I have a RPG I have been working with for the past 2 years. The mechanics uses 2d6, but before I go into too much detail I will let everyone read about the world before I post them to see if there is interest.

The Union States of Americo covers the political struggle of a handful of cities populated with the survivors of the apocolypse. The year is 2020 and the people of the Land (North America) cannot recall what brought about the collapse of civilization, nor anything else before the year 2000.

Unlike some post-apocolyptic worlds, this is not a bunch of derilects running around in beat up dune buggies fighting sand monsters while looking for gasoline. The Union States of Americo is a world where a baseball cap is rare and worth a fortune. Finding a gun is unheard of. Only in select cities can structures be found.

Each group of survivors banded together and their society becomes unique compared to everyone else. The City of Scholars collect Ancient (Before 2000) literature, trying to peice together the past. However, they have difficulty peicing together the truth and fiction, leading to skewed interpretations of the past.

Other cities have their own personal goals: reunite all the cities under the red, white and black flag of the Union States of Americo, use Ancient machinery to pump Black Gold from the frozen soil of the Tundra (Alaska), destroy the Missouri Monster which struggles to kill the citizens of Sanctuary and Safehouse, or even political destruction of other city mayors to bring the Land under their control.

This game represents a hypothetical situation about how humans would attempt to reconstruct society. It also is a game of human ingenuity, for example the scholars installed windmills inside the husks of Ancient trains, build Wind Transports. The windmill connects to gears which turn the wheels of the trains. The citizens of Sanctuary (who live inside their walls in fear of the Missouri Monster) grown and harvest worms and moss to eat.

Each city has developed their own means of surviving in a world different from the Ancient World geographically, politically, and personally.

Please tell me what you think so far; there is a lot more, so ask questions if you feel I have glossed over some more interesting lore.

RPunk

Interesting concept. I don't understand, however, what the focus would be on. It sounds simulatonistic or narrativistic. Is it about rediscovering the past or killing monsters in "dune buggies". I would find it hard for the players, though. The problem with Post-apoptaliptic scenerios is that they're usually depressing and the players don't have the awe and glory of the dark ages of Tolkien or the awe and spiffyness of Star Treks, Enterprizes. While it isn't without its charm it still would seem kinda boring to exist in a world where you can get eaten by monsters {period} or have to pick up a stick to battle a car. But this is all coming from me, with limited data. Give us the focus and we can respond better.

My intention was to say this game is NOT like other post-apocolyptic games without cars or firearms.

This game uses mass transports such as the Wind Trains, Hot Air balloons, or wooden ships for long distance travel and bicycles and horses for personal transport.

Also, the concept of monsters is limited to the MidWest, which has only the Missouri Monster. Outside of the MidWest Horror Country, the only thing that can kill you is another human or mother nature.

Ideally, with Americo's dreams of political unity, the Nation of Oil Co's struggle for econimic power, the Horror Countries hopes of survival and escape into a safe are of the Land, the game provides regions that can put more focus on politics, combat, survival or player interration depending on where the GM wants the game to go.

For example, "power gamers" can gather up flintlock pistols, dynamite and axes to help defend the massive wooden walls of Sanctuary of Safehouse in the Horror Country.
Players who prefer the more political aspects of civilization can spend time in Americo and see as their diplomacy makes changes.
Those who enjoy making large amounts of wealth can travel the trade routes of the pirates of the West.

And there are other regions which have some of these aspects to different degrees, so the GM can steer the action of a campaign in a more appropriate direction.

Also, travel between these regions require different players. For example, politicians traveling from Americo to the West have to travel through Horror Country, so a group of players come to depend on eachothers skills moreso than a diplomat who is constantly hiding while storming the castle.

Upon going back a reading, I realize I left out the word "not" in my initial post, which completely changes the concept of what I was trying to say. Combat plays its role in this game on occasion, but it isn't like some games where half of the time you kill kill kill and the other half you barter for better killing gear.

