During the Collapse - This is really fun as survival horror, either as a zombie apocalypse or just a post-disaster panic where the most dangerous enemy is your neighbor.

Up to one generation after the Collapse - This is a sweet spot for me, you have some remnants of the old world, people are mainly bartering for salvage.  Groups are organizing around resources, with waste in between, so you can go with an Old West type of feel.

Multiple generations after Collapse - This doesn't interest me much if too much is lost and tales of the past become like the story that the kids told in Mad Max 3.  I like this best when the characters are fishes out of water, the classic Morrow/Damocles Project. It makes for a great "Star-Trek" like campaign where you can meet the "new tribal culture of the week".  For this era, however, I prefer that more knowledge/tech be kept or reclaimed (like Rifts).

Way after Collapse, return to Aboriginal life - I'd prefer a game about actual tribal cultures then this.  Also this type of campaign assumes such a level of technological devastation, I'm not sure people would survive.

Way, way after Collapse, new Middle Ages - I always thought this would make for a great "fantasy" setting.  Promised Sands did this, I liked it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;396464Up to one generation after the Collapse - This is a sweet spot for me, you have some remnants of the old world, people are mainly bartering for salvage.  Groups are organizing around resources, with waste in between, so you can go with an Old West type of feel.

That's a pretty apt description on the post-apocalypse game I am hoping to run using Atomic Highway, inspired by Mad Max, Fallout, Stephen Kings The Stand and mainly the Belgian comic book series Jeremiah, by Hermann (apparently it was made into a tv-series with Luke Perry as the main character - not really aired or available around these parts, unfortunately).

Guns, but also bows and crossbows, as the ammunition is running out. Cars, but gasoline is scares, so also horses. Sort of civilized areas and cities, but also a lot of wilderness and savage outback.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;395895.................OPTION 1:  Just a few years after, with societies trying to hang on, the last vestiges of armies still carrying out the orders of the rapidly fragmenting governments, using all the high-tech gear while they can but with obvious huge gaps (formerly truck or humvee towed or helo-delivered artillery pieces are now horse or "conscript" drawn, aforementioned "conscripts" carry hand-reloaded zipgun rifles or are issued improvised pikes, no more aircraft, etc.)?

...OPTION 2: Or do you like it "mid phase" postapocalypse: road-warrior/book of eli/the ultimate warrior style - humans on a tribal level, "tech" is provided by the one aging scientist or doctor in the form of knowing what kind of poop works best as fertilizer, etc.
.................

If I ran a game ?

 I'd say halfway between those two options or a " 1.5 " version as it were.
Just close enough to the now/present so that a few older people remember what a real pizza was.


- Ed C

I argue here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWIGyX40LyU

That most PA settings are pretty silly. Not that aren't fun mind you. But about as sensible as your standard fantasy setting.

I like mid-to-late apocalypses.

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