Mad Max: Fury Road (Spoilerrific)

[Anders]

So if you wanted to set a campaign in the Mad Max:Fury Road setting, what time would you choose?

I'd probably set it after the events of MMFR. Sure, they've gotten rid of Immortan Joe, the Bullet Farmer and the People Eater but that does not mean that niceness and jollity will automatically follow. There are still raiders in the Wasteland, and they will come looking to see if Furiosa can defend what she's taken. And she just gotten rid of all the warriors. And what will happen with Gastown and the Bullet Farm? Who will run them?

As for the setting in GURPSterms - I'd set it a solid TL7. There's a desperate lack of resources, but they don't seem to have lost much technology. It's not like the kids in Thunderdome - these people know what they have and know how to fix it, it's resources that's lacking, not knowledge.

Any other thoughts? Character types?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Caveat: I haven't seen the new movie yet. But, based on the trailers and my love of the previous films, I would recommend running this with Action 1 and 2, maybe 3 if you want to get fancy. Particularly appropriate templates are the Wheel Person, full stop. Followed by the Shooter, Demolition Person, Face Person, and Investigator in roughly that order, and maybe other Action templates if you feel like it. Mechanics seem like they should be somewhat prominent in this setting, but don't seem to get featured a lot, but you could very easily change that if you want to (make something up from scratch or modify the Wire Rat template a little).

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Caveat: I haven't seen the new movie yet. But, based on the trailers and my love of the previous films, I would recommend running this with Action 1 and 2, maybe 3 if you want to get fancy. Particularly appropriate templates are the Wheel Person, full stop. Followed by the Shooter, Demolition Person, Face Person, and Investigator in roughly that order, and maybe other Action templates if you feel like it. Mechanics seem like they should be somewhat prominent in this setting, but don't seem to get featured a lot, but you could very easily change that if you want to (make something up from scratch or modify the Wire Rat template a little).

Mechanics is somewhat important during the movie. They have to fix one engine while the (two-engine) vehicle is still running. I imagine that would cause some penalties, and maybe require a "Mend on the Run" technique or Perk.

[chandley]

In a party that aims to work together, a People Mechanic is a really good idea too :).

As for setting, they didnt actually get rid of all the warriors.

Spoiler:  

All three "towns" took a hit to manpower, but there where Warboys left alive, just delayed in the canyon. The idea seemed to be, get the high ground, and basically co opt them when they start getting thirsty. Given the Warboys general state of mind, and Imperator Furiosa's reception from the general population, that might be pretty easy.

Gas Town and Bullet Farm, on the other hand, almost certainly get new Warlords, who may or may not be particularly friendly. They will want food though...

Demolition Man should add Spear as a weapon skill (for obvious reasons); Big Guy and Fast Guy work just fine for Warboys, just make Drive (Automobile, Heavy Wheeled, AND Motorcyle) required for everyone.

TL seemed to settle on 7, though actual TL 7 equipment should probably be more expensive than normal (2x cost perhaps).

Discourage players from buying vehicles as Sig Gear. Even Max had trouble with that. Vehicles should be awesome but essentially disposable. A Wire Rat that shifted focus to Vehicles (and took Gadgeteer (Vehicles) instead) would help with that immensely, by being able to scavenge the wreckage after a fight and put a few cars/rigs back together. If you look carefully, you can actually see a salvage "rig" in some of the wide shots.

[Anders]

And of course we need stats for a flamethrower guitar. Because that is AWESOME!

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Anders

So if you wanted to set a campaign in the Mad Max:Fury Road setting, what time would you choose?

I'd probably set it after the events of MMFR. Sure, they've gotten rid of Immortan Joe, the Bullet Farmer and the People Eater but that does not mean that niceness and jollity will automatically follow. There are still raiders in the Wasteland, and they will come looking to see if Furiosa can defend what she's taken. And she just gotten rid of all the warriors. And what will happen with Gastown and the Bullet Farm? Who will run them?

