Civilization has collapsed.  It’s just you and your dog…and you look like a young Don Johnson.  Wait, that’s not right.  It’s just you and a mule and you look like Kevin Costner.  Oh hell no!  That’s definitely not right.  OK, no matter what, civilization has collapsed.  If not in reality, then in your role playing game.  What will the United States look like?  Sure, you’ve seen the movies, but what’s my take?

Well, besides the fact there wouldn’t be a United States, it would be among the worst nightmares for many people.  Cities would be death traps.  Well, more than usual.  Gangs would roam the streets doing very not-nice things to people they meet.  And no, making them watch The Postman will be among the nicer things they’ll do.  Yeah…they’re really bad.

The vast majority of people will be well clear of the cities, living in small walled communities with various forms of government.  Many will be communistic in nature, though they’d probably deny the hell out of it.  Many others would be true Greek democracies (we’re actually a republic after all, not a democracy).  Still others would be dictatorships, some benevolent and others not so much.  The ideological difference that seperate nations today will probably not be such a big deal in the PAW since no one will have time or energy to fight stupid wars.

Despite that, weapons will be an everyday thing.  Regardless of how you feel about guns now, I suspect your opinions will change after the apocalypse.  Bad people will want to do bad things to good people, and the only way the good people will make it is to fight back.  After all, there aren’t any cops or military to bail the good people out, now is there?  The good people’s communities are walled for a reason after all.

The primary industry of the human race will be food production.  Farming will probably be the single biggest career path for the survivors.  There are all kinds of romantic notions of scavenging the remnants of humanity to rebuild the new world from.  Look at the cars in The Road Warrior for a moment.  All those cars are based of scavengings from the old world.  The problem is, those will be plentiful to start with, but decrease as time rolls on.

However, every role playing game needs something to strive for.  Besides the obvious military hardware, there are plenty of other options for that quest item.  Perhaps a new solar battery that could power your community for years, or perhaps it’s a generator that runs on ethanol…something your community can produce easily itself.  Really, the possibilities are endless.  All it takes is a creative GM to make that post apocalyptic role playing game one of the best ever!