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[Snowpocalypse] Table Chatter
Post your out-of-character stuff here!
Comments
I'd like something fun, but not totally whacked. I want it to be on Earth, and not so far off that remnants of our culture aren't still around.
Also, I don't want the technology to be reduced to a medieval state (it's a rut I've been falling into lately with other games, want to avoid it here).
Can we talk a few other options before we go too far down that rabbit hole? Sorry.
I'm a fan of things like small, spread out pockets of civilization (where you're more likely to spot a few people living alone than in large groups. Solar storms wiping out satellite telecoms and leaving massive auroras visible even in the day. Maybe even the need to buckle down at night for fear of what comes out... I also really like hard scifi — so the more realistic things seem the better.
In terms of playbooks, I'm interested in trying either a Sharp or Hard based playbook. In no particular order: Savvyhead, Solace, Driver, Chopper...
I'm thinking renewable energy and a scarcity of other fuels. I'm thinking towns and shanties built out of re-purposed scrap, the hulks of automobiles, wire fences. I'm thinking barter isn't gold, or jewelry, or ink-stained sheets of cotton, but something a community needs to survive.
I'm going to settle my playbook on Gunlugger now, as nobody else is mentioning him as their choice, and he sounds like he'll be useful in a wasteland with things bumping in the night.
I like weird solar radiation. The psychic maelstrom could be the howling of gamma rays bouncing off the ionosphere-- usually it's just static, but sometimes you'd swear you could make out voices. There could be strong day/night cycles where you need shielding to be out during the day, but at night things get seriously weird.
Just to throw some other ideas out there:
Computronium/Grey Goo: A nanotech weapon got out of control and started replicating itself out of all available materials. The psychic maelstrom is old subroutines running in dead software on the distributed computer made of The Dust. You've got to be careful. That stuff gets in everywhere, and when enough of it piles up, things get weird.
Too Cold: Someone did something drastic about global warming. The ruins are still there-- crumbling chimneys that once stood a mile high, pumping reflective dioxide crystals over the troposphere. Staying warm is a constant challenge. I don't know what the explanation for the maelstrom is in this one, but I bet you can tap in best while you're freezing to death.
Too Wet: A lot of things didn't used to be underwater. Now they are. It's always damp and muggy and you'd better know how to work a boat, or know someone who does. Also, that red mold starts growing on anything that sits still long enough.
Trends I see that I like:
* scarcity of people, smaller, scattered settlements
* weird solar radiation
* dehumanizing infection as a threat ("zombies", The Last of Us)
* significant landscape change (snow-pocalypse, swamp-pocalypse, tree-pocalypse)
I'm all for the "Too Cold" deal. I've always wanted to try a snowpocalypse, and I also don't even mind the "pseudo-vampiric plague" idea — I think it could work really well. So long as we don't get too deep into caricatures, I'm game.
But there's no reason Those Who Heard couldn't be mad with rage, ignore harm, driven to every sick, twisted, base instinct rattling around in their head-cage, giving us something to truly loathe and fear.
@Scott — Nice! I like that idea. It also makes people willing to take the drug something to fear, because they don't mind waiting out in the snow for a few hours, or possibly even days, for a payoff. "Icewalkers" or something.
@Kaillan — Nice! Someone needs to play a Hocus!
Oh, and that Whiteout shit is nasty, sure it means you can run around naked in the sub-z, but it does that by running your metabolism so hard you visibly age every time you suck on a cube of it.
I can't get the White Walkers out of my head with all this zombie talk.
Oh, and FWIW I strongly prefer to NOT know what the deal with the Maelstrom is when we start. Maybe hints and notions, but discovering the full parameters of our own particular hell is a big part of the fun of any given AW arc for me.
If this is where we're going, I wanna be the Chopper, roaring around with my gang on our chopped-out snowmobiles: "Fuck, it's the Ski-Dos, get the kids inside!"
Don't care for that, don't want all these old semi-naked people and as Rich said, hot sexy dangerous people is a thing. But some terrible side effect? Psychic related? Makes it harder to stay where it's warm... where sane and normal people go? Your blood runs cold and you freak everyone out?
Anyway, I like the idea that it's some kind of crystals you suck on, like an altoid or something; as delivery devices go, the conditions aren't conducive to injecting or smoking.
And there's certainly plenty of space for Icelandic steam vents and hot springs and stuff where we can loll around starkers; they'd be coveted real estate to fight over!
Also: don't feel obligated to read the other game threads. :P
I will try and hash out a character concept over the next day or so.
Feel free to choose your own name for your PC. I'll list up the custom Names List in the People of Note thread once we get closer to first session.
(they're so keen)
Scott and I have been discussing character ideas together, and we're toying with the idea of being twin sisters. He's mentioned here wanting to play one of the "ice bloods" that wander the snow drifts drugged up on that metabolism spike, and I think it would be interesting to play someone who compliments that: someone who doesn't take the drug, and generally leads a straight life.
I know there are already two "Hard" playbooks taken, but I think I'd like to play a Faceless... I like the idea of being this normal person most of the time, then throwing on a mask and wandering the snow drifts as something of an urban legend. "That faceless drifter that nobody knows by name" kind of thing.
Plus it means I can play nice with the Chopper, Gunlugger (and possibly Battlebabe) by night, and play well with the Savvyhead by day!
