Experiences What's your least favorite thing about post-apocalyptic roleplays?

[Bullyboy Squad]

This is one of those genres knocked around by the media, overfeeding us with the often subpar ideas and even worse execution of zombie hordes and nuclear wastelands. Some love it others slag it off on every occasion. For me, there's something undeniably attractive about being thrown into no-man's-land and watching our characters remodel the memory of humanity.

What's your apocalypse story? Do you enjoy roleplaying at the end of the world or is there something that puts you off about it? What is overdone or not done enough?

 

[Idea]

I've recently noticed a development in myself of a certain particular interest in the Walled City trope in post-apocalypse scenarios or similar worlds. This idea where the last remnants of civilizations gather in these small fortified locations and just protect each other against the threats outside for the survival of their kind. There is unity and cooperation, and a really contained system that can be explored in-depth without having to expand too far beyond because, well, there isn't much beyond it. Drastic measures can be taken, great efforts pulling together the best of one's kind, so I think this trope is one of the better crystalizations of one of the things appealing about post-apocalyptic scenarios: Necessity. It's a very pragmatic interest mind you, as it's basically enabling certain ideas that just wouldn't fly otherwise. A post-apocalypse can create situations where there is a stronger need for every bit of help, and for taking drastic actions, which as mentioned is useful for creating certain plots.

That said, I am also a fan of the melancholy of post-apocalyptic RPs. I think it's kind of tough to properly capture cause it's a very slow thing to do properly and a lot of people have trouble dealing with extended slow moments in RPs, but when done right there's a lot of potential there: There's such a sadness to the loneliness and to everything that was lost in the apocalypse, or even to the dark things one must do or endure simply to go on another day. To those little things lost, and even the joy of the little things one still gets to enjoy. Plus few things break my heart the way a dog suffering / being killed does.

This takes me to what is my favorite aspect of post-apocalyptic RPs, or favorite thing in them (though ironically you can have it even in RPs that don't seem post-apocalyptic at all): The Lost Civilization trope. Maybe society has regressed, but there are still ruins of the self-destructive but more advanced counterpart. Maybe this is some alien or foreign explorer, finding the debris and legacy of a fallen humanity. The potential impact of this on the characters and the world is enormous- will people attempt to take advantage of this technology? Will the legacy of those lost help history repeat itself, or it will teach them a lesson? How will the characters react, emotionally, to remnants of the fallen? Why did they fall and what does that say about the current world?

All in all, when it comes down to it, I think my interest in post-apocalypse comes specifically in the "after the end of the world" part as opposed to the actual end of the world itself (though I can certainly see myself playing one of those as well given the right partner and plot). That being said, even with all this my interest in post-apocalypse is kind of passing and I generally prefer more modern or pseudo-medieval time periods (I consider post-apocalyptic a setting time period and a genre distinctly/separately), and in particular the zombie apocalypse types are generally not my thing, though that may be in part because my propensity for the kind of characters I like to play (specifically I like to play child characters, which were/are not viewed as sufficiently useful to be in those roleplays, it would appear, which is a criteria I honestly think detracts rather than adds to such a roleplay) was not received well in past attempts to join such roleplays, so I guess it's something of a personal grievance.

Lastly, I wanna touch on my current uses of the genre. I have a couple of OCs and a few plots in which I use the post-apocalypse genre and/or the above mentioned tropes. Starting with characters I've got Glow (just Glow), the captain of the guards in a magitech post-apocalyptic city. Their world was overrun by threats never before seen when, unknowst to them, time-space multiversal rifts opened which poured in the remnants of monsters used in a future multiversal war. In public, Glow displays an extremely strict persona, and she truly believes in following and protecting the law to its utmost extent, though when away from the public eye she does like to goof a lot more. My other OC with these elements is Kenshi Kanata, one of the OCs from very old RPs whose character sheets I updated into a newer format recently. He's from a world where a space collony ship AI went haywire and after it crashed began treating the planet they were on as a prison planet. Kenshi is among a group with an ability to essentially transform into a mecha though, and they are frequently sent on expeditions to scavenge food or supplies where possible.

