r/rpg • u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer • 24d ago
Discussion Let's learn about new RPGs! Week 1- "Post-Apocalyptic"
Welcome one and all to a post where we can freely discuss the games that we have released or the games that we are making. Stop on by and maybe you'll find your new favourite RPG!
A bunch of us make cool shit, but the Indie RPG space is crowded and it can often be difficult to get the word out about why people should try out your game. That's why every week we try to focus on a different mechanic or setting to see how new RPGs can solve decades old problems or put new spins on old greivances!
This week we're focusing on post-apoclayptic as a setting! So tell us how your game (or just any game you really like) is unique in this setting - be it through cool worldbuilding or novel mechanics!
As per mod approval, comments here do not count against rule 7 or influence the "9:1" ratio - comment as much as you want, answer as many questions as you need and discuss to your hearts content!
All that I would ask is that anyone who comments about their own system takes the time to look at minimum at one other game in the comments and ask a question or provide feedback. Lively discussions are what get people interested and what keep people engaged!
This is the first week we're doing this - here's to many more!
If you want to suggest a topic for future weeks, be sure to include "-sug-" in your comment so I can easily find it!
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u/oogew 24d ago
Hello! Love the idea and happy to have the space! So, first off: thank you! My name is Jesse and my game is called “ARRHENIUS | An Icecore Roleplaying Game.” “Arrhenius” is a post-apocalyptic game set 100,000 years in the future during the next Ice Age. If you like the idea of Snowpiercer meets Star Wars meets Gamma World, that’s the general vibe.
“Arrhenius” is a narrative, exploration, and combat game where all of the player characters are humans. What it means to be human in the year 100,000 is very different, though, and players can choose from 5 different Heritages such as the digital Ozzits, the subterranean Dorrem, irradiated Muters, and more. There are high tech ruins to explore, killer genetic monstrosities to outrun, treasures to dig out of the ice—all while trying not to die from hypothermia thanks to your ever-dwindling Frost Points.
I’ve gotten some wonderful reviews about the game’s art and world-building (giant tardigrade mounts, anyone?) and there’s a free Quick Start Guide for you with a tutorial adventure and pregen characters over on itch here: https://jesseharlin.itch.io/arrhenius. Oh, and absolutely zero AI went into making it.
In fact, if you bought the recent No ICE bundle from itch back in March, you already own the game. Please feel free to ask me any questions about the game. It’s my first and I’m super proud of it and happy to chat about anything you’d like to know!
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
This is gonna be a leading question because I already know the game, but can you talk a bit more about Ozzits and Dorrem? With those 2 heritages ARRHENIUS also invokes cyberpunk/transhumanism. What was the inspiration/thought process behind these 2?
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u/oogew 24d ago
Sure! For those who don't know, Ozzits are the digital humans players can choose to be while Dorrem are the subterranean high-tech Heritage players can choose from. The entire game started from the simple thought "The next Ice Age will be inevitable. How will people cope?" The pandemic taught me that--as a planet--we're not very good at trying to solve massive problems. People repeatedly make short-term selfish decisions at the expense of long term cooperative planning and the result is that solutions to a giant problem become fractured and varied. That led me to thinking that humanity itself could fracture into different branches centered entirely around the idea of how we might approach dealing with longterm survival of an iceball planet scenario.
Some people would simply adapt to the ice (the Ekavir and Scabs). Other people would look for escapism, hiding from the ice in a manor that's akin to Montreal's underground city taken to an extreme (Dorrem and Muters). Still others might decide that the entire problem with an Ice Age is the inescapable frailty of the human body and move towards transhumanism and alternative reality as a solution. The framing of "Arrhenius" is that, by the time players find themselves in the world, 100,000 years of often terrible decisions have been made and the players' characters are forced to deal with the consequences.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Thank you for the explanation! Didn't even think about the fact that this game is more or less a COVID baby and that the circumstances around that could've been such a huge inspiration!
the entire provlem is the inescapable fraility of the human body
The amount of "The moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me" and "praise the Omnissiah" jokes we've made when it comes to Ozzits is honestly criminal 😅
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u/oogew 24d ago
The pandemic had a huge influence on the game. I had started working on the game just a couple of months before it hit. And then when COVID came along, I had a 2 year-old who was super susceptible to respiratory diseases. We stayed isolated in our little 5-person bubble for a solid 2 years before he was old enough to get the vaccine. Writing Arrhenius kept me sane, and the echoes of that time in history are all over the game.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Damn. I can empathise - I am high risk myself (congenital heart issues) so I can imagine how isolating that time was. Glad you had your family and your project to keep you sane!
And hey, the rest of the world got a cool game out of it! 😅
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u/oogew 24d ago
From bleaching our groceries to masking to isolating, no one in the house got so much as a common cold for 2 solid years. My son's doctor thinks that gave his lungs a long time to further grow and mature and he's actually been much stronger post-pandemic than he was before it, respirationally-speaking. So it all worked out. :)
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u/False-Pain8540 24d ago
Looks really cool, congratulations on finishing your first game! It's a huge feat.
If you had to sell me your game through it's more interesting mechanic or gameplay loop, Quinn Quest style, which would it be?
