak, let alone 200.

Yeah, I find that part pretty boring, myself. I would definitely want a campaign to jump years between adventures. I think Rick waking up in the hospital is a great adventure that is hard to beat, but I would find it challenging to keep that level of the apocalypse engaging for long, as the TWD writer's room seems to have found out.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, I find that part pretty boring, myself. I would definitely want a campaign to jump years between adventures. I think Rick waking up in the hospital is a great adventure that is hard to beat, but I would find it challenging to keep that level of the apocalypse engaging for long, as the TWD writer's room seems to have found out.

It's why I have never understood the popularity of Twilight 2000.

 

[Tonguez]

Does it though?

I think so. Even if it’s just more space for settlement.

I mean, you're just arguing semantics. If there's space travel, there's space travel.

not really, I’m saying if it’s got Space travel it’s not apocalyptic. Dr Who for instance has featured a number of abandoned colonies but isn’t apocalyptic, Total Recall has a dystopian mars colony with air scarcity andMutants but isn’t post apocalyptic. Even Pern and Shanara fit but aren’t post apocalyptic fiction

 

[Reynard]

I think so. Even if it’s just more space for settlement.

not really, I’m saying if it’s got Space travel it’s not apocalyptic. Dr Who for instance has featured a number of abandoned colonies but isn’t apocalyptic, Total Recall has a dystopian mars colony with air scarcity andMutants but isn’t post apocalyptic. Even Pern and Shanara fit but aren’t post apocalyptic fiction

What about the example I gave you? How is that not post apocalyptic?

I think you are assuming a lot of things attached to."space travel" that conflict with your definition of post apocalyptic but aren't actually necessary in any way.

 

[Reynard]

It is the year 2500. The solar system is teeming with colonies, from terraformed Mars to the cloud cities of Venus to the asteroid mining colonies and beyond. It is all possible due to the Thread Network of superdense filaments linking colonies in an ever expanding transit system wen. But suddenly, the Lucust Fleet arrives, attacking humanity (including augmented humans, uplifted animals, sentient machines and other transhuman beings) and nearly causing our extinction. Only a terrible gambit that causes a massive solar storm defeats the Locust Fleet, but at a unimaginable cost. Most of the utopian technology of the solar civilization is destroyed. Between that and the depradations of the Locust Fleet, the solar system is a post apocalyptic hellscape. The Thread Network remains, however, since it is built on a function of physics, not technology. Anyone who can jury rig a space worthy rocket plane into space can traverse the colonies. But who knows what they will find in the ruins?

See? Straight up post apocalyptic setting with space travel not just possible but a central conceit.

 

[payn]

I think so. Even if it’s just more space for settlement.

The Expanse, Cowboy Bebop, etc.. many of them have space faring in a single solar system until things go bad...