Faction concepts for post-apocalyptic skirmish game?
Ideas for iconic units for said factions?
Current factions: Settlers - pioneers and escorts trailblazing the free wastes - APC-like super haulers - standardized soldiers/guards - mercenary characters that have different quirks and a wider variation of stats
Raiders - sociopaths bandits and murderers stealing for excitement as much as necessity - gun buggies and motorcycles - dime-a-dozen sociopathic murder hobos - berserkers - guys with standout weaponry like flamethrowers or grenade launchers
Ghouls? - like a vampire counts situation with a sentient mutant leading a horde of monsters? Singularity? - still-functioning robots working under the orders of some hive-mind super computer?
Chrome Domes- a group of Raiders that believe that by grafting metal and chrome to their faces and bodies in order to become closer to their "god", a military ai trapped in a bunker
Kevin Taylor
Post-apocalyptic is such an overdone genre. It's synonymous with "I'm not creative enough to create a new setting, but I'm not adaptable enough to reconcile my creation with the real world, so I half-ass it and create a lackluster setting that is mostly the same grey-metal grim Mad Max motorcycle crap that has been done over and over, and a couple semi-creative tidbits will not inject nearly enough originality to save a genre that is so mainstream and cliche that it has been overdone to the point of death from exhaustion.
Post-apocalyptic is literally the same tier as heroic fantasy now, in terms of being plebian garbage. Pick something else.
Landon Davis
You dropped your hat.
Ryan Clark
Ah, the standard response to someone being called out on their cliche garbage.
Please give me just one example of something the post-apocalyptic genre has to offer.
Chase Rodriguez
You never added a closed quotation, so I read that as >"I'm not creative enough to create a new setting, but I'm not adaptable enough to reconcile my creation with the real world, so I half-ass it and create a lackluster setting that is mostly the same grey-metal grim Mad Max motorcycle crap that has been done over and over, and a couple semi-creative tidbits will not inject nearly enough originality to save a genre that is so mainstream and cliche that it has been overdone to the point of death from exhaustion. Post-apocalyptic is literally the same tier as heroic fantasy now, in terms of being plebian garbage. Pick something else."
You may need some help.
Austin Carter
> hey, a thread about a thing I don't like > I'm going to go in there and tell every one I don't like thing because I need to validate my opinions by sharing them with people who clearly disagree with them in hopes of starting some sort of banter or debate to fill my evening
Go fuck yourself.
Leo Clark
Just one?
Michael Young
...
Justin Garcia
A faction that's a mix of ottoman empire and classic rock. Led by the Ayatollah of Rock n' Rolla
Colton Davis
Ah, the standard response when the asshat gets called out.
Adrian Peterson
...
Chase Rivera
Oops! I forgot a quotation mark! That invalidates my entire point!
Good job user, you proved me wrong! Would you like a congratulatory blowjob? Your mom's been teaching me some nice techniques.
So, weird nazi-esque garbage? This could easily exist in dieselpunk which is an actually interesting setting.
Chase Wood
>not liking things gives me the emotional power and control I lack in real life.
Your criticisms are inane and add nothing of value to this thread in specific, and to discourse in general. The fact that you can only picture the banal and trite about something as ludicrously broad as an entire genre says more about your intellect than about the subject.
Please, as one user to another, stop shitting up threads with your vacuous buzzword salad and either come up with something constructive to say or just lurk instead.
Andrew Butler
> hey a thread about my favorite genre > oh wait some user thinks it's stupid and overdone (which it is but I am too emotionally attached to it to admit it) so I better type out a huge overly butthurt post about how angry I am that someone DARES to have a different opinion from me, AND express it. The nerve!
Perhaps. At least my post has content, rather than being a picture of a hat to create a strawman which allows you to avoid the argument at hand.
Perhaps my statement hit a little too close to home. Are you perhaps realizing that post-apocalyptic is an oversaturated garbage genre, a refuge for bad roleplaying the same way science fiction is a refuge for bad writing?
