Quote from: Rincewind1;508840I prefer RPGs with low to medium crunch - that's why I abandoned trying to get into Wasteland, as it was just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too crunchy for me.

Fighting Fantasy is post-manapocalypse (Titan had a huge wizard's war less than 300 years ago, which accounts for some of the wierdness across the world); however, it's not really explained in any of the core RPG books, but in the world sourcebook (Titan).

It's also had enough time to recover, so it's not as dark a setting as you may like; there isn't very much silly though (It comes from the same 80's UK culture as WFRP1) and you could play in a less-civilised area of the world, although it's still explicitly a fantasy game. System-wise, though, it's dead simple; 2d6 + mods vs target number.

I recommend Barbarians of the Aftermath

As someone who has both run and played Atomic Highway I would suggest passing on it as the rules are pretty broken, the worst part is in the area of dodging.

Quote from: Daedalus;509081I recommend Barbarians of the Aftermath

As someone who has both run and played Atomic Highway I would suggest passing on it as the rules are pretty broken, the worst part is in the area of dodging.

Could you explain further, maybe with an example?

Really pick whatever modern RPG you like and use that.
 
I'd probably use the Storyteller system with mortal PCs; completely ignore the vampires or werewolves or whatever and make human PCs. It'd give you all the modern stuff rules you need (guns and skills and stuff), is reasonably light, and the merits/flaws are aimed at being grimdark. Main drawback being that it'd be quite deadly and healing would take ages.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;509164I'd probably use the Storyteller system with mortal PCs; completely ignore the vampires or werewolves or whatever and make human PCs. It'd give you all the modern stuff rules you need (guns and skills and stuff), is reasonably light, and the merits/flaws are aimed at being grimdark. Main drawback being that it'd be quite deadly and healing would take ages.

I tried that - didn't work out for me.

I guess I'll just use BRP or Mini6 - there's a Mini6 free Eclipse Phase conversion on RPG.net, which may be quite useful, as I play the Post Apocalypse turn later into Cyberpunk, when PCs will reach a lost "utopia" in the wastes.

Traveller.

We tried Twilight 2000 and some of the players just hated the crunch, so I used the 3 LBBs, Mercenary and Citizens of the Imperium. It was easy to eliminate anything over Tech 7 and voila! We had our easy system, high death rate, guns are scary, T2k campaign.

BRP has a monograph out called 'Rubble and Ruin' that is PA... though I know little about it (despite having bought a copy).
I suspect I'd just as soon do Twilight 2000 with a BRP... I've always wanted to game in that setting.

Quote from: CRKrueger;509118Could you explain further, maybe with an example?

I respect Daedulus viewpoint, but I don't agree with it. IIRC it was the dodging was too easy. Of course you can dodge only so many attacks/people a round, and the game does allow people to fight groups (using the Fortune points or whatever--I've been running Hellas lately and it has five different kinds of points so exact name may be off.)

Of course if you did get hit it tends to get lethal real fast. It fits the "action movie" apocalypse well, but keeps it gritty enough that heroes can and will die.

I would like to do an After the Bomb TMNT game again someday.

...

The 35 tonne bulk of the M1A2 rolled across a rough, fallow field in Central Poland.  From a distance, the tank looked like a figure-skater, gliding across the ice.  Inside the vehicle, however, the crew's point of view was different.  Five years of near-constant combat, few breaks for depot-level repairs and a general loosening of every nut, bolt, torsion bar and slip-gear made the inside of the Abrams rattle like a castanet.  However, the worst was yet to come.

"GUNNER - TANK - FRONT LEFT - 11 O'CLOCK!" Lieutenant Murchison yelled over the high-pitched shriek of the alcohol-fueled turbine and the general racket of metal fittings shaking inside the armored turret.  The yelling was no adrenaline fueled bravado - months ago a nearby tactical nuclear strike had damaged the tank's intercom system with a burst of electromagnetic interference, and the crew had no chance to repair the delicate electronics before things worsened on the broad front between NATO and the Warsaw Pact forces.  