Combat goes on the back burner (to be used occasionally) while political interration, exploration and survival are the main focus.

To expand on my concept and, therefore, receive more constructive feedback...

another region is NEVADA, essentially, an expanded Area 51. Damaged, but surviving the apopolypse, troops and scientists in Area 51 used supplies to expand their electric fences and have their own colony.

Nevadarians have all recollection of the past and retain a good deal of their technology. They spend most of their time living in an otherwise destroyed world trying to determine what to do.

Using their surveilance equipment in space, they have monitored the advancement of all the survivors. Originally, they had no intentions of assisting the survivors, fearing they would overwhelm Area 51 for food and supplies. However, after watching them struggle to survive, watching the Missouri Monster force the citizens of Sactuary and Safehouse behind wooden walls, several men wanted to help. Immediately after the plauge of 2011, these men left Nevada.

These men followed the train tracks north to Scholars Dell (Idaho) where they founded the City of Scholars. The scholars called these men ancients and, from them, learned to speak Anceint English. However, after the Ancients explains the general concept of pre-2000 life and before they could get specific, the Ancients were assassinated by other Nevada troops.

The City of Scholars, with seven bronze and marble statues honoring these Ancients, continue to study about Ancient times, exchanging good money or food for anything dating before 2000.

At night, travellers can see the lights from inside Area 51, knowing they have harnessed the power of the sun. They also fear their metal walls which electrocute anyone who touches them.

No one from Nevada is allowed to leave, and anyone found with intention to escape has their memory wiped and placed outside the fence. Citizens of Nevada aren't really playable, because they mystery of pre-2000 is part of the intrigue of the world. However, playing a recently mind-wiped citizen is allowed.

Certain skills are dubbed Ancient, such as Computer Use, Electronic Use, Drive Space Craft and several firearms skills. These skills are impossible to learn without a teahcer, and finding a teacher for these skills would be next to impossible. However, they are provided in the happenstance that a GM might want to include them for their game. (i.e. Nevada is stormed and raided or a Nevada citizen escapes and tells the world about Ancient Skills.)

Hi RPunk,

I think what Pyron was getting at was that your setting has lots of detail and many possible entry points of entry, but no clear hook for players. I think your presentation needs some sort of focus in order to draw an audience.

First, you might want to read Ron Edward's article GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Design.

and check out the thread the role of setting in RPG Theory.

These two things will give you lots to think about - What kind of play do you want to encourage? What role do you want your setting to play in another person's game? But most importantly, how do you interest _players_ in playing?

About character and setting, Ron says: "So: what does Setting do? As I see it, the first two elements of play (Character and Setting) are like words and pictures in comics. If they both do "everything," they get in one another's way. If they trade off in intensity and complement one another, in any functional combination, then the process (of play for RPGs) can occur smoothly."

You've got a detailed, wide spread setting, but no development of how players fit into it. I would suggest identifying two or three situations in the setting that pose interesting premises. Then present those situations with a sketch of what roles the players might take.

But leave lots of room for players to create the characters! You've already painted a lot of the setting, so they need that avenue for their own creativity.

A good premise will make your game stand out from the dozens of other detailed settings already on the market.

- Alan

Essentially, the premise (and what sets this game apart from others) is the experience of trying to survive and make a living in a post-apocolypic world. Second to that is the constant desire to know what caused this change in society.

The survival part is simply using your skills to overcome the obstacles proposed by the GM of adapting to a life with no luxuries. No readily available food or water, poor shelter and rare medicine.

The make a living part is what keeps the game from becoming boring. While some jobs such as metalsmithing or pottery would generate enough money to live, it is the other skills that add a sense of adventure to the game.

For example, as the politicians of the cities work to get other cities to join in their government, they require couriers. These couriers must be a group of men and women skilled to handle the journey from city to city, travelling through the dark forrests of horror country, the swaps of the Reptile Lands, the deserts of the West and the cold Tundra.