Charles Cruz
Most excellent, but what are their motives? How do they stand out beyond "the faction that uses a lot of cavalry"? What's the hook?
Jayden Nelson
You mean the argument that you're an asshat?
There's not much to say. You are an asshat. Moving on.
Christian Wilson
Have fedoras lost all meaning? He's not intellectually wanking himself about women, religion, politics, or katanas so I don't see the reason for this.
>Spoon feed me Make it worth my while.
Angel Wood
A group of survivors, holed up in a museum that have begun to take on the manner and appearance of Arthurian legend- Knights and squires, fair maidens, etc.
Xavier Russell
Holy shit, the level of purple prose in this post. And you posted a fedora in response to *me*? I'm guessing you took a while to respond because you were busy looking up all those big words in the thesaurus.
> banal and trite
You know, you might garner a little more respect if you didn't use two words that mean the exact same thing.
Also:
>not liking things gives me the emotional power and control I lack in real life.
Projecting much?
Anyway, my criticisms are not inane. Because most of the ideas here are either variations on the same stupid-ass Mad Max biker gang garbage, with some real-world empires kludged on in a desperate attempt to appear original.
> A faction that's a mix of ottoman empire and classic rock. Led by the Ayatollah of Rock n' Rolla
I mean, come the fuck on. You expect this to be taken seriously by adults?
Nathan James
Said content is needless bolstering in what could have otherwise been a productive thread. Not only are you a hellion but you're a hypocryte to boot; > I better type out a huge overly butthurt post about how angry I am that someone DARES to have a different opinion from me -is exactly what you did in post 2.
Grayson Sullivan
>Not knowing the metro series Shows how little you know about the genre. Pls go.
Zachary Campbell
>dieselpunk wanna know how I know you're gay irl? what the actual fuck is dieselpunk, is that like hipster steampunk? is steampunk too mainstream for you?
Asher Thompson
> I can't give a single example of what post-apocalypse genre has to offer > so I'll just insult him instead!
Cool.
>A group of survivors, holed up in a museum that have begun to take on the manner and appearance of Arthurian legend- Knights and squires, fair maidens, etc.
1) Why would they hide in a museum? Most museums are not very fortification-worthy. They are also in the middle of cities which would likely be full of rival gangs.
2) Why the fuck would they act like Arthurian knights? Do they have some sort of advanced form of autism that makes that sort of behavior desirable? Humanity grew out of that overly-pretentious social mindset for a reason.
Adam Bailey
Dieselpunk is steampunk but where the main fuel source is...diesel fuel. It's basically sci-fi 1940's. Very niche.
Jayden Perry
>dieselpunk
I'll admit, Post-Apocalypse is pretty cliched. But it has more variation and character than dieselpunk. Y'know why there are so few dieselpunk settings? It's because it's fucking boring.
You've got two of the standard groups here, but you also probably need some more organized raider faction. Either religiously or tyrannically ruled, they're more militant than the settlers, but also more organized than the raiders. Maybe led by a former army guy. Think Warboys or even the Brotherhood of Steel.
Also have these tables for rolling up factions. I made it the other day, and it's probably not too helpful in this situation, but felt like throwing it out there anyway. pastebin.com/UAaG5jbu
Thomas Barnes
> metro series > the games
user, there was a reason I said post-apocalypse was overdone garbage. I've read quite a bit of it. The fact that you think the Metro games are anything like the books, or even deserve to be referred to, is hysetrical.
Grayson Thomas
You clearly don't know anything about it, so anything I tell you would fly over your head asshat. Go away.
Caleb Butler
The books are alright as post-apocalyptic fiction, but the games have the extra merit of being really good games.
Joseph Brooks
As much as that guy needs to fuck off, dieselpunk is both cool and a thing.
These are both duly noted and great.
Thank you for ensuring this thread will make it to at least 200, if not 250 posts.
