MITFU for the entire session?

[Wik]

It's post apocalyptic. Give them treasures that really don't seem like that big of a deal.

A bottle of old whisky from the time before the apocalypse. A rechargable flashlight. A multi-tool. A tattered mapbook with notes from right after the bad times (ie, from a survivor, with notes written in the margins). An unopened bottle of coca cola. An ipod with only one headphone that works.

Give players "junk" and you'll quickly find that, in this sort of setting, that stuff becomes much more interesting to them than +5 items... and it helps keep your power curve low. Also, good items that have limited uses are great, too - grenades, chemical flares, armour-piercing or explosive shells, claymore mines, Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), nanotech "healing potions". All of these are great, and help reinforce the resource-based nature of your game... again, without expanding the power curve.

Giving your PCs damaged gear is highly recommended. In one post apocalyptic campaign, the PCs made sure all of their resources went towards fixing their broken-down power boat. Giving the PCs a broken down item that becomes a "Project" invests them in the campaign - imagine trying to fix your El Camino or jeep's stereo, headlights, windshield, etc. Each is mostly just "flavour", but your operator will love fixing the damned thing.

 

[Herobizkit]

Expanding on [MENTION=52734]Stormonu[/MENTION]'s premise, the Genie in a Bottle is a fantastic idea. Have some kind of Heart of Darkness summon a demon that is forced to answer Lore checks for them... but at a price, of course. Each question costs blood/life points or gives a cumulative percent chance that the Demon breaks free and goes nanners.

 

[Andor]

For the sniper, maybe a note from one of the cultists is found that the reason they summoned the demon in the first place was that his blood is supposed to empower weapons dipped in it. (Probably the source of the hell-fire shotgun shells.)

So he can dip his ammo in the demons ichor after they kill it and supercharge them!

It's just a damm shame that the bullets leave a trail of fire hanging in the air behind them for a few rounds....

 

[Stormonu]

...good stuff....

Exactly right, yuo'd be surprised how players will pick up on "the little stuff".

I remember in the Gamma World game I played in long ago we found a broken-down speeder that we fixed up kept adding to/modifying; we even went on one raid just to acquire a cargo pod that we hitched up as a trailer - not only to haul more junk, but to also turn it into a sleeping/living area.

At another point, we got access to a town by giving the city leaders a microwave we'd found, fixed and kept in that cargo pod.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I like the ideas of simple things, but I see them more like gems (something worth more than just 'a gold piece')

Pre-Rifts era items are worth a lot after all, a bottle of whiskey could fetch a killer price

but I'm talking about special items, things they won't want to just sell (an Ipod? I don't even have one of those in real life--something one of them would say when they sell it)

Perhaps the sniper bullets would have a chance of a draw back (like the hellfire rounds for the shotgun, just rounds for the sniper rifle)

but there would be 300 sniper rounds, but the rifle ONLY HOLDS ONE ROUND AT A TIME and thus can only be fired once per round. Or it could be some type of WWI era rifle, very old, but unique in its own way (a hellfire rifle) that can use 5.56 (standard Assault rifle ammo) and turn it into a mega damage shot, but again only once per round.

And the operator might get a small robotic aid...cut the AI has been 'corrupted' and thus has a chance (tragic failure [under 5 on a d20 roll]) of going crazy and attacking whoever is closest, but if disabled (not QUITE destroyed, just enough to stop it) it can be fixed until it goes crazy again...think an emotionally unstable Jack from gears of war.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

**Un-worthy for an edit note

the sniper rifle will be a scoped Lebel 1886, a french rifle used during WWI

the hellfire rounds are special and only 1 can be chambered, usually a Lebel can hold 8 rounds.

 

[Wik]

I like the ideas of simple things, but I see them more like gems (something worth more than just 'a gold piece')

Pre-Rifts era items are worth a lot after all, a bottle of whiskey could fetch a killer price

Sorry, but you're missing my point.

We're not talking about items that are really there to have a "sell value". We're talking about items that are about more than just stuff you can do on your character sheet. Because, once you start down that path, it becomes a huge part of the game - and players don't really get all that interested anymore in "well, it adds a +5 to my attack rolls and I can shoot napalm out of my nose!".