If a player is so inclined, they can create a politician of their own, struggling to usurp control of a city for their own gain. These character might require thugs and scholars to advise and protect them.

A group of scholars may be scouring the Land to determine what caused the apocolypse or the nature of Nevada. Clues abound in the Land, but the journey isn't safe for the educated alone.

Essentially, I intended to provide a rich world with thourough details so GMs could tailor their adventures to their players. If, at any time, they felt their adventure needed a shot of intrigue, combat, or politics, they could easily work it in without seeming trite or forced.

I hope this helps better convey my intentions with this game; if i'm being obscure in an area, tell me so I can cover it more in depth!!!

Is the game supposed to be partly about "finding out what happened year 2000"? In that case, who decides? Is it something every game group will decide on its own through their adventures, or is there gonna be kind of a "final word" on the subject in the game or a supplement?

If there's no final say, then I'd go as far as suggesting that you remove any hints of anyone actually KNOWING what happened. That way the truth can only be find if the group decides that in their adventuring they will be able to find it. And if they can find it it should (in my opinion) be something every game group defines on their own.

In fact I'd go so far as to suggest that there should be a dedicated chapter on "how to create your Year 2000 Enigma" for the GM.

The secret itself, if revealed, would limit what could be done with the world. As long as the secret always is secret (except when the players and GM agree to let them find out), you can always add some new strangeness and blame it on the Enigma.

Let me illustrate what I mean by limiting the answer to the enigma:

If we ignore the Nevadans, we could for example conjecture that the apocalypse (the version when god comes and have war against satan and stuff) happened year 2000, and the people left in the world are those neither taken up to heaven nor thrown into the burning lake.

Or maybe UFOs came on a gigant scale or something and mindwiped everyone after performing their experiments.

But we can't have those explanations because there are people who know and who possess technology.

An easy FIX however is to simply not describe the nevadans or tell of their history.

The stuff about "No one from Nevada is allowed to leave, and anyone found with intention to escape has their memory wiped and placed outside the fence. "

could be changed to: "Noone nows what happens in Nevada... (insert description of what it's like if players get into Area 51)... it is rumoured that sometimes people emerge from the area with no recollection of their past. It is rumoured that there are beings there who know the truth about the time before the Enigma, but noone knows for sure"

That way it's up to the GM to decide if there really IS an answer to the enigma or not.

RPunkG wrote: The Union States of Americo covers the political struggle of a handful of cities populated with the survivors of the apocolypse. The year is 2020 and the people of the Land (North America) cannot recall what brought about the collapse of civilization, nor anything else before the year 2000.

Kuma, I actually think that the symptoms makes the Enigma idea so much better (compared to use in any other apocalyptic scenario). In this game there is no way characters can ignore that something REALLY FRIGGIN BIG happened 20 years ago. Since it is so close there is no way to know if it will happen again, and maybe soon. The moment there's a word on WHAT it is, that will drive away a lot of the speculation. I think the UNKNOWN, the enigma of what happened is the driving force here, the thing that helps creating the whole setting. It shouldn't be given away cheaply.
Saying that people make up their own Enigma simply means that the answer will never be revealed although RPunkG would to well to pretend he(?) knows the answer even if he doesn't.

Just my humble opinion.

I am seeing it more clearly now, but the last few posts have brought up some interesting points. However, they seem to undeline a more severe factor that I've encountered in Sim. games (which your definition seemed to point out). How many times will the players be able to play in this setting (which is all you've told us about to this point)? I can see a few roles that they would be able to do, but I don't think that it's as open as you think, particurally in the way of enemies.

This next statement may make me look stupid, but does this remind any one of dune? In that setting there are few roles for a player, and this is little different. I think that this has great potential, but I just want to remind you that there is only one enigma, monster, and race. I could easily see this for a campaign, but for a campaign setting? I leave the rest to you.

