Flexible Genre

[Rerun941]

There's always a lot of discussion about flexibility in various rules systems,but I'm finding that in working on an original Post-apocalyptic setting for d6, I'm torn...
Sometimes I want a real gritty, hard science setting with only plausible technology based in the real world. Then I'll wake up the next day and think "man, this would be so much better as an over-the-top, cinematic, fantasical setting with mecha, magic, monsters, aliens and zombies!"

Is there any way to be able to do both (without making two totally separate games)? What I'm thinking is: have a set of rules (the d6 system) and a "core" setting... but then offer GMs certain setting options based on the kind of game they want to run.

I remember the old Gamma World 4th Ed book has a section in the front where it basically said: "there are two ways you can play Gamma World: 'Wild and Wahoo!' or 'Grim and Gritty'" There's no wrong way to play, but each has a unique "tone" or "feel" to it.

Would you tie it into the timeline? "if you play in X era, there is no magic, the world is grim and gritty" vs "if you play in Y era (set after X era) magic has entered the world and the game can be played as a more fantastical/cinematic setting" *ponders*

[rusviking]

Going down that route I would suggest something similar the Fallout computer game series. It had several elements that would have made a perfect table top RPG. You had future elements, you had a classic 50's feel and some strange science fiction aliens running around.

If I were doing something in the guise of fandom I would combine Mad Max, The Boy and his dog, and the Escape from New York/ LA. Perhaps throw in The Ultimate Warrior just for kicks. Then decide on how to tie them in together by year and so on.

[harmyn]

If you are developing this as a product to share with others and really want to include both options (and believe me that sounds like a cool option) I would suggest start by focusing on the grim n' gritty realism aspect of it. Using Body Points in place of wound levels and all the other fun bits and bobbles to make it work.

Then I would have a chapter later in the book called something like "Steel Dawn" (surely Patrick Swazey's best work ever) and providing the guidelines for mecha super tech and other sorts of sci-fi fun. This would be followed by another chapter for "People of the Atom" offering a variant setting giving people options for magic/psionics and all the fun mutants. After that you finish up with a short chapter entitled "Turning it up to 11" and offer advice, suggestions, and various ideas on how to mix it all together for a grand old time.

But that is just off the top of my head.

[Rerun941]

Thanks for the feedback, Harmyn! That's definitely in line with that I'm thinking.

I guess I'm concerned less with tweaking rules to fit the setting and more concerned with trying to make interesting settings. Or at least more options for interesting settings. Cuz I know that d6 can handle any setting out there.

To be more specific, here are some of the details of my homegrown setting:

I want to borrow ideas from such varying sources as Rifts, Transhuman Space, Jovian Chronicles, The Terminator movies. But only pieces/parts from each. Sometimes I like the idea of more over-the-top like Rifts. Other times, I'm more inclined to make it realistic like Transhuman Space.

For example, in a realistic setting, even with the best estimates it would take centuries to make Venus even minimally habitable. One way to completely transform the planet would be to use magic, but in using magic as a method to allow PCs on Venus (and creating more roleplaying opportunities) I would be completely changing the feel of the game world.

I guess I want to have my cake and eat it, too. lol

[Whill]

Just to play the devil's advocate here, at least consider the possiblity that maybe it may be a bad thing for your game for you to have your cake and eat it too. Perhaps it might be best to pick which type of setting you want to make, and then totally embrace that in your game design. Otherwise you may put a lot of energy into balancing things in the middle to allow for them to can go either direction, instead of just putting all your focus into the one direction.

And if I had a vote, I'd probably go for the cinematic setting because D6 may be able to do the realistic gritty too, but it excels at cinematic. That is what it was designed for afterall.

OK, there's my one and two cents. Good luck whatever you decide. With your creativity and mastery of game mechanics, I'm sure it will be good regardless.

[Catstacker]

You can always take the middle road, which is usually grim'n'gritty, but is punctuated with whatever far out notion tickles your imagination any given week. Think of X-files, where the whole world is normal, except for one abberation (per week) that starts the action and requires the characters to think instead of just acting. X-files is full of magic, but as long as only one person believes in it and there is no evidence left behind by the end of the episode, normalcy prevails.

The same principle is easily applied to a post-apocalyptic setting, because after the world is smashed, you can remake it however you want. It has everything to do with the catastrophe that destroyed civilization. In the 80's it was assumed that World War III would leave a radioactive wasteland populated by mutants, and later premillennial tensions nurtured a bunch of RPGs with a more biblical apocalypse with angels and demons. So what sort of apocalypse did your world have?

If you want to have fantastical elements, you could use aliens with such advanced technology that they can do whatever you need them to for an adventure. Maybe the story goes that they land on Earth, and the benefits of their technology make the nations of the world go to war with one another, and after the nuclear winter the aliens are a little more discriminating, but the player characters are trying to do good to gain their favour so that humanity can be uplifted from their bomb shelters.

But here's an idea I like better because it doesn't need aliens ex machina and Clarke's Law: There's a war of sorts between different interests who use psychotropic viruses to make their enemies go crazy. Few people know that there's a war going on, but there are increasing numbers of people acting strangely, and reports of outlandish sightings (which are hallucinations but infected people are getting more suggestible.) The economy, society, and nations collapse, and there's not enough food being made to feed everyone, but there are still enough bullets for us all. The player characters are trying to survive and find a cure, but they are confronted by all kinds of strange phenomena that are probably hallucinatory, but they might still think that it's real. There'd be a kind of sanity test like in Call of Cthulhu, but going crazy wouldn't mean an end to the character, they'd just have to take a side trip through the looking glass.

So in that setting you could have "mecha, magic, monsters, aliens and zombies!" all in your own backyard, and you could dictate any given tone just by the way you present the players challenges, and the way they'd like to play temporary insanity.

[Rerun941]

Whill: I think you're right, d6 does cinematic better than grim 'n gritty. And my main inspiration for the setting is "toning down" Rifts.

Cat: I've been settling on the birth of Sapient/Sentient Artificial Intelligence coupled with the AIs use of nanotech and biotech against humanity as the main cause of the first catastrophe. The second catastrophe is caused by man's attempt to rediscover and reinvigorate magic and use it as a weapon against the AIs.

One of the main themes I want to emphasize is the idea of "Pandora's Box." In humanity's rush to explore/invent we often solve a problem with one technology only to create three more problems. We're working so hard on endeavors like: computer intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. But they could prove to be the same Pandora's Box that was found in unleashing the power of the atom. Ok, so with that theme in mind: there are no aliens/otherworldly invaders except those humanity creates for itself. (After all, what's scarier than the fears we invent for ourselves?)

As with Pandora's Box, the last item in the box is hope.

The current incarnation of the project is here (http://www.geocities.com/absb941/Apocalypse_d6.rtf)

[Kalzazz]

Hmmm. Well, one thing you can do is make technology/setting agnostic characters and just have them hop back and forth between settings

My group does that with GURPS, we have a standard mid fantasy setting and a standard modern Buffy type setting, and use the same characters (mostly) in both of them

[Catstacker]

Pandora's Box is a good theme for a post-apocalyptic game. It has the cautionary message of good sci-fi, while offering a grab-bag of goodies to players willing to risk side effects. I'd offer a wide spectrum of bizarre side-effects to keep the players from getting too confident, and to balance against the players who want to play normal people.

In your story, I also see there being survival groups of luddite "purists" who both find biblical reasons to abhor magic as well as being afraid of contamination by the nanotech. It's great when the player's greatest enemies are people who are just like your next-door neighbours. Don't get me wrong, mutants and zombies are great, but they don't offer a wide dramatic spectrum.