How Do You Like Your Post Apocalyptic RPGs?

[Tonguez]

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.

Look at examples like Fading Suns or Crawfords Stars Without Number both have a similar spacefaring civilisation suddenly wrecked but now recovering. Both are space opera/sci fi but I dont consider them apocalyptic and really if theres enough tech to juryrig and fuel a rocket plane is there really post-apocalyptic scarcity?

Cowboy Bebops an interesting example too since although Earth faced an apocalypse its surviving underground societies are doing okay due to trade with off world colonies. Which is my point about interplanetary travel removing the burden of survival level scarcity.

As to the abandoned mars colony - have you seen the Dr Who episode “Smile”? The Tardis lands on an off-world Earth colony which is empty except for millions of nanobots that maintain it, along with robotic avatars that interact with the pair via emojis. They also discover human bones …(I’ll leave it there incase spoilers)
Anyway its a good episode with a mystery to be investigated and all the standard tropes of Dr Who including space travel,but despite having all the features described in your example its not post-apocalyptic.

really Metamorphisis Alpha maybe the only example of post apocalyptic space ship listed so far, but even then, as far as the inhabitants know its a proper world, so in that regards its kinda like The Dragonriders of Pern which initially presents as a fantasy until you discover the twist

anyway thats just my opinion,,I’m happy if others have different opinions of what makes it into their post apocalyptic setting

 

[Reynard]

and really if theres enough tech to juryrig and fuel a rocket plane is there really post-apocalyptic scarcity?

If there is enough tech to jury rig and fuel power armor, is there really post apocalyptic scarcity?

 

[Reynard]

Let's talk about some fun apocalypses and what sort of post apocalyptic worlds they suggest.

i like the idea of a rogue planet swooping through the solar system and pulling Earth out of its orbit. Every day that passes, Earth gets farther and farther from the sun and off the ecliptic plane. The star grows dimmer and the planet grows colder and eventually it will freeze solid. The race to build an underground civilization is on, with factions vying for control as the surface civilization completely collapses and people fight over every dwindling food and water.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Another one:

The Earth is under continuous meteor bombardment, and has been for years. Each meteor is also highly radioactive. Above ground, the shallow seas have all boiled away. The deep seas are evaporating under the bombardment as well. Everything above ground is highly, lethally, radioactive. Even the deep seas are approaching similar levels of lethality; not that it matters to the sea life - it's all dead already. As a result, the survivors on Earth have had to retreat underground, desperately trying to keep everything going. But the radioactivity is seeping deeper into the earth, and it's just a question of time...

Then every broadcast was interrupted by a video of a beautiful, ethereal, woman who said that she had a solution to the radioactivity, but that the people of Earth would have to come get it, and she was around a different star. She transmitted plans for an engine that could fold space, letting a ship go many, many, times faster than light. Scientists and debunkers verified the transmission. The ship was built, and stocked with everything needed for the journey, or to build a colony from scratch. It was crewed by the best and brightest; only a few of the most senior officers approached 50 years old, and the rest of the crew was under 30, with most being just past adolescence. The ship launched. And vanished from the solar system just as it was supposed to.

So maybe, if it returns as its supposed to in a year, you'll still be here to greet it. Good luck, survivor!

 

[Tonguez]

Im for the ‘traditional’ wasteland, abandoned cities, scatter commuities struggling to survive against mobile raiders - fuel scarcity but vehicular combat. Mutants and kaiju are good flavour, even undead (though not too keen on zombie swarms).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If there is enough tech to jury rig and fuel power armor, is there really post apocalyptic scarcity?

There are countries on this planet where large parts of the population have serious food insecurity yet who find the resources for their war machines.

I don't know that shiny toys precludes scarcity.

 

[beta-ray]

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

My mind went to MOSPEADA (aka third part of Robotech). There is space travel, but since the war wiped out a large part of the other colonies too, it is not so easy to come by.

 

[Tonguez]

There are countries on this planet where large parts of the population have serious food insecurity yet who find the resources for their war machines.

I don't know that shiny toys precludes scarcity.

real world food shortages arent a scarcity problem though (but no politics!)

still building a space capable rocket ship is a bit different to finding a weapons cache or a JLTV

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

real world food shortages arent a scarcity problem though (but no politics!)

still building a space capable rocket ship is a bit different to finding a weapons cache or a JLTV

I was responding to the question of whether one could get a mechsuit working while people are starving, not getting people off planet, which is much more expensive and difficult.

And given that all of this is fantasy (mechsuits just don't work), I think being too worried about realism is self-defeating. A truly realistic post-apocalyptic RPG would be mostly focused on cholera.

 

[Reynard]

real world food shortages arent a scarcity problem though (but no politics!)

still building a space capable rocket ship is a bit different to finding a weapons cache or a JLTV

I was responding to the question of whether one could get a mechsuit working while people are starving, not getting people off planet, which is much more expensive and difficult.

And given that all of this is fantasy (mechsuits just don't work), I think being too worried about realism is self-defeating. A truly realistic post-apocalyptic RPG would be mostly focused on cholera.

There are some assumptions going on that aren't really valid for a post apocalyptic game. in the same way you find power armor or death machines that just work, you can find mecha and spaceships that just work. that's inherent in the genre. And if someone is building a working spacecraft, it isn't the work of a massive national taxpayer funded effort, it is a mad scientist in his garage. All this talk of scarcity issues related to tech are out of place in a PA setting, IMO. We are talking Fallout -- or, at least, I am.