In 4e we have a great many worlds published and settings drawn up. We’ve got steampunk, we’ve got middle ages, wuxia, high fantasy, low fantasy…but where’d my post-apocalypse go? I wouldn’t consider myself an “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” sort of person but I do enjoy a setting where the world that was went boom. Am I alone in this?
What is it about the destruction of a world that sparks my imagination? The stripped down vestiges of society scrabbling up from amongst the ruins? Possibly. The harsh, every man for himself society that remains? Maybe. I imagine the appeal of such a setting that “emerges from the ashes” is that it is full of possibility. Intricate history, relationships, and interconnections clog most fantasy creations. The world is not readily mutable. Survival is easy and true change is difficult. The skein of the world draws taut like a net around your PCs, and will not move without the deepest of exertions. A Perfect World needs no changing.
The Ruined World makes survival difficult –very difficult — but to the victors, to the survivors, comes change. It’s easier because there’s nothing there! The world has already been torn apart. The world is starved of heroes. This ruined world makes a great backdrop for PCs to get involved, thinking of themselves initially but going beyond and into the world at large. In a “Perfect World”, finding water is no big deal unless you happen to be thirsty. In the Ruined World, finding a steady supply of water changes the community and environment which your players inhabit. Your players don’t have to be high tier to move the world around them.
The largest appeal of a post-apocalyptic world to me are the themes it allows you to explore. No matter what the players do, a good Ruined World game forces a question: How will you survive? What does morality mean when there is no law? It’s for you to decide. Is survival a privilege for only the strong, or a inalienable right of all those who are born? Again, your decision.
Ruined World stories are good when they get players into the rough and tumble, kill or be killed of a society at rock-bottom. Post-apocalyptic stories and games are at their best when they force players to make hard choices, and become memorable and profound when they allow players full control of their destinies. PCs who are transforming their world make the best sort of stories you can make. And the world changes them back.
So what do you do to run your characters through a ruined world campaign? What things should you look to do or be concerned about?
Lethality. This is the big one. Do you make your game more lethal to enforce the brutality of the setting? A lot depends on how brutal you want the setting to be. Violence is a mainstay of the post-apocalyptic genre, and with violence comes death. It would be reasonable in a post-apocalyptic game to halve hit points, opening up the floodgates to death and carnage. You have to decide up front if the characters are worth more or less in the story being told. Giving characters high value means that the game is about a specific set of players transforming the world they live in. They therefore have more value in the story and don’t need to be killed off so easily. Increased lethality means the story is about the world changing, period. It doesn’t matter who changes it, just that it is growing. Either approach is valid, you just have to pick one.
The Past. The past is just as important as the present in your Ruined World. The basic question: “Do we know what the past was actually like?” This tells you much about how the world is going to be in the present. It also sets you up to tell a story in a particular way. If the past is “hidden”, then part of your story can involve the players learning about the past as they survive in the present. Two stories run concurrently — the story of the present, and the stories of those that lived before the PCs. The mystery here is the truth of the apocalypse. Why did the old world end? What caused it? If you can find that out, then you can avoid the mistakes made in the past. If the apocalypse was recent, mysteries still exist. You are more likely to reconstruct the world from other people you meet, constructing a living oral history and patchwork of events while putting together the puzzle of what really happened.
The Fatal Flaw. Touched on this earlier, but to expand –why did the old world end? That’s the main mystery. If we know why it ended, then our characters are on the path to something else, some new way of living. They are helping to build the world up and away from the fatal flaws of the previous society. If it is unknown or clouded, we move towards it and find it then discover what we need to know and decide what to do with that knowledge. The fatal flaw is the “second bomb”. It’s the flaw in reasoning/behavior/society that caused the world to disintegrate. Can the PCs walk the path of those before and not get caught in the mindset of the past? If they do, it could be the end of the world all over again.
So, have you run any post-apocalyptic games in 4e? What were they like?
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
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Thanks for the post – I was thinking about post-apocalyptic campaign since the beginning of the current one. It all depends on how the PC would fare, but I won’t hesitate to let them ruin the world.
Glad you liked! Yeah, with all the rumours of Dark Sun as the next setting, we’ll get our official ruined world setting soon enough. I’m just going to cross my fingers.
Getting ready to start one of these. My players failed the Age of Worms in our previous (3.5) campaign, and it’s about to come back to haunt them in a major way
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Nice article–can I ask for more?
In my mind, 4E is about post-apocalypse (PA). Can anyone say ‘Points of Light’ in a dark world–what can be more post apocalyptic than that?! I think that the generic setting implied in all of the books points to a PA world, perhaps much moreso than any of the currently published settings. Although with both Eberron and the re-created Forgetton Realms, they each have a minor-PA feel.
I do agree that some published PA would be a good thing. Which is why our setting–the Radiant Spear–is distinctly PA. Perhaps some day, it will see the light.
I think the best part of a PA setting is a point that you touched upon: Even relatively ‘minor’ heroes, i.e. low level characters, can be really important in the world. Such a setting doesn’t need super-powerful players or NPCs–they probably all died in the catastrophe–leaving the excitement to a bunch of up-and-comers.
Ohh, very nice. I’d like to see some more indepth writing, but you’ve pointed out some things I’ve not seen before, mainly the relationship between lethality & character/world relationship. I think you also sum up the attraction PostApoc has for me quite nicely, though I’d add discovery to the reasons. My intro to PA was Daybreak 2000 (aka Star Man’s Son) by Andre Norton aka Andrew North, and I still think of PA as being about exploring and discovering a bombed out world.
I like this kind of scenarios.
The easiest scenario to create and to roll adventures.
Great post!
Dark sun announced as the next setting at gen con. So now we don’t have to make up our own post apoc setting, just wait.
Great post – you cover a lot of reasons why to do a PA campaign I hadn’t consciously formulated. We wrote some about a 4E apocalypse in Goodman’s Forgotten Heroes: Fang, Fist, and Song (working title Heroes of the Apocalypse). Joe wanted us to do the classes that didn’t make it from 3E PHB to 4’s, but we wanted some thematic unity to the book so we hit on the metaphor of the apocalypse as a way of talking about edition change & making its effects literal in your game. Things in the introduction I’m particularly proud of are a table talking about how long PA you choose and what that means for your game, and also how to use tensions between those preserving the lore of the past (monk and bard, for us) and those welcoming the creative renewal that comes from turning that world into ashes & fertilizer (barbarian and druid). Glad to have met you at chgowiz’s OD&D game, btw – sorry you couldn’t stay long enough to die like the rest of us!