The Man Comes Around

[JoeGKushner]

Has anyone run a game when it was the end of the setting as part of the natural cycle of things, not some singular big bad waking up/wiping out man?

Every time I listen to the Johnny Cash version of The Man Comes Around, especially with some of his other music, it makes me think of a game suitible for Solomen Kane during the end times and how such an event would play out.

Anyone do that?

 

[JustKim]

No, it sounds pretty depressing. I wouldn't be able to interest my players in a game where most likely nothing they do is going to matter.

I would be interested in something like that, though.

 

[RangerWickett]

My current campaign world has about 10 or 20 years before it's torn apart by the black hole it orbits. Of course, it's only a black hole because 4 centuries ago a demon tricked the God who made the world to abandon his creation. So if the PCs can track down God (he won't need a starship), they can save the world.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The universe of the crpg Mass Effect is rather like this. The Reapers, ancient killing machines, show up every 50 000 years and destroy all civilization. They can be defeated, it's just never been done until the events of the game tho.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

I have a campaign like that, that I haven't run yet, called the Coming of the Four.

Basically, the world starts out having never known goblin(oid)s or demons. Then tales of the beasties hitting lone caravans start arising, then the occasional city raid, etc. Soon enough, there is a full-scale invasion of the creatures, complete with plagues.

Over the course of the campaign, though, it becomes clear that this is just part of the way the world works. First, the world was ruled by dragons and kobolds. Then, the elves, dwarves, and giants came to conquer them. Afterward, the humans, orcs, and halflings arrived with the celestials to establish to empires of today. Now, the fourth wave comes.

I tied it in with the Western element tradition, the Eastern four=death tradition, and based it off the conquest of the Americas. Do the PCs try to stop the natural cycle of things? Do they accept their new place as faded powers like the elves... or the kobolds? Do they side with their conquerers in the hope of survival? Just because it's the end of the world as we know it, doesn't mean it's the end of the world.

 

[JoeGKushner]

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder: One of the four beasts saying: "Come and see." And I saw. And behold, a white horse.
There's a man goin' 'round takin' names. An' he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down. When the man comes around.

The hairs on your arm will stand up. At the terror in each sip and in each sup. For you partake of that last offered cup, Or disappear into the potter's ground. When the man comes around.

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers. One hundred million angels singin'. Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum. Voices callin', voices cryin'. Some are born an' some are dyin'. It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come.

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Till Armageddon, no Shalam, no Shalom. Then the father hen will call his chickens home. The wise men will bow down before the throne. And at his feet they'll cast their golden crown. When the man comes around.

Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still. Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still. Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still. Listen to the words long written down, When the man comes around.

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers. One hundred million angels singin'. Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettle drum. Voices callin', voices cryin'. Some are born an' some are dyin'. It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come.

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

In measured hundredweight and penny pound. When the man comes around.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him.

 

[I'm A Banana]

When I get around to running something Dark Sun, this may be the track I'm going to take.

This is because my mind loves villains with a sympathetic motive. The Sorcerer-Kings know the world is going to die, and they do hasten it, but they try to resist the coming of the Ultimate End (because if everything is destroyed, their power is useless). If, as the PC's liberate towns from sorcerer-kings, they discover that the world's defiling is happening gradually, naturally, as the world dies as it was supposed to, they'll have to work out how to reverse or restore it, against Nature and Fate itself, and the consequences of keeping alive something that was supposed to be doomed...

Couple it with the "return" of divine power -- that the "god" of the setting is exactly what is killing it -- and you've got something interesting.

I might also take this track with my monotheistic setting. It would seem to be a natural fit.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One of the things I was thinking was that this would be a good opportunity to run martial characters only.


Arcane: The world has changed fundamentally. Perhaps whe nthe comet Wormwood strikes the world when that angel blows its horn, the weave that allowed essance to flow is gone. The world has become magic dead. Only existing magic items function but for how long?

Divine: The gods can no longer directly interfer. Perhaps some few saints and apostles carry messages but for the common man? It's like watching TV with the mute button on.

Psionic: The Far Realm's influence (one tied directly into psionics in 4e) is so free form now that to use psionics is to risk attracking the attention of those things on the far side who wait eagerly for those foolish enough to do so so that they may rip open those bodies from the other side (I believe this is how rogue psykers work in Warhammer 40k)

Primal: The time for those spirits and elemental energies of nature is now quiet. Barbarians no longer burst spontaneously into flame as they hurl magma at their enemies and instead are now rough warriors while druids enter the druid sleep in hopes that their ways and orders will pass onto the new world.

 

[Ulrick]

My first thought: FAST ZOMBIES!

My second thought: Apocalypse Stone.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Cross-reference this kind of apocalypse with Big Damn Heroes. D&D is better at Big Damn Heroes than "Hunker down and pray" anyway. Magic slipping away makes a great book, but if I were to play a game, I think I'd prefer that magic be set loose. Signs and symbols are everywhere. Walls are coming down.

The world IS ending. There's no stopping that, but we're not going out without a fight, anyway. That's how I see most adventurers reacting to the End, anyway. So follow the signs, stick your neck out and get in the way of prophecy. Maybe you'll get lucky and die a hero before the whole world is sucked into Nothingness.

Or, if you rage against the dying of the light, you just might be noticed enough to actually get into the afterlife. After all, only the best of the best and the worst of the worst will get scooped up by the gods when the End does arrive. Everyone else will follow the universe into nothing. And if some people know that bit of information, things will get interesting. Oh sure, even with that kind of out available, most people would give in to despair. But others would get all kinds of motivated. Pull out all the stops. No small number of people might work really, really hard at Redemption with what time they have left.