Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

That's a very astute observation. The railroad upset the precedence for large cities only on the river.

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

I wouldn't consider "scale" to be the critical question. Rather, it's the difference between focus on immediate survival, and having the option of longer-term planning.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

1. The apocalypse must be plausible. If the world nearly ends but did not, who survived and why should make some sense when the backstory is understood. PCs may not know all the details, but it's important that the parts of the world that survived are well chosen by the GM.

2. The former greatness of man and how far society has fallen needs to be shown. Technology should be less available, but it doesn't have to all be in ruins. The creepiness of Will Smith going to closed video stores and other venues in the film I Am Legend is more disturbing than the biker gang dystopias of Mad Max and Water World.

3. A sense of isolation is important (that's in point 2 as well). The PCs are trying to survive in a world where they have few friends, if any. Civilization isn't there to lift people up and there are very few safe havens, so the PCs feel like the world is hostile.

4. Humanity fighting humanity. People are people and if a post-apocalyptic setting was a true utopia, it would be boring. Of course, a false utopia where most people don't fight could be interesting. . .

5. Man against nature. Nature could be changed by man's stupidity and become more hostile, or man could, having lost his technology, have difficulty since he is so far from nature and must readjust.

I'd also prefer a post-apocalpytic society with hope for rebuilding. That may be unrealistic, but a game where the PCs have a very limited shot to win isn't particularly fun to run or play in. Again, the log cabin or empire question is a matter of scale on that question. Rebuilding a small area is more gritty and realistic while the empire seems more high fantasy or cinematic.

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

I like all of your ideas. I think where I gave wrong before is in making things too bleak. It's easy to get carried away with destruction, however vicarious it may be.

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

Thing is, I personally feel that any chance of long term survival rests solely on rebuilding a society. It's a strong enough personal prejudice that any character I play is probably gonna feel that way as well. I'm going to seek out survivors and try to rebuild. I mean, if there's enough people for a group of PCs, I assume that there's other survivors. And if there aren't and we're the last ones left? Thats depressing as hell and I probably wouldn't want to play in a game like that.

I think a post-apoc game is ripe for a focused location game, where the players are going out from a central "home" location to find resources. You can have a consistent cast of NPCs that the players can care about and have a stake in the survival of. I'd take advantage of that opportunity, if I was running it.

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

Another big consideration is time - How long has it been since the apocalypse?

The most obvious choices I see are
1) Not that long ago, all characters are fully familiar with life before, and
the new society is just beginning to develop.
2) Twenty years or so before - players can choose adult characters who have grown up since the apocalypse or characters who grew up before the apocalypse, but are not yet too old to adventure.
3) Fifty years or so ago - all player characters, and most of their parents, have grown up since the apocalypse, but a few elderly tribe members still remember life before.
4) A century or more ago. No one remembers life before, but objects from that era are still available, and a few still function.
5) A thousand years or more ago. At this point your game is barely a post-apocalyptic game because, baring improbable technology, very few remnants of the time before will still exist. Instead you've got a historical setting with odd bits of plastic.

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

If it's more than a few hundred years in the future, I'd have problems with SoD if we were still relying on leftover tech instead of rapidly rebuilding society, unless everyone got knocked back to the stone age, somehow.

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

That would likely be a reason to play such a campaign, but a number of important side issues could come up just as common RPG tropes. Rescue a PC's sister (fair maiden) or recover a hidden cache (buried treasure) or kill a nasty roving gang (orcs), etc. This is likely to have all of the elements of a "normal" rpg as any other setting, with the added element of rebuilding a once lost civilization.

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

GURPS Y2K has some interetsing ideas for a post-apocalyptic game and how the apo came a along, be it war, plague or a world wide computer failure.

Also, note that the apocalypse doesn't have to happen to our modern world, a post-apocalyptic game in a fantasy or science-fiction world could also be interesting, even historical settings offer possibilities (the Dark Age of Europe after the Fall of Rome for example).

Re: Post-Apocalypse Campaign
 

What caused the apocalypse and how can we keep it from happening again?

If you want meta-plot, that is.