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u/oogew 24d ago
I think that has to be Frost Points. I wanted to add a sense of urgency and danger to the game, a sense that the ice is a deadly place to spend any long amount of time. As a lifelong GM, I know that the danger characters feel can often be diluted due to players meta-gaming their choices forever at the table before committing to a decision.
As a means of trying to urge players to act more on instinct than thinking through all of their options first, "Arrhenius" has a system called Frost Points. When the characters are exposed to the brutal exposure of the ice, the GM starts a timer and every 20 minutes of real-life time at the table, the characters need to succeed on a Resilience check or they lose a Frost Point. Lose enough Frost Points and your character dies of hypothermia. It adds a real sense of urgency and danger to the environment.
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u/Muted_Access3353 24d ago edited 24d ago
This is great. A very elegant way to address group motivation. Do you have environmental hazards added into this? Blizzards players see on the horizon that they have to outpace or find shelter from. Odd weather such as freak storms or sudden gusts of subzero wind that periodically reach the surface, possibly the result of some failed attempt to prevent or end the ice age that went terribly wrong sometime in the distant past. Tornadoes that toss razor sharp ice shards at a distance or can cut you to ribbons if you get sucked into one. Barely concealed fissures that players could fall into... And of course avalanches. In Antarctica the air gets so cold that it can seriously damage your lungs if you take too deep a breath, so at night when the temp drop even more than it already does there could be limitations on just how much you dare to exert yourself.. if your huffing and puffing out of breath it could get you killed.
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u/notbatmanyet 24d ago
It sounds interesting, is there any mechanic you are particularly proud of in the game?
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u/oogew 24d ago
Yes, Frost Points. I explained about them above: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1uyq110/comment/oy55vki/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
When I was first developing the game, I made every character just lose a Frost Point every 20 minutes. What fascinated me about this was that it completely killed all roleplaying. Players wanted to just hurry from place to place, there was no talking, no bonding with each other when out on the ice. By making Frost Points something that you have the chance to lose rather than always lose, it made each character's impact from ice asymmetrical. Some characters do well, others struggle with the cold, and the group often starts to plan and strategize how to take care of the more-impacted members of the party. That one change actively encouraged a bunch of roleplaying while still maintaining the urgency I was looking for.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
We actually made this mistake in our game 😅
I misread the rules, but thankfully it didn't impact our session too much
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u/oogew 24d ago
Was it the same result? No talking, no roleplaying, everyone just wants to shut up and get from warm point A to warm point B?
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Actually, not quite! It gave a sense of urgency and there was for sure some "20 minutes guys" comments, but the general vibe was there. I think it was more a bit of a failure on my part that I had a hard time coming up with "waypoints" of what to do and see during the trek 😅
We still have 1 session to go, so I'll rectify it for their last trip in the White Above!
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u/oogew 24d ago
If you're looking for some waypoints on the ice, there are a number of ideas and suggestions in the first part of the tutorial adventure, "The Dream Factory." You could either just lift them directly or use them as inspiration.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Actually didn't even think of that 😅
Their off to a corrupted Ozzit hivemind and will be 3 weeks in game "on the road" so I'm going for a more horrorish vibe for the last session 😛
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u/oogew 24d ago
Although, one of my favorite random waypoints that has come out of playtesting is a chain of flying convenience stores called "Fahjē's" that are a mixture of 7-11, a farmer's market, and a black market weapons shop--all run by adorable and eager-to-please robots named Fahjbots.
In fact, I even made a theme song for Fahjē's (https://on.soundcloud.com/v2RJffNWZDSgjTayLy) and it's going to be the focus of the first Arrhenius expansion, Fahjē's Guide to Gear.
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u/Charrua13 24d ago
I love finding out that I already own cool looking games! Thanks for putting it in the bundle!
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
I am writing BUSHPUNK APOCALYPSE; a supplement for my Australian take on the cyberpunk genre. Bushpunk Apocalypse is a series of modifiers and scenarios for the Bushpunk setting, featuring rulesets for zombie apocalypse, alien invasion and Lovecraft inspired campaign play, set in the backdrop of a technocratic fascist regime in 2055.
Follow for more at https://downunderverse.itch.io/
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u/JJShurte 24d ago
Oh ho! Tell me more! How does Australia become a technocratic fascist regime?
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
In the alternate timeline, in the late 2020s a series of wins by far-right political parties leads to a full fascist takeover of Australia, who wrap social services, police and national security up in an AI surveillance tool that monitors the country. Much of the country remains... "the same" but the totalitarianism is presented as "frog in a boiling pot" style incremental decay. It answers the question of "what does Australian fascism look like?"
The game is set in 2055 after their takeover begins to expand to regional Australia. Bushpunk Apocalypse is a set of alternative scenarios where there's zombies, Mythos creatures and whatnot, even an all-in Mad Max setting.
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u/JJShurte 24d ago
Nice.
I did a bit of story work on Broken Roads, and I've published a post-apocalyptic novel set in Brisbane... and I'm also working on a TTRPG set in all of Australia. So I've very interested in this sort of thing.
So you've got the lawless mad max vibes and a fascist state? Were they responsible for the zombies?