The idea that the Enigma be different from gameworld to game world is a great idea! That might appeal to different players personal tastes of religious apocolypse, alien invasion, nuclear war, etc. I will start comping up with rules for generating a unique enigma.

Someone had expressed their confusion over the year 2000 and the age of the survivors. The year is 2020, but not everyone is twenty years old. There were survivors of every age, but they simply cannot recall anything relating to the apocolypse. They remember food riots and the reconstruction of civilization, but nothing before that.

As for the absence of books and other items pre-dating 2000, the concept here is that nothing was intended to survive. (For each enigma, whichever it might be.) Humans were not meant to keep living. Books, buildings and clothes were not indended to remain. This was SUPPOSED to be the apocolypse, but somehow something went awry.

As for the similarities between this concept and Dune, I know very little of Dune. All I know about Dune is what I saw on previews for the show on Sci-Fi channel. However, Dune appeared to be space ships and technology and the like, whereas this is about humans landlocked on North America trying to get by with what little resources they have. Almost like a wild west/steam punk hybrid.

As for playing in the world for multiple campaigns, the intention here was a political world that changes after a campaign ends. Depending on their mission, some cities might have changed alleigances, others might be in economic termoil or even destroyed- leaving refugess to overwhelm a neighboring region.

While political peace and ultimate unity is good in theory, it's not very probable in 2020. The different politicians clash on what is most important (whether it's peace, food for everyone, or the nature of the apocolypse) and eventually war will break out.

Conversely, all the cities might be brought under a tyrants reign, depending on what the GM and the players work towards (or against.)

The largest option of all is the exploration of the oceans. The City of Scholars have books showing lands across the sea and maybe that's where more will be found out about the apocolypse. Is Europe obliterated? Is Europe responsible? Are the Scholars wrong and is this actually the year 3000? Was time travel involved and do dinosaurs roam the land across the waters? Any number of options could exist and they all should reveal more about the true history of humankind.

As in most RPGs, the longevity of playing relies most on the players interest in the world. If they make charcaters who attempt to change the world, they would want to live through the changes they have made. And maybe their changes are disasterous. It would then be up to the GM and the players to build on the world and keep the doors open for more story arcs and keep the interest high.

RPunkG wrote: As for the absence of books and other items pre-dating 2000, the concept here is that nothing was intended to survive. (For each enigma, whichever it might be.) Humans were not meant to keep living. Books, buildings and clothes were not indended to remain. This was SUPPOSED to be the apocolypse, but somehow something went awry.

There were survivors of every age, but they simply cannot recall anything relating to the apocolypse.

Obviously, not explaining the original idea of the Enigma has left a lot of confusion. It's a long explaination, but I will attempt to sum up. Essentially, this idea was based on the Phobos Project in New York where they are attempting to recreate the Big Bang inside a vaccuum tube. Through a series of bankruptcies, mis-calculations and rival influences, this Phobos Project was abandoned.

It was in the year 2000 that the scientists attempted to start the computers to ensure it would survive the Y2K bug. It was then that the project activated, creating a Big Bang inside the vaccuum tube. The containment field ruptured and this "New Universe" was superimposed on the Old Universe.

However, parts of the Old Universe bled through onto the New Universe (much like photocopying two images onto one peice of paper or taking two sets of pictures with one roll of film.) That is what has left the world an unbalanced melting pot of collapsed buildings, barren deserts and few survivors.

The survivors do not remember the term America. Scholars have sifted through Ancient texts and confused the name for the land they live on with a 1999 company name of AmeriCo. So this slightly altered term is what everyone assumes is the actual term.

The amount of survivors is low, comparitively. From 19,000,000 people who live in New York, the new colony which has been rebuilt in the ruins has a population of about 19,000. Of the 284,000,000 people who lived in America, about only 200,000 people survived. Most people simply vanished during the SuperImposing, but some people "bled through."