Little items become BIG parts of the game, simply because they are divorced almost entirely from mechanical resolutions. In short, they are items that ground the players to the setting of the game, as opposed to the mechanics of the game. And in my experience, this is especially easy and useful to do in a post-apocalyptic setting, as it can remind players that the setting is, in fact, post-apocalyptic.

The PCs find a cell phone. It's basically useless, as it gets no signal, but when it's fully charged, they can play angry birds when they're bored. It also has a bunch of books downloaded on it, some music, a camera, etc. That item, to most players that aren't diehard combat enthusiasts, will wind up being more cherished than a dozen assault rifles or whatever.

And what do the players do when that cell phone starts ringing one day? And they pick up... and start talking to someone from 2011, trying to reach her daughter? Small items are often much better pathways into adventure hooks than guns, armour, and explosives.

Finally, permanent items, in my opinion, are dangerous to give away in a post-apocalyptic setting, especially at low-levels, as it sets this precedent that your players are going to expect this escalation of rewards in a very D&Desque situation. Instead, for post-apoc to really feel apocalyptic, there should be a feel of depleting resources and survival - and that means counting ammunition, grenades, etc. Giving a player a grenade that does, for example, 10d10 MDC damage is great - because the players, no matter how Effed up their situation is, will ask themselves "is this time for the hellbore grenade?". which is a lot more fun than "Which magic weapon will I use THIS time?"

My two cents. Just realize, I've run a LOT of post-apoc games, it's my favourite genre, and I think giving players permanent high-quality loot as a reward in a side-quest is a bad way to start up this particular sort of campaign.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And what do the players do when that cell phone starts ringing one day? And they pick up... and start talking to someone from 2011, trying to reach her daughter? Small items are often much better pathways into adventure hooks than guns, armour, and explosives.

I like that.

 

[Wik]

I like that.

True story:

When fallout 3 came out, I was in love with the game for a good three weeks, where I did nothing but explore the capital wasteland. I mostly ignored the plot, and just.... explored.

My favourite part in that game was not when I found the crashed alien spaceship that gave me a very powerful little pistol. Or trying to sneak past a bunch of huge monsters to get into a crashed nuka cola truck. Or of finding powerful nuclear weapons in an old bunker. Or even sniping super mutants in an old abandoned vault and looting out my heart.

My favourite moment in Fallout 3 was when I was wandering around, and picked up a radio signal that looped. It was a father, asking for help. His son, you see, was very hurt, and they were hiding in an old sewer service shed. "Please help," his message plead, "My son is very sick, and we are running low on food..." before it repeated once again.

I spent about half an hour, in real time, trying to find this bunker. And when I found it... I found two skeletons, long dead, lying wrapped in each others' arms, on an old bed. There was nothing really useful to scavenge, except for a few rounds of ammo.

That moment was very poignant for me, as a player. It reminded me that, in this fictional world, nuclear armageddon had happened, and that my character was a descandent of the lucky ones who survived. That I was wandering the remnants of a doomed society, and that "war? war never changes"

TLDR? Post Apoc is all about setting, and not about mechanics/stuff.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

Perhaps, but there will be many pre-rifts items in the demon's horde, and it is not suppose to be adventure hooks, but I might just give them some explosives and basic stuff like that, because there might be another playing joining after that...but what you said about fallout 3, when I found that bunker, I made it my new home....kinda in memory of them. There and the BOS outpost next to the whitehouse.

And you want to talk about cool treasure, on an adventure in Xen'Drik (eberron adventure) we found a piece of art, a tanned dinosaur hide with an engraving of a wizard in his study...we still love how we randomly rolled that up (Material: Dinosaur hide, Engraving: Wizard / Engraving: Study)

But it didn't have an adventure hook, and for this group of rifts players, adding too many possible sidequests would make it very chaotic, one of the players has been playing as long as me, the others? three of them have played D&D twice and the other has never played a roleplaying game ever...so understand why I'm keeping it simple