Some how I ended being convinced to run a Apocalypse World for my third gaming group, the one I wasn’t already running for.
Anyway they want an alien invasion apocalypse. I’m imagining crashed hulks of flying saucers, alien parasites and vermin wandering the wastes, and degenerate survivors of both sides trying to survive in a world of radioactive ash.
What sorts of aliens and alien apocalyptic imagery have you used in your games?
Totally switch it up somewhere.
– Make the landscape the main alien life form as the worlds psychic maelstrom gives full sentience to rocks and trees.
-Make the PCs the survivors of an earth colony that went through an apocalypse and the aliens are from earth, trying to rescue the survivors, who have long since forgotten they are earthlings and therefore fight and fear the aliens.
-Make the WPM the hive-mind of the invading alien forces; the apocalypse was the first attack, this is the mop-up crew.
-Make the psychic maelstrom the alien hive-mind. The aliens are mostly dead, but their psyche has taken up permanent residence here.
-Make any remaining aliens even bigger victims than the humans; they are hosts to mind-controlling parasites. Is radiation the only thing that can kill the parasites?
-Make an alien sex move.
We had a sort of alien invasion pbp game. Our communities were all on the wreck of this enormous (and I mean enormous) alien ship that crashed into Baffin Bay in the north atlantic. The ship was so big that the human colonies (apparantly one of the few places humans survived whatever happened) were on the edges of the ship and most of it was as yet unexplored. It was all made of black glass and the psychic maelstrom was the ship itself. Everybody was constantly freezing. It was very creepy and cool
Here’s a link to our ‘one sheet’
http://snailspace.forgreatjustice.net/comments.php?DiscussionID=250&page=1#Item_0
Post-Invasion of the Body Snatchers. According to canon, pod-people have a lifespan of five years. That means that after five years of ravaging the planet, replacing almost every human being, consuming nearly everything that was consumable and allowing our civilization to collapse from sheer neglect, the Bodysnatcher race leaves Earth a devastated ruin.
The few remaining humans struggle to survive, yada yada yada, and oh yeah… there’s a second batch of pods in an experimental facility that gets activated somehow. Now you got apocalypse pod people. Is your friend really still your friend? Has he been out of your sight for a while?
Thanks for the ideas!
I realize I’m late, but…
I’ve always wanted to run an apocalypse based on the colonization of the Americas. The aliens are generally surrounded by protective force fields that resemble haloes of light and shrug off non-energy weapons. Certain churches in Texas mistook them for angels when they landed — now the majority of texans are slave labor extracting oil for shipment off world (gold is too cliche). Basic terraforming hasn’t done much to the climate, but invasive species have taken over in many areas and plagues of extraterrestrial origin (aliens shrug off the common cold) have left only a fragment of the population intact. Alien space-ports are well-protected seats of wealth and power, and many of the undesirables from their world are setting up shop here in the “land of opportunity.” Aliens live in dense hives normally, and don’t really understand our notions of independence and freedom. They don’t dislike humans — many quite like them — but they think we’re uncivilized rubes and, for example, bought manhattan for a cheap tri-d movie projector. Not to mention we’re still reeling from the major breakdowns in governance and manufacturing. Trade in alien man-portable flying machines has become the major economy of much of the Midwest, with complex and obtruse rules on when theft is allowed.
The maelstrom might be their equivalent of the internet. Sure, you need a pop-up blocker and a spam filter, but as long as you don’t do anything dumb the worst you’ll get is flashing banner ads, right? For humans, those few who understand some of the alien language, it’s a chaotic and dangerous mess, standard rules apply.
Fun, lots of historical grist, and if and when the players get it (humans on reservations? Treaty breaking? Humans who want alien business mostly run casinos, or demo “quaint” reenactment a of the founding fathers and our political process, less and less subtle hints) you get to watch the sobering shock settle in.
Jesse Cox Wow, you lost me for a little bit and then you grabbed me again! +1. It’s reverse AVATAR!
This might be of use to you. It’s my AW hack “Lonely World” which takes place directly following an invasion. Take whatever you want from it.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByThhRLw-FDJb1hoYUY3X0NVa2M&usp=drive_web
Taylor White This is really nicely done. Thank you for posting it.