Post Apocalypse Settings

[Umbran]

The documentary Red Dawn released the same year as TW 2000 also posited a war between the Warsaw powers and NATO.

I have to start with this: Red Dawn was not a documentary - it was a Patrick Swayze movie. It is a documentary in the same way Dirty Dancing was a documentary.

Okay, movies aren't games, but have you ever had fun just trying to run through a hypothetical situation? I mean something that could theoretically happen in real life? In 1984, not that I played TW2000 when I was eight, the idea of NATO and the Warsaw powers might go to war felt like a distinct possibility.

And, this, for me, was the problem with TW2000, back in the day (and perhaps today - I haven't followed the game's updates). It was great if you loved inventory management, and wanted to figure out the balance between your vehicles/cargo capacity, your alcohol fuel production, and your travel times.

But it left the most important questions of the genre - how people and societies act - in the hands of the GM. That means it was really no less a fantasy than a zombie apocalypse, but with no fantasy trope spackle to cover over the questionable bits.

 

[MGibster]

I have to start with this: Red Dawn was not a documentary - it was a Patrick Swayze movie. It is a documentary in the same way Dirty Dancing was a documentary.

In the words of Foghorn Leghorn, "It was, I say, it was a joke, son."

But it left the most important questions of the genre - how people and societies act - in the hands of the GM. That means it was really no less a fantasy than a zombie apocalypse, but with no fantasy trope spackle to cover over the questionable bits.

I didn't play the game back then, but looking at all the books published for the game back in the 1980s, it looks like they had plenty of world building to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have to start with this: Red Dawn was not a documentary - it was a Patrick Swayze movie. It is a documentary in the same way Dirty Dancing was a documentary.



And, this, for me, was the problem with TW2000, back in the day (and perhaps today - I haven't followed the game's updates). It was great if you loved inventory management, and wanted to figure out the balance between your vehicles/cargo capacity, your alcohol fuel production, and your travel times.

But it left the most important questions of the genre - how people and societies act - in the hands of the GM. That means it was really no less a fantasy than a zombie apocalypse, but with no fantasy trope spackle to cover over the questionable bits.

A post-apocalyptic RPG can easily do both if designed that way or with a little kit-bashing.