Immediately After The End

[scc]

So how do you set up and run games Immediately After The End? Like the bombs have stopped dropping and the situation has stabilized long enough to let everyone out of the Vaults (And/or the food has run out). Or in my case everyone's starved to death (crop failure and famine in parts of Africa causes the rest of Africa to be flooded with refugees causes famine there causing still more refugees, etc. until everywhere is in famine).

ATE 2 has a few words to say on this, mainly that it's out of scope, but that's more referring to an apocalypse still in progress situation, where it might be possible to restore the old society, which isn't quite what I'm looking at.

I can see several different types of groups that might be around:

Government bunkers: Well equipped, but possibly not the best manned, especially in a democracy.

Private bunkers: Equipment varies as does personal.

Holdout communities: Worst equipment but functioning economy means they will at least have a food supply.

[Varyon]

AtE assumes you're in a Wasteland (with some settlements) rather than a properly-settled location, which works fine for "Immediately After the End." It also assumes somewhat-established customs, economy (based on bullets), etc, which won't be the case for IAtE - an IAtE setting is going to involve establishing those customs.

I think AtE should be usable more-or-less as-is for an IAtE setting; probably about the only changes would be much more variable pricing (and different groups using different types of currency - or there not really being a stand-in for currency, with everything revolving around bartering) and a lack of established frontier towns. It may also be harder to justify your character being skilled at wasteland survival when they grew up in an underground bunker, of course. A benefit to the characters in an IAtE setting is that they're likely the first humans to visit any given area, meaning plentiful loot for scrounging up. A drawback is that they may not be able to identify high-value loot as readily, because there's no established pricing.

[ericthered]

I'm currently running one crossed with an infinite worlds game.

I started the game on day one (the 26 September 1983 false nuclear alarm incident) The situation has not stabilized. 50% of the population is still alive, but if the food situation isn't dealt with, that won't be true in two years. Every major transportation network has been cut at their hubs and ports. communication networks are either ad-hoc or confined to local areas. The radiation isn't lethal across broad swathes of the country, and by February, where we are, radiation is tolerable outside of the craters. Most people are still walking around.



We've got a movement called "Legacy" that encourages people to give up their chance at surviving to give others a better chance. Large chunks of government, especially local, are still walking around. And there are rumbling of gangs and militias getting ready for the showdown when the food fails.



Of course, without the "Infinite worlds" part of the game, a big chunk of people are still going to die. I wouldn't run the game without that out, because survival of the starvation phase amounts to "Pick and in-group and fight everyone else." As it stands, the PC's have a good chance of saving the half of the world that is left.

[Pursuivant]

Also consider isolated areas that are too far away for refugees to reasonably get to, but which are still reasonably well equipped. This might apply to certain rural communities in North America or Central Asia and certain island communities.

A big thing to consider is whether "The End" happens quickly or slowly.

Very fast onset disasters (e.g., giant meteor strikes, alpha strike nuclear warfare) happen so fast they pin most of Earth's population in place, limiting refugee evacuations. That means casualties spike immediately either from the initial disaster or social breakdown in the immediate aftermath. Because most infrastructure is wiped out it limits population movement.

Slow onset disasters (e.g., runaway global warming) which happen over years or decades might allow refugees to initially flee the hardest-hit areas, but also strand lots of people once their resources ran out. People might flee cities for small towns or even private survivalist bolt-holes, but as the disaster continues they're stuck. Many people will be forced into refugee camps or the equivalent where they might (mostly) die as conditions get worse. This scenario is also true for knock-on effects of the primary disaster or just multiple disasters in sequence.

In either case, you have to figure out how much of Earth's population is immediately killed, how much is displaced and how much dies as a result of the displacement. Deaths continue until the human (or whatever) population is reduced to some sustainable level given local resources.

Slow-moving migrations by the worlds' poorest and most vulnerable people are less likely to overwhelm the entire globe because you've got entire populations of increasingly malnourished people moving on foot, probably with limited access to water and exponentially increasing levels of "diseases of poverty" such as dysentery or typhus. A major geological barrier like a desert, mountain range or ocean will stop the migration in its tracks.

Assume that a well-equipped industrialized society might be two to three weeks away from serious social disruptions if one or more of the transport, food or fuel distribution networks is disrupted. After that, you might have a few more weeks or months of people sort of being able to survive on reserves although you'll get massive mortality among society's weakest and most vulnerable people (e.g., seriously mentally ill and/or elderly, people who are dependent on life-saving maintenance drugs or medical procedures).

In a poorer society, things will get nasty very fast, with the poorest people starting to die of starvation within 6 weeks of serious shortages. Collapse of sanitation or water treatment systems, especially in hot weather, will bring on endemic disease within a few weeks. That will elevate mortality rates.

If you want really grim RL examples, take a look at failed states like Haiti or the states in the Horn of Africa. For examples of how an industrialized society might break down, take a look at the events of 1917-1919 in Russia or Germany. For artificially-created societal disruptions which result in mass mortality, look at the Holodomor in 1930s Ukraine or the Indian Famine of 1943.

[seasalt]

Even if the level of devastation is very high, such as from a nuclear exchange, an "immediately after the end" setting is going to be unavoidably dominated by large, hierarchical and militarized factions. The military is the last part of any society to disintegrate in a situation like this.

It's less friendly to traditional "Max Max" post apocalyptic roleplaying, because while a group of motley heroes can hold off a gang of a couple dozen punk raiders with mohawks, they can't really do much against a mechanized infantry company sent to "forage" (i.e. loot, pillage, rape, enslave, and kill anybody who seems troublesome) settlements.

It could definitely be interesting, but any small group of player characters, if independent from a larger organization, would have to rely much more on deception, disguise, and stealth. They'd be sort of a cross between classic post-apocalyptic disaster scavengers and real-world insurgents. Unless, of course, they're a team of scouts working for a larger force, whose job consists in tracking down the more stereotypical "mohawked looters".

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by seasalt

The military is the last part of any society to disintegrate in a situation like this.

Well led, equipped and motivated units will be some of the last units to crumble. Badly led, poorly-supplied troops with low morale will desert the moment things get tough. The relatively decent soldiers will go home and try to defend their communities, the worst will form bandit gangs.

[Anthony]

What you wind up with immediately after the end depends a lot on the destruction patterns of the end -- what, if any, organizations survive depends on how it was determined who would die.

In general the best way to produce traditional 'after the end' imagery is an effect that is more dangerous to larger groups, because it will efficiently take out most of the groups that you'd normally expect to take control in the aftermath. It's particularly helpful if it's an ongoing effect, because it will keep communities small and largely prevent the formation of a critical mass of capabilities that might manage to take control.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Anthony

(SNIP)

In general the best way to produce traditional 'after the end' imagery is an effect that is more dangerous to larger groups, because it will efficiently take out most of the groups that you'd normally expect to take control in the aftermath. It's particularly helpful if it's an ongoing effect, because it will keep communities small and largely prevent the formation of a critical mass of capabilities that might manage to take control.

A "Last of Us" cordycepts mutation actually works pretty well for this, as would many other "infection" scenarios.

The last place you want to be in the cordycepts scenario is in a well-equipped bunker with plenty of skilled personnel, some of whom made pancakes or biscuits for breakfast, that morning. 8/