I’ve been working on a post-apocalyptic steampunk pen & paper RPG for a long time. It entered beta state – with a beta PDF – in April. I’ve been playtesting (running games with) it for a couple of years, running it for a total of 30-40 people. Current project name is “Purgatory”. The final name will be something different.
Purgatory takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that was shattered by a religious revolution. Fanatics plunged the world in an apocalypse, burning it with hellfire and smiting down the wrongthinkers with plagues. They remade the blasted remains as their image. On came the Burning, where all past knowledge was purged. Great book pyres burned for months. The worst thinkers burned with their writings. All history before the great purge was declared forbidden. Now, five hundred years after the Burning, technology has declined into magic. Superstition has replaced reason. Witches and warlocks don't lob fireballs - they use napalm grenades, but the effect is just as magical to the peasants.
General technology level is around 17th century, with muskets and rapiers. Of course, the setting is not historical, but anachronistic. A mercenary might have a targeting laser attached to a musket, a nobleman could have a digital watch as part of a court attire. Hereditary nobility and corrupt merchant princes run the world. Religion rules supreme and fanatics threaten to destroy what remains of the old world infrastructure. Slavery is common. Much of the world is ruined and poisoned by the ancient war. People live beneath the shadow of the burned past. Technology is the domain of enigmatic, inhuman Techmancers, whose skills are treated as sorcery.
You can read the
introduction here.
Current
beta pages are here. They are a little plain to my liking. I haven't got around to doing a proper look, adding pictures and stuff. There are some illustrations I could already use. Oh well, soon!
So, why is the game awesome? Four reasons. 1) The game world is modular.
You can play it as fantasy, post-apocalyptic Earth or steampunk (well, clockworkpunk) space opera. In the fantasy version, there are flying ships traveling between pieces of the shattered world. In the space opera, they are haphazard, radioactive spaceships made of scrap. On post-apo Earth, the ships are actually submarines faring through the poisoned, polluted seas. Alternatively, they could be airships. Modularity applies to everything in the world. There are no final truths, just a list of suggestions. You can choose what is real. Reality is a matter of perception.
2) Like the world, the rules are modular.
There are light core rules and stuff you can add to modify them. With all the extra layers Purgatory is heavy, dark and cumbersome. With the lightest rules it works just fine for light, heroic swashbuckling. You can choose your genre and the rules that support it best.
3) Lots of fluff. Everything aims towards a very strong and special atmosphere.
4) Excellent support.
Big plans for online support with stuff like the plot generator and scenarios available online. Eventually, when the game is published, this will be the carrot to buy it instead of pirating.
Interested?If this fires up your engine, I’m willing to take in a couple of more testers. Feel free to spread the word! I prefer people who will/can actually run the game. I’d like to know the testers at least somewhat personally before sending them the PDF.
I’m about to start doing version 1.1, it should come out before Christmas. I’m not promising any clearer goal, I have a day job, heh. You can see
the changelog here.
I know grammar in the current version has problems. English isn’t – obviously – my first language. Proofreading waits for the main book to find the final form. (It is too big right now, 50 - 100 pages need to be axed.) No point in going through the text with a fine comb when the contents will change.
I'll be happy to babble about the project and answer to any questions!
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Topic: Post-apocalyptic steampunk RPG (pen&paper) (Read 1510 times)