Levi Campbell
I'm not gay IRL, but with the amount of chest hair your mom is getting, I'm probably getting pretty close.
Anyway, dieselpunk is usually 1940s-era technology taken to an absurd level, as steampunk is 1880s-era technology taken to an absurd level. Please actually search something on google before accusing me of being a hipster next time.
>There was a reason I said post-apocalypse was overdone garbage Because you're butthurt about Fallout 4 being buggy?
Landon Richardson
Must we have an entire thread of, "your opinions are wrong because my opinions are facts."
Chase Murphy
Nice job dodging the question.
They are dull as hell.
Samuel Thompson
I'm not the fedora poster, I actually posted this: >I'm guessing you took a while to respond because you were busy looking up all those big words in the thesaurus. >>Projecting much?
I'm sorry you're intimidated by others' vocabularies user. You should consider stepping up your game instead of trying to whine at people to get them down on your level.
As a last exiting piece of advice, paired synonyms as a method of reinforcing a point is a useful rhetorical technique. No need to be triggered by it.
James King
What question? That you avoid a genre that you want an example for? Why the hell should I bother? I know you won't change your opinion. You know you won't, even if you secretly are. So let's save each other some time and skip to the part where you go away.
Cooper Butler
As much I'm not really against the idea of admitting that post-apocalyptic fiction is pretty cliched, this guy has put some effort into making some pretty provocative bait. So I seriously doubt this will ever get back on track.
Cameron Cruz
You know why there are so many post-apocalyptic settings? Because they are a haven for uncreative garbage like most of the replies in this thread.
Excuse me for not wanting to play biker gangs and weird cults for the 857th time.
> spending 60 dollars on a shitty GURPS computer game
No thanks.
Christopher Parker
oh man you fucking nerds and your sub categories. I'll bet you all think theres like 50 types of metal too.
Caleb Cruz
>As much as that guy needs to fuck off, dieselpunk is both cool and a thing. Truth
>Thank you for ensuring this thread will make it to at least 200, if not 250 posts. Kek
Nicholas Barnes
I've gotten two ideas out of it actually, so I guess it's at least worth monitoring.
Xavier Ward
So you literally cannot justify the continued existence of the post-apocalyptic genre?
>paired synonyms as a method of reinforcing a point is a useful rhetorical technique.
Only if you're a fucking idiot. But please, continue using big words. It makes you more righter each time you use them.
Benjamin Robinson
Nice ad hominem faggot.
If you want to argue what makes a good argument, then stop being such a cocksucker.
Xavier Richardson
I'm waiting on him to respond to the three posts that actually call him out on his pedantic foolery, but he's blatantly picking the low-hanging fruit.
Joseph Bailey
Is it vehicle based Mad Max Style factions or fallout/metro style factions?
Aaron Reyes
> airships and victorian gentlemen is the same as giant airplanes and huge factory complexes
Please get out. You have no knowledge of history, it's themes, or how to use them creatively to create an interesting setting.
Both steampunk and dieselpunk do this and use real world material to create a setting with engaging character.
Post-apocalyptic is just "lol everything's decayed, plus motorcycles and zombies" that has been overdone to hell. All that's left to do in the post-apocalyptic genre is sucking Norman Reedus' cock and shouting "Witness me!" with the same stale enthusiasm that "the cake is a lie" had by late 2010.
Please just stop. If there's anything Apocalypse World proved, it's that post-apoc has nothing left to offer.
David Thompson
Which three posts?
This is just further proof that post-apocalypse is over-done; the quickest way to describe the setting is as a mix of the countless video games and movies that have used it up and raped its body post-mortem.
If I am hearing a campaign setting described in terms of the video games it rips off, I don't even give it a chance. There is no chance of it being interesting at all, and any original tidbits that it contains can be ported to another genre that is actually worth playing for people over the age of 20 who grew out of this edgy "we gotta fight to live in this tough world" attitude crap.
