Post-Apocalyptic Games

[MGibster]

The original game had no specific setup of getting to a port. The last message from the CO was just, "You're on your own. Good luck."

Twilight 2000 was one of those games I'd see at the hobby shop but not one I or any of my friends ever played. The closest we ever came to a modern military game were a few aborted efforts at Delta Force: America Strikes Back! from Task Force Games. I tried convicing a friend of mine to run Delta Force but introduce zombies but he thought it was a stupid idea. Given the zombie craze from a few years back, who's stupid now, Chris?

Anyway, it looks like 4th edition has pretty much the same set up except it also has resources for characters to start in Sweden instead of Poland. Probably because Free Leauge is based out of Poland. I think this version still has the "good luck" start with any hopes of a fleet sailing back to America being a rumor.

It uses hex system 30m across, which requires either the handful of tactical maps available for the game, or a house-ruled system. They try to fix that issue in the urban combat expansion, but it is clumsy.

I've read the rules but don't remember specifics about weapons. One thing I was unsure about was the 30m hexes which struck me as being simultaneously too detailed and not detailed enough. i.e. Positioning is abstract for an individual soldier but I still need to concern myself with facing and terrain.

 

[MGibster]

For something a little different, there is Cthulhu Apocalpse from Pelgrane Press. This has an interesting twist in that you've got Cthulhu ending the world and it happens in 1936. I don't know if I've ever seen an apocalyptic survival game set in the past before.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I've read the rules but don't remember specifics about weapons. One thing I was unsure about was the 30m hexes which struck me as being simultaneously too detailed and not detailed enough. i.e. Positioning is abstract for an individual soldier but I still need to concern myself with facing and terrain.

Exactly. The rules have a high level of detail, especially for the effects of cover, but the actual fighting is done in theater of mind. It is a crippling effect on play; I had to abandon that aspect. Also, you get one Fast and one Slow action per round, or two Slow, but there is no common sense aspect to this; specific undertakings are scattered between the two types with zero underlying logic, so once again, multiple charts and paragraphs must come into play.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Atomic Highway looks interesting, but I would be interested in the setting more than the mechanics you describe, which seem to lack of the level of detail I prefer. Fairly realistic with options for gonzo sounds great though. I will look into it.

How do you feel about Savage Worlds? There's a SW product called Broken Earth that isn't bad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How do you feel about Savage Worlds? There's a SW product called Broken Earth that isn't bad.

Just bought Broken Earth on Drive-thru, so I'll have to let you know.

 

[Electricdiver]

Back in the day I bought Aftermath when it first came out and used the rules for a while, it’s a complex system. I still have the metal D30 !!
At the same time I was also running a Traveller Sci-Fi game but had converted that game to use the Hero System Rules. I then did a conversion (well everyone created new characters based around their original Aftermath characters) of Aftermath to Hero System Rules and went in from there using Aftermath as our source book. It allowed me to play with zombie/mutant style humans and creatures as well a humans for the PCs the play against. They never knew what I might throw at them next.
All that played were Mad Max 1 fans so I ran a Mad Max, Steel Dawn, Walking Dead world where the main PCs played the cops trying to hold onto humanity and looking for survivors.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

...and went in from there using Aftermath as our source book.

As I suggested in my earlier post, that may be the best use of Aftermath. Find a more user-friendly game engine and play in the setting, which is pretty good as nuclear apocalypse scenarios go. A little dated maybe, but setting WW3 in the 80s is easy enough and feels weirdly appropriate. Heck, by 2024 any survivors might actually be on the road to a shaky (albeit urealistic) recovery of sorts.

I can't speak for the more modern "final impact" setting, unfortunately. Don't suppose you've tried it?

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

For something a little different, there is Cthulhu Apocalpse from Pelgrane Press. This has an interesting twist in that you've got Cthulhu ending the world and it happens in 1936. I don't know if I've ever seen an apocalyptic survival game set in the past before.

I've seen zombie apocalypse settings set in historical eras as far back as the Roman Empire (yes, starting a few weeks after Christ gets nailed to a cross), and I think there's a Mythos-related one in the same period as well from...maybe Osprey? But none of those were whole books to themselves, just campaign seeds. Pretty sure there's at least one and possibly several post-Ragnarok semi-historicals games out there too, as well as "bad guys won" pure fantasy settings.

Played in a semi-historical GURPS homebrew where multiple simultaneous Vesuvius-grade eruptions essentially destroyed Mediterranean civilization (massive famine from crop failures, tsunamis, collapse of trade, unburied corpses leading to plague, etc.) and we were survivors. Given how much smaller the ancient world effectively was to most of its residents, what we'd call a regional catastrophe today fills in as an apocalypse scenario just fine. Certainly some potential for early apocalypses, and if you want to go explicitly magical you can blame the pre-ethical pantheon(s) of your choice.

 

[Umbran]

Note that the charts and equipment are not duplications from the PG/RG - the tables are only in the charts books. So you've elided 10% of the rules pagecount out with "some charts"...

That 10% is still just a handful of pages.
The point is that the modern D&D PHB is 316+ pages.
The 1e PHB was 128, DMG 240 pages, for a total of 368. The original Twilight 2000, player + referee's book, plus the charts you want given emphasis, was on the order of 65 pages. So, I think my characterization of "slim game" still holds.

I am not including the starting adventure & handouts, to keep the comparison more apples to apples.

 

[Belen]

Good morning folks. My wife and I were watching the 2006 show  Jericho last night and both of us thought it would be great to start a post-apocalyptic campaign, as it's a genre we're both very interested in. As a fan of traditional gaming and a believer in the idea that someone somewhere has done a lot of my work so I'll have a good base from which to build my campaign, I am asking: does anyone have suggestions on post-apocalyptic games and/or settings? I am specifically not looking for games with a narrativist style or a strong lean on narrative or "storygame" mechanics (and please understand this is not a request to debate what those terms technically mean; at this point I think most folks around here know what I mean by them even if you don't agree), so something like Apocalypse World would not be appropriate. I would also like to avoid anything that requires a lot of re-flavoring to look right, although I could potentially be talked into some. A setting using or convertible to 5e would be easiest on my players, but I'm willing to go outside that for what would otherwise be a better option.

Thanks in advance.

Everyday Heroes would be my choice. It is basically a d20 modern version of 5e. It is a really nice set of rules. I placed the link for the game below.

Evil Genius Games

evilgeniusgames.com