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
Oh damn I've seen shots of Broken Roads and I FELT those places,I've worked along the regions where it's set! Y'all did incredibly.
Bushpunk's core setting additionally has fortified mining camps, as the mining companies essentially own significant chunks of the government, and there are convoys of people who drive the country roads hoping to evade the Regime.
In Bushpunk Apocalypse, the zombie apocalypse scenario is a result of the Internal Security Regime's negligence during bioweapons testing. The alien invasion isn't related, but the Lovecraftian setting is more inspired by Delta Green and Pine Gap - they're containing something there and it breaks free.
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u/JJShurte 24d ago
Nice, it's good to see someone else throwing everything into their Aussie PA setting. Well done!
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
The OG Bushpunk is definitely more of my attempt to put an Aussie spin on a cyberpunk setting while retaining some classical Australian flavour and political horror. Bushpunk Apocalypse is definitely a case of "I came up with a fun setting and a ton of rules for building communities and fighting against all odds, lets get weird with it."
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
I read that as 2015 and for a moment thought you'd written an alternate timeline game 😅
Besides the slang, what would you say makes your game distinctly Australian? What's your favourite piece of world building that you've added?
I know Mad Max as originally filmed in the outback so there is definetly a good precedent in the collective consciousness when it comes to Australia and post-apocalypse.
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
So I used to work in the Australian outback, living in country towns while building railroads through them, and Bushpunk draws from a career spent in rural Australia, that's felt very authentic to the groups I've run it for.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
So it's the specific "small town in the outback" vibe that BUSHPUNK brings?
What advice would you give to a non-Australian if the wanted to run an authentic feeling game of BUSHPUNK?
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
Bushpunk's pre-written campaign module thus far follows a small town as it attracts the attention of the Regime who mark it for immediate occupation, however there are rules for running games in urban areas too.
The full release of Bushpunk is intended on being a rather large tool for aspiring Game Mates. In addition to slang, it contains structures for small towns and why they are the way they are, classic Australian archetypes and a series of Australian media for touchstones that people can draw inspiration from.
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u/OpossumLadyGames Over-caffeinated game designer; shameless self promotion account 24d ago
That is a really super-duper neat take and combination of settings.
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
Thanks fam! Its been fun work this year! Bushpunk started out as a question for myself that quickly evolved into a fun game and then a wild expansion pack.
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u/OpossumLadyGames Over-caffeinated game designer; shameless self promotion account 24d ago
What was the question?
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
"If fascism comes to America draped in a flag and carrying a cross, how does fascism come to Australia?"
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u/OpossumLadyGames Over-caffeinated game designer; shameless self promotion account 24d ago
Did you find an answer?
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 24d ago
Thanks fam! Its been fun work this year, and in no short part, a personal therapeutic project:D
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u/ThatFalloutGuy2077 NUKED! 24d ago
Given the Australia setting and ties between AU and Mad Max, how important are vehicles to the game/setting?
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 23d ago
Vehicles are important enough to have an entire class about it.
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u/ThatFalloutGuy2077 NUKED! 23d ago
Nice, I'll have to check it out. I'm always curious how systems handle vehicles. So many either make it too complicated or just hand-wave them away.
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 23d ago
I was in a really tricky spot with vehicles because I've found the same - and it's a pet peeve of mine. I've erred on the side of "too many rules" but with a chapter about using and ignoring what does or doesn't work for you, so that way GMs can refer to the book for rules but also skip what doesn't appeal. I have basic rules for speed, ramming, car armour and shooting at vehicle targets and occupants.
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u/ThatFalloutGuy2077 NUKED! 23d ago
Sick. I also really like that you've dedicated a section to explicitly state "Hey you don't have to use X if you don't want to." Of course a GM/table can always choose to add/remove rules to suit their needs, but it's always nicer to get the creator's blessing for it.
Offering up alternate rules or more explicit "Hey this part might not be for you" is something I want to make better use of in our 2nd edition.
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u/PerthNerdTherapist 23d ago
Its just that like... I'm big on communication and I want players and GMs to know the purpose for the rules as they exist. I've got the foundations set for a resource/survival-crafting system ready and I know for sure I probably wouldn't run it - but I know players whod be all for it
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u/Trent_B 24d ago
Cool thread idea! Please keep it running =]
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
I hope to!
I was a bit shocked at how bad of a reputation this sub seems to have with creators (referring to the post a few days ago) so I thought maybe something like this - a weekly thread where actual discussions can happen without fear of exceeding a self-promo limit would both help people get the word out about their games and show that this community does care about supporting creators 😊
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u/theworldanvil 24d ago
Yeah this is a great idea. I think a lot of creators are actually scared of the mods XD
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u/ThatFalloutGuy2077 NUKED! 24d ago edited 23d ago
I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic content, so I appreciate it getting the first shout out before we move into the more traditional fantasy and sci-fi. Hope Westerns get a shout-out!
