A Post-Apocalyptic RPG

[Zak Arntson]

OGL doesn't cover WOTC exclusively. It's an agreement that OGL-labeled content is free to distribute, as long as the OGL (and possibly designer credit, but I don't think that's covered) travels with it.

D20 is the WOTC-exclusive thing. That means WOTC has control over D20 products. (as an aside, a third-party D20 product is required to have a certain amount of OGL content).

As far as the actual game goes, I'm think post-nuclear war, with a serious tone to it. I'm still working out the mechanics of the system, which I want to more or less hammer out before developing the story.

A few questions here:
- Why do you want to do the system divorced from the story?
- What do you mean by story?
- "post-nuclear with a serious tone." What do you mean by this? Do you have any film, literature, comics, etc. acting as inspiration?

[kevin671]

The system is not divorced from the story.  The Story is the "back plot" of the game, the game world history.  The reason I want to develop the system first is that once I have the system down, I can develop any number of settings to apply it to.

[Zak Arntson]

What kind of play experience do you want to encourage with your system?If you're planning a catch-all system, what would differentiate play in the different settings?

(by the way, I dig me some post-apocalypse gaming, so don't let a couple printed d20 products deter you!)

[Blackguard]

I have a suggestion for your game.  Instead of post-nuke or viral, both of which have been done to death, why not use famine?  If a particular gene is added to most of the world's food crops to make them more bountiful, and a disease targets THAT gene ... no food, nearly instantly.  After a week, the stores are empty and people start starving in the cities.  Farmers may have vegetable crops of their own and so would the die-hard anti GMO folks who likely have traditional seeds.  The rest die a slow and painful death over the next few months.

You could still have pockets of radiation where the nuclear powerplants have run until they broke, but there wouldn't be the mass destruction of a post-nuke world.  Stuff would still work until it broke and then no one could fix it.  I was going to use the idea for myself, but feel free to use it.

[Maurice Forrester]

The famine idea posted above is very cool.  Another idea is a more general environmental catastrophe:  Global warming leads to significant changes in the global climate and massive migrations of people.  Wars are fought over water resources.  There's plenty of literature on this that you could draw from.

[kevin671]

Blackguard:  I LOVE that idea!!!!  Since it's yours, and you have stated the intention to use it, by all means go ahead.  You did think of it, after all.

Zak: As far as my system being a "catch all", I was thinking that the main differentiations between game settings will be the modification of some rules and how they interact with the setting......haven't quite figured out precisely how to accomplish this yet.....

[Zak Arntson]

Catch-all with modifications is good. Catch-all without modifications tends to lead to a square-peg-round-hole or heres-tons-of-special-rules problem.

System aside, here's the most important question: What play experience
would you like have, both as GM and as Player, when playing your game?

Also, so many endtime possibilities! You may even leave the details of the apocalypse vague, so you can hint at things during play. Make the endtime real mysterious, with legends and weird ruins and such. Everyone who plays will create their own scenario in their head.

[Mike Holmes]

I have a suggestion for your game.  Instead of post-nuke or viral, both of which have been done to death, why not use famine?  If a particular gene is added to most of the world's food crops to make them more bountiful, and a disease targets THAT gene ... no food, nearly instantly.  After a week, the stores are empty and people start starving in the cities.  Farmers may have vegetable crops of their own and so would the die-hard anti GMO folks who likely have traditional seeds.  The rest die a slow and painful death over the next few months.

See GURPS Autoduel, and other Carwars stuff for an example of this sort of setting. My favorite fact from the setting is that Barley survived the plague, so beer and ethanol are still plentiful. :-)

Mike

[kevin671]

A idea that I'm toying with:  Any of you who watch Anime and have seen a movie called "A Wind Named Amnesia" will probably recognize the setting.

Superior alien beings have triggered the Apocalypse with the intention of studying how humankind will handle it.  The ultimate purpose, of course, will be up to the GM to decide (if at all).

Howz that for a freaky premise?

[Mike Holmes]

The best part about that premise is that there are definite bad guys. The game sounds like it would ultimately become about discovering what had actually happened, and destroying the aliens.

This would be similar to the very first post-apocalyptic game, Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega (a Dragon atricle from which Gamma World was designed). In that game, the "world" turned out to be a giant space-ship that had lost it's way after drifting through a Strange Radiation Belt (TM). So, presumably, the idea was that eventually the players would discover the nature of their predicament, restore the controls, and then have to decide what to do with their little world.

The problem with such campaigns is trying to establish pacing. Make the big discovery too early, and the game seems like all climax. Delay the discovery too long, and players may loose interest before you get there.

Mike

[kevin671]

Sorry to keep pluggin' the Anime, but that sounds kinda like another one, called Megazone 23.  The "characters" (a gang of outlaw bikers) live aboard an enormous spaceship (called Megazone 23). Of course, they're unaware of the fact that it's a giant spaceship, but the government is aware.  The ship is on a return course to earth, but unfortunately must find a way past an automated superweapon called ADAM (Absolute Destruction of Availible Mass).  The protagonists are guided by the ship's hyperintelligent computer (called EVE) to the final conclusion...they escape in lifeboats to repopulate the planet.

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Sorry for forgetting to check this thread, but I have to ask again: why not publish it under the OGL? If you check http://www.opengamingfoundation.org, you'll find that hundreds of games have been released under the OGL including boardgames, cardgames and roleplaying games definitely not d20. It's a common misconception.
You'll have a library of rules and OGC (Open Game Content) texts to use in your game.

Fer

[kevin671]

I have since slightly changed my mind about allowing anyone to use my system for their own games.  What I'm going to do is basically allow people to use the system, but have it so that I control who does (ie: license it).  There won't be a licensing fee or any royalties to pay, but I will restrict the number of games released each year with the system, as well as the type of game (so, for example, if I have a project that I'm working on, I won't allow any mirror projects).

Not that I mind people using some of my ideas (for free), but not if them using an idea is going to take money out of my pocket.

[Kester Pelagius]

Catch-all with modifications is good. Catch-all without modifications tends to lead to a square-peg-round-hole or heres-tons-of-special-rules problem.

System aside, here's the most important question: What play experience
would you like have, both as GM and as Player, when playing your game?

Also, so many endtime possibilities! You may even leave the details of the apocalypse vague, so you can hint at things during play. Make the endtime real mysterious, with legends and weird ruins and such. Everyone who plays will create their own scenario in their head.

Alternatively a list of possible backgrounds could be compiled.  Use them as rumors or allow the GM to decide what the actual background of the game world is.  (Actually both could work here.)  Of course much will depend upon actual time period of the game world.

If far distant future then the immediate world background probably wont  matter too much.  If it is relatively recent, well, look around.  There are plenty of ideas just waiting to be grabbed up.

Just try to imaging what would happen if the world governments of today really did collapse.  Think of all the survivalists, militia groups, organised religions, activist organizations, etcetera.

In a world devoid of "organized" central government these groups might become defacto political regimes controling territories.  Sort of like what happened when Rome finally collapsed.  Without the centralized authority (viz. the Roman legions) what the world got was a period of "Dark Ages" that ultimately led to our old system of Feudalism.

Which brings me to my next suggestion.  In creating your devastated future world do not neglect researching about our historical past.

Hope that helps some.


Kind Regards.

[kevin671]

Kester, you do raise a couple good points.  I want to incorporate my little idea about the aliens, though.  A little something for players to find out, and possibly foil.