On a Dead World Alone

The project commanding the most of my attention these days is a post-apocalyptic fantasy project called On a Dead World Alone (ODWA). The initial inspiration, as well as the name, comes from Nick Whelan's wonderful On a Red World Alone post-apocalyptic Mars setting/campaign, which you can find on his equally-fantastic blog, Papers & Pencils. I currently play ODWA using the Pathfinder RPG, but I've entertained using both Savage Worlds and Lamentations of the Flame Princess to run it at some point in the future.

ODWA was inspired by the wacky, sometimes gonzo post-apocalyptic fiction of the 1980s, particularly things like the Gamma World RPG, Thundarr the Barbarian, Gandahar, and the slightly-older movie Wizards.

Magic is alive and well in ODWA, and strange monsters, both magical and mutant, wander the wasteland. Powerful sorcerers and warrior priests battle robot armies and mutant abominations for control of the ruined cities of the ancients. Most people, player-characters included, are caught in the middle of the whole mess, and many are just trying to get by as best they can in a world that is at best a desolate, uncaring wasteland, and at worst is actively trying to kill them.

One of the things that separates ODWA from more "traditional" fantasy settings is its race list. While fantasy races are technically available, for the most part they are considered to be mutant humans rather than truly separate species. Most of these don't breed true, with each "race" simply representing a selection of mutations that an individual mutant has developed.

Like most of my settings, ODWA is what I like to call a "klepto-setting". I take bits and pieces of things from all over and meld them into a single, mostly-cohesive whole. For instance, ODWA features the ghouls of Fallout, heavily irradiated humans blessed with a sort of immortality and immunity to the ill effects of radiation, but cursed with horrible disfigurement and sloughing skin. It also features bits and pieces of a wide variety of other settings, post-apocalyptic and otherwise.

In the future, I plan to blog about particular aspects of the ODWA setting, from the cults and weirdness of the setting to how I deal with guns and other technology in Pathfinder.

Well Here We Go

First of all, welcome and thanks for taking the time to look at my blog. I've been playing tabletop games most of my life, a vast majority of which had me sitting in the GM's chair. I've played a lot, and I've read a lot, so I figured I might as well contribute some of my own stuff to the community.

As for me, I've played a little bit of everything, but for the most part I spend my time with d20 systems and Savage Worlds. I have absolutely zero interest in the various edition wars and other arguments about the One True Way of tabletop RPGs. I don't like story games, so if that's your thing you're probably going to be disappointed in my content, but I know there are plenty of people that absolutely love them out there, and that's totally cool with me.

These days, there's a lot going on in the tabletop gaming community with regards to harassment, assault, and all kinds of other unpleasantness. I probably won't spend a lot of time talking about that, for a couple reasons. For one, I'm not entrenched in the communities where a lot of that stuff is coming from, so for the most part I don't formulate a useful opinion on this stuff until it's mostly over. For another, this is a gaming blog, not a political blog, and I'm not going to prioritize non-gaming talk over gaming talk. That said, I'm not in the "CAN'T WE ALL JUST IGNORE THIS AND PLAY GAMES???" crowd, because that attitude is why a lot of victims in the community get swept under the rug.

Anyway, the real content will start with my next post, and I may end up coming back in here and expanding this post with further content should I realize I've missed something. Welcome to Nowhere Plans!