Best Post-apocalyptic RPG?

[Imaro]

Uhm, no one's mentioned it so I'll go ahead and throw Monte Cook's WoD out there. The areas of the U.S. closer to the incursion are a magical post-apocalyptic world.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

A site for Post Apocalyptic games Despite the name it is not dedicated to any one system, I have been talking sporadically about Spycraft 2.0 on the site. (And slowly working on converting Last Submarine to SC2.0 from T:2K.)

The Auld Grump

 

[Wik]

First off, I love Post-apoc gaming, and post-apoc fiction. LOVE IT.

That being said, here's my take on Post-Apoc RPGs:

1) D20 Apocalypse: It runs fairly well, and the book is great because you can use it as a starting place for your own creations. There's a lot there in such a small book - the barter system works fairly well, though it does get a bit weird in areas (guns are fairly cheap, which makes sense... but cars are incredibly expensive. I kind of figure in the united states, it'd be much easier to find a car than a gun, you know?) Really, though, it's easy to adjust.

The parts sytem is the best part of the book - it handles fixing and making stuff PERFECTLY for a post apocalyptic setting. And it's actually quite a bit of fun in play - our mechanic character had a field day collecting mechanical parts every time we went scavenging.

There's enough in this book, by the way, to start you off in any post-apoc game you want to play. The three campaign models are all pretty interesting, too (one is your standard mad max world, one is a devils vs. angels world, and the third involves the PCs getting frozen and waking up three hundred years later after aliens have invaded earth).

2) Omega World d20: someone else mentioned it, and I *highly* recommend you try it out for a one shot. It's wild, quirky, random, and fun in a way I forgot RPGs can be fun. It pretty much says "Who needs game balance?" and makes a game based around random chance. Very old-school, in a way, and just an incredibly wild game. My players were wary about a system where pretty much everything about your character is random (you even use organic PC generation, so you have little control over your ability scores!) - after all, you could roll a close-combat mutant when you really wanted to play a psychic. But after the first session, they fell in love with it.

3) Twilight 2K: I got this one for free during the free RPG Giveaway. CharGen is a bit wonky, and some of the rules get a little obtuse, but the world itself is fairly neat. Personally, though, I'd use a d20 system to run the game.

4) RIFTS: Don't bother. Some people, a lot of people in fact, say that RIFTS is a great post-apoc setting. Personally, I think it's a sci-fi setting posing as post-apocalyptic - there's just too many suits of powered armour and mega-lasers for it to really seem apocalyptic at all. And it's really a kitchen sink campaign - everything's in there, making it far too chaotic. PLus, the rules suck.



If I were gonna run a post-apoc game tomorrow, it'd be with SW. But, since the OP wanted "gritty", I'd go with d20 Apocalypse, and just slow down XP Gain. Low level PCs have a high risk of death in d20 Modern Rules (hey, even at higher levels they can die quickly, what with massage damage threshhold and all).

 

[Mystaros]

There's a lot there in such a small book - the barter system works fairly well, though it does get a bit weird in areas (guns are fairly cheap, which makes sense... but cars are incredibly expensive. I kind of figure in the united states, it'd be much easier to find a car than a gun, you know?) Really, though, it's easy to adjust.

One little word... Eeemp. Which is what I figure post-apocalypse folks would call the EMP, or Electro-Magnetic Pulse. Kills early 2000's cars dead, has no effect on guns (save some highly experimental ones at DARPA, maybe). So lots of gus still sitting around very useful-like; lots of cars sitting around being target practice, road-blocks, and places to loot stuff from...

 

[Mystaros]

If I were gonna run a post-apoc game tomorrow, it'd be with SW. But, since the OP wanted "gritty", I'd go with d20 Apocalypse, and just slow down XP Gain. Low level PCs have a high risk of death in d20 Modern Rules (hey, even at higher levels they can die quickly, what with massage damage threshhold and all).

(Emphasis mine)

Now THAT would be an interesting damage system...

 

[DMH]

That is where the phrase "rubbed out" comes from.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Does anyone have any good recommendations for a post-apocalyptic RPG?

Try 4th Edition Forgotten Realms.

 

[Wik]

(Emphasis mine)

Now THAT would be an interesting damage system...

Ha. I shouldn't post at 3 am. Bad move on my part.

 

[Wik]

One little word... Eeemp. Which is what I figure post-apocalypse folks would call the EMP, or Electro-Magnetic Pulse. Kills early 2000's cars dead, has no effect on guns (save some highly experimental ones at DARPA, maybe). So lots of gus still sitting around very useful-like; lots of cars sitting around being target practice, road-blocks, and places to loot stuff from...

I would totally buy that reasoning, and, in fact, I've used it before in some of my own post-apoc games. HOWEVER, the d20 Apocalypse book is set up for "an apocalypse of your choice", and only one of those choices is apocalyptic nuclear doomsday.

In a plague world, however, there'd be millions of cars just sitting around, and I'm sure people wouldn't have that hard a time finding keys, either (were it me, I'd just walk down to the nearest Land Rover dealership and bust the key locker). Even easier once they learn how to hotwire.

It's not really the book's fault, though - those barter tables NEED to be adjusted by the GM, because there's no way they can fully model every apocalyptic situation. Cars, parts, and ammo are going to be very abundant two weeks after the apocalypse; twenty years after the apocalypse, though, and things will change. And there's no way the tables can reflect both of them.

 

[Darrin Drader]

There's a lot there in such a small book - the barter system works fairly well, though it does get a bit weird in areas (guns are fairly cheap, which makes sense... but cars are incredibly expensive. I kind of figure in the united states, it'd be much easier to find a car than a gun, you know?) Really, though, it's easy to adjust.

Why not ask one of the designers? Charles Ryan contributed to the barter system, so we share that credit, and in all honesty, I forget which one of us wrote exactly what, but I was the one who took his material and wrote a ton of my own, mixed them together, and came out with something somewhat coherent.

I'm currently running a Darwin's World game with bits of D20 Apocalypse thrown in and the car question has come up. Basically the thinking is this. First, as was mentioned above, the EMP is one small factor. The larger factor is that in the real world, cars that are not protected or maintained tend to fail. Sure, you can protect them in a garage, but the problem with a PA setting is that garages and other structures are quickly reclaimed by nature. Structures fail, so cars that were parked in a fairly protected area tend to have a slightly longer life expectancy than ones that are not protected, but they are still subject to failure. Guns are smaller and easier to protect. A waterproof safe box can have a perfectly intact gun, even if the structure around it has failed. Guns have very few moving parts, whereas cars have moving parts that all must be properly functioning in order for it to actually run.

Your character might be able to walk down the street and see a dozen pre-apocalyptic cars, but some of them will be metal skeletons, others will look somewhat better, but when you go to start it, you'll likely have a dead battery. If the battery somehow works after all this time, then chances are that some other part no longer works, the end result being that it will simply not start. Cars that run are in high demand, while cars that are quietly turning to dust make effective walls when stacked up.

By the way, there's a very good program from the History channel called Life After People. I highly recommend it for anyone wishing to inject just a little bit of reality into their post apocalyptic game.

Of course if the setting is immediately after the apocalypse, the cars probably would be in better shape than 5, 10, or more years afterward, and the barter charts should be adjusted accordingly.