Moving to plots, I have Beyond Those Treacherous Walls and This World is War. The first is an isekai RP where the characters end up being betrayed and expelled from the walled city in the midst of a war in which otherwolders are fighting for dominance. The second is also focused on a war, but one which is tainting the very world and slowly eroding it. The key to stopping it is my partner's character it seems, but my own character, the only one who knows how to solve the problem, has a damaged memory. Still they come to my partner's to attempt to give them guidance with what they can access of their memory.


PS: Just realized I answered my most favorite things, rather than my least favorite...

 

[Bullyboy Squad]

I like how you put it in the first paragraphs. Your plots sound like heaps of fun, make me even more excited for my rps.

 

[Idea]

I like how you put it in the first paragraphs. Your plots sound like heaps of fun, make me even more excited for my rps.

Best of luck with those!

 

[Nihilum]

Oh. My time to shine has come.

As someone who has aggressively been a part of the zombie craze for years, I can easily tell people what makes or breaks a story - and it's a lot easier to mess up than you think. If you don't have a strong base for the main defining factors of the genre such as the disease, things are quickly going to fall apart and the giant, gaping holes in your world building will show.

1) Oh my god you can't just slap some stuff together that sounds cool for the infected unless you're working with a setting that has fantasy aspects. This is the worst offender I see. "Super crazy strong mutants that came from the common cold and now they're hungry for flesh and have no sense of pain!! Rarrr!"

I spent an absurd amount of time researching infectious diseases and pathology when I designed my 'zombies' (use that term loosely). Nobody wants to go the route of the Walking Dead when your biggest reveal about the disease is 'lol aliens did it.' Once you start to actually look into it - hell, take a look at our current pandemic as an example - you don't need insane straight-from-hell-creatures to trigger a worldwide collapse of society. Just a couple of bitey buggers would bring down entire nations pretty easily, either because people don't believe it's as serious as it is, improper handling by government or military agencies, or even just a lack of resources to come up with a treatment in time. It's taken us a year and a half to get out a vaccine for COVID, and that's without anyone eating each other's faces.

And if you really want realism, dead zombies don't make sense. But that's a completely different debate.

2) You need to have realistic thinking in terms of resources and how the remains of civilization would hold up.

You're stuck in the city. You'll just grab a car, right? No, the gasoline expired. Also, the battery is dead. Also, the tires have gone flat. Also, the tubing and other sensitive parts have suffered from dry rot. Also, every major road in a twenty mile radius has either been barricaded by military or is congested with major vehicular wrecks that you would never be able to move by hand.

But good thing you have your trusty shotgun...right? Oh, wait. You ran out of shells in the first month, the stores have been ransacked (good luck finding toilet paper!) and your gun is starting to malfunction because you can't find the right tools or materials to maintain it. Maybe you should really rethink this whole firearms thing. Besides, the moment you fire that thing in a city, all 250,000 of its former inhabitants will hear you from a mile away if you're outside.

Once you hit several years into the future, the infrastructure and structural integrity of buildings becomes an issue. Roads are going to crack, cave in, and form sinkholes without the crews to keep them up. You can't just ride your bike through that. Any buildings you stay in are going to be unstable, especially the larger ones - you might not even know the roof has gone bad until it falls in on your head while you're sleeping. Don't even get me started on the underground locations like subways. You and every other person had that same idea, and even if it wasn't falling apart, you'd be eaten by every other person who thought they could make it down there.

3) Military response; they're not your friends.

That overused trope of 'military bad!' exists for a reason. Anyone who writes a story with them being the good guys isn't thinking realistically, because once things start to go to shit, their priority no longer becomes saving individual people. It's stopping the spread, and that might even include nuclear response. 28 Days Later and the L4D comics are a great example of this. Individual survivors are considered a threat to their surviving bases, and they're either killed on sight or brought in for some experimental testing that'll help the majority. Even immune people can't be trusted, because they could be carriers still able to infect others. I like using this as a plot device because it poses a pretty fun dilemma.