Michael Morris
It's meant to be a squad-based skirmisher, like Warmachine or Infinity; each player controlling a dozen or so individual units. Some may be vehicles or cavalry, but most will be infantry.
Eli Anderson
The Pale Whalers- a group of cannibal fisherman that managed to scrap together a fishing tawler with tank treads (from a trashed supply ship) and use it to patrol the salt flats that were once the ocean (partly dried due to the apocalypse) hunting anyone they find in their territory and scavenging wrecked boats that have been shipwrecked
Angel Stewart
Don't need to. It exists, and it will continue to exist no matter how much you don't want it to asshat. Go away.
>inb4 you can't Don't care, go away asshat.
Isaiah Lee
> thinks there are only three posts that call him out on his narsasistic asshattery > responds imediatly the post that outlines an explicit set of criteria for proving himself irrefutably superior See? Only the low-hanging fruit. I'm surprised the 3-4 people that are actually arguing with you are still at it.
Adrian Perry
MR.DEER- a crazed lunatic who chases after people in his carbine harvester, and wears a trench coat made from the flayed skin of those he catches
Ryan Barnes
Who would you hear it from? It's not like you have friends.
This is good. I like this.Especially if they have vaguely fishy mutations or are albinos.
Lucas Garcia
> the Pale Whalers
A bunch of pasty nerds who chase fat women? Are you serious? These are the names you come up with?
>Don't need to. It exists, and it will continue to exist no matter how much you don't want it to asshat. Go away.
I don't care that it exists, I simply care that you consider it to have quality, when it really doesn't.
> Don't care, go away asshat.
The desperate flailings of a child who realizes he is wrong. I am chuckling. Don't worry, user, using big boy words means you're right.
Cameron Thomas
Now, as much I'm for ridiculous ideas this one just doesn't make a lick of sense.
Running someone down with a combine would not leave enough to make a coat with.
Matthew Green
Thanks. I'm the user that's trying desperately to post as many helpful ideas as I can. It's tough with all the arguing, but I won't give up
Gabriel Gutierrez
They'd be wasted on you asshat. Get lost.
Jason Diaz
> this projecting ad hom garbage
Are you going to prove what's wrong with I'm saying, or are you just going to keep flinging insults like a baby who can't handle the truth? You remind me of my little sister throwing a temper tantrum when my dad showed her a Mobius strip and said it only had one side (or two if you could the edge). You are a child incapable of dealing with the reality about the genre you love.
Even D&Dfags are more capable of accepting the truth about their genres. Why not you?
This is shitty B-grade horror movie shit. Are you even trying?
Luis Murphy
>stop liking what I don't like confirmed for unwitnessed
Jace White
The combine and the flaying arent related. One's a vehicle and the other is a past time
John Stewart
that is fucking ridiculous I love it
Ayden Moore
Come up with literally anything else, bruv.
Lucas Long
> helpful ideas
Desperately kludging together weird shit from history to create completely unbelievable and laughable post-apocalyptic factions? I think I am contributing more to this thread than you are by far.
Especially given shit like this: Nah I don't think I will. You've spent more words typing out "asshat" over and over and claiming your glorious defense of post-apoc would be "wasted on me" that you could have easily typed it out by now, and then some.
Nathan Powell
I don't need to because I don't play games in this shitty genre.
> the "if you can't out do me your crticisms are invalid" fallacy
So every movie you disliked, you are wrong about, because you are incapable of creating a better movie? Yeah you're retarded, sorry.
Jeremiah Thompson
> people are still responding to him
Elijah Jackson
There's always the classic "pick a celebrity, make a cult about it" idea.
Charles Kelly
> I am so bad at coming up with ideas I need a gimmick to get anywhere on it
See maybe if you picked a genre that had actual merit to it, this wouldn't happen.
Parker Parker
He's persistent, I'll give him that.
