This second supplement in a new line deals with the world after the
end of civilisation: friends, foes and environment.
Disclaimer: I received an additional material credit in this book
and therefore did not pay for it.
This is the companion piece to Wastelanders, rather longer at 56 PDF
pages, and is split into four chapters. First is The End, listing
potential reasons for the end of civilisation, from Bombs Away
(nuclear warfare) to X-Factor (aliens) at greater length than in the
first book. For each, notes are given for making it the primary cause
of the end or a secondary effect (including how they link to each
other), and for the sorts of hazard that will be common in each case.
For example, a global nuclear war is the only one large enough to end
everything, but anything down to single detonations is plausible as a
military or terrorist side issue when something else is going on;
apart from the obvious radiation hazards, chemicals, munitions and
adverse climates will be inanimate concerns, while human problems will
include gangs, paramilitaries, and perhaps "zombies" if the GM wants
to point mutations in that direction. The chapter ends with notes on
selecting a pre-crash tech level and time since the collapse, with
their effects on the flavour of the game, as well as notes on how the
existence of off-world colonies may change people's expectations even
if those colonies don't appear in play.
Chapter two lays out more details of those hazards, from Chemicals and
Munitions to Zombies. Each one gets a few pages and specific details:
Mutants mentions identification and treatment, then gives some
packages for humans and some example animals and plants. Most worlds
won't have all of these, but there's enough of a framework here for
the energetic GM to build challenges for a decently-long campaign.
The third chapter addresses adventuring challenges other than those
major hazards, ones that are likely to appear in any ruined world:
finding food and water, travelling and camping, getting into and
around ruined buildings, scavenging, building and repairing tech
(which may well be adaptable elsewhere), combat (with simplified range
bands from Action), and persuasion and bartering. Many of these
rules are somewhere in GURPS already, but as in Action 2: Exploits
this section is a handy quick reference.
The final chapter deals with running a post-apocalyptic campaign,
considering settings for cinematic vs realistic and morality, things
to do between adventures (fairly abstracted), keeping good equipment
from overpowering the enemies, and a particularly welcome set of notes
on how to make each character archetype useful: things that can be
thrown into the game so that the player of a bruiser, or an inventor,
can feel that he's still contributing to the game even if it's mostly
dealing with other things.
As expected, the really big gap in this pair of books is building and
maintaining a community. It's clear that lots of players don't find
this a problem, and are happy to go about looting and pillaging with
an amorphous "town" in which to heal up and upgrade their gear. If I
were running AtE directly, rather than stealing bits from it for my
existing games (as I most certainly shall be), I'd be very inclined to
set up some sort of rules structure for the economics of a settlement,
how much farmland it takes to feed one non-farming mouth, the costs of
paranoia versus the risks of welcoming strangers, and so on. Clearly
this would be a significant task, and difficult to research, but I'm
kind of tempted now. GURPS After the End 2: The New World is available
from
Warehouse 23.
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