As for the setting in GURPSterms - I'd set it a solid TL7. There's a desperate lack of resources, but they don't seem to have lost much technology. It's not like the kids in Thunderdome - these people know what they have and know how to fix it, it's resources that's lacking, not knowledge.

Any other thoughts? Character types?

You'd need to dig into the background of the setting a little bit deeper, so as to better explain exactly why the apocalypse happened and what the results were.

I'd integrate as much as possible the background shown in the original Mad Max, and try to have an historical P.O.D. that made sense. To me, the best candidate is an Able Archer '83 exercise that goes horrifically wrong, because the malfunctions monitored and dismissed by Lt. Col. Stanislave Petrov happened two months later, during the exercise, on a shift other than Petrov's.

The false reports go up the chain of command as if they were true and, combined with the fact that the RYAN checklist was nearly full, triggers a nuclear launch. This mistaken initial strike results in retaliation by NATO nuclear arsenals, and most of the cities in the northern hemisphere get glassed and every world power is destroyed within two hours.

The oil fields in the Middle East were also targeted, as were North Shore fields off the Scotland coast. Additionally, the devastation put an ungodly amount of particles in the atmosphere, and triggered a nuclear winter that lasted for at least five years.

Essentially, the northern hemisphere of the world has lost more than 90 percent of its population due to nuclear strike, disease, fallout and starvation, and the availability of oil has dropped to a fraction of what it was, before. The only sources of "juice" or "guzzline" available are storage tanks, tankers and local wells with nearby (or co-located) refineries.

The nuclear winter also disrupted global weather patterns enough to trigger a mini Ice Age. Fresh water gets locked into ice-sheets and sea levels drop, as do water-tables. Rainfall declines through most of world (except for a few areas that benefit) in favor of long winters with harsh conditions that interfere with growing seasons.

The southern hemisphere gets off lightly, as compared to the northern areas, but the devastation remains severe. EMP fried most of the civilian electronics (although, it was less devastating than it would have been, 30 years later), and most of the available petroleum stocks are seized for official use. However, enough central control remains in enough areas to stave off the collapse -- at least, to some extent.

This is the case in Australia, as of Mad Max. The major coastal cities and military bases took nuclear strikes, but most of the continent escaped nuclear devastation. State and territorial governments in agricultural areas worked with surviving military, police and rescue units to impose martial law so as to ration existing resources and work to increase food production as much as possible, given the conditions.

Unfortunately, the vast expanses of Australia's deserts are not empty and, faced with the destruction of most of civilization, as well as desperate hunger and the knowledge they'd never be able to support themselves in the conditions, people began to engage in motorized raids on more fortunate regions. Those raids grew increasingly violent as the more peaceful citizens dies due to starvation or abuse, leaving a diminishing population of ever more crazed and desperate raiders.

That situation became exacerbated as the prolonged nuclear winter began to reduce precipitation, even in the agricultural regions of Australia -- an arid land, to begin with. That, in turn, triggered conflicts between the various regional leaders and commanders about shared -- and diminishing -- sources of fresh water. As the situation became untenable, the desperate territorial and state governments began to fight in localized conflicts that became collectively known, in Australia, as the "Water Wars."

That fratricidal conflict gave the raiders the opportunities they needed for increasingly successful raids into areas formerly closed to them. The Water Wars and the raiders combined to collapse the last vestiges of the state and territorial governments, and by 1993 -- 10 years after the Able Archer War -- Australia collapsed into barbarism.

Now, the continent is divided into small, fractured territories. A few are controlled by people who were smart and lucky enough to live near sources of fresh water and fertile soil, and perhaps other useful resources -- and to be tough enough to defend them. However, most territories are controlled by the warlords who were smart, vicious and/or crazy enough to survive.

Havens of food and other resources are frequently isolated, but some are located in close-enough proximity to create ad-hoc arrangements based on mutual need. However, raids for food, fuel and weapons constantly threaten everyone. Most of the haven areas exercise particularly brutal forms of authoritarianism, in which the vast majority of the population labors to produce enough surpluses to support the fighters who protect the regions.