4) When in doubt, consult our Lord and Savior, World War Z.

That is all. This book is considered the pioneer for the zombie genre for a reason. There's never been a roleplay where I haven't consulted back to it when I needed help figuring out some niche part of the worldbuilding. It covers literally everything you could think of, especially when used in tandem with its spinoff, the Zombie Survival Guide. Actually, just abuse referencing media as much as you can. Most people haven't seen any of the more obscure films, so who's going to notice if you're "inspired"? I'll never admit how much of my stuff came into being just by me watching the 28 Days Later series and going, 'huh, that's look cool, I think I'll add that in.'

...Oh dear, I'm rambling.

 

[Bullyboy Squad]

Oh. My time to shine has come.

As someone who has aggressively been a part of the zombie craze for years, I can easily tell people what makes or breaks a story - and it's a lot easier to mess up than you think. If you don't have a strong base for the main defining factors of the genre such as the disease, things are quickly going to fall apart and the giant, gaping holes in your world building will show.

1) Oh my god you can't just slap some stuff together that sounds cool for the infected unless you're working with a setting that has fantasy aspects. This is the worst offender I see. "Super crazy strong mutants that came from the common cold and now they're hungry for flesh and have no sense of pain!! Rarrr!"

I spent an absurd amount of time researching infectious diseases and pathology when I designed my 'zombies' (use that term loosely). Nobody wants to go the route of the Walking Dead when your biggest reveal about the disease is 'lol aliens did it.' Once you start to actually look into it - hell, take a look at our current pandemic as an example - you don't need insane straight-from-hell-creatures to trigger a worldwide collapse of society. Just a couple of bitey buggers would bring down entire nations pretty easily, either because people don't believe it's as serious as it is, improper handling by government or military agencies, or even just a lack of resources to come up with a treatment in time. It's taken us a year and a half to get out a vaccine for COVID, and that's without anyone eating each other's faces.

And if you really want realism, dead zombies don't make sense. But that's a completely different debate.

2) You need to have realistic thinking in terms of resources and how the remains of civilization would hold up.

You're stuck in the city. You'll just grab a car, right? No, the gasoline expired. Also, the battery is dead. Also, the tires have gone flat. Also, the tubing and other sensitive parts have suffered from dry rot. Also, every major road in a twenty mile radius has either been barricaded by military or is congested with major vehicular wrecks that you would never be able to move by hand.

But good thing you have your trusty shotgun...right? Oh, wait. You ran out of shells in the first month, the stores have been ransacked (good luck finding toilet paper!) and your gun is starting to malfunction because you can't find the right tools or materials to maintain it. Maybe you should really rethink this whole firearms thing. Besides, the moment you fire that thing in a city, all 250,000 of its former inhabitants will hear you from a mile away if you're outside.

Once you hit several years into the future, the infrastructure and structural integrity of buildings becomes an issue. Roads are going to crack, cave in, and form sinkholes without the crews to keep them up. You can't just ride your bike through that. Any buildings you stay in are going to be unstable, especially the larger ones - you might not even know the roof has gone bad until it falls in on your head while you're sleeping. Don't even get me started on the underground locations like subways. You and every other person had that same idea, and even if it wasn't falling apart, you'd be eaten by every other person who thought they could make it down there.

3) Military response; they're not your friends.

That overused trope of 'military bad!' exists for a reason. Anyone who writes a story with them being the good guys isn't thinking realistically, because once things start to go to shit, their priority no longer becomes saving individual people. It's stopping the spread, and that might even include nuclear response. 28 Days Later and the L4D comics are a great example of this. Individual survivors are considered a threat to their surviving bases, and they're either killed on sight or brought in for some experimental testing that'll help the majority. Even immune people can't be trusted, because they could be carriers still able to infect others. I like using this as a plot device because it poses a pretty fun dilemma.

4) When in doubt, consult our Lord and Savior, World War Z.

