Defining the Post-Apocalypse Genre

As promised, I am now going to build on the concept of a genre-defining game with respect to a genre that lacks one; post-apocalypse. I think there are essential elements of the genre that are not being coherently represented with a game and that is why you have to reach for GURPs or Savage Worlds or something similar and run it generic, or run it with one of the handful of games that purely service the genre. This is not a value judgment on my part, just an observation. As far as I know, nobody is using GURPs to emulate a game of After Peak, Collapse, Fallout d20, d20 Modern, or Darwin's world. They are just creating their own game with GURPs. This is markedly different from my points about Vampire in the previous post. As such, my conclusion is that there is no genre-defining game for Post-Apocalypse.

So the question arises, what would one look like? How would you take the range of media in this genre and distill it into a single game that would speak to a large audience?

I think I have the answer. It was a result of many many hours riding in the car to and from and around Pensecola.

It is going to be called Forlorn Hope.

1. Hope
Almost all post-apocalypse fiction, movies, and video games are about hope. Hope for a better life, hope to fix the things that went wrong. Eli keeps hope alive because only he can deliver the book. The Postman is about hope in the idea of the United States. Robert Neville has hope that he can cure the disease. Theo Faron hopes to deliver the pregnant woman to the Human Project. The Vault Dweller must have hope that they can find a water chip. Or stop the Mutants. Or find a GECK. Or restore Project Purity. Or stop the impending war in the Mojave.

Sometimes the main character(s) loses hope. Mad Max got derailed by the revenge train. The Mariner had lost hope of finding dry land. In this case, the hope must be restored.

Regardless, hope is a big part of the equation. Yet, no game out there really talks about hope. It is abstracted away, much in the same way that a Vampire's inner struggle with their humanity and beast were once abstracted away and ignored. I intend to combine the WoD concepts of Humanity and Willpower into a single Hope mechanic.

Your character is going to be forced to struggle with their hope and it will be tested. Much in the same way that characters in the genre are tested. Most post-apocalyptic heroes are actually anti-heroes who don't want to be caught up in the drama that envelopes them. They are forced to deal with it. Similarly, my Hope mechanic will force the player to grapple with their desire to not get involved with the pressing consequences of doing nothing.

2. Technology
The world that came before had an advanced society with technological creations. For the most part, they don't work anymore. Those that are left must grapple with this problem, try to figure out how the old stuff works, try to create tools they need from those that exist. They must create armor from scrap metal, clothing from random bits, ration the handful of bullets they have left, and interact with items/equipment in a way that most RPGs simply don't have a way to replicate.

My solution for this is going to be two-pronged. First, I am going to take the technological understanding system that I created for Cascade Failure and replicate it, along with the Age system (albeit with modifications to both). Older people are going to have lower starting Hope values but better understanding of technology, younger people the opposite. Second, I am going to be creating a fairly complex crafting system to construct new items. There is going to be a format for creating recipes for items; such as combining a heavy head with a shaft to make an improvised weapon or a way to turn any sufficiently tough material (even things like cut up orange road cones) into armor pieces. GMs can create their own recipes, much like they do for their own magic items in medieval fantasy.

3. Drugs
The crafting system described above is also going to have a very large range of drugs. Drugs are a prominent feature in a lot of post-apocalypse fiction. The problem with most RPGs is that they have a hard time implementing drugs because their mechanical system lacks a good way of illustrating the effects of drugs. Shooting up Jet is much better represented in Fallout's action points and addiction system than you can accomplish by raising one's Dexterity in d20.

Therefore, I am going to be creating an attribute system that combines Errant principles with the attributes that I created for Synapse. You are going to have six mind attributes and three body attributes. All are going to be on a 3d6 creation system and they are going to be subject to damage as in Errant. But no hit points. This is a dirty and deadly world. If you get shot, you get shot. The damage comes out of the attribute. Ouch.

Now a drug's effects can give you mental instability, enhanced perceptive ability, or a more pleasant demeanor; in addition to the more common effects like enhanced strength, endurance, etc. And there will be a Resilience attribute to measure your body's immune system as it decays beneath the pressure of drug use.

4. Advancement
Most post-apocalyptic characters don't face hordes of enemies (zombies being a notable exception). If anything, there is usually an active effort to avoid combat if possible. This makes traditional advancement systems much less applicable to the genre. So I am going to be taking a bit of wisdom from Gygax and attaching it to the value of items. However, it is going to come not from the removal of items to a safe location (appropriate for an adventurer in medieval fantasy) and instead only accrue when you move things back into the economy.

Lets say you go down into an underground bunker and come out with a bunch of technological gear. If you just store that gear in your own bunker, you don't advance. You must actually sell it to a merchant caravan, or in a town, or otherwise contribute to re-establishing the economic basis of the world.

5. High Speed Combat
Most post-apocalypse games have very intense individual combats. Men staring each other down with pistols that only carry a few rounds of ammo. Drawing guns in the saloon over an issue of respect. There are speed issues in this that most RPG models are not equipped to handle. Round-by-round D&D style combat just doesn't cut it.

So I am going to be taking a bit of the Synapse combat system and modifying it. Your Synapse attribute is going to be a benchmark of speed, but you only get one attack by default. Your Focus attribute then becomes a pool which you can spend to dodge, add more attacks, or take better aimed shots. Damage is going to cause Stability rolls (much like saves vs Pain in Errant) to avoid falling to the ground in pain. It is going to be very likely that a combat will end with some people still alive, crawling backwards towards the gun they dropped when you put your boot on their hand and deliver your cliche lines.

6. Survival
The wasteland is a dangerous place. Snake bites, heat stroke, mutated beasts, empty canteens, and other threats loom large. With three body attributes, I can more accurately model the ravages of the environment on your character. Furthermore, I am going to be building high-quality survival rules, on everything from water, food, and heat management to gasoline consumption and keeping track of the bullets left in your magazine. And I am going to do this in a way that I think will be reinforcing the fun of the game, not just some pointless thing to keep track of every game.


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So that's it folks. This is the plan for creating a genre-defining post-apocalypse game. Thanks to the past year of work, I have a lot of things to draw together to kick this project in the ass and get it going. Stay tuned for more coolness.