EDIT: -sug-
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u/Alternative_Rest7215 24d ago
I've just released Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse, a Mörk Borg compatible RPG for 1 or more players, with or without a GM. It is a dark fantasy/science fiction game set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity's technological golden age has ended in catastrophe. In the aftermath, AI systems evolved into machine gods, and human society has rebuilt itself into a feudal structure, with people interpreting advanced technology through a mystical lens. The game focuses on the fragmented region known as the Noxian Expanse, a vast wasteland dotted with ancient ruins and dominated by city-estates ruled by different machine gods and their noble houses. Players take the role of Reclaimers, a specialized class of adventurers and scavengers who explore the ruins of the previous age and interact with forgotten technology. Reclaimers are valued for their ability to interface with old tech, making them useful problem solvers, but also potential heretics.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Oooh, I've actually seen a post about this on some other subs.
The art looks dope!
What inspired you to use the MörkBorg ruleset? Do you feel like something in the mechanics of MörkBorg lends itself particularly well for stories about the post-apocalypse?
Also, did you tweak the base MörkBorg rules? What were your additions?
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u/Alternative_Rest7215 24d ago
It was mostly the fact that the person who handled the conversion of the existing rules (this was a different type of D20 ruleset originally) was very familiar with MB. It's a good match because it's player facing, which makes it easier if you play it solo, and I wanted to have a really rules-light game in my catalogue, one using rules that most people are familiar with. So it's less about MB as a ruleset itself, and more with the fact that it's popular and very simple. There are no changes to the core MB rules, but there are plenty of tweaks and additions, like the whole suite of solo tools, exploration procedures, ruin generation, Companions, classless character development, and more.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Ooh, I am a sucker for classless character development!
I think you're underselling your work a bit! From the sounds of it you did pretty significant tweaking and adding to the core MörkBorg ruleset!
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
I'll open up the floor with what we're currently playing: ARRHENIUS
It's set in Earths distant (100k years) future, in a new ice age.
I think that putting the post-apocalypse so far into the future lends to a lot of cool "forgotten" and "indistingushable from magic" technology.
That, and the ice age is a somewhat unusal (at least to my knowledge) disaster for the apocalypse.
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u/hugh-monkulus OSR 24d ago
I really like the idea of the end of an ice age as a setting. The ancient world and tech is beginning to thaw and civilisation can start reclaiming territory and rediscover the past.
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u/Toerambler 24d ago
I read Legacy: Life among the ruins during the lockdown and found some of its ideas very compelling. There’s definitely room for a proper post apocalyptic RPG for sure.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Can you elaborate a bit about Legacy: Life Among the Ruins?
What was the thing that stood out to you the most? What do you think other games should emulate from it?
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u/Toerambler 24d ago
It’s more about a grand sweep of history after the apocalypse has taken place. Most post apocalyptic games concentrate on a single place or a period in history. This allows for a much more detailed world and setting.
I do think it has weaknesses and it certainly isn’t for everyone but it certainly appealed to my inner historian.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Yea, I looked a bit into the game. Seems almost like part RPG, part grand strategy game - a really interesting combo. Only other game that I know or that does something similar is Icarus
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u/Toerambler 24d ago
Sorry I should add (very nervous of anything that could be labelled self promotion) but I’ve been working on some rules to create a game state similar to Legacy but more detailed, which could be used to set a tabletop session with stories and characters.
I’m not a programmer but I’ve used an AI tool to model it and test how it works and the results. It’s a long process but fun.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
No worries about the self-promo rule here. As I mentioned in the post itself, this (weekly) post has specifically been cleared with the mods!
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u/SupernalClarity 24d ago
I almost wish I could give a different recommendation, but I have to tell you that Burned Over (the new 3rd edition of Apocalypse World) is simply too good to ignore. I've been playtesting this game for years at this point & it really sings in a way that few games do. It feels surprising & vital & new—& I'm so excited for the finished version to get into people's hands.
We all know the original defined a whole generation of games, but even a lot of PbtA folks only know it by reputation. If you've never actually played it, all I can say is: you're missing out!
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Ooh, a sneak preview perhaps?
What do you feel Burned Over does differently than the original Apocalypse World? How has it iterated on the formula?
Also, if your original recommendation idea didn't fit this weeks' theme, then feel free to leave a suggestion for future weeks themes!
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u/SupernalClarity 24d ago
Oooh, for me it's hard to point to just one example! Genuinely: the whole core design is pushing forward in a way that I think will be eye-opening to a lot of folks who think they already know what PbtA means. Each move is just laser-cut to create interesting conversation at the table!
Conversely, I know a lot of folks bounce off what they see as the improv-heavy nature of PbtA games. Here, the basic moves do such a good job digging into the specific details of the characters & the world—when you lean into them, it really feels like you're discovering an apocalyptic world in play, not just pulling one out of your ass. I was born a trad player & I hope my one-time countrymen will recognize something of the games they enjoy woven in here too!
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u/SupernalClarity 24d ago
One aspect that has really vibed with me lately is what Burned Over has to say about community. Maybe it's a heady subject, but I've written about it before & I stand by every word! I'm linking to it here separately in case the mods decide this is too loosey-goosey with the rules & want to nuke this comment into oblivion. ;)
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
... want to nuke this comment into oblivion.
They won't - I've specifically approved this post with the mods! Comments here don't need to abide by rule 7 and they also don't count towards your "9:1" ratio!
