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.

 

[dragoner]

The Chevy Cheyenne in Red Dawn was incredibly authentic as to what every guy wanted back then:

 

[Umbran]

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

Both what? Be a documentary and a Swayze movie?

Everyone and their grandmother thinks they are sociologists enough to claim their post-apocalypse is how it would "really" work. I don't buy it.

 

[Umbran]

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.

It isn't about having world building. It is about how RPG designers don't have expertise to do decent sociology simulation.

 

[zarionofarabel]

The Chevy Cheyenne in Red Dawn was incredibly authentic as to what every guy wanted back then:

View attachment 418197

I still want that NOW! Way sexier than the dumb looking trucks I see driving around nowadays!

 

[dragoner]

I still want that NOW! Way sexier than the dumb looking trucks I see driving around nowadays!

Hell yeah, way more dependable too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Both what? Be a documentary and a Swayze movie?

Everyone and their grandmother thinks they are sociologists enough to claim their post-apocalypse is how it would "really" work. I don't buy it.

There's more than one way it could work, certainly. What I'm saying is you can have both the mechanical granularity for survival, encumbrance, etc and also solid worldbuilding with a plausible apocalypse.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It isn't about having world building. It is about how RPG designers don't have expertise to do decent sociology simulation.

But why couldn't they? And who says no RPG has it?