That is all. This book is considered the pioneer for the zombie genre for a reason. There's never been a roleplay where I haven't consulted back to it when I needed help figuring out some niche part of the worldbuilding. It covers literally everything you could think of, especially when used in tandem with its spinoff, the Zombie Survival Guide. Actually, just abuse referencing media as much as you can. Most people haven't seen any of the more obscure films, so who's going to notice if you're "inspired"? I'll never admit how much of my stuff came into being just by me watching the 28 Days Later series and going, 'huh, that's look cool, I think I'll add that in.'

...Oh dear, I'm rambling.

Thanks for the insight, sounds legit. Did you use your special zombie concept in some roleplay yet?

 

[Nihilum]

Thanks for the insight, sounds legit. Did you use your special zombie concept in some roleplay yet?

I wouldn't call them 'special' so much as they are just backed up with medical and scientific evidence, but yes. Now, provided I haven't written for a while so that concept has been in limbo, but it's in the works. It follows the bizarre adventures of some immunocompromised carrier Ukrainian kid, a feisty, angry British soldier kid, and the disgruntled private military contractor Russian woman who still has no idea how she ended up with this lot. It's kind of like if the plot of Resident Evil and the worldbuilding of 28 Days Later had a baby...

 

[Bullyboy Squad]

I wouldn't call them 'special' so much as they are just backed up with medical and scientific evidence, but yes. Now, provided I haven't written for a while so that concept has been in limbo, but it's in the works. It follows the bizarre adventures of some immunocompromised carrier Ukrainian kid, a feisty, angry British soldier kid, and the disgruntled private military contractor Russian woman who still has no idea how she ended up with this lot. It's kind of like if the plot of Resident Evil and the worldbuilding of 28 Days Later had a baby...

Sounds great, link me up if you don't mind me following it. I should watch some zombie movie...I'm in the end of the world mood lately.

 

[Murdergurl]

My "least favorite" (because that's a nice way of putting it) thing about the post-apoc genre is that it is almost always supernatural. And within that confinement, it's even more commonly about zombies. It's just So. Goddamn. Overdone. And when it's not zombies, it's something to do with a virus or nukes or something.

I'd like to see post-apoc setting of a different variety. Get away from the same tropes that have already been done to death (no pun intended). Set it in something other than modern day, for starters. I actually prefer settings that are way, WAY after the fall. You don't even have to have it be Earth. You could do a sci-fi setting on a colony planet. You could make a sword and sorcery setting. You could do steampunk. Also, I absolutely despise para-military (or actual military) settings. And these roles are almost as popular and overdone as the zombie thing.

 

[Bullyboy Squad]

My "least favorite" (because that's a nice way of putting it) thing about the post-apoc genre is that it is almost always supernatural. And within that confinement, it's even more commonly about zombies. It's just So. Goddamn. Overdone. And when it's not zombies, it's something to do with a virus or nukes or something.

I'd like to see post-apoc setting of a different variety. Get away from the same tropes that have already been done to death (no pun intended). Set it in something other than modern day, for starters. I actually prefer settings that are way, WAY after the fall. You don't even have to have it be Earth. You could do a sci-fi setting on a colony planet. You could make a sword and sorcery setting. You could do steampunk. Also, I absolutely despise para-military (or actual military) settings. And these roles are almost as popular and overdone as the zombie thing.

True, they were done to death. I still enjoy them but something new would be refreshing.

 

[Lorsh]

Though I like having military be present lorewise or as antagonists, I always find military backgrounds lame for most post-apocalyptic characters. It's never anything tame like working the requisition desk at the National Guard base, they're always ex-SAS snipers or something.

 

[Bullyboy Squad]

I'm guilty of it. I guess a lot of us just wants to be the badass hero in rp. Not a pog who've never even seen combat.

 

[Ashy_OCdesigns]

people who can use guns instantly(rps or shows)

 

[Murdergurl]

Though I like having military be present lorewise or as antagonists, I always find military backgrounds lame for most post-apocalyptic characters. It's never anything tame like working the requisition desk at the National Guard base, they're always ex-SAS snipers or something.

^exactly what I always want to avoid from this trope. Everyone wants to play Mr.Badass-soldier-guy. As if we don't have enough movies and video games featuring this kind of character, already.

