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00:45, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

New Variations On A Recent Idea.

Posted by Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk
Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk
member, 1542 posts
Ad Majorem
Dea Gloriam
Wed 1 Oct 2014
at 18:02
  • msg #1

New Variations On A Recent Idea

So, as someone pointed out my idea for a game about rebuilding after the fall which did not feature zombies or raiders lacked a key element, the opportunity for adventure and excitement, well, I have spent some time thinking about that and have come up with three ideas that solve that problem, each of which is listed bellow. All of these ideas are very rough outlines on which I would like to work with any GMs that want to take them up to flesh out what they would become, but if the GM prefers I not have an active hand in shaping the world I think I could work with that too, just so long as we get a game going...


What brave new world that has such creatures in it!

The year is 2316, at least on Earth Prime: For the past 300 years the earth has struggled with immense overpopulation problems, which have gotten steadily worse. We have managed to avoid nuclear war, barely, thought there have been a few terrorist attacks using nuclear bombs. San Francisco, Belfast, Paris, and Miami no longer exist. But that has been a symptom of the larger problem of there simply being too many people on Earth.

The United Nations became a true world government in 2251 with the Shanghai Accord under which most of the NATO signatories as well as China and Russia agreed to put half of their armed forces under the control of the UN at all times, giving the UN the world's largest standing army, but while this has done much to promote world stability it has not helped much with the issues raised by our population's continued rise.

We thought we found a solution when we completed the space elevators and started shipping convicts to penal colonies on Mars,  but wouldn't you know it: the martian colonies revolted and declared independence, leaving us with the same problem we had before of not enough space for too many people.

The real solution arrived in 2312 with the invention of the Garbar-MacLear Gate, a device which can access  parallel universes. The device follows terminator rules, the only things that can pass through are living organic matter and light, so the device can view other realities, but we cannot send tools and equipment through along with the people.  After the first few near disastrous tests and the scanning of dozens upon dozens of universes it was discovered that the device links two 'correspondence' points, based on earth's gravitational and magnetic fields, being point's roughly in the same location relative to each other on the two copies of Earth: and that the majority of universes are what are called 'historical alternates' places which are geographically the same as Earth Prime but at some point in the past.

This information rocked the UN when it was revealed, but the decision was made by several countries to use this technology as the ultimate response to the question of execution:  People convicted of capitol crimes instead of being killed would be dropped onto historical alternate Earths where humanity had never evolved and left to survive as best they could. If it later turned out that they had been innocent, they could be retrieved, if not, well, the need for survival should occupy their time more constructively. In the USA in particular there was a groundswell of support for this idea, and the sentence of 'Banishment' became fairly standard for a number of serious offenses, including murder, rape, child molestation, human trafficking, and serial conviction for other felonies under the national 'three strikes' laws. Some states still execute certain offenders, such as serial killers and serial rapists, or put them into the much reduced prison system, but others toss them into other worlds just like the rest of the 'trash', however the state our characters are from is one that keeps the worst offenders behind bars, so that they cannot cause trouble on their new worlds either.

That brings us to the characters and their predicament. The PCs are a group of mixed offenders mostly tossed out on the '3 strikes' rules. You could have done something fairly minor by the standards of today, the politicians stance that you have to be 'Tough on Crime'  has  not lost it's popular appeal over the past 300 years,  and with the world so overcrowded there is a largely unacknowledged but very real appeal to throwing the 'scum' to the wolves, literally. Things which might seem inconsequential to you and me are now felonies, such as stealing an apple from a tree in a park, public intoxication, and getting in an auto accident which barely put a dent in someone's fender without having current state insurance. These sorts of things still have low sentences, but they count against your 3 strike total which will get you tossed into another dimension.

This process of exileing those who cannot conform is no secret: millions of aerial drones equipped with small Garber-MacLear Devices ply the sky of the USA and elsewhere tracking convicts in other universes as they go about their daily lives trying to survive in other dimensions. The Government then repackages the best parts of this footage as 'Actual Reality' TV shows with voice overs that take up the time which would otherwise be dead air on C-span. For some reason C-Span is now a very popular network, at least at night for the DVR crowd, and some people just leave it on 24-7.

Back to our characters however: We are a group of what the government euphemistically refers to as 'Involuntary Colonists' sent to a historical alternate which is currently in one of three time periods, which one is up to the GM. Each will tell a slightly different story for our characters but in most of them the conflict we face is more Man vs Nature than Man vs Man. (Though for some characters the conflict may be more Man vs Self...)

1: Age of Dinosaurs.

The world is still hot and dry over most of the surface, and great saurian monsters roam the world. I will not hold the GM to any specific era in earth's history, they can mix and match all the famous dinosaurs if they want, but I would prefer if the GM is going to pick a period it be WELL before the meteor impact, as in that event will not happen before our Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandchild’s day. The challenge here is figuring out what is safe to eat and so forth in a world for which we have no common points of reference and of course dodging and/or killing the vilociraptors or other apex predators.

