Post-Apocalyptic Settlement Builder

[Minuteman37]

Disclaimer: I'm suffering from a deadly case of writers block so if this sounds like I'm rambling or I don't know how to say this you're probably right.

Ok so let's say I'm going to run a post-apoc game and my players want to design there own settlement* and I want to build this settlement like a character with it's own pros and cons that the PCs will have to sort through and make tough decisions about. How would you go about presenting these decisions in a mechanical way? For starters I've already concluded that the TL and Environment of the Settlement play two very big rolls in the game, but I could deferentially use some help flushing out these ideas like how to balance certain options against each other.


*Yes I know I made a similar thread about managing a settlement, but in this situation I'll be handling that off screen. This is more about the environment that the PCs will be interacting with and the advantages and disadvantages it has.

[(E)]

The older 4X games had population, industry, food and (money, tech, happiness) as agrigates of terrain, population, technology and infrastructure.

[chandley]

Seems like this is a job for GURPS: City Stats, no?

[ericthered]

This is kind of a rules-light approach, but design a base settlement, and then ask the players to tweak it. For every positive direction they take it in, they have to have a corresponding negative direction. They may want a larger population, but they have to come up with a negative: perhaps adding corruption in their law enforcement, deciding they don't need as strong of a technological base, or adding a rival settlement with bad relations competing for the same resources.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by ericthered

This is kind of a rules-light approach, but design a base settlement, and then ask the players to tweak it. For every positive direction they take it in, they have to have a corresponding negative direction. They may want a larger population, but they have to come up with a negative: perhaps adding corruption in their law enforcement, deciding they don't need as strong of a technological base, or adding a rival settlement with bad relations competing for the same resources.

I thought about that, but not all positives and negative are created equally. Going from TL 4 to 5 is a much bigger advantage then then a reasonably corrupt police force is a disadvantage.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

I thought about that, but not all positives and negative are created equally. Going from TL 4 to 5 is a much bigger advantage then then a reasonably corrupt police force is a disadvantage.

Yes, note I said corresponding negative. You don't turn the players loose, you do it as a negotiating process where they make offers and you accept them or say that its too big of a negative. You've got to trust your bargaining ability for that one though.

In the above example, you could say "That's not enough. Perhaps if community is an oppressive regime or if you have both a corrupt police force and a serious linguistic or cultural divide."