 

[Ashy_OCdesigns]

^exactly what I always want to avoid from this trope. Everyone wants to play Mr.Badass-soldier-guy. As if we don't have enough movies and video games featuring this kind of character, already.

what about the old baseball bat?

 

[Murdergurl]

what about the old baseball bat?

Pretty sure the iconic imagery of the weaponized baseball bat (especially wrapped in barbed-wire) started up in the late 70's/early 80's in some gang-featured movies. It really got pushed in early video games like on the SNES and Sega Genesis. But the choads probably just know it from The Walking Dead or Harley Quinn. lol


That being said, it's just a club. As a species, we've been bashing stuff over the head with a club since Og the Pungent was living in a cave and skinning Saber-toothed Tigers for a loincloth.

 

[Jannah]

Everyone wanting to be the baddest mo' fo' on the block and thinking they can single-handedly take out zombies, mutants, whatever.

Also, after this pandemic I can no longer take these kinds of stories seriously unless there's some kind of group denying there's a problem and doing everything they can to disrupt those taking precautions. In other words, some idiot denying there's a zombie outbreak and then hiding their infection when they finally get infected, thus endangering everyone else.

 

[Prince Lutin]

I actually hate post-apocalyptic RPs in general. One reason is because they've kinda saturated the market for RPs - they're literally everywhere.

 

[Jannah]

I actually hate post-apocalyptic RPs in general. One reason is because they've kinda saturated the market for RPs - they're literally everywhere.

Most of them feel the same too.

 

[Werepunk]

Post-apocalyptic roleplay is one of my favorite genres, but there are some tropes that I'm a bit tired of myself. Zombies are definitely one of them, as are "radiated wasteland" types of settings (despite being a big fan of Fallout NV and Fallout 4, haha.) I don't think these are bad per se, and more power people who still enjoy them, it's just that I've seen it done enough by now that I'd always rather do something else.

Lately I've been gravitating towards what I'd consider more "realistic" apocalypses-- basically, instead of heavy sci-fi elements, I like to play in settings where the apocalypse was caused by real-world problems we're facing now. I mean stuff like... income inequality and resource hording leading to famines and health crises, climate change drastically altering the environment, some governments being overthrown and others becoming dictatorships, etc.

Basically, I'm more interested in speculating about what the world will be like generations from now if the human race doesn't make some serious changes, rather than what would happen if a single cataclysm destroyed the world.

But I can definitely see why this kind of post-apocalypse setting might not be popular. For one, it's going to heavily involve real-world politics and events, and a lot of people don't like that for valid reasons. Two, it kind of hurts the escapism aspects of roleplay, and it can tap into people's anxieties. So while I'm a big fan of it, I understand that kind of setting isn't for everyone.


And completely in the opposite direction... I've always thought it might be fun to try a fantasy kind of apocalypse instead of a sci-fi one. Something where magic suddenly comes into existence and causes the end of civilization as we know it, then people have to survive in an absurd world where magic exists so all sorts of outlandish things are possible. That's also something I haven't seen much of, and it might be a bit more fun and feel less dire than what I described above.

 

[Jannah]

Post-apocalyptic roleplay is one of my favorite genres, but there are some tropes that I'm a bit tired of myself. Zombies are definitely one of them, as are "radiated wasteland" types of settings (despite being a big fan of Fallout NV and Fallout 4, haha.) I don't think these are bad per se, and more power people who still enjoy them, it's just that I've seen it done enough by now that I'd always rather do something else.

Lately I've been gravitating towards what I'd consider more "realistic" apocalypses-- basically, instead of heavy sci-fi elements like zombies, aliens, mutants, etc., I like to play in settings where the apocalypse was caused by actual real-world problems we're facing now. I mean stuff like... income inequality and resource hording leading to famines and health crises, climate change drastically altering the environment, some governments being overthrown and others becoming dictatorships, etc.

Basically, I'm more interested in speculating about what the world will be like generations from now if the human race doesn't make some serious changes, rather than what would happen if a single cataclysm destroyed the world.