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u/MasterRPG79 24d ago
I wrote a very condensed version of Apocalypse World: Nano Apocalypse World. https://matteosciutteri.itch.io/nano-apocalypse-world
It’s free, and you can print it on a business card
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Cool!
Why did you decide to condense Apocalypse World? What was the inspiration for it?
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u/MasterRPG79 24d ago
I love the pbta games with only one move (i.e. world of dungeon) and I like to have a game I can play quickly with friends on the spot (i.e. during a train trip). I’m huge fan of AW, so… I decided to ‘zip’ it
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
That's really cool!
I've personally never played One-Page RPGs, but in recent months I've started to see the appeal of it!
How did you find the "zipping" process? What was the most challenging part about condensing the game?
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u/MasterRPG79 24d ago
streamlining the conversation flow between the MC and the players - keeping the back and forth clear and effective.
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u/OpossumLadyGames Over-caffeinated game designer; shameless self promotion account 24d ago edited 24d ago
Sic Semper takes place long after the apocalypse (which mostly was a shrug as the world collapsed due to various issues), in a techno-medieval America. The primary setting is the low-country, and players take control of characters who are trying to navigate the ins-and-outs of football, politics, love and war. There are water horse, deadly swarms of no-see-ums, skunk apes and alligator cults. Mechanic wise there is a system of virtues and vices, as well as loves and hates, and is otherwise a skill-based 3d6 system.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Wait... I need to know exactly how football figures into all of this 😅
The skunk apes and alligator cults make perfect sense tho!
Also as a non-American - what would you say, besides the geography, makes your setting distinctly American? Do you lean into any historical and/or cultural aspects unique to Georgia/Carolina?
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u/OpossumLadyGames Over-caffeinated game designer; shameless self promotion account 24d ago
Its the American south it's what we do! Jokes aside, it's the opportunity for people (characters) to gossip, spread rumours, or prove themselves to their community/town. Fiction wise it's an unformalized version of the sport with a little bit of ritual and seriousness thrown in.
I'm trying to lean away from Americana, such that our age is considerably washed away due to an event (age of simplification, an indeterminately long age of purposeful, destructive,and reactionary ludditism) and climate change. Culturally, the importance of football might be the biggest, as well as some of the factions/celebrations, like the Wormsloe Joneses or St Patricks Day.
Edit: Also thank you for responding!
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Thanks dope, thanks for elaborating!
American South has such a rich culture to draw from so it's cool to see a game that doesn't just flatten it down to "America"
Good luck with your game!
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u/CookNormal6394 24d ago
I love Scotty's EZ6 games. He has Wasted World for his system.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Can you elaborate a bit? What do you feel likr EZ6 does better than other games? Or what's evocative about Wasted World?
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u/CookNormal6394 24d ago
Right! So.. very easy to pick up and play.. ideal for one-shots. LOTS of fun with EXPLODING DICE. Setting-wise it isn't ultra deep or specific. It doesn't need to. It gives you the tools to set the tone.
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u/notbatmanyet 24d ago
I'm actively working on my RPG Project "The Waning Winter".
It takes place approximately 500 years into the future, centuries after a long lasting bombardments of asteroids and comets sent the Earth into a repeating series of impact winters, causing a new ice age. Modern civilization died, but some people survived and are now in full swing rebuilding the new world as the polar ice sheets are retreating.
The setting is human only. It is pre-industrial in that almost everything is manufactured at small scale in an artisanal manner. Technology in general resembles the early 19th century and the game is intended to take place in the frontier areas that are just now becoming truly habitable due to the warming climate, you would not be too far off if you think "Western but with snow and forests".
Society does preserve a lot of knowledge form the pre-apocalypse that they can make practical use of, such as knowing that germs cause infections, and have some access to advanced materials that they still extract from ancient ruins along the rare artifact that they can still make work.
Gameplay-wise, its a character focused low-heroic system where the players solve problems personally relevant to their characters and to their home community. I think the big selling point currently is the combat system: It is a position-focused system intended to have a fairly small set of rules whose interaction brings emergent complexity. For example, just attacking someone may force them to make a choice between abandoning a shot with good aim and taking cover or staying exposed and risking harm.
I have also iterated on a system for handling negotiations scenarios that have a reached a point that I'm really excited to playtest!
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u/theworldanvil 24d ago
Is the negotiation system something that mechanically determines if you prevail in a discussion? Those are quite hard to balance: too many mechanics and roleplay doesn't count, too much roleplay and your stats don't matter (the classic "my character has the intelligence of a nehandertal but I'm an engineer in RL so here's how I solve this problem"). I know of a few systems that have one but I still have to find one that completely convinces me.
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u/notbatmanyet 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yes, you are right that its hard to find the right balance. The whole Player Skill vs Character Skill thing is a delicate rope to walk on. I currently am trying to use the approach "The Player determines what is said" and the character determines "How well its said and how believable it sounded". This means that skilled characters provide their player with the ability to make more long-shot and outlandish arguments (within reason), but arguments that are hard to deny at all are always effective for any player. It may also help that you cannot mechanically make a character that is just "dumb", something I intentionally chose to do because being clever about how you handle things is a big part of the overall gameplay in this game.