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/As-Freezing-Persons-Recollect-the-Snow--First-Chill--Then-Stupor--Then-the-Letting-Go.html?page=all
Some cool stuff about adaptation, too:
"Were you a Norwegian fisherman or Inuit hunter, both of whom frequently work gloveless in the cold, your chilled hands would open their surface capillaries periodically to allow surges of warm blood to pass into them and maintain their flexibility. This phenomenon, known as the hunter's response, can elevate a 35-degree skin temperature to 50 degrees within seven or eight minutes.
Other human adaptations to the cold are more mysterious. Tibetan Buddhist monks can raise the skin temperature of their hands and feet by 15 degrees through meditation. Australian aborigines, who once slept on the ground, unclothed, on near-freezing nights, would slip into a light hypothermic state, suppressing shivering until the rising sun rewarmed them."
Also a cool bit about revival: You can be saved by the fact that your metabolism slows down enough to prevent brain damage.
Chicago
PROS: lots of pics of it cold/ covered by snow, some neat locales in the city
CONS: already seen as a somewhat cold city, so not as drastic of a change, the Cubs (jk)
St. Louis
PROS: further south, not a terribly well-known large city, the archway frozen would be interesting
CONS: not many locales of note, not on a lake
Atlanta
PROS: has an underground, which is very cool, lots of neat locals, would be very different as a frozen city
CONS: not on a lake
- You have a ton of landmarks: space needle, cathedrals, bridges.
- It's surrounded by water.
- Plenty of skyscrapers.
- Quite a bit of snow images, unless Google is lying.
- Its Underground is apparently a thing.
Chicago's underground consists of numerous freight tunnels.
More info about the underground of Chicago.
I'm very keen on massive solar radiation effectively killing all radio/satellites.. Maybe we're back to telegraph-level long distance communication, and giant bulky non-portable AM radios that will maybe go a few blocks and constantly overheat.
The one time I played AW, I was a Hard Holder. I'd like to do something different.
I don't have a problem with R- to NC-17 rated stuff, but I prefer to keep outright porn out of gaming.
I hope we have Wendigos of some variety.
I like the idea of the Great Lake frozen solid, with a thriving ice community that has burrowed down deep enough into the ice to where the water is still liquid and fishing is just barely possible. Lotsa weird lights and voices in the ice tunnels, maybe there's a half-sunken cruise ship that factors into things...
What the heck is a wendigo in this context? Snow critter?
The under-the ice tunnels and stuff sound awesome!
I meant telegraphs for across town, certainly not much further. May maybe Chi-town has those old-style pneumatic tubes, so only a few places actually physically *can* be telegraphicable.
It *really* appeals to me to have very unreliable distance communication- it underscores the isolation of winter. (I'm re-reading the Shining right now, so that's creeping into my mind.)
Re: Wendigo- if we want weird to 11, giant ravenous snow beasts worse than yeti. As I understand it, it's a Native American legend as relates to cannibalism... which sparks to me that it's the evitable danger of the Icewalking drug- too much and you're gone.
(Space Marine Mammal and Marmot can go die in a fire)
@Rich Didn't think so for this game.
I feel like making a character from the Underlake, so we'll see more of it. Confirm that I can't choose Savvyhead, Brainer, Gunlugger, or Faceless? No schtick-stepping in AW, correct?
I watched a bit of The Colony (2013 movie with Bill Paxton and Larry Fishburne) today, just to see a movie version of a snowpocalypse
The Colony lives underground, has some hydroponic gardening and a small batch of animals that they keep in cages and use to keep the colony going. Lots of great imagery for how trapped they are, how trapped and confined everything is.
Sickness is a huge HUGE threat for the group in the movie. The flu is very dangerous. This was fascinating, as if medicine was pretty much gone. I notice we don't have an Angel PC. Hrm...
There's a bit where three characters are crossing a suspension bridge over a huge ice chasm, and the bridge is barely holding it together. Not sure if I'd use it, but some tense moments there.
I only watched the first half hour. I want to watch it again.
Straight up asking questions is my job. :P
For energy: sustainable is preferable for larger settlements, where as smaller bands can make do on more erratic, unreliable sources (it depends on timescale here, fuel-siphoning would grow less and less effective over the years); solar-winds instantly come to mind, though I like the element of risk mentioned above for generators - if not a fire, then perhaps the reverse, where the generator shuts down. Why not emphasis the threat of freezing, rather than adding the threat of burning to death?
Edit: No worries @Rich, just wanted to spark some OOC discussion with questions that were on my mind, without being too aggressive by instantly focusing on my own ideas. Wasn't intending to step on toes.
I want a Zamboni but don't want to be the Chopper.
Edit: this sort of has an industrial vibe, which gives a sense of scale. This could imply that fish are both food and barter.
But good point. Now that I'm thinking Operator, I can easily tie myself to any of the other players.
from http://www.zamboni.com/about/fun-facts/:
"In April of 2005, Road & Track magazine performed a “road test” on the Zamboni Model 500 ice resurfacing machine. They determined the machine’s top speed to be 9.7 mph and that the machine would go from 0 to ¼ mile in 93.5 seconds."
Not that there can't be a heavily modified one. What would you do with it? Or what would you want to do with it?
@Rich I like the idea of a reliable ice-travelling vehicle. It might not be an off-the-shelf Zamboni.
OR
I have no idea what those are, but I want two of them.