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Author Topic: How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?  (Read 6280 times)

Godspar Games

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Everything I see in the world gets run through my mutative creativity mill and gets used as fodder. As such, I cannot help but find ways to use COVID-19 and the web of related thoughts in my gaming world/sessions. Below is a link to something I've called the "Corvixix Parasite", a sort of jungle fungus that drives its victims mad, spreads on the wind, and turns its victims into crowbait. Which is surprisingly similar to the way fear and ignorance seem to be sweeping across the world, turning normal people into toilet-paper hoarders haha.

Check the link and hopefully you find it interesting/useful.
https://www.godspargames.com/godspargames/corvixix

How are YOU using the current pandemic in your games and in your worldbuilding and storytelling?

Stay safe, folks!
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Be Creative. Have Fun. Get Weird. And Don't Fuck Around.

Joey2k

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #1 on: March 30, 2020, 08:13:23 PM »
"Corona Virus" is such a cool, cyberpunk or dystopian sounding name for a pandemic.  

Take it to the extreme, imagine if this virus doesn't go away-ever.  It becomes a part of everyday life.  And make it deadlier and nastier. What would society be like if every single interaction with another person could result in catching a fatal disease?  Would we retreat into isolationism and devolve into primitive tribes or lone homesteads? Or would we have some dystopian/ultra-authoritarian society where we continue to be an advanced society but people have to wear all kinds of protective clothing/equipment and take extra precautions all the time and follow all kinds of enforced rules to prevent the spread?  Would borders be super tightly controlled, checkpoints at national, state, city, even neighborhood borders?  What customs would evolve from this state (we are already seeing handshakes being replaced by other forms of greeting)?  Some method of personally enforcing social distancing (proximity alarms)?

And what kind of adventures would PCs go on?  Modern day caravan guards, protecting much needed supplies going into the cities? Keeping unknown individuals out of certain areas? Hunting down carriers before they become contagious?

A lot to think about.

Now I want to make this game.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2020, 09:02:55 PM by Joey2k »
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GnomeWorks

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2020, 09:39:29 PM »
I don't need the events of the day infiltrating my gaming time, thanks.
Mechanics should reflect flavor. Always.
Running: Chrono Break: Dragon Heist + Curse of the Crimson Throne AP + Egg of the Phoenix (D&D 5e).
Planning: Rappan Athuk (D&D 5e).

Godspar Games

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #3 on: March 30, 2020, 10:06:11 PM »
Hell yes. In this cyberpunk universe what would the "corona" refer to? Perhaps the light that one sees as they die from it? Or perhaps "corona" refers to the day the contagion came, riding the winds of a solar flare that would have burnt us to a cinder if the moon hadn't absorbed and deflected the brunt of it? Perhaps the solar flare was spawned by some sort of long-adrift alien weapon from an ancient, forgotten space battle that infinite unlikelihood had brought to our solar system and dumped into our sun?

Ooh, I like that.

I imagine that if the world survived it would be like a Judge Dredd thing, but perhaps with a touch of the Spanish Inquisition or the Harlem Witch Hunts. Paranoia, terror, corruption in more than biological mediums.

Yeah, that would be super interesting to see the long term effects of a mandatory 6ft bubble. Masks and goggles and suits and such, but how would you show affection to your kinsmen? How would you show affection to your lover?

Im sure one of the careers the players would have to choose from would something like a "purgator". Im imagining the post-apocalyptic trash-scifi version of dudes on horseback setting out to burn contaminated zones. Ruthless mercenaries. Men that see the ghosts of their dead children dancing in the flames of another homestead they've set to the torch.
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Godspar Games

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2020, 10:07:15 PM »
The way I see it, everything is grist for the mill. But I totally respect avoiding the topic entirely.

Can I ask if the pandemic has influenced your gaming time in any way?
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Mishihari

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2020, 01:19:56 AM »
Quote from: GnomeWorks;1125289
I don't need the events of the day infiltrating my gaming time, thanks.

X2

Someday I'll probably use it as inspiration for a really tense adventure.  After time has taken the edge off.