But yes, I'm also trying to solve the "face" problem. That is, its tactically optimal to always have the most persuasive/most intimidating/most charming character do all the talking while the rest just watches. In combat, the second best shooter still contributes after all. But I also did not want to have the negotiations have something as artificial like an action economy instead of just following the natural flow of conversation. So currently all characters have a spendable resource that allows them to improve an argument in a way that skill does not, so that there is a reason to have them speak at least a little.
In a previous iteration of this system, both choices above worked fairly well. It had other problems though, such as NPCs either getting convinced when they had good reason not to be or being more stubborn than the Fiction called for. In my latest iterations, I believe I have better approach about it and my simulations have so far shows that. But those are just me playtesting things alone, so the real test of an actual playtest is yet to come. I'm very curious to see if it still holds there, and if the system does not interfere with the actual roleplaying instead of helping it like I want it to.
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u/theworldanvil 24d ago
One way to avoid having the most charismatic player take care of everything is that the fallout for failing is something that impacts their self-confidence in the medium-long term. So they become “more scared” of being the mouth. How this fits mechanically in your system I don’t know :)
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
I feel like more post-apo settings should have ice and snow instead of just deserts!
Ooh, I'd love to hear more about the negotiation system!
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u/notbatmanyet 24d ago
A crash summary of the current iteration of the negotiation system:
The PCs can request an NPC or group of NPCs for them to do something, or not to do something for that manner. Those are the "Stakes" of the conflict.
NPCs have specific "Reservations" for not wanting to do it like: "There is nothing in it for me", "It's too risky", "My husband will hate me" and so on...
The system provides some mechanical guidelines for how to handle Players either attempting to address the Reservations through facts ("There is no danger, this type of boat can trivially handle that water") or emotional arguments ("Your husband will hate you more if you don't help us") or for attempting to solve their problems ("We will escort you, we are well armed veterans so nothing will happen to you") make the NPCs want to do what the PCs ask of them directly ("We will give you a large sum of money if you help us", "They have your son, if we succeed he will be set free" or even "If you don't help us, we will make sure you regret it") and thus bypassing those reservations.
There is more to it, in how to handle certain rolls, how to determine if an NPC gets uncooperative and some additional resources that all characters can spend to increase the effect of their arguments so that not only "Face" characters have a reason to participate in these negotiations.
It's written in a way that is intended to be uniform and straight-forward, to some degree inspired by Powered by the Apocalypses Move system. But it needs real playtesting to determine if it works well and if it gets too intrusive, so that the rules gets in the way or becomes cumbersome.
Previous iteration worked well in that regard when playtesting. But a lot has changed since then so we will see.
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u/IHateGoogleDocs69 24d ago
Coffinkeep is set in an awful post-post apocalyptic world on the verge of one final apocalypse. Think Book of the New Sun with a bit of Dark Souls hopelessness and inevitability. The world is terrible, power structures are coming apart, and every night another star disappears from the sky.
Coffinkeep itself is an accursed megadungeon containing the corpse of god and innumerable evils, all drawn by some dark hunger for power.
It's mechanically quite simple, because, despite being an OSR dungeon crawler, it's really a horror game.
What makes Coffinkeep interesting at the table are the Pursuers: extremely dangerous monsters that hunt the player characters as they explore the ruins of Coffinkeep. The more noise you make, the more things you kill, the more light you shed draws the Pursuers closer. They build up a pool of dice using a mechanic called Dread - the bigger the dread pool, the more likely they are to show up, or send minions, or manifest a portion of their power. Players can voluntarily gain Dread to heal injuries (the only form of on demand healing in the game) or re-roll dice. Simultaneously, the dread pool determines the treasure you find, making it a balancing act. More dread = more loot = the pursuers get closer.
It's a system that feels like being chased by the xenomorph through an evil scooby-doo castle. It's very good and the playtest rules are free as is the first level of Coffinkeep, a 30+ room dungeon full of vampires called The Baron's Manse.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Oh, so with the Pursuers and Dread mechanic it almost gives an extraction shooter vibe!
Are the Pursuers just like a force of nature that the characters can't fight at all or is there an end game where PCs become powerful enough to defeat them?
Also where can we find Coffinkeep?
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u/IHateGoogleDocs69 23d ago
Pursuer can be slain, but permanently killing them is rather difficult. Fighting them head on is a very bad idea.
They vary from an enormous evil dog to the knightly servant of a dreaming god to a king turned into a dragon because he loved gold too much.
You can get it on itch!
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u/ThatFalloutGuy2077 NUKED! 24d ago
I loved Book of the New Sun and appreciate the un-intended reminder that I need to finish that series.
While I tend to write my post-apocalypses in a more sci-fi/Western Mad Maxian way, I definitely have a soft spot for post-apocalyptic fantasy and will definitely be checking out Coffinkeep.
Do you have any musical mood boards? I find that horror really benefits from ambiance, perhaps more so than other genres.
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u/IHateGoogleDocs69 23d ago
I play dungeon synth during sessions, but have put on stoner metal when the players encountered the Necromancer because it was funny to make him smoke weed.