Yeah, but if you're gonna do that you have to pick something pretty good. Something people wouldn't expect, but also not too topical or else it loses it's meaning.
Angel Murphy
I actually really like the idea of post-apoc cavalry, but I have no idea what you'd do with this thematically beyond putting them in bitching fezzes
Ayden Allen
What if those guys revered some sort of not-Lenard Nemoy as their iconic ideal of a seeker, and they work to preserve the artifacts and records of the old world; refurbishing museums and using them as storage-bases?
Gabriel Phillips
What about some cult ideas? A hedonism/drug fueled cult? A cult of mutants that worship a "perfect human" baby, untouched by radiation? Vehicle worship?
Landon Brooks
Gonna run a civ game on qst if I ever I find the time to do it. The factions I got so far are
>The Trade Union What started off as a collection of merchants pooling their wealth together to eliminate competitors and buy enough protection to not worry about raiders, the Union has become a post-apocalyptic megacorp that monopolizes trade of pretty much everything across the wasteland. They are the only people who deal with the Wall factions
>The Walled Cities Sections of the Old world hermetically sealed behind massive walls. Most folks continue to live their lives as if the rest of the world hadn't gone to hell, but the governments and the forces they employ know they are a hairsbreadth away from falling apart. The only way they stay afloat is trading raw material with the Trade Union to keep producing all the things they need to maintain the facade.
>Cornucop Named after the grocery store they had originally taken refuge in, the cornucops are actually slavers that built a massive empire on trading and dealing in slavery. They drive their massive legions of flesh to work the blasted soil and turn it into an agricultural paradise where hundreds toil for the pleasure of a few. This huge supply of food is also what they use to keep themselves from being overtaken by other factions. If they die out, the slaves leave, the crops rot in their fields, and the food supply of hundreds of towns dry up.
Grayson Davis
> hmm I need a way to make men on horses less boring than it already is, in a context that makes sense in a fallen society
> i know! I'll give them silly hats
Thomas Cruz
Put em on dirt bikes and give em lances
Carter Jenkins
Good jumping-off points, but a bit generic on their own. [spoilers]inb4 it's all generic, from that asshole[/spoiler]
Ayden Cooper
Worship of the Mouse >The only works that survived were educational videos such as how to keep clean and how to set up camp. Trivial matters that were essential for people to survive in the new world. So many have taken to worshiping the Mouse and his boundless wisdom.
Jackson Davis
> dirt bike lance charge > get rekt by guns
Nice job!
Jeremiah Fisher
> doing ottomans without bitching hats Kindly see yourself out
Nicholas Wilson
May work if guns are a rarity in the setting.
Nolan Rogers
Far too on-the-nose
Nicholas Rogers
guns no, bullets yes they can always make more, but mass-production it ain't
Kevin Morales
Oh yeah I forgot about that. Damn I thought I was having an original thought.
Jacob Sullivan
Which likely wouldn't happen if it takes place in a non-cuck country that actually has guns. They don't rot away instantly, and ammo lasts longer than you think.
> gas still works years later even though it really wouldn't
> but somehow making bullets is really really hard
This shilling of motorcycles and convenient ignorance of reality, is another hallmark of poor post-apocalyptic settings. Though I guess that's a redundant statement.
Jaxon Morris
If they are going to have lances, why not just put them on regular bikes instead?
Do away with vehicles. Gas has denatured by this point so everyone either pedals, walks, or has animals pull them.
> gas has denatured by this point Lets not fill in much more than the broad strokes. Though it would be fare to say gas would at the very least be scarce, so mounts and drawn wagons would likely make a comeback either way.
Nathaniel Miller
There's also no given state for technology before the fall, so we could've had an abundance of alternative fuel sources. If gas didn't make it I doubt many others fared much better, but the more time that passes beyond tomorrow before the fall happens the more and more likely it becomes that they'd have alternatives to petrol.
