Collaborative Worldbuilding Threads

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Indeed, this could work.

(SNIP)

I have the feeling that putting too many preconditions up front might stymie people a little. I think the most restrictive start we had was the dwarven agriculture thread, and that was fairly open to start with. You could see how it goes though.

Limitations and boundaries make for good drama, and force creative decisions. Moreover, one of the themes of a post-apocalyptic setting is the sense of staggering loss.

Everybody knows they live in a fallen world in which greatness has been squandered; every day is a struggle to survive; and what the elders took for granted, the children can no longer have or do or be.

How does one survive in such a state? What does it take to not give in to despair; to maintain a sense of decency and ethics; to find the strength to create and defend communities, and at least start to rebuild?

(Alternatively, you just ignore all that and play some version of Gamma World, which is just Dungeon Fantasy reskinned. Psionics substitute for magic, races are "mutants," and ancient technology that, amazingly, still functions substitutes for the magical treasure. The PCs may be "wasteland wanderers" instead of "dungeon delvers," but they're still just murder-hoboes.)

If magical high-tech just spawns in ("Oo! A TL 10 3D printer with an attached fusion plant, located next to a massive landfill that has 200 years of raw materials of all sorts!"), then it's no more a "post-apocalyptic survival" game than Star Trek or Buck Rogers.

After all, Trek and Rogers both took place after terrible wars had destroyed civilizations, so they're technically "post-apocalyptic" settings, right? (Not)