Books have mostly disappeared through unexplained scientific stuff that I (a middle class non-scientist) am not aware of. Still, books were eliminated to create the mystery and- therefore -a major element of the game.

The memories of the survivors are similar to those with severe amnesia. They remember how to tie their shoes, they remember to eat, they remember how to use a door, but have no recollection of themselves or their past. Imagine receiving amnesia and then waking up in a world such as this. Why would anyone have any reason to think this world should be anything other than it is.

Everyone with amnesia knew only a few basic things. They needed food. They needed water. And (being January 1) they needed shelter. With no reason to dislike eachother, the worked together to survive, bonding them quickly.

As for the birth rate, I agree... it would be low. The birth rate might be drastically different from that of today, but 284,000 is drastically different from 284,000,000.

Perhaps children (and their survival) could be targets turning war and, therefore, plot points?

Tell me if this is making any sense, of if I should abandon this idea...

I think that's a good template for "why". But you don't need it to provide the final say. With the facts you provided before your explanation I could come up with a lot of other ways to "explain" the Enigma. Leaving it out in the open destroys a lot of possibilities.

I think you have an idea that's worth looking at further.

My point with the population still stands, however. That is, if we have less than 300,000 people left in what was formerly America, you can forget about population pressures or political rivalry. After we get done with the big cities and just their population proper (not considering the metropolitan areas which tend to be more than double these figures):

[code]City Curr Pop Post Bang
New York 8,008,278 8008
Los Angeles 3,694,820 3695
Chicago 2,896,016 2896
Houston 1,953,631 1954
Philadelphia 1,517,550 1518
Phoenix 1,321,045 1321
San Diego 1,223,400 1223
Dallas 1,188,580 1189
San Antonio 1,144,646 1145
Detroit 951,270 951
23899 [/code]

We have taken care of ten percent of the remaining population. Something like 3% of the current population of the US is rural. That means that less than 10,000 people are spread out between the cities of the US. And the "cities" are back to being small towns at best. A place like Milwaukee will have about 1000 people for the whole metropolitan area. That's nothing.

Wyoming, pretty much empty right now, will have just a few hundred people roaming a titanic state.

I doubt that the people of the "town" of New York will have much of aything to do with the people of Philadelphia. Oh, they'll demand tribute from the village of Jerseyans across the river, but they'll rarely have time to make a trip as far as the Hamlet of Boston a couple hundred miles away.

This is not enough people to have politicians, much less political strife. Even if births caused the population to quadruple in a single generation, that would still not be enough for political strife.

Mike

I agree wholeheartedly about the small populations and the lack of politics with a plethora of small towns, but what I have conceives is not a lot of small towns scattered across America.

My concept is as follows: The areas with larger populations (in this example... New York) conglomorated and began to work together. The other smaller towns, with significantly smaller populations, began to wander like nomads searching for food.

Over time, these bands of nomads stumbled across the larger groups of population. Larger groups had already assigned tasks to maximize efficiency and, therefore, had "leaders" to oversee the work. As the smaller groups arrived (attracted by night fires or the smell of food) they would join these larger cities. Later in the years, the job leaders would come to assume political postions.

The only cities in the Land are the most populated regions in the current world. New York, DC, Miami, Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago, San Francisco, Anchorage, etc...

As for discovering eachother, I based it on human curiosity. The political leaders would want to explore the rest of the Land to see if there were any other survivors. This is all based around "wind transports." Train tracks start in many of the cities and extend off into the distant horizon. They began to assume these Ancient tracks were directions to other major areas, so they attempted to follow them. They constructed wooden and metal vehicles that fit onto the train tracks (not a difficult task) and installed windmills on them to use wind power to turn the wheels and propell the transport forward. (Not necessarily easy, but also not impossible.) Following these tracks often led to dead ends, but occasionally led to other cities. These tracks were mapped and soon regular trips were made.