Liam Gutierrez
Current list of factions to be adapted: Chrome Domes - wanna-be cyborgs worshiping a super computer Tresure Hunters - Authurian-themed order of lorekeepers that hold up in museums and revere a now-dead Lenard Nemoy-esque figure. Armored Cannibals - what ride about the flats on rolling fortresses spearing any animal that comes within 100 yards; whaler/fisher/hunter themed. Ottoman Rockkstars - because ottomans, lots of cavalry, perhaps modern/pseudo-future dress but worn in the (in intended) fashions resembling traditional ottoman dress (still need motives)
[all names pending]
Lincoln Mitchell
I'm just passing by this thread, but you do seem like the average fatbeard fedora wearer. Next time just hide the thread if you dont like it. Shift click in the catalog. Might save you a whole lot of anxiety
Cameron Martinez
Anyone else have any cool ideas?
Benjamin Mitchell
I'm just hanging out atm. Probably get two or three factions just by having various flavors of the two initial concepts; settlers and raiders. Raiders are potentially infinite in variation, but they'd have to be variants that stand out enough to be worth including so that they overlap as little as possible.
Christian Jenkins
That can be as easy as vehicles/weapon choices to religion/fluff. I wish you the best
Alexander Wilson
Just a rough idea, but what about a faction of religious morlock-style mutants?
Once upon a time, a bunch of relatively stable mutants (i.e. living to sexual maturity without spontaneous heart explosions) band up, because numbers are a good thing and their warped minds are sill kind of human. They end up wandering into somewhere like Westminster Abbey, and find religion.
However, since even if any of them can read, they're all nuts and they just start rewriting the religion to make sense to them. They form an elaborate culture based entirely out of finding a bunch of religious regalia and misinterpreting it.
Of course, being mutants people are going to try to kill them. So eventually one of their scholars (barely literate mutant ball of eyes) finds the part in the papal archives that talks about Crusades.
>Hulking mutant priest wearing a pope hat and scarf, Hefting a giant poorly made crucifix as a weapon (Because who the fuck knows what it's supposed to be for.)
Andrew Smith
A swarm of monstrous mushrooms and fungal zombies, formed from an invasive fungus originally developed as a bioweapon just before The War. Cultivated and turned into an army by some hideously infected but lucid and apparently immortal humans who know some way to control them. They may even be the pre-War guys who created this stuff, I dunno.
Chase Rodriguez
Another idea I thought up for these guys would be them having horribly butchered latin/sermons/psalms as weird cultural phrases and battlecries.
Having the traditional mutant greeting of "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" and such wondrous battle-cries as "AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY HE RESTED FROM ALL HIS WORK" or "ET FILLI, SPIRITUS SANCTI" completely out of context make me laugh.
Benjamin Ward
>dieselpunk which is an actually interesting setting. here's your (You)
Austin Hill
>The Iron Men Sociable group that is headquarted in a old steel mill that they have restored to working condition. They gather scrap metal and work it into all sorts of stuff. Naturally they have well made metal armor and high quality knives/swords. They will trade their metalwork for other goods.
Their leader has a set of high ornamented full plate and a big sword. The sword is a symbol of office and is handed down between each elected leader and isn't intended to actually be used as a weapon.
>Tetrad Federation a federation of four large city-states and a dozen other smaller settlements. Has a organized professional military to keep the peace and a lot of politics going on.
Aiden Ortiz
make a tribe that lives in the city ruins. they all wear trenchcoats and fedoras. Also they use shitty Katana replicas because of "Style"
Jacob Murphy
I had this cool idea about a band of international anti-terror paratroopers using diesal powered power armor with magic too, but the more I thought about it more it seemed too much like a kitchen sink type setting
Sebastian Turner
the descendants of the Military. Good equipment and maintenance skills but extremly paranoid. Think of the Boomers or Gunners from Fallout.
Also take about the locations you want to play. Are there any native tribes? Biker Gangs? Any Cave Systems,Metros or Bunkers people could live in?