01-30-2015, 03:13 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2014
|
Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
I am designing a campaign where the players are part of the second generation of survivors after a nuclear apocalypse. The setting will borrow heavily from the Fallout series. The idea is that they currently in a medium sized town called Junkyard. Junkyard is known for being one of the handful of small towns that were able to survive without joining a larger faction. This is due to Junkyard being built on a massive transportation graveyard. The population used the old vehicles to make defensive walls, armor, and weapons. Junkyard is now a major rest stop on a major trading route.
The game will begin with an all out attack by the largest raider group in the area. Junkyard will fall and the players must band together in order to escape the town and must survive in the wasteland in order to reach the next town. I would like to ask for advice on my ideas for how to run this. The average TL of the setting is TL-6 but this will vary wildly depending on person(even up to TL 10 in specific cases). I will have made a smaller list of the weapons from High-Tech that the players can choose from and will be referencing low tech for armor and weapons as I need to. Martial Arts and Tactical Shooting are also available for rules and additions, mostly for advantages and skills from Martial Arts and the gun modifying rules from Tactical Shooting. Players will build their characters using 150/-30 point array. Characters may have 1 point in a cinematic advantage or skill for every 5 points he has in a related advantage or skill. Note that attributes are also accounted for with this. E.g. a player with 12 points in guns(pistol) and 40 points of increased dexterity could take 2 points of cinematic abilities based on pistols and 8 points of cinematic abilities based on dexterity. This means he could get 10 points of cinematic abilities based on pistols if he wanted. TL: Average TL: 6 Weapon TL: 6(no penalties for using weapons up to TL 10 or for repairing weapons up to TL 8) Armor TL: 6(double cost for armor requiring advanced materials) Transportation TL: 5(some TL 6-7 areas exist) Power TL: 5(can maintain and use but not build up to TL 8) Medicine TL: 6 average but doctors are commonly TL 7-8 Guns: 1) I have multiplied the price of all guns by 4 and I am following the rules for increasing the price as TL increases. A TL 6 gun will be 4x while a TL 8 gun would be 16x. 2) Cost for normal ammo is being multiplied by 8. This is to represent the difficulty of getting good quality ammo. I will offer half off on "cheap" ammo that increases malfunction by 1. 3) As I wish the game to be mildly cinematic in terms of player ability I have divided the damage of all high velocity guns by 2 and given them all an armor divisor of 2. This is so that the players will hopefully survive getting shot by a rifle once while maintaining the gun's power. e.g. 3a) .45 Government has a damage of 2d pi+ and cost of $1,700 / $220 3b) an AK47 does 3d-1(2) pi damage and costs $3,600 / $240 The hope of the above changes is to make melee weapons seem more appealing to the players as weapons as well as to represent the rarity of guns. I feel like there may be some balance issues, e.g. a clip for an AK47 is only $240 while one for a .45 Gov is $220. While the AK costs significantly more to start the 30 rounds are barely more expensive unless this is only the cost for the magazine and not the ammo for it. Would I be simply better off reducing starting money rather than increasing cost of guns? Melee Weapons: Players are able to acquire many melee weapons from low tech. The goal is to make melee weapons feasible in combat by making guns rare and expensive. Armor: Modern armor from high tech will be available but anything that requires advanced materials to make will cost 4x extra on top of the increase from TL as many of the machines used to make them have been lost. Armor from low tech will be available and widely used as it is easier to manufacture. In fact metallic armor from low tech may have double DR or half weight for the same price to represent using salvaged modern metals and alloys. Ultra Tech: Some high tech groups will have access to some TL 9 and 10 stuff. Namely robots, cybernetics, powered armor, and weapons including Gauss, lasers, and mono-blades. Mutations and Cybernetics: Mutations and cybernetics will be a way for players to acquire exotic advantages. Mutations will be limited as you will gain social stigmas or secret disadvantages depending on how obvious the mutations are while not gaining the CP for them. In addition for every 20 points in mutations the player will gain -5 points worth of some mental disadvantage that can go above the normal disadvantage limit. This disadvantage is chosen by both the player and the GM. Acquiring cybernetics costs money and requires the player to have ties to a ultra tech group or have a suitable unusual background. End Goal: Guns are available but melee is a good option. Characters can be shot and 1-3 times and not be simply guaranteed death. Players have access to some fun exotic and cinematic abilities while not going overboard. Make modern and even sci-fi technology rare but still exist and viable. What do you think? Are these rules viable? Am I missing something obvious? How would you build a character with these rules? |
01-30-2015, 03:20 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
|
Re: Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
I'd really bump the point value to 200 or so if you are going to get anything like the typical wasteland survivor. People that wander around after the apocalypse need to be generalists - not specialists. In GURPS this means you need to throw some more points the players way.