Perhaps this makes the idea a little more feasible? Does this sound probable to anyone else? This makes sense to me, but perhaps I'm suspending too much belief for the sake of the story? I dont think the game would be fun with thousands of tiny towns populated by a few hundred people. And then the political aspect is eliminated.

Let me know what you think!

Im also content to leave the Enigma up in the air; in fact, I am developing rules for generating unique ones, but I felt explaining my original concept might have cleared up a few discrepancies with the world.

However, any number of other explainations would be just as acceptable. For example, perhaps this is a world where Hitler won WW2 and he is just now getting to America. Books would be burned because America is "evil" and the nation had been racked with bombs and missiles. Perhaps their attacks lasted only long enough to eliminate a military threat before a mind-wiping chemical bomb was released to protect their interests.

Creating explainations is fairly easy

Toronto, Mexico City. If you're going to have a loss of knowledge, and include Alaska in the game, then these two cites are going to be important. Especially considering that Mexico City has been the largest population center in North America since before white men appeared here.

Anyhow, I agree that people would concentrate in the big "towns". Lets say that each gets to be five times it's current size from, refugees. This means that the countryside is depopulated, and New York City is now at a whopping 80,000 people. This is smaller than Athens was as an Imperial power by quite a bit. City states of this size also have surrounding holdings. Still not large enough to think about politics outside of it's own borders.

I didn't say that they would be unaware of each other, these towns. But there would be so much space in between them that there would be little reason to interact. Even if they had easy transportation technology. Again, at most you'd have something like an Athens/Sparta realtionship between NY and Philadelphia (the Greeks had ships). Which means more of a raiding warfare than anything else.

That I can see. A town low on food, but high on transport might decide to take advantage and steal a properous town's food.

But this means potential casualties, and that means further depopulation. After twenty years of raids, I think towns are going to be quite on the defensive.

Also, for this to work, there must be something wrong with the soil. Given the low populations there will be plenty of arable land to go around (America is overabundant this way). The New Yorkers could make it cultivating Long Island back yards alone, or even just planting central park. So did the apocalypse change this somehow?

Mike

The apocolypse didnt change the soil (necessarily) but growing food is not necessarily an option for the survivors of new york. While they could grow food in the useable lands, they need to feed 80,000 people today, not in a few months when the crops have grown.

A lot of food is going to come from the meat of animals, eggs and various other vegitation. In extreme cases, people will eat worms. While this does provide sustinance, it doesnt compare to the abundance of vegetables available in the MidWest, for example.

The greeks did conquer a great deal of land and their political power only stretched so far, but their goal was to conquer and control. Once they had accomplished their goal and stretched to the "end of the world," they concentrated on keeping everyone in check.

In this case, however, the cities have different reasons to explore and maintain contact. The cities in less hospitable areas (Texas in the South Desert and The City of Oil in the North Tundra) will require food from the MidWest. Each city will require flammable liquid from the Nation of Oil and the MidWest requires building materials and manpower to maintain their city walls. Trade of foreign objects is a major goal for the pirates of the West and the scholars scour the Land searching for clues to the past.

Politics will also be high as each city extends their borders grabbing for land. If an area of land full of corn is discovered by scouts of different cities, how will they handle the ownership? One side may show up with diplomats and one side might show up with guns.

Each city will be defensive of eachother, but reluctant to go to full scale war, due to the small populations. A cold war might be a better term, but each city will be constantly suspicious of eachother (like a political game of paranoia.)

Essentially, when have humans ever known of a distant land and never had any political relations with them? The Renaissance Europe traded very far East, America signed numerous political contracts with Indians that lived hundreds and hundreds of miles away from DC... politics is how humans deal with other humans.

Politics between Italy and India and England during the Renaissance were constant and trade was a major interest... and this is a distance much greater than New York to Michigan.

RPunkG wrote: The apocolypse didnt change the soil (necessarily) but growing food is not necessarily an option for the survivors of new york. While they could grow food in the useable lands, they need to feed 80,000 people today, not in a few months when the crops have grown.

