Best Post-apocalyptic RPG?

[Jorren]

You might try taking a look at Tribe 8. It has its own setting and a different feel from most other PA rpgs, buts it's my favorite hands down.

 

[scourger]

The best post-apocalyptic game I've run or played is Omega World d20 from the Polyhedron side of Dungeon Magazine #94. With OW, I ran the adventures from Alternity Gamma World (also a great product if you can "grok" the rules which I really didn't). I also played a great OW conversion of the old GW module Legion of Gold. OW is such a good game, I bought an extra copy to keep and another to give to the DM of the other game. He, in turn, bought a spare copy. OW is concise but complete. I does in about 40 pages what many other games cannot do in 400. It really captures the old GW feel, too.

Otherwise, Savage Worlds is a great game. I think it would do post-apoc very well. We played it and I like it a lot. It's very easy to run and there is a ton of material on the web for it.

 

[Twowolves]

Savage Worlds has several fan-created PA settings, mostly conversions of other settings. Savage Gamma World, Savage Redline (from the d20 version by FFG), a zombie adventure (Zombie Run! which starts off a month after the "Night of the Living Dead" and the world is pretty much PA), and also a Savage Fallout. I'm sure there are more, but those are ones I personnaly own.

I think, however, that if you want more rules crunch and a gritty setting, use d20 Modern with d20 Apocolypse and d20 Darwin's World (2nd ed, by the love of all that's holy). With those books, you can strip out what little science-fantasy there is easily and adjust your timeline to the day after to 500+ years after and have a grand ol' time doing it.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

That would be Greg Costikyan's Nuclear Winter: The Realistic After the Holocaust Game.

Pretty sure that was in Spacegamer, reprinted in one of SJG's compilations of Murphy's Rules.

Yep, that's the one. And yes, that's where I saw it. (In both.)

 

[jdrakeh]

Oh. I guess I should also mention Deadlands : Hell on Earth -- it's post-apoc horror RPG but takes place in an alternate Earth timeline, as well. It's loads of fun.

 

[Vigilance]

Savage Worlds has several fan-created PA settings, mostly conversions of other settings. Savage Gamma World, Savage Redline (from the d20 version by FFG), a zombie adventure (Zombie Run! which starts off a month after the "Night of the Living Dead" and the world is pretty much PA), and also a Savage Fallout. I'm sure there are more, but those are ones I personnaly own.

I think, however, that if you want more rules crunch and a gritty setting, use d20 Modern with d20 Apocolypse and d20 Darwin's World (2nd ed, by the love of all that's holy). With those books, you can strip out what little science-fantasy there is easily and adjust your timeline to the day after to 500+ years after and have a grand ol' time doing it.

I'd also recommend DW because there loads and loads of adventures for it, written by Dom Covey, a man much better at writing adventures than me.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The Morrow Project. All sorts of ways to die.

It has been out of print for a while, a new edition is in the works, but going slowly. Used copies are fairly easy to find though.

The Auld Grump

 

[DMH]

My first reply was to answer the OP's question (no or low mutant style PA settings), but if I were to answer what is the best, I have to say Gamma World and Mutant Bikers of the Atomic Wastelands. The latter is a Fudge based setting written by a friend (a much bigger GW fan than I) and can still be found online somewhere (he dropped his site last year).

MBAW was Omega World long before OW was written.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Most of the print stuff is going to be older, and possibly hard to find. eBay can work pretty good though.

Here's a few off the top of my head:

Aftermath!...

Aftermath was equal parts "Awful" and "Useless" man.

 

[Tinner]

YotZ FTW!

That would be Year of the Zombie BTW.
D20 zombie survival horror game.
Their supplements really create a full world of post-zombie-apocalypse horror.