I’ve been writing material for Twilight: 2013, so I guess I’ve just got post-apocalyptic scenarios on the brain. Close on the heels of last week’s Aliens are Going to Kill Us All comes another set of links from kottke:
• Imagine earth without people, a New Scientist article about the consequences of an immediate and complete de-population of the Earth — no corpses, just poof, adios.
It uses Pripyat, near Chernobyl, as a real-world basis for some of the predictions, which makes a lot of sense. Add the corpses, and you’ve got an awesome baseline for a campaign featuring abandoned cities and a resurgent Mother Nature.
• The World Without Us, an upcoming (July 10, 2007) book by Alan Weisman, which tours the world in exploring a similar scenario. This one sounds fascinating, and it’s on my must-look list for my next trip to the bookstore.
Thank you for giving me my next adventure seed!
This is very interesting. It also reminds me of a setting idea which I thought up long ago but forgot. The people who inhabit the earth are unaware of the once ‘great’ civilization. The large cities remain but are thought to be completely natural – like a forest.
There have to be intelligent NPCs of some sort, whether they be mutants or evolved apes or something.
Adventuring in a world entirely devoid of sentient life is like adventuring on the Discovery Channel. Eventually, killing lions and tigers gets boring.
That was a fascinating article– thanks for linking off to it Martin!
Uh, I want to run something like this for long time now, sadly most people are somehow always in for fantasy (nothing against good old fantasy, but something new would be nice).
Something along the lines of a post-apocalyptic world would be great, with other survivors preferably. Doesn’t need be post-nuclear. Maybe where Fight Club left off, plus some years. Civilization has pretty much collapsed on its own. Or the Zombies attack, or a Killer Virus, unknown causes (like in Children of Men), or, well, just post-nuclear. And as a system I would pick, hm, GURPS, I think.
Going away now, must grab notebook…
I agree with you that everyone seems to always be up for fantasy, but perpetually less interested in doing other genres. I think one of the reasons for that is that people know what they are getting out of fantasy, and they know how far they can push the boundaries of it. Fantasy games bred the formula for tabletop RPG’s in general, and they have a lot of room for ignoring realistic things. When you move outside of that formula, people get a little hesitant.
For one example: If you go post apocalyptic, or zombie horror then you get into a different kind of character creation. People can’t build to a concept without facing some part of reality in the design. Sure you WANT your character the be skilled with heavy weapons like machine guns because of the crunch element, but you don’t want to write their background to match that. You have to think realistically as to why joe schmoe college student knows how to use a machine gun when the zombies come by. Unless you put him or her in a military setting, or make him or her a gun nut it just jars with the concept. Sure that kind of thing happens in fantasy as well: “Why does the peasant go off and train with a zwei-hander?”, but it is more easily glossed over because we take liberties with the genre. You can take the same kind of liberties with other genres, but the closer you curve towards reality, the more pieces of the gaming formula jar with the meta elements of the game.
I just had an idea that would work for a sci-fi campaign.
The world is a natural paradise, devoid of humanity. There used to be a civilization here, but it’s long disappeared (this could be Earth if time travel is involved).
The PC explorers touch down for one plot hook reason or another, but strange things start to happen. Their machinery breaks down, when they go hunting they can’t find any animals (even if animals are plentiful in the area), and some explorers start receiving dreams to warn them away from this world.
If the PCs are stubborn, things get more dangerous. Their equipment starts turning against them, hostile animal attacks are on the rise, and some expedition members start acting possessed.
The reason: the civilization didn’t disappear; they evolved into energy forms. They’ve spent most of their time since then erasing their “scars” on the world and returning it to its natural state. They will not allow anyone else to disrupt the natural beauty they’ve created.
(Micah) There have to be intelligent NPCs of some sort, whether they be mutants or evolved apes or something.
I forgot about that — yes, there would need to be other survivors (unless it was the setting for a dead planet one-shot, or something like that). Good point!
I’m glad this link fueled some campaign ideas — that’s always neat to see.