A lot of food is going to come from the meat of animals, eggs and various other vegitation.

In extreme cases, people will eat worms. While this does provide sustinance, it doesnt compare to the abundance of vegetables available in the MidWest, for example.

Each city will be defensive of eachother, but reluctant to go to full scale war, due to the small populations. A cold war might be a better term, but each city will be constantly suspicious of eachother (like a political game of paranoia.)

Hi there,

Welcome to the Forge, and congratulations on being brave enough to post your stuff here ... as you can see, you'll get attention that's a little different from most RPG internet discussions.

I'm thinking that we should focus on your stated points of play: experiencing problems with survival and learning the secret of what happened. These are the player-goals you've presented as the solid "meat" of the game.

Well ... several questions arise from that.

1) Are the problems with survival really that interesting to experience? Let's say your rules do an amazing job of simulating, say, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Good - we run a session and experience that problem, and cope with it in some way. Then, what's next? Oil spill and bio-hazards - we see how well the rules do that (let's say it's stellar). Good - then, what's next?

In other words, once we cope with a hazard, the drama or interest of the next hazard is diminished sharply. One solution is to shift the emphasis on "survive the hazard" to a different realm, more of, "survive the hazard to ensure X," but then we'd have to find out what kind of X is most interesting for you as the designer.

2) "Can my character survive" presents some severe problems for play which many game designers don't consider carefully. Fundamentally, what if "my character" ... doesn't? It's quite uninspiring to play a game in which the single most trenchant problem is trying to keep my character alive ... and in which, if I fail, I am no longer allowed to play.

If a game is to present character-survival as an ongoing, central problem, then (it seems to me) the player should continue to be functionally part of the game even when a character is killed.

3) The Enigma presents some concerns as well. If I understand you correctly, the players are not to know the reasons for the Big Apocalypse any more than the characters do. Again, if I'm correct, this means that when they do find out, the game is over, or at least it's stripped of one of its main reasons to play.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, though - so if you would, please describe to me (a) the character's beginning outlook toward the Engma (for instance, why would he care?), (b) the player's beginning outlook toward the Enigma (does he know that finding it out is a goal of play?), (c) events during play that would change either of these things, (d) what sort of situation or in-game material "gives the game away" or answers the Enigma, and (d) what sort of continued play after that point is possible.

I know it seems like a lot to ask, but as presented in the threads and essays linked earlier in the thread, I think that "Setting which provides the most enjoyable play," has more power (as a design focus) than "Play in order to find out about the basic foundations of the Setting."

Best,
Ron

What Eogan said. After the destruction, starvation will be an issue. Either food is available on hand long enough to establish long term living conditions (farming). Or people will travel to where there is food, and then do the same. In that case, the population will be even smaller from starvation.

As I keep saying, the city-states will have contact with each other. But if you do take enough people with you to conquer the other town, why not just stay there, and not go home? If New Yorkers are going to have so much trouble surviving, then they'd move to where the food is. By your logic everyone would just move to the midwest. And, hey, that's OK. Just the state of Illinios has enough land to feed every last one of them ten times over. And still no need for conflict. Much less over the whole country.

But this all does not fit the facts. There is plenty enough food growing in upstate New York to feed their 80,000. What, they don't have farms in NY state? Why travel all the way to the midwest, starving all the way, when food is much closer. It's only 80,000 people. NY state probably produced food for several million (at least the population of the towns outside of the metropolitan areas). If 5% survives to be collected that'll feed everyone.

Oil extraction requires somewhat complex equipment, and also people to do the extraction. Texans are going to be too busy trying to feed themselves to worry about getting Oil. In addition, if that equipment survived, then, presumably, other such equipment survived, and, for example, the national petroleum reserve might still be intact. Putting much more easliy available oil in Colorado than in Texas. Then there are all the refineries across the country. Not to mention all the gas stations. Which have gasoline. Let's say that 1% of those survive. Given that the population is one tenth of that, there will be a supply of gas that will last ten times as long as a gas station goes before refilling. What's that, a week, a month? Well, anyhow, enough for a few weeks consumption at a rate equal to the pre-collapse level. With conservation it might last years without having to go anywhere for more.