__________________
My Twitter My w23 Stuff My Blog Latest GURPS Book: Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves Latest TFT Book: The Sunken Library Become a Patron! |
01-30-2015, 03:26 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
|
Re: Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
Quote:
http://blog.ricecracker.net/2012/12/...-road-warrior/ In other words, you need to think about vehicles. How do people get from one place to another? Do automobiles or old locomotives, exist? What about aircraft, or boats? As for characters, you have a few obvious choices: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/mad-max/...-warrior-photo http://www.roller-mag.com/2012/10/the-gyro-captain.php http://filmladd.com/images/RoadWarrior_23.jpg https://mygeekblasphemy.files.wordpr...virginiaww.jpg https://johnkennethmuir.files.wordpr...nderdome31.jpg https://sweetarchiveblog.files.wordp...o1_r2_1280.jpg https://sweetarchiveblog.files.wordp...me-still15.jpg
__________________
-- MXLP:9 [JD=1, DK=1, DM-M=1, M(FAW)=1, SS=2, Nym=1 (nose coffee), sj=1 (nose cocoa), Maz=1] "Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon. Last edited by tshiggins; 01-30-2015 at 03:38 PM. |
|
01-30-2015, 03:32 PM | #4 | ||||
Join Date: May 2007
|
Re: Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Imagine some form of post-apocalyptic community huddled in the dust. To get a single shot from the community blaster might require dozens of people to pedal foot-operated generators for a week (and I might be optimistic.) That might well limit shoots as well as artificially declaring that guns are less powerful. You could probably justify this by saying the megatech Kill-O-Zap ray guns are two hundred years worn and they waste a lot of energy getting the zap out of the barrel. Have the weapon become too hot to hold after a single shot. (Yeah, it might make no sense from the standpoint of modern science, but by TL-10 everything we now know is wrong.) Have some NPC weapons blow up very dramatically when fired. That'll keep shooting down and make melee weapons much more appealing. Quote:
|
||||
01-30-2015, 03:55 PM | #5 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2014
|
Re: Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
All good suggestions. Thanks for the input. Last edited by Thunderjoe; 01-30-2015 at 04:55 PM. |
|||
01-30-2015, 04:16 PM | #6 | ||||
Join Date: Aug 2014
|
Re: Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
Quote:
Quote:
[QUOTE=fredtheobviouspseudonym;1865427]You could probably justify this by saying the megatech Kill-O-Zap ray guns are two hundred years worn and they waste a lot of energy getting the zap out of the barrel. Have the weapon become too hot to hold after a single shot. (Yeah, it might make no sense from the standpoint of modern science, but by TL-10 everything we now know is wrong.) Have some NPC weapons blow up very dramatically when fired. That'll keep shooting down and make melee weapons much more appealing.Try making a Gauss needle by hand filing. Good luck. Also, after generations the robots might by rather quirky . . . Quote:
Quote:
Thanks for the input on everything but I think you're misunderstanding the setting a little. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Last edited by Thunderjoe; 01-30-2015 at 04:56 PM. |
||||
01-30-2015, 05:11 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
|
Re: Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
And as always, I'm going to recommend *not* doing this and just telling any such players it's a genre convention. When building an unrealistic setting (and let's be honest here, most post-apocalypse settings are fantasy worlds with a coat of paint, certainly any of them that have wasteland motorcycle gangs a generation on are) trying to make the backstory plausible is futile anyway, and spending a lot of word count in it is likely to make people think this is the *important* part of the setting, when that is exactly what it is not supposed to be.
__________________
-- MA Lloyd |
01-31-2015, 01:28 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
|
Re: Post-Apocalypse Wasteland Adventure
Having players cooperate on what kind of genre you are playing is important. Enough of a handwave to justify it and then play the genre.
|
Tags |
high tech, low tech, post apocalyptic |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|