It IS the end of the world...

[delericho]

Obviously, there have been plenty of times when PCs have saved their respective worlds. There are even more than a few games set after the apocalypse. However, it seems to be much less common to see games set during the apocalypse, especially an apocalypse the PCs can't avert. Which I suppose is inevitable - few people really want to be doomed from the outset, with no hope of success.

However, given the date, it seems only appropriate to discuss the topic.

So, has anyone run a game set during the apocalypse? If so, was it a "final battle" as in Ragnarok or "The Last Battle" (C.S. Lewis), or was it a more impersonal disaster as in "2012" or "The Day After Tomorrow"? Has anyone played through any of the published adventures about the end of the world ("The Apocalypse Stone", "Gehenna"...)?

How did it go? Do you have any stories to share?

And, at the end, did the world really end, or did your PCs somehow contrive a way to survive?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have an as-yet not run campaign involving a post-apocalyptic fantasy game world. I had thought about setting it during the period of doom, but found little interest from my players in gaming in that world at that time.

If I were going to do a game set during an extinction level event (ELE), I would make it a "soft apocalypse": something it makes sense for someone to survive lati very intact of body and sound of mind.

The scenarios that present to me as being the most likely:

1) a global pandemic, with the PCs as survivors. Superflu, zombies...you pick it.

2) a periodic cosmic calamity that hasn't occurred in many lifetimes, but does not directly kill. See Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" for one of the best, emulated to some extent in the movie Pitch Black.

 

[timASW]

I once ran a game of Mage set in the apocalypse from the Rifts setting. It started a few months before all hell broke loose so that we had 4 or 5 sessions that were a normal mage game and then some crazy, gonzo, end of the world sessions.

It was going really well until they all got killed by a lich.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That sounds like it would have been a cool game...

Up until lichdoom, of course.

 

[Mark CMG]

How close to the event still counts as "during?" Would The Walking Dead be a "during" scenario?

 

[Janx]

How close to the event still counts as "during?" Would The Walking Dead be a "during" scenario?

I think "during" a zombie outbreak would be the immediate outbreak with all the reaction of the public being part of it.

Walking Dead has Rick sleeping through that. so it doesn't qualify.

naturally, the "during" part is subjective and transitional to the actual apocolypse's completion (mostly every body dead and now you wander around avoiding zombies and gathering supplies.

 

[timASW]

That sounds like it would have been a cool game...

Up until lichdoom, of course.

yeah im thinking of reprising it soon with a new group. Sans the lich this time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

yeah im thinking of reprising it soon with a new group. Sans the lich this time.

Well, maybe not SANS Lich...instead, try Lich, interrupted. Perhaps the BBEG was in process of becoming a Lich when the big kerfuffle occurs, making the ritual go wonky-jog. He's thus in process of becoming something he never even imagined...

 

[timASW]

hmm i like that

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hey, this IS a RIFTS campaign we're talking about.

Perhaps the quasi-Lich had some tech get thrown into his ritual circle or some such when the event occurred, so he's more like a magical cyborg...

And his strength is his weakness- he is almost entirely powered by ley-line energy. The more energy he gets, the more powerful he becomes...but move him away from the ley-lines and he powers down drastically. Maybe he even goes dormant.