Quote from: talysman;746199But at some point, a post-apocalyptic society becomes a post-post-apocalyptic society.

And New England is 500 years old. Maybe we should be calling it "Somewhat Younger England"?

Sorry, but to me it looks like you have a fairly inflexible idea of just which sorts of milieu gets to use the "post-apocalyptic" label. It is my opinion that a place where civilization fell, and is still a long way from attaining the levels of technical, cultural, social or political sophistication it featured in the past – which means the after-effects of this fall can be felt to this day – can be described as post-apocalyptic.

Quote from: talysman;746199The defining characteristic of post-apocalyptic settings, to me, is the sense of loss and despair. The earlier you are in the time frame since the apocalypse, the more things are shifted towards despair. A little later, when most but not all of those who remember life before te apoclypse have died out, it's less about despair and more about the loss, vs. the hope of rebuilding. Much, much later, when there are still legends of the Before Time,  the despair is non-existent and even the sense of loss is diminishing, because enough has been rebuilt, but the lost lore of the Before Time may be relevant to avoid repeating the disaster.

But the mere esistence of a lost, ancient civilization as a source of plunder doesn't, in my mind, make something post-apocalyptic, even if technically you are talking about something that happened after an apocalypse, of any magnitude. Sometimes, it's more pulp adventure than post-apocalyptic.

My view of the archetypal D&D setting is that civilization, where it exists, hangs by a fine thread above the vast, encompassing ocean of disorder and forgetfulness, littered by the ruins of a mysterious past and criscrossed by dangerous trade routes along ferocious seas and broken roads. The fall of the ancient and mighty predecessors is felt to this day. The sense of loss is, or should be, very much a part of the setting, alongside the driving urge to explore, scavenge and (at the stronghold-building, domain-ruling Name level) reestablish civilization.

Despair is okay, but hope (or failing that, grim fatalism and raging against the dying of the light) also make for great tonics for a post-apocalyptic game.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but judging from what you're wrote, Gamma World wouldn't be post-apocalyptic, since the apocalypse is far enough into the past that the precursor civilization has already passed into myth. Is that assumption correct?

Quote from: talysmanThe defining characteristic of post-apocalyptic settings, to me, is the sense of loss and despair. The earlier you are in the time frame since the apocalypse, the more things are shifted towards despair.

This is interesting.  I think that this attitude is pretty close to the predominant attitude of the Middle Ages, though.  There was a strong sense of civilizational decay and often a feeling that things were getting worse rather than better; the ideology of progress that would arise out of the Renaissance and Enlightenment had not taken effect.  Nature was cruel and unforgiving, as were most people.  War, disease, famine, and a (short) lifetime of bone-crushing labour were everyday realities.  While some took solace in religion this was also an era of crusades and eventually the inquisition.  So I think there's definitely an argument to be made that if loss and despair are the requisite emotions for a post-apocalyptic scenario, the Middle Ages aren't far off.

Quote from: talysman;745974The fall of Rome was considered an apocalypse, so technically we're a post-apocalyptic society, by that reasoning.

Thoughts?

We're not, but the Dark Ages certainly were.

Quote from: RPGPundit;746503We're not, but the Dark Ages certainly were.

This is almost the point I'm trying to make, with the caveat that it's not about length of time, but the attitude of the people involved. Some (not all) places in Dark Ages Europe regarded the collapse of Rome, specifically Rome's protection and Rome's guarantee of enforcement of the law, as an apocalypse. The destruction of libraries made things even bleaker, because of the loss of knowledge, which set back technology.

Some other places that were fairly isolated to begin with actually didn't even know Rome fell and continued to operate under Roman law, exactly as if Rome still existed, until someonne eventually disabused them of that notion. And Eastern Europe, for the most part, didn't care what happened to Rome at all, although many centuries later, when the Germans declared a crusade against the east and the Venetians diverted a crusade to sack Constantinople, they cared much more. So it's not the time period, it's the feeling that everything is going to hell because civilization is crumbling.

Quote from: The Butcher;746207Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but