Chargenning the apocalypse
So as I began planning an After the End game I couldn't decide on a setting. Not only did each possible apocalypse have so much potential for fun but I knew my players would all want different sorts of themes from Mad Max to an Ecopocalypse. Early on in the planning I decided I was going to let my players choose how their world ended, sort of fitting since man being responsible for the end of the world is a huge trope.
So before we started making characters I gave each player 10 dice and told them they were going to be voting on the type of apocalypse their characters would play in. Each die was a vote, ties would be rolled off. No votes would mean the condition would be Mad Max apocalypse-standard, I.E. Nuclear exchange in a modern setting with things-fall-apart. The questions they had to vote on were;
1. What is the primary cause of the apocalypse? (from the options in After the End)
2. Which secondary causes are in effect in the world?
3. What Tech Level is the apocalypse?
4. What Tech level was the world before?
5. How many generations ago did the world end?
6. Are Gasoline and other petroleum still able to be manufactured?
7. Are gunpowder and other chemical compounds still being manufactured?
8. Is electricity common in the world?
My players chose Cosmic rays with a side effect of lingering radiation and specifically threw in an extra vote because they wanted technology destroyed. They didn't want to throw in votes for tech level so it was default modern TL 8 and they wanted a slightly less advanced TL 6 world. They voted down gasoline, but wanted gunpowder and electricity. We figured out narratively how the world ended and how it had recovered from that disaster collaboratively, although when they were talking about the scorched desert that once was America I don't think they expected to be in the green fjords of Scandinavia so I kept some editorial power. Lastly I let the players keep their extra votes as bonus character points. So players who had less say in the settings got a extra point or two to play with.
I think if I did this again I'd choose a 9th question. How is society doing on a scale of 1-5 where 1 is "Delaying the inevitable failure of humanity" and 5 is "Close to reaching it's former glory".
So before we started making characters I gave each player 10 dice and told them they were going to be voting on the type of apocalypse their characters would play in. Each die was a vote, ties would be rolled off. No votes would mean the condition would be Mad Max apocalypse-standard, I.E. Nuclear exchange in a modern setting with things-fall-apart. The questions they had to vote on were;
1. What is the primary cause of the apocalypse? (from the options in After the End)
2. Which secondary causes are in effect in the world?
3. What Tech Level is the apocalypse?
4. What Tech level was the world before?
5. How many generations ago did the world end?
6. Are Gasoline and other petroleum still able to be manufactured?
7. Are gunpowder and other chemical compounds still being manufactured?
8. Is electricity common in the world?
My players chose Cosmic rays with a side effect of lingering radiation and specifically threw in an extra vote because they wanted technology destroyed. They didn't want to throw in votes for tech level so it was default modern TL 8 and they wanted a slightly less advanced TL 6 world. They voted down gasoline, but wanted gunpowder and electricity. We figured out narratively how the world ended and how it had recovered from that disaster collaboratively, although when they were talking about the scorched desert that once was America I don't think they expected to be in the green fjords of Scandinavia so I kept some editorial power. Lastly I let the players keep their extra votes as bonus character points. So players who had less say in the settings got a extra point or two to play with.
I think if I did this again I'd choose a 9th question. How is society doing on a scale of 1-5 where 1 is "Delaying the inevitable failure of humanity" and 5 is "Close to reaching it's former glory".
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