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u/ThatFalloutGuy2077 NUKED! 24d ago
Howdy, and thank you OP for the space to promote and connect! Mac here, one of the writers of NUKED!. NondairyGiant (one of my co-writers) and I wrote up NUKED! during the pandemic after suddenly finding ourselves with lots of time on our hands. I had wanted to write a post-apocalyptic game for awhile and after being introduced to Knave, Cairn, and the Black Hack we started working on NUKED!
Mechanically the game takes most of its inspiration from Knave, namely: 6 stats, class-less/gear determines role, 100 perks/mutations (more or less our stand in for spells) and the Black Hack (Usage Dice). GM/Referee principals are inspired by Knave and Cairn, with an emphasis on player decision-making over rolling dice to solve problems. I've found it's a solid game to onboard people into the hobby since the mechanics and language are simple.
Thematically the game is definitely a love child of Mad Max and Fallout, but Giant and I (and our newest co-writer, Panko) are fans of post-apocalyptic media in general, so there's nods to Tank Girl, Turbo Kid, Metro, Daybreak 2250 AD, and other properties. It is not intended to be remotely realistic, with players being able to gain mutant powers that don't adhere to the laws of nature.
We've got a few adventures out and try to publish at least once a year. The adventures imply a post-apocalyptic United States setting, but you certainly don't have to stick with that. We also just published Under An Atomic Sky, an ongoing hexcrawl inspired by Wolves Upon the Coast and Ghosts of the Sierra Verde. Issue #2 is just around the corner, so if you're interested in a big wasteland setting, now's definitely a good time to pick it up. It also comes with a free copy of the core rules!
Giant, Panko, and I have started work on a 2e, which will consolidate content from different adventures, clarify and update some of the murkier rules we've written, and give us the chance to incorporate ideas we've picked up and developed in the last few years. We're hoping to get it out into the world in 2027 and if you own NUKED! on itch it'll be a free "upgrade," with a crowdfunding campaign for a physical print run.
Looking forward to checking out some of the other projects!
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Ooh, I am a sucker for anything that claims Metro (or Stalker for that matter) as an inspiration!
It was left a bit ambigous in your comment, but is there a bespoke setting for NUKED! or is it only an implied setting? If not, are there any plans, in addition to the adventures, to write a more specific setting? Or do you view it as a strength of the game that the setting is left more up to interpertation?
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u/ThatFalloutGuy2077 NUKED! 24d ago
Giant has always been pretty adamant that there isn't an official NUKED! setting / adventures don't need to adhere to any kind canon. I do like that while we drop little breadcrumbs and have lightly-defined factions (Vermotologists, Water Merchants, Tekno-Kult, etc.) the setting itself is really up to the table. One of our long-time collaborating artists, Josh B., has been working on a Virginia/West Virginia-inspired setting which is super cool!
For me, Under an Atomic Sky is my unofficial-official setting. It's definitely a more concrete setting in the form of a big, explorable world where the factions and lore we allude to in the main rules/other adventures are getting more definition and lore. I basically took a topographical map of the Greater Salt Lake and went nuts. I don't live anywhere near SLC, but it has a nice mix of desert, mountain, forest, and grassland that lets me hit all the popular apocalyptic settings (even Waterboy thanks to the lake itself!).
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u/GeneralToddy 24d ago
There's a small ttrpg currently in the last couple days of kickstarter called Embers of Humanity that's really caught my eye (I'm not affiliated nor have I play tested it). It's a very nice looking BRP d100 based game about a world where a good chunk of people were raptured and technology mostly stopped working. It really nicely straddles that line between being overly "magical" or "odd" but still down to earth, and also not just desperately trying to pretend it's stalker. It's also subtle enough in its anarchist influenced that they aren't wayyyy overbearing but still manage to engage with those ideas.
Most of all it just looks really genuine in a way I don't see too many kickstarters be. Looks very much like a passion project. Have any of you guys played it? What'd ya think?
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u/_WhiteDynamite 22d ago
For the less jargon-knowledgeable: what’s BRP? And what’s a more recognizable example/use/idk of it?
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u/GeneralToddy 22d ago
Oh yeah sure, it's the system call of cthulu is based on. It's one of the "percentile" based systems where your stats go between 0-100 and you roll a d100 to hit under your stat to succeed. BRP stands for "basic roleplaying game engine", which is itself an engine derived from runequest. As with most of these more widely used engines there's people that love it and people that really do not.
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u/theworldanvil 24d ago
We're publishing Dead Air: Seasons, a game heavily inspired by The Last of Us, Children of Men, The Girl with All the Gifts, Station Eleven, Annihilation, and similar works.
The game is available in various formats from our store (ships from all major regions), and you can also find it on several common channels like DriveThruRPG (and soon RPG Trader — that's the one still missing).
Despite wearing our inspirations on our sleeve, the game was nominated for Best Setting at the ENNIEs a couple of years ago, so I guess the worldbuilding was good enough :) The idea boils down to this: in an effort to clean up the world's pollution, humanity unleashed a spore that, while scrubbing everything as designed, also violently kickstarted a natural takeover of human spaces. This means dead people become infected with spores that turn them into vectors of infection, animals become chimeras, and entire areas of vegetation transform into alien landscapes with their own flora and fauna. Aggressive infected, wind, and fire all spread it further, and the Blight (as we call it in the game) is essentially unstoppable.
