[NU] General Discussion

edited June 2014 in nupocalypse
Let's use this space to discuss important IG topics, starting with the role of Anomalies in the fiction.

We're gearing up to have the Anomalies as a full blown Landscape threat, but I'm more interested in them playing a support role... In the sense that we see them, and they affect the PC's lives, but for the most part we're interested in the fallout they cause than what they do. Something of flavor, rather than substance. I know we're seeing a lot of them thus far, but that's so I can hash out what they're for.

Where do you guys stand?

Comments

  • I like anoms being a scary threat, a reason to stay out of cities, a thing that was a very big problem decades ago, and now there are only ripples.

    How do anoms and the psychic maelstrom relate to each other?
  • I half imagine they are more superstition than actual anomaly. "That building collapsed, must've been an anomaly!" "Eat all your vegetables, or pop'll throw you in an anom!" "Tum Tum just got flung straight up! Run! It's an anomaly!"

    I do like the idea of weird localized gravity-gone-wrong.

    And ripples.
  • I would say rare, but real. Perhaps there are a few "classes" of them - some affect gravity, others affect other things. Mysterious - amenable to study but not a "solved" problem. Occasionally useful if "stable." Dangerous as hell always, though. I would prefer for myself as a player NOT to know what's going to happen when Clarity encounters one.
  • The idea of going to a zero G anom for a party sounds really frickin cool (for the young folk)
  • I have a vision of the id monster from Forbidden Planet. Probably too much.
  • edited June 2014
    I like the idea of anomalies being rare but also subtle, and a little sinister, and very seldom the tornado of destruction that we've experienced so far. We don't need anomalies that can smash the world- after 50-odd years of apocalypse, buildings and structures have plenty that will make them collapse without an anomaly's help.

    Some anomalies, like the ones appearing in Roadside Picnic, are just incomprehensible refuse. A fuzzy growth on antennae that is contagious to other metals. Here's an excerpt, too- a good example of paranoia over what may be nothing:

    I didn't like the looks of that cover. Its shadow wasn't right. The sun was at our backs, yet its shadow was stretching toward us. Well, all right, it was far enough away from us. It seemed OK, we could get on with our work. But what was the silvery thing shining back there? Was it just my imagination? It would be nice to have a smoke now and sit for a spell and mull it all over--why there was that shine over the canisters, why it didn't shine next to them, why the cover was casting that shadow. Buzzard Burbridge told me something about the shadows, that they were weird but harmless. Something happens here with the shadows. But what was that silvery shine? It looked just like cobwebs on the trees in a forest. What kind of spider could have spun it? I had never seen any bugs in the Zone.

    Is it benign. Maybe, but there's just something that seems wrong. Maybe what's so great about Robinson's detector is that you can point it at something to test: is this actually a threat or am I just paranoid?

    I feel like our anomalies should be less "hand of god/aliens" and more tied in with the brokenness of the apocalypse. (What is that brokenness? I'm wrestling with that.)
  • I like where you are going with this, Jeff. I only want Anoms to be a force like a Landscape. I WANT to deal with people mostly. People who have scarcity and logical needs.
  • I like the idea of some being predictable. The zerogee bubble which moves in almost an orbit around a drive-in.

    But the big ones are gone. Mostly. We know them by what's left behind, strange and confusing areas of oddness.
  • edited June 2014
    We know them by what's left behind [...]
    a.) A really neat principle to explore in AW
    b.) The title of my debut sadcore post-rock album.
  • edited June 2014
    Alternately- and I admit that I'm pulling a 180 on what we've been trying to suss out, and this is probably not for this game, but food for thought- what if these few big anomalies we've seen are signs that they're getting worse? Reality is decaying, and there's a doomsday timer on the psychic maelstrom.
  • NEAT. "I haven't seen one that bad since Tum Tum was knee-high to a grasshopper!"
Sign In or Register to comment.