A large object is heading towards Earth. Nasa devises a plan to destroy the object, splitting it before it impacts. This mission is only partly sucessful. The object shatters into many smaller pieces, and most enter Earth's atmosphere and impact. Some of these are miles wide, others burn up on entry. The Impacts are widespread affecting most of the northern hemisphere. Some large cities survive, others do not. All are affected in some way. The resulting devestation is widespread and random.
Mannasseh, MO: 75 miles southeast of Kansas City. Impacts occur all around town. Small meteorites mostly, cause damage to some builings and roads. 10 miles north, a 40m wide piece impacts, the flash can be seen, as the resulting fireball in nearly a half mile wide. Other flashes from the East and South are also seen. 3 seconds later, seismic tremors rock the town, moving furniture and knocking plaster from some of the older buildings. A few structures lose chimneys.
45 seconds after the tremors stop, the air burst rolls through, breaking windows, blowing down trees, and stripping leaves and branches from many more. 12 more seconds.. and large fragments of earth and rock rain down, having been sent skyward by the impact. some are small, like golf balls or softballs, but many are as big as 5 feet wide. dust and debris continue to rain down, for nearly a half hour, from larger blasts that were farther away... more air bursts sweep through town, leveling more trees, moving cars, and knocking down a few buildings. The ground continues to tremble as the cosmic debris impacts all over the continent.
After what seems like forever.... you emerge from your house to find your hometown in shambles.
This is where I am currently. I didn't want to do the zombie virus, nuclear destruction, or Rapture events. I thought, "What would happen if Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck failed?"
Any ideas?
Massive social and political breakdown, leading to a disruption in government services, and mass death from disease, hunger, exposure, and rioting. Eventually, well-armed people will band together and form new societies, some benevolent, many hostile.
Basically, it sucks 
But it'd be fun to game in.
I figure that somewhere.. one of the objects damaged a nuclear power plant or something.. so there will be some radiation, but not alot. I also figure the military/national guard will be overwhelmed with distress calls and such. some bases might be wiped out completely by impacts.
I think I have the potential to expand this thing out.. but I need to focus on my small town first.
It sound really intriguing! I'd love to get that description as an email intro to a game. I like the idea of starting in a small town that was relatively undamaged by the initial impact and then exploring what's left of the US. You could do a very D&D-like game, where you essentially "graduate" from smaller towns to larger population centres, but the dead cities, the ones that people fled once the facilities stopped working, could easily be large-scale "dungeons." You could also go the Mad-Max route and have waring factions, the arrogant and war-like taking advantage of the noble and peaceful (as they are wont to do, generally speaking). Lots of different possibilities with this one. I like it. It's apocalypse, but it doesn't introduce a whole layer of fantasy that you'd have to swallow to start with--like zombpocalypse or atomic mutations. The gritty (no pun intended) premise is great. And the added bonus of starting with our world means that a trip to the library and downloading a few maps gets to 75% of the way towards building your game world.
That's what I was thining the whole way. I also think that having a distinct lack of fantasy or zombie elements opens the world up to more possibilities. If objects hit a power plant somewhere, maybe there will be some mutations, but not alot. I also can see certain bands of people going nuts, and becoming extremely savage, even to the point of cannibalism.
Just a matter of getting it done, and really bolting down the details...
If you want to stay mildly realistic, bear in mind that the kinds of mutations that are likely to happen around a nuclear plant are things like lukaemia. It's up to you, obviously. I'm just saying.
Also, "reverting" to cannibalism is kind of a misnomer. Cannibalism on a social scale is an exclusively ritualistic practise (just ask the Pope). People don't "revert" to social practises just because we Westerners inaccurately associate them with African or Aboriginal culture. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, here, but you seem interested in doing something vaguely realistic, so I thought I'd point that out.
Again, sounds like a great premise!
Well, as far as cannibalism.. I never used the term "revert."
They may "resort" to cannibalism, if people are the only meat that can be reliably found or trusted to be contaminant-free. I was thinking that a group could go beyond what most would consider acceptable means to keep themselves alive. I'm thinking more like the socer team that ate the dead folks on the mountain, or the Donner party.
