What's the best #ttrpg for a #solarpunk campaign?
@peterdrake I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I believe I finally have an answer that I'm satisfied with: Twilight 2000.
I know, you're confused. You're wondering why a game like T2K would even remotely be considered #solarpunk. It's very simple.
In T2K, you as protagonist characters have the opportunity to make a better future from a collapsed and fallen one. The pieces are all around you to do so.
But also, unlike most solarpunk games, there is no predefined definition of what "better" actually means. You are free to decide for yourself and given your situation what better is.
Not only that, you are free to decide what mechanisms you bring to bear in order to make that better world come about. Some threats won't be amenable to a simple conversation and a small meal.
Some threats you have to have heavy artillery and a couple of flanking infantry units to deal with. Not everybody will be on board with your idea of the perfect solarpunk future.
You want to build an outpost of civilization amidst the fallen ruins of the old, the latest edition has all the tools you need to make that happen. But it also includes all of the mechanics that tell you why it's very, very hard. And will always be a struggle.
@lextenebris Interesting. I had the impression that T2K focused almost entirely on combat operations.
@peterdrake It does not. There are entire sections on establishing and maintaining a community. Scavenging the surrounding territory in order to find the things that you need in order to build up the necessities. But it's always been that way to one degree or another, even in the previous three editions.
T2K Living Steel, and the Morrow Project are probably the best and oldest examples of futurist community building RPGs, which everyone who says that they are into futurist community-building RPGs immediately disparages or doesn't know about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Steel
@lextenebris Again, interesting. I do like the idea of having detailed (but not incredibly fiddly) rules for simulating resource/infrastructure issues. Are there more modern games that do this, or are the "simulation" players all running these and other old-school games like Traveller and GURPS?
From the artwork, these all seem pretty grim -- there's been a horror apocalypse and everybody is packing multiple guns. I'm not saying I want to run a game where anthropomorphic woodland creatures sit around drinking tea and talking about their feelings, but I'd like to see a world the players want to live in and protect.
I know opinions vary wildly, but I'm imagining solarpunk as being about (1) imagining a plausible world we'd like to live in, then (2) figuring how to get there. With climate dread and specter of galloping christofascism, people need to see any path to hope.
Have you listened to the @SolarpunkPrompts podcast?
@peterdrake @SolarpunkPrompts I would actually put forth that pretty much every Forged in the Dark game really centers around some sort of community/resource building and expansion, whether it be the army of B.o.B, the shared starship of Scum and Villainy or the court of Court of Blades.
https://bladesinthedark.com/forged-dark
If you want to pop over into what is currently referred to as "adventure wargaming," you can pick up Five Leagues from the Borderlands or 5 Parsecs from Home for fantasy and science fiction respectively and be developing wider narrative structures as part of engaging in some pretty violent combat. #FiveLeaguesFromTheBorderlands
https://modiphius.net/en-us/pages/five-leagues-from-the-borderlands
https://modiphius.net/en-us/pages/five-parsecs
Aspects of community and resource management are almost omnipresent these days in most of the really popular RPGs outside of anything D&D derivative. It's not new. It's not even kind of new.
Most of these games do start with the protagonists on the back foot, giving them a reason to be motivated to make the world a better place. That's not necessarily the case; Ironsworn by default is a harsh world, very pre-dark ages far North European, but is not necessarily a bad place. It's just necessarily a threatening place.
@peterdrake @SolarpunkPrompts This is one of the things I hate about what is portrayed as the core of the #solarpunk ethos: it's neutered. It's always presented as very obvious "what good is", and I find that both infantile and tedious. It leaches out the meaning of choice.
I have a suspicion about the psychology of the people who want to promote it as "interesting," and they often sound a lot like you, terrified about the world which isn't actually as they perceive it so they want to imagine a world free of those conflicts and pressures. But what they don't understand is that a story free of those conflicts and pressures is flat, boring, uninteresting. There are only so many tea parties you can have.
There has to be some pressure, some threat, some negative consequence, if you want to have a really compelling personal experience worth telling a story about, and solarpunk as a genre dispenses with that. It tends to be morally lecturing rather than personally illustrative, hectoring rather than illuminating.
"I don't like it" is what I'm saying.
@lextenebris @SolarpunkPrompts That complaint is ... not without merit. As someone said, drama happens because someone wants something and for some reason they can't have it. I have seen stories that fail to include any drama.
It's been a while, but I enjoyed this podcast because it provided at least some ideas of how to generate that drama.
@peterdrake @SolarpunkPrompts For a while, my not-quite-a-day-job was being a professional writer, whether it be games journalism, a little script writing, some copyediting for someone that really wanted it and could make a good argument because I hate copyediting, consulting on RPG design, you name it. One of the core things that I have always maintained as critical to being a creator of a good story, no matter who you are, participant or even audience, is understanding the three important questions:
- What does this character want?
- Why can't they have it?
- What are they going to do about it?
Answer those three questions in a reasonable way and you have active tension that the audience will engage with, you will be able to communicate their narrative frustration, and you will know immediately what their next action will be. You know what the character cares about.
If you can answer those three questions, the character's a camera and nobody cares about a camera.
In order for them not to be able to get what they want there has to be some sort of threat, either internally generated, externally observed, or at odds with the facts of the universe. If that can't be the case, if the setup requires comfort, then there's no drama and no investment.
It's that simple.
#writing