Thursday, August 1, 2013

22 Quick Post-Apocalyptic Questions Redux

My session last Saturday went swimmingly.  Almost exclusively an urban city-crawl, with Ancient self-cleaning toilets and down-on-their-luck androids and a kindly tortoise sawbones-slash-dentist-slash-beautician (who's kind of a racist) and multiple psychics cheating at poker and a duchy of chemical-guzzling creepoids and a mechanical dog and a bar brawl and stolen marshmallow fluff and an airboat.

I chalk up the success to fleshing out Gunspoint, and giving the players places they wanted to explore.  And the town grew in "real time" as they riffed and queried and such.  My settings and games are always collaborative efforts, and they're better for it.

Answers after the jump!  (And consult the map for more detail.)



22 Quick Questions For Your Post-Apocalyptic Campaign Setting
  1. What's the deal with my village's particular Rite Of Passage?   You're no jailbait village bumpkin trundling to Far-Go or Quests Mountain in this campaign; you're an "independent contractor" in the bustling dive of Gunspoint 
  2. Which way to the nearest tavern?  Fortunately, one of the PC's backstories includes being a bouncer at The Rusted Hulk, a mud-stranded ship converted into a bar. Convenient!  
  3. Where do we buy useful gear? Gunspoint is rife with vendors of all stripes; you can find pretty much anything, if you know where to look.
  4. Where do we repair / reload / refuel these artifacts? There's a few "tech guys" in town.  Expensive, though...will probably demand half your loot just to fix the rest.  And fuel cells are nigh-impossible to come by.  Explore, scavenge, repeat.
  5. Where do we get some high-tech healing? In the wastelands, where you plunder, plunder, plunder.  No one willingly parts with med-kits in Gunspoint, unless offered, say, a firstborn, or a soul.
  6. Where do we fix our resident android / robot? In "Cybergatory" (located in The Scumside of Gunspoint), where robots go to die.  Germaphobic engineer Mahgna Tinus will fix you right up, if you bring her another android (dead or alive) to provide the parts....
  7. Say, what IS the local currency / medium of exchange, anyway? "Currency" loosely consists of Ancient CDs, DVDs, and credit cards; the shinier / prettier / "neatest design"-ier the material, the more valuable.  Everything is mostly barter, barter, barter.
  8. Are there any infamous ruins / vaults / laboratories / installations around where sane mutants fear to tread? Go outside.  Walk a mile in any direction.  There ya go.  (Ok, ok...there's The Blastrodome and the sunken ruins of The Downtown and the NASTAR spaceport and a few others of note.)  And there's always those mythic Ruins Of Woebrook....


  9. Where is the closest contaminated zone to idiotically try for powerful new mutations? The Burning Sea is a smoldering wasteland of refineries and chemical plants and grounded tankers, where you'll probably just end up with cancer.  There's also the cracked reactor on the southern end of The Slime Barony.
  10. Where do we get cures for the following conditions:  toxin, radiation, infection, lousy new mutations, nanobot infestation, corrupted databanks, broken cybernetic implants? You're pretty screwed, unless you plunder, plunder, plunder.
  11. Are there any cults / gangs / cryptic alliances I can join and / or fight? There are plenty (like The Zoopremists and the Satan's Cerebrum's science-biker gang), but you're beneath their notice...for now.
  12. Where can I hire mercenaries? You ARE a mercenary, silly.  But other townies will happily work for you.
  13. Where can I find a technician, lorekeeper, psychic, or other expert NPC? Gunspoint has it all.  But it helps to know a guy who knows a guy.
  14. Where do I find a mighty mutant monster mount? The small villages outside of Gunspoint herd trilobison. And peliphants, beebras, and gruboceros live in the wilds. Pretty much, if it has legs, you can try to tame it.
  15. Who is the greatest warlord in the wasteland? The Queen (whoever—or whatever—she is) is taking over swaths territory with her mutant army.
  16. Who is the craziest Artificial Intelligence in the wasteland? REDACTED.
  17. Who is hoarding all the gasoline in the wasteland? Gas is pretty much gone; fuel is made from plant squeezins.  You find a source, you keep it to yourself.
  18. What critters are sufficiently terrorizing the wasteland that if I kill them, I become famous? There's a cult of blood-draining freak-os out there, and they serve big, scary, bat-things....
  19. Are there any wars brewing I could go fight? The Queen is coming for your town.  It's only a matter of time.
  20. How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous artifact prizes? Pit-fighting is as common in Gunspoint as extra limbs and venereal disease.
  21. Is there anywhere on the map where certain races are shunned, mutations / artifacts are outlawed, and / or The Powers That Be significantly hassle the PCs? The Slime Barony is adamantly pro-plant; fleshy ones, beware.  And Huntsvile is reputed to be overrun with robots that adhere to Ancient correctional policies and procedures....
  22. Are there means to journey into space, or under the sea, or through the dimensional barriers? The NASTAR spaceport would theoretically be a great place to visit the stars, if it wasn't infested with all those lunar lupines....