But with that being said... I can definitely see why this kind of post-apocalypse setting might not be popular. For one, it's inevitably going to heavily involve real-world politics and events, and a lot of people don't like that for totally valid reasons. Two, it kind of hurts the escapism aspects of roleplay, and it can tap into people's anxieties. So while I'm a big fan of it, I definitely understand that kind of setting isn't for everyone.


And completely in the opposite direction... I've always thought it might be fun to try a fantasy kind of apocalypse instead of a sci-fi one. Something where magic suddenly comes into existence and causes the end of civilization, then people have to survive in an absurd world where magic exists so all sorts of outlandish things are possible. That's also something I haven't seen much of, and it might be a bit more fun and feel less dire than what I described above.

Omg, yes. Sounds like you enjoy the same types of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic stories as I do. I do a lot of writing that explores political and social themes since it's stuff I'm interested in.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

The big issue I have with apocalypses is actually tracking the consequences and the process from Beginning to "Well... shit."

Take a zombie apocalypse, for example. Some virus is turning people into mindless beasts. How does the virus work? How exactly is it transmitted? Where is the point of origin? How did the world respond? How was the world actually overrun? How do people survive in the aftermath?

Most zombie apocalypse settings ignore questions 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, while only barely answering 3 with a "patient 0" and 7 with some scattered survivors and bandits.

You're never gonna convince me that if the U.S. military got wind of a horrific viral contagion transforming people into monsters originating in... let's say Sebring, that they wouldn't take action. Can it be contained? Can it be cured? Can it be controlled? And if the answers to the above questions are all "No", Sebring would suddenly be a crater! So how did the zombies overpower the world's militaries?

I mean, some apocalypses can be handwaved. Fallout's nuclear war, for example. The world's nuclear superpowers were staring at each other with their hands over the big red button, and somebody blinked. Meet the aftermath.

But other apocalypses need some actual thought put into them, and it just doesn't happen.

 

[Jannah]

The big issue I have with apocalypses is actually tracking the consequences and the process from Beginning to "Well... shit."

Take a zombie apocalypse, for example. Some virus is turning people into mindless beasts. How does the virus work? How exactly is it transmitted? Where is the point of origin? How did the world respond? How was the world actually overrun? How do people survive in the aftermath?

Most zombie apocalypse settings ignore questions 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, while only barely answering 3 with a "patient 0" and 7 with some scattered survivors and bandits.

You're never gonna convince me that if the U.S. military got wind of a horrific viral contagion transforming people into monsters originating in... let's say Sebring, that they wouldn't take action. Can it be contained? Can it be cured? Can it be controlled? And if the answers to the above questions are all "No", Sebring would suddenly be a crater! So how did the zombies overpower the world's militaries?

I mean, some apocalypses can be handwaved. Fallout's nuclear war, for example. The world's nuclear superpowers were staring at each other with their hands over the big red button, and somebody blinked. Meet the aftermath.

But other apocalypses need some actual thought put into them, and it just doesn't happen.

Kind of why I prefer more realistic post-apocalyptic settings. Think pandemics, nuclear war, climate change, etc. rather than things like zombies and aliens.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Kind of why I prefer more realistic post-apocalyptic settings. Think pandemics, nuclear war, climate change, etc. rather than things like zombies and aliens.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good apocalypse when there's actually monsters holding humanity back from recovery. But it's gotta make sense. Disbelief can only be suspended so far, after all.

But I digress, as long as the apocalypse is thought out by the writers, it's all good.

 

[Daisie]

You're never gonna convince me that if the U.S. military got wind of a horrific viral contagion transforming people into monsters originating in... let's say Sebring, that they wouldn't take action. Can it be contained? Can it be cured? Can it be controlled? And if the answers to the above questions are all "No", Sebring would suddenly be a crater! So how did the zombies overpower the world's militaries?

I've never actually sat down and watched a monster movie, but this is always what I think of when I hear about another coming out. Humanity is friggin tough, man. Never underestimate the power that desperation gives us.