As opposed to oil. I suppose it's possible to make an oil-burning car, but I think it's going to be real slow. Making Oil into gas is an even more complex procedure. Somebody remembers all that? Or has worked it out? And why bother with all this if we have steam power available from chopping down trees? And wind power, and water power, and all the rest. These last are a lot more primitive and easier to produce than oil.

Nope, there's just not enough competition for resources. Why do you need cars at all? So small a populace could just live in bucolic peace on farms in their local vecinity. Using whatever resources they have to travel out to the other communities to trade occasionally. You just have too few people living in too large an area of abundant resources. The number of people is also small enough that specialization is difficult. Remember that an economy of scale is, well, an economy of scale. You need lot's of people to maintain any technology. Even if you know how to make it (wich we're still unclear on).

This is not to say that war will never happen. But they will be small, local things, and anything over a longer distance will be more like viking raiding than anything else (which could be cool).

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
As I keep saying, the city-states will have contact with each other. But if you do take enough people with you to conquer the other town, why not just stay there, and not go home? If New Yorkers are going to have so much trouble surviving, then they'd move to where the food is. By your logic everyone would just move to the midwest. And, hey, that's OK. Just the state of Illinios has enough land to feed every last one of them ten times over. And still no need for conflict. Much less over the whole country.

I appreciate everyones opinions and conversations on the idea behind my post-apocolyptic world.

However, it seems obvious to me that I haven't quite thought everything through. Everyone has made excellent points (albeit oil production, population problems, migration theories) and, unfortunately I don't have the answers or story concepts to explain them away or make them seem plausible.

I suppose I bit off more than I could chew; seeing as how I know very little about sociology, human behavior or agriculture. Overwhelmed with a bunch of questions I cant answer... i suppose I might just scrap the ide and start over? Or perhaps make it less complex.

:)

I'm wondering why you chose post-apoptaliptic myself. What part of it are you trying to capitolize? Is it the return to basic warfare and the destrucuralization of law and human societies? Is it the stife of humankind to rebild itself? There are a lot of interesting ways of doing it. I would simply advise you to think about what reasons that you are doing this for. It is imporant to know. RPGs have strong points. Ficticious worlds have strong points. Capitolize on strenghts that are indicitive to them both.

Originally I did the post-apocolyptic world for two reasons.

To get away from the huge guns and rampant cyber wear of a CyberPunk world and to create a fantasy setting that isn't the "traditional" setting with wizards and elves and dragons.

Really, me and my friends have been roleplaying for years and we're all quite exhausted of d&d, shadowrun, and GURPS supers. I was trying to fashion a new roleplaying world that hadn't been done before, providing new scenarios and situations as a refreshing change.

Have you read all of the following?

Gamma World
Morrow Project
Aftermath!
Twilight:2000
Tribe 8

and most importantly:

deadErth, the most comprehensive guide on how not to make such a game.

These all have interesting perspectives on living in a post-apocalyptic world.

Mike

I don't think it's impossible to do. Don't aim for completeness. My suggestion is: leave the enigma open, leave lots of places open for GM creation, put some local weirdness for inspiration but leave most of america open for exploration by the game group. So if they want to make a special monster or weirdness somewhere they can. Cut down on the detail. For example Area 51 only needs to be mentioned in a few paragraphs. Less detail, but make the comments very suggestive so that the group wants to go there and explore it.

So what would be the main area of focus then? A particular city or group of cities?

I'd say that you'd provide one or two "example cities" so that people knows how they are supposed to look like, then GM's could create their own cities from those examples. (And should be encouraged to do so)