Spinachcat

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #6 on: March 31, 2020, 04:48:00 AM »
I wouldn't use the Wuhan Virus exactly in a game, but I've done RPGs with plagues before (magical, techno, natural) and to make them dangerous, they gotta be way more impressive than the sniffles. If its a real world-ish setting or hard-ish scifi, I go with a badass version of Hanta or Ebola. If its fantasy setting (or horror or space fantasy), then I like mutating viruses. Though the "grey goo" concept of nano-tech gone berserk would be pretty scary. That's something I'd use in a post-apoc setting.  

My upcoming cyberpunk does address bio-weapons and plague issues, but I doubt I will be playtesting those scenarios out any time soon. After this nonsense passes, most gamers are going to want to escape far from it.

In fact, I wonder if our board game club will even play Pandemic for the next year or two!

JeffB

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2020, 08:04:13 AM »
I initially started getting a sort of RIFTS vibe and started thinking about it from a gaming standpoint.

Then it started to hit too close to home- relatives of my wife, friends. And then I got this thought/question in my head "would a RPG about Cancer be fun/cool to play?" What about AIDS? or SARS?"

Too close to reality for me.

Nobby-W

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #8 on: March 31, 2020, 08:43:46 AM »
It's a gold mine for watching the ineptitude of self-serving authorities failing to deal with it effectively.  This is the story of how the zombie apocalypse gets out of control.  You get to see the antics of folks who just want to watch the world burn, or folks who are too dumb to think critically about what they are told through whatever channels they get their news from.

If I ever have occasion to do a zombie apocalypse RPG all I have to do is imitate life.
My imaginary component makes me complex.  This also means I'm allowed to eat quiche.

Godspar Games

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #9 on: March 31, 2020, 08:47:48 AM »
Quote from: Spinachcat;1125302
I wouldn't use the Wuhan Virus exactly in a game, but I've done RPGs with plagues before (magical, techno, natural) and to make them dangerous, they gotta be way more impressive than the sniffles.

Yeah, COVID-19 or something similar would be a bit pedestrian for an RPG setting.

I've actually started Pandemic for the first time, thanks to the Chinese governments slippery fingers!
My site: https://www.godspargames.com/

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Godspar Games

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #10 on: March 31, 2020, 08:50:10 AM »
Quote from: JeffB;1125307
Then it started to hit too close to home- relatives of my wife, friends. And then I got this thought/question in my head "would a RPG about Cancer be fun/cool to play?" What about AIDS? or SARS?"

Too close to reality for me.

I would certainly never put COVID-19 in an actual gaming session. Same for AIDS or cancer. But the paranoia of a pandemic land, the corruption in its dispersal/handling, those are all things that are rich storytelling elements.
My site: https://www.godspargames.com/

Be Creative. Have Fun. Get Weird. And Don't Fuck Around.

Godspar Games

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #11 on: March 31, 2020, 08:53:05 AM »
Quote from: Nobby-W;1125310
If I ever have occasion to do a zombie apocalypse RPG all I have to do is imitate life.

So true! As a man that's known to shop at Walmart from time to time, you could call the game, "Walmart Shopping Simulator".

I find it quite disturbing to see how, despite the stone-age being many thousands of years in our past, humans are still just stupid, angry primates.
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Koltar

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #12 on: March 31, 2020, 09:18:32 AM »
What??

What The F?

No one can have 'game sessions' like normal because of social distancing and shelter in place protocols.

- Ed C.
The return of 'You can't take the Sky From me!'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUn-eN8mkDw&feature=rec-fresh+div

This is what a really cool FANTASY RPG should be like :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-WnjVUBDbs

Still here, still alive, at least Seven years now...

JeffB

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2020, 09:24:55 AM »
Quote from: Godspar Games;1125313
I would certainly never put COVID-19 in an actual gaming session. Same for AIDS or cancer. But the paranoia of a pandemic land, the corruption in its dispersal/handling, those are all things that are rich storytelling elements.



Just "typing out loud", general commentary and explaining how it started to give me some game ideas (per my RIFTS example- the overfueling of ley lines, due to high death rate in such a short span of time).

After it became a reality for my wife's family (and her, She's an RN)- the thought of it from a gaming standpoint made me feel awful

Not insinuating/accusing/judging others :thumbsup:
« Last Edit: March 31, 2020, 09:27:49 AM by JeffB »

S'mon

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How are you using covid-19 as inspiration for your rpg sessions?
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2020, 06:12:43 PM »
My plot exposition NPC Sheila Heidmarch in Saturday's Runelords game had flu.