"TARGET!  LOADER, SABOT!"  Kelly called back to Czerwinski, the Polish national who rounded out the tank's fighting crew.  Taylor, the driver, was isolated in the bow of the vehicle and very much in his own world.  Twine ran into his compartment and was wrapped around each wrist - a long pull on either meant turn this way, sharp tugs on both meant stop, a long pull backward meant full reverse.

The clank of the breach closing after the round was loaded was heard over the roar of the tank's operation.

Meanwhile, the two Polish T55s had noticed their enemy and were swinging around to do battle.  Like a scene from a medieval woodcut, the two tanks first raised, then lowered their main gun barrels like lances of old.  But these "lances" weren't saluting their enemy: the guns' autoloaders required the cannons to shift thusly as their own armor-piercing rounds were locked into place.

The crew of the Abrams had distance, surprise and the M1's stabilizer, a computer that allowed the gun to fire somewhat accurately on the move, on their side.  While the radio had been damaged, this critical piece of gear had survived well enough to do its job more or less unhindered.  Still, a successful kill-shot required closer range, and the meters ticked by as the three tanks closed in.

"HOLD...HOLD...FIRE!" Murchison yelled.
"ON THE WAAAY!"
The Abrams bucked as the 120mm shell discharged, throwing off its guidance canister, the "Sabot", holding the 20mm dart of depleted uranium and tungsten snug in the barrel as soon as the round cleared the muzzle.  The two kilometers between the tanks was ranged in a little more than a second, and the metal dart smashed through the thick armor of the Soviet-made vehicle.  The enemy tank shuddered and blew itself to pieces.  No-one leapt from the hatch of the wrecked vehicle as it lurched and burned.

The remaining T55 had fired its round.  Taylor saw the incoming shot first - arcing over the rolling ground, moving too slow for a regular cannon shot.  "MISSILE! MISSILE!" he called out.  Murchison heard him, almost a moment too late.  She threw the switch to blast out vision-obscuring smoke as Taylor reflexively jinked the massive vehicle to the right.  There was a deafening clang as something caused the Abrams to lurch harder to the right; the tank skidded forward a few more meters and stopped.

"WHAT WAS THAT." Czerwinski yelled.

"SHUT UP.  LOAD SABOT!" Kelly ordered.  "SABOT OUT, LOADING HEAT!"  Murchison took command of the situation before panic overtook her crew.  "WAIT FOR IT.  SWITCH TO THERMAL!  ENGINE OFF!"  Taylor flipped the vision mode on his main gun to thermal, but the image was black.  The missile strike had knocked the amplified viewfinder out.  

The inside of the Abrams was suddenly eerily quiet.  Murchison held the control stick for the turret in override mode - Kelly was fighting to move the turret to track the enemy as they rode in to inspect their kill.  She could still see through her hunter-killer sight and watched as the smoke dissipated and the T55 came frighteningly close.  

"Come on, you son of a bitch.  Come in and die," she whispered hoarsely as the enemy drew in.  The heads-up range reading for the sight's rangefinder read 900m.

"FIIIIRE!" Murchison screamed.  There was no call for on-the-way: the shot closed the range in less than a second, tearing the turret off of the T55.  Crazily, the now unweaponed tank began to back up: at least someone inside the vehicle was still alive.

"Load HEAT!" Taylor called, but Czerwinski's reply was a simple "Rounds complete."  The Abrams was out of main gun ammunition and now almost as harmless as the ruined T55 retreating away from them.

Murchison cranked her hatch open and looked at the smashed track, uncoiled like a dead snake next to her tank.  She climbed over the hull and knelt next to her driver's main hatch, rapping on it until it opened.  "Helluva way to run a war, eh boss?" the driver cracked a grin as he spoke.  "You bet, Bob.  Listen, draw a sidearm from the bustle, get on your bike and get back to the farm.  See if that bunch of drunks from the 109th with the M88 are still there and if they are, offer 'em a couple of smoked hams and a fifth of whatever we don't have to put in the gas tank to come up here and get us rolling again."