Thyroid cancer is the most common side effect of exteme exposure to nuclear radiation. I've been doing alot of research on Chernobyl and Prypiat (Pripyat, I've seen it spelled both ways) I've also found a map of the US that shows the location of all the nuclear power plants and research reactors, and their fallout zones if an incident were to ocur. (anyone East of the Mississippi is pretty much screwed, btw.)
I've also looked into what happens when a population dies or relocates, but the buildings are left behind (Kadikchan, Prypiat again, and Centralia PA) There are a ton of abandoned towns or "ghost towns" in the world, that have been vacated for various reasons.
I'm thinking a town or city may be wiped out by a plague of sorts after an object strikes a medical research facility or something, leaving the structures intact. Biological weapons and or mutated viruses could be an aftermath, but they would be the exception, not the rule.
Whoops! My mistake. I misread you. "Resort" makes way more sense than "revert." Much apologisings.
Also with the debris being miles wide and if one hit near a coastal town wouldn't parts of the city i.e. New York be flooded in certain parts. And wouldn't some debris be caught in a decaying orbit around Earth... also satellite communications system could be hit by the debris and cause lapses in military deployment/etcetera.
Yes it probably would be.. especially in New Orleans, where city proper is actually below sea level.
The focus for my game will be in the midwest, but feel free to borrow fro your own game based anywhere you like.
Thanks for the go ahead of using things in my own campaigns... I was just thinking it would be interesting to the PC's reaction if they were staying in a town that wasn't hit only to wake up in the middle of the night when the debris starts falling down or the PC's return to a town they traded with only to find it gone or small parts still remaining...
Also, depending how long the gameplay goes on for the PC's would also encounter bad foodstuffs, canned mostly when they go exploring through the ruins landscape of LA or Chicago not to mention the Cannibal tribe that still lives in them
Also, once the party leaves the midwest they could encounter remains of say the Russian Military who after several contained reactors are hit the remains of their government sends expeditionary parties to find viable locations for their exodus
Cool ideas! I saw a National Geographic special on YouTube a while back that would be really great for reference material for you, lemme go find it in my Favourites list...
I found the trailer for it, it looks like the full video has been removed:
that aftermath documentaire is nice... same as: Life after people - history channel
another documentaire worth watching: Super Comet - After the impact...
and about 'realistic' mutations... i would more think in mental mutations... more sicko's in the world is always fun... think 'The Joker' from dark knight, batman.
Also, there are a lot of chemicals out there that governments keep in control... chaos...anarchy...no government,.. nothing keeping that stuff under control... think '12 monkeys'..
if it's been a while after the impact there could be some reastablished places with research centers... a lot of research is now not possible because of global rules.. like cloning, DNA alteration. nazi human experiments could also bring inspiration.... probably there's a lot of stuff i don't even know about (please.. if you know anything, i'm open for suggestions)
that's it for my 2 cents... i'm interested in how you'll continue... keep it up!
On another note.. Has anyone here tried using "E6" ( "Epic Sixth") with d20 modern ruleset?
I like the idea behind E6, too kep everything in the realm of human possibility and not get into things like superhero and Wuxia. I am not loking for an argument on whether I shoulde use E^, just whether anyone has and what changes might need to be made.
You might want to look into Twilight 2000 and its more recent update, Twilight 2013, for ideas.
IMHO one of the best and most realistic post-apocalyptic RPGs on the market.
Ok.. so I'm thinking it will use an amalgam of SW saga, and 4e ideas, with d20 modern occupations.
The base classes from d20 modern don't work well for me. I'm not really into them.
I'm thinking no "classes" averyone uses the same level progression, and gain feats at 1st based on their occupation. Occupation also determines what talent trees are available.
I'll use the "1/2 level" attack bonus and defense progression, as well as static fort, ref, and will defenses like SWSE and 4e.
I will not be using the powers system of 4e, as I don't think it lends itself to this type of game.
constructive criticism please...
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The sky burns with shooting stars. When some of them hit the ground, the very earth trembles -- and horrifying new creatures and magic arise.
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