The lack of resources means those areas have no social safety nets of any sort, and those who can't contribute anything are either left to die, or are killed outright (and, sometimes, eaten).

I'd place the events of Mad Max in the late 1980s of the setting. The area where he and his family live, and where he works as a patrol officer, retains some semblance of order but it has begun to slip. I'd replace the events of the Road Warrior with those of Fury Road, myself -- he still has the V8 interceptor, at the beginning of each and he loses it early in the plot, and Fury Road simply has a more interesting setting. I'd put them in the mid-1990s, which means Max has been killing and surviving for so long, he's little more than a raider himself, although he recovers part of his humanity by the end of each of those stories.

I'd put the events of Beyond Thunderdome (if that's to be kept, at all) in the early 2000s, which means it's been 17-18 years since the apocalypse. That means the oldest of the tribal kids in Thunderdome were born two or three years after the war. The older survivors left in the mid-1990s, while the last of their parents died in the late-1990s.

In this setting, the keys to survival are knowledge, charisma and a talent for mayhem. Unfortunately, the leaders in many areas only get to pick two of the three. In areas where the leaders are charismatic and knowledgeable, they soon become targets for raids by road gangs led by charismatic leaders with a talent for mayhem. If an enclave is ruled by a charismatic leader with a talent for mayhem, they're mostly secure but horrifically oppressive.

Knowledgeable people with a talent for mayhem are the setting's wildcards. The fragility of the areas controlled by the warlords is such that they can make or break governments, if they're as smart and lucky as Max and Furiosa. As of the end of Fury Road, the questions are:

-Does Furiosa have the brains, charisma and political savvy to hold the Citadel together?
-Did the leaders of the Bullet Farm and Gas Town have a stable governments, able to transfer power smoothly? (Probably not....)
-If Furiosa is able to establish control, will she command enough of a force that the Citadel can usefully intervene in the conflicts in Bullet Farm and Gas Town? (Unlikely, since she and Max and the Green Place women killed many of the War Boys, and many of those who survive would much rather kill her, than work for her.)
-Will the Bullet Farm and Gas Town survive the power-struggles, intact?
-Would anybody who did win those power struggles willingly work with the other two enclaves -- or would they simply go for the gold-ring and try to take over all three?
-Given that Furiosa likely can't directly intervene in the struggles for the other two enclaves, can she find Max again, or someone else -- or a small group of people -- willing to work with her, and smart and ruthlessly talented enough to skew events in the other two enclaves in directions she considers beneficial?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Essentially, the northern hemisphere of the world has lost more than 90 percent of its population due to nuclear strike, disease, fallout and starvation, and the availability of oil has dropped to a fraction of what it was, before. The only sources of "juice" or "guzzline" available are storage tanks, tankers and local wells with nearby (or co-located) refineries.

I've read that gasoline spoils rather quickly - six to twelve months - unless stabilizers are available. Is this true? That would mean that there's an incentive to produce new gasoline and to burn off the old gas before it goes bad. Which, together with a culture that glorifies conspicuous consumption, would explain why people are driving these gas-guzzlers when gas is supposedly scarce.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anders

I've read that gasoline spoils rather quickly - six to twelve months - unless stabilizers are available. Is this true?

The way to store it seems to be in thoroughly sealed containers.

[Purple Haze]

Diesel is a winner here, one can coax all sorts of "fuel" through a diesel.

Wood gas is another tolerant system. Wood, coal, if you can burn it it will run.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

Diesel is a winner here, one can coax all sorts of "fuel" through a diesel.

Wood gas is another tolerant system. Wood, coal, if you can burn it it will run.

Yep. I could see more and more communities switching to steam engines (or, as in Beyond Thunderdome, methane) as things stabilize enough that technical and engineering types don't need to worry about sudden death, every single day -- which they would, eventually.

Good steam engines require good boilers, but if they could produce those in the 19th Century, they can certainly do it in the early 21st, given the tools and techniques that would be available in hardware stores and local libraries.

Again, though, some political stability is a necessary precondition for any improvement in infrastructure (or even market activity beyond simple barter between individuals, really).