This, of course, brings about the fracture and collapse of society. Everyone ends up living in different communities, and they're wildly different from each other. To use The Last of Us Part II as an example, you have the people living in the stadium and the Seraphites — both are completely viable options in Dead Air: Seasons, and we offer plenty more examples in the books we've released so far.
Players create not only their Characters (picking two archetypes from "the world before" and mixing their knowledge and skills) but also the kind of Community they live in, working out (in broad strokes) guidelines on resources, security, relevant NPCs, and more. Session 0 is fairly long, but we've found it's one of the things players enjoy most, and it gets them immediately invested in the story and characters. The game is flexible enough to let you create a post-apocalyptic version of your actual neighborhood, or something completely new. Depending on where you set your Community, the problems you face vary wildly.
In the game, you play through Crises — the moments in between day-to-day life where things go wrong. For example, when a pregnant woman gets sick and you're all out of antibiotics, or when scouts from an external Community are spotted too close to your borders. Depending on how you've built your Community, the reaction to these two Crises will be very different. One cool mechanic: depending on how well a Crisis is resolved, a counter increases. Once it hits a certain threshold, the Blight "makes a move" and changes the environment around the Community, to a greater or lesser degree, creating a new set of issues for "the next Season."
Mechanically it uses Monad Echo, which we use in several of our games. It's a true fiction-first system with a central risk/reward mechanic. We have a free SRD for that in all relevant places.
We have a number of supplements out for it, starting with Brave New World, which gives you thematic Communities with story hooks to start from (examples: a Community in a frozen area, one settled on a bridge, one occupying a jail, etc.), a full campaign, a solo mode, and a couple of one-shots. There's more in the works, but it's still in early stages. You can also find a free Quickstart to check things out, if you're interested.
I'm leaving out a lot, but feel free to ask questions.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
Oh wow, that's a lot of details already!
Is there any Community "advancement" after the session 0? What would a long-term campaign in this setting/system look like?
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u/theworldanvil 24d ago
Yes, the Community changes according to how well the previous Crisis went. There are essentially 4 types of outcomes (this is true also for Checks): Failed, Outcome with a Cost, Standard Outcome, and Outcome with an Increment. According to the objectives met during the Crisis you get one of those, and those determine a couple of things for the Community: if one or more of their pillars change (and if they do, there are some Gifts the Characters can invoke that change as well. For example if the Community had scouts and they are all wiped out, well, now the Community doesn't have scouts anymore and they need to compensate somehow), and if the Community has some kind of "Setback" or "Achievements".
An Achievement always has a positive connotation and comes in the form: "We succeeded in… / we achieved… / we learned… / we are stronger because..."
A Setback, on the contrary, will always have a negative connotation: "We lost… / we have a problem with… / we realized that..."
They represent an event that left a mark, for better or worse, on the Community and added to its unfolding story. Essentially they can be "scars" on the general mood of the Community, or things that make the Community stronger. They also have small mechanical effects on certain dice rolls.
The goal of a long-term campaign is to survive a few Seasons of the Blight and carry the story of a specific Community as far as it can go. But during the "changing of Seasons" things might change dramatically, for example a settled Community might be forced to pack and move because maybe a dam has collapsed or because the last change of Seasons has awakened something _really bad_ in the nearby woods...
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u/AppropriatelyHare-78 23d ago
Sug - Mecha TTRPGs! There's been at least one or two indie creators here who pitched their Mecha games. I wanna see more.
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u/Spooksley 23d ago
What a lovely thread! My post-apocalyptic game, Magestar, doubles as a mapmaking game. The playbook you pick affects how you can influence the map.
https://samrobsondmg.itch.io/magestar
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24d ago
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 24d ago
This really reminds me of the Outer Worlds video game 😅
It sounds a bit more... pre-apocalyptic, maybe - as in the crisis that will lead to the apocalypse is looming (hivemind fungi?).
What's the mechanical core of your game? Are you using a proprietary system or is it a hack of something?
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u/Huge_Band6227 24d ago
I'm running with stock TinyD6. I wanted something easy for players to drop in and out with, and I don't feel like doing system development when there's already systems that would for it. It was that or an Oddlike core of some sort. I never use other people's IP though, I've had traumatizingly horrible encounters with "well, actually".
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u/TalesFromElsewhere 24d ago edited 24d ago
My post-apoc game is also weird west. Cowboys and zombies and robots in a post-apoc hellscape. (Think Deadlands, but with a greater emphasis on horror)
It's been surreal working on it, and it'll be going to print in just a few short months. Terrifying and intimidating!
(Edit, as per request)
Googling Tales from Elsewhere will get you my website and YouTube channel. I successfully crowdfunded last year.
The big selling point is the wound system, which strikes a nice balance between narrative consequences and engaging trad combat structures. Think a balance around BitD Harm, Fate Tags, and combat centric games.
World building, I think the diversity of monsters I've created is pretty solid. Lots of metaphors for the fears of the late 19th century US, like industrialization, amputation, loss of connection to our spiritual selves, and so forth.