2: Mammoth Hunters.

We appear in Prehistorical, in fact Pre-Human, North America, around the time when the first Native Americans would have crossed the land bridge from the Berring Straight, except on this world there are no humans, humanity didn't make it through the near extinction period in Africa. Winters are cold all over the planet and mighty mammoths roam the world along with many other massive animals such as saber tooth tigers and dire wolves. The Challenge here will be surviving the winter and dealing with the carnivores which we will have to confront.  The later challenge is that worlds like this one are considered prime spots to dump people because they have a much higher chance of survival and this goes over better with the folks back home, so eventually we will have to deal with other groups of 'colonists', some of whom may not be as nice as we are...

3: Fruiting Gators!

This one is slightly different: Instead of involuntary colonists we are a diplomatic team sent at the behest of a Native American Tribe into Louisiana circa 1000 AD along with dozens of other similar groups across the USA, with the intent of uniting the scattered and fractious peoples of North America into one unified alternate USA where the natives are never supplanted by the Europeans. Small problem? A, the language's spoken here are like Old English compared to Modern American English, and also there are Monsters abroad in the swamps of Louisiana, alligators 20 feet long and worse. Second problem, even though we have been extensively decontaminated we also bring with us the same scourge that laid low the Native Americans in the first place, viruses. What can we do as the natives begin to sicken and die? And how can we survive in order to meet them with all the snakes and spiders and, yes, “Fruiting Gators!”




With each of these scenarios the GM has another choice to make as well: How well our party is equipped at the start.

1: Chuck Them In!

We start with nothing but our own two hands and whatever skills we happened to have when we were arrested. This is the most challenging option but perhaps the most realistic. This option is not appropriate for the third game idea, but could apply to either of the others.

2: Train them and ship them out.

Instead of being chucked through the portal all Willy-Nilly we are given an intensive 6 month training regimen in survival and wilderness lore skills and so forth, however we are not given any supplies to work with: more on that in a second.

3: 40 acres and a mule.

Remember how only 'living organic matter' and light can pass through the portal? Well, before the world was quite so crowded convicted felons on being released from prison were given '40 acres and a mule' in the hopes that becoming farmers would keep them out of trouble. (There were actually a few other things but those cant come with...) Well, now that we have an effectively infinite amount of space, why not start up with that again? I am sure some states would, if only because sending people off to die is never really popular with the voting public. So, every group of convicts sent through in our state go with the following trained animals to help them survive. (None of these animals are pedigree, they are taken from shelters and the like and trained by professionals then the convicts given a crash course in handling them and shipped out. )

6 Dogs, 1 trained as service, 3 for hunting, and 2 to guard. There are always at least 2 males and 3 females.

4 cats, trained as mousers: minimums of 1 male and 2 females.

1 chicken per convict. There always is at least 2 rosters and 3 hens, making the minimum convict party be 5.

1 sheep per convict, with the same balance as the chickens. This provides the convicts with wool to make clothes on the other side.

1 cow, bull, or ox per 5 convicts in the party, which must be agreed upon by the convicts as an  exercise  in democracy.

The convicts selection of 5000 heirloom seeds per convict, with which to plant their first crops. Almost any variety will be provided, assuming it makes sense for the climate they are being dropped in and the GM knows what that plant IS, because anything the GM has not heard of is too rare to be provided in mass batches. The convicts also get dozens of carved hollowed out sprouted potatoes as containers for the seeds, which can themselves be cut up an planted as crops.  Alternately they could be given things like garlic bulbs and apple tree seedlings that can be planted and grown else wise, but they get less of them.

Lastly they will have a 3 week or so crash course on agronomy and animal husbandry so that they know what to do with the seeds they have selected, and can in theory survive.

Lastly, the convicts themselves: the proportion of each set of 'colonists' sent is kept one of two ways, all men, or roughly 50/50 men and women. The reason it is not always 50/50 is that there are a lot more male convicts than female ones. Which one the game would be I leave up to the GM.


4: And I shall make of you a great nation!

This option combines options 2 and 3: they get 6 months training in survival skills and a host of supplies to work with. This option is the one most appropriate for game idea #3.


So, having slogged through all that,  does anyone think they would want to run this?
Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk
member, 1547 posts
Ad Majorem
Dea Gloriam
Mon 13 Oct 2014
at 17:45
  • msg #2

Re: New Variations On A Recent Idea

Reuping this add to see if it gets more traction earlier in the week.
Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk
member, 1556 posts
Ad Majorem
Dea Gloriam
Fri 24 Oct 2014
at 23:48
  • msg #3

Re: New Variations On A Recent Idea

Reuping the add again to see if it gets traction during the weekend...
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