"Aye aye, Cap'n!"  Taylor clamored out and started unlimbering an AK-74 and the BMX-style bicycle that had been "liberated" from the remains of a department store weeks before and now functioned as the team's reconnaissance vehicle.

We'll worry about main gun ammo tomorrow... she thought.

...

Gotta love T2k, mang.

I know it ain't bad, DD, but 1) I want to set my own setting and 2) Not really down for the whole military stuff, though I know T2k isn't just for military characters.

I need to get myself a physical copy of T2K, man.

Quote from: Benoist;509238I need to get myself a physical copy of T2K, man.

Get the 1e Boxed Set, Pirates of the Vistula, Ruins of Krakow, Going Home,  ... basically if the cover art is by Dana Knutson you're in good shape.

I like playing a bit with the setting and tweaking it so things aren't quite so bleak (f'rex, Florida takes like 3 nukes but Into the Howling Wilderness puts its population at like 50000 in the fall of 2000; sorry, FL exports more food than it imports, and while I'm not pulling some huffy nerd toughguy "Well I would survive, I've read books and seen Red Dawn like five times already." bullshit, if anything I think FL's population would grow somewhat).  Sure, like every state there'd be a massive depopulation from '97 through '99, but this "99% abandoned"?  yeah, no.

This is my writeup for Orlando, FL

Quote from: Rincewind1;509237I know it ain't bad, DD, but 1) I want to set my own setting and 2) Not really down for the whole military stuff, though I know T2k isn't just for military characters.

The beauty of T2k is that "Good luck, you're on your own".  Players no more have to be in the military despite using military gear than Max Rocketansky was in the police in The Road Warrior despite driving a police car.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;509261Get the 1e Boxed Set, Pirates of the Vistula, Ruins of Krakow, Going Home,  ... basically if the cover art is by Dana Knutson you're in good shape.

I like playing a bit with the setting and tweaking it so things aren't quite so bleak (f'rex, Florida takes like 3 nukes but Into the Howling Wilderness puts its population at like 50000 in the fall of 2000; sorry, FL exports more food than it imports, and while I'm not pulling some huffy nerd toughguy "Well I would survive, I've read books and seen Red Dawn like five times already." bullshit, if anything I think FL's population would grow somewhat.  Sure, like every state there'd be a massive depopulation from '97 through '99, but this "99% abandoned"?  yeah, no.

This is my writeup for Orlando, FL

I'd love to discuss this with you, DD. I'll read the link later .

You need to remember that

The actual blast'd only really kill 10 - 30% of population, if alarm was raised soon enough. Most of the deaths would come from radiation poisoning, and lowered immunity to common diseases, caused by radiation, lack of proper medical services (as MS, if survived, would be overrun with radiation poisoning victims). Quite a lot of technology'd be lost to EMP, including engines used for farming, and radiation is a terrible bitch - wind could carry it to great distances, rendering most of Florida's food plains useless. Add to that social breakdown, livestock being pretty much wiped out (which'd also cause an insect plague from all those rotting cow/swine etc. etc. corpses), and again - terrible slowdown of medicine production. I know that in Twilight 2k there was no complete destruction of government, but still, you can bet that the society pretty much broke down still for a good while.

Though I agree that turning entire population to 50.000 is a bit too grim - but I think that a death toll of 80 - 90% of population is a possible scenario. A "fortunate" thing is that after the initial death tolls, the remaining medicine stock supply'd serve everyone for quite a bit.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;509266The beauty of T2k is that "Good luck, you're on your own".  Players no more have to be in the military despite using military gear than Max Rocketansky was in the police in The Road Warrior despite driving a police car.

Hmmm hmmm. Still, I think I'll first give BRP a try - bought the PDF, because it seems like it offers Cybernetics mechanics as well, and as I said - I want to transfer the game into Cyberpunk at some point, when/if PCs reach the Utopia.