Game Content: Non-standard Apocalypse
There is never enough time for all the campaigns I want to run. It seems almost as soon as I finally get down to running a campaign for people, that I'm already getting excited about what we'll play next. These ideas for campaigns go to some darkened corner of my brain to die from lack of use.
I've decided to start a series of blog posts to put all those campaign ideas into words, so they will die on the internet from lack of use instead of being in my head. My first few attempts might not be great or even that helpful, but at least if they are on the internet there is a chance someone might find them useful.
Game: Apocalypse World
The Inspiration: In most post apocalyptic settings you run into the same dusty nuclear cliches about a world that looks like Arizona. While I'm not arguing that Arizona is not a big white hot mess that is close to a post apocalyptic hellhole, I would argue that the dusty wasteland is a played out apocalypse. There is nothing wrong with the dusty wasteland per se, but I want something other than the standard stock apocalypse.
In comes some random images that came through my reddit feed:
Campaign Setting Idea: When the world ended, the smoke never cleared. The smog sits hundreds of feet deep on the surface of the planet. The only things that sticks out of the smog are the tops of all the old buildings from before everything ended.
The only way to get to the other spires is taking the bridges or one of the flying machines. The bridges are dangerous. They are whipped about by the winds at this altitude. They'll get you to where you want to go, if you can keep hold of them the whole time. The flying machines get you there quicker and safer, but they've also been known to breakdown mid-flight.
No one who takes the stairs down into the smog has ever come back. At night, if you're one of the unlucky ones that pulls the short straw and has to patrol some of the lower floors, you'll hear the sound of them down there. No one's ever gotten a good look at them and lived to tell about it, but everyone has heard them.
System Adaptation: There really doesn't need to be anything done to the Apocalypse World system to make the campaign setting work. It's just a matter of what sort of apocalypse flavor you put on the playbooks.
Why I haven't done it yet: Well part of the fun of Apocalypse World is coming up with a type of apocalypse that everyone is interested in exploring. During the first session, we usually talk it out and come up with some sort of post apocalyptic setting. Everyone in the group chips in on what they think would be interesting as set pieces in the apocalypse and we end up with a semi-fleshed out world.
While this is fun, I found that a lot of the time the group sort of defaults to one of two ideas: dusty wasteland or walking dead style where everything is the same but just less people. I'm sort of bored with both of them though, so I'm hoping the next time I run the game I can push a non-standard apocalypse, even if it isn't this one.
I've decided to start a series of blog posts to put all those campaign ideas into words, so they will die on the internet from lack of use instead of being in my head. My first few attempts might not be great or even that helpful, but at least if they are on the internet there is a chance someone might find them useful.
Game: Apocalypse World
The Inspiration: In most post apocalyptic settings you run into the same dusty nuclear cliches about a world that looks like Arizona. While I'm not arguing that Arizona is not a big white hot mess that is close to a post apocalyptic hellhole, I would argue that the dusty wasteland is a played out apocalypse. There is nothing wrong with the dusty wasteland per se, but I want something other than the standard stock apocalypse.
In comes some random images that came through my reddit feed:
Campaign Setting Idea: When the world ended, the smoke never cleared. The smog sits hundreds of feet deep on the surface of the planet. The only things that sticks out of the smog are the tops of all the old buildings from before everything ended.
The only way to get to the other spires is taking the bridges or one of the flying machines. The bridges are dangerous. They are whipped about by the winds at this altitude. They'll get you to where you want to go, if you can keep hold of them the whole time. The flying machines get you there quicker and safer, but they've also been known to breakdown mid-flight.
No one who takes the stairs down into the smog has ever come back. At night, if you're one of the unlucky ones that pulls the short straw and has to patrol some of the lower floors, you'll hear the sound of them down there. No one's ever gotten a good look at them and lived to tell about it, but everyone has heard them.
System Adaptation: There really doesn't need to be anything done to the Apocalypse World system to make the campaign setting work. It's just a matter of what sort of apocalypse flavor you put on the playbooks.
Why I haven't done it yet: Well part of the fun of Apocalypse World is coming up with a type of apocalypse that everyone is interested in exploring. During the first session, we usually talk it out and come up with some sort of post apocalyptic setting. Everyone in the group chips in on what they think would be interesting as set pieces in the apocalypse and we end up with a semi-fleshed out world.
While this is fun, I found that a lot of the time the group sort of defaults to one of two ideas: dusty wasteland or walking dead style where everything is the same but just less people. I'm sort of bored with both of them though, so I'm hoping the next time I run the game I can push a non-standard apocalypse, even if it isn't this one.
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