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Old 12-01-2008, 10:47 AM   #31
Johnny Angel
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Pennsylvania
Default Re: New to GURPs; not sure where to start

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc
If it really bothers you, don't put it on the racial templates. Or let them buy it off freely as suggested upthread.



Sounds like you want a pessimistic take on the Peak Oil Crisis. Total anarchy in the Third World, but modern industrial nations more-or-less keep their feces together with lots of food riots, uninvestigated murders, and other small-scale civil unrest, plus greatly reduced capacity for international force projection, but also enough hoarded fuel for what's left of the armed forces (PC Alert) to prevent an easy coup by angry civilian rebels a couple more skipped meals and long walks in the sun away from Mad Max Land (PC Alert; hockey masks optional), and some bold, square-jawed scientists (PC Alert) desperately trying to get energy alternatives online (details varying widely from new fission plants to technobabble pixie dust that can preserve Car Culture depending on how much sci fi you want here) and modernize the infrastructure to handle it while there's still time and resources.



Careful with this one, especially in a dark, violent campaign. Some players can handle seeing Idealized Self take a bullet to the head and some can't.
Some of my motivation comes from current events and asking myself what would happen if a large enough group just finally decided they just weren't happy with the leadership of the country. At the same time, perhaps a few other things happen to cause the situation to spin out of control. A rival country secretly funds the uprising or (if I mix in some sci-fi) some sort of zombies or other such creature causes a widespread problem. Basically it would be a scenario in which everything bad that could possibly happen would happen at the same time and spark a bad situation. Mad Max would most likely be what I would look to for some inspiration, but it wouldn't be quite that out of control yet. It would probably be similar to how I imagine the world of Mad Max was when things first started to go downhill. Looking back across what I just typed, I'd probably stay away from zombies or anything like that in such a scenario unless one of the players expressed an interest in such things. Mainly, aside from Mad Max, another movie which would give me some inspiration would be The Warriors.

You brought up a good point about people not dealing with dying very well. I'm just trying to figure out a way to base things on local areas so that I have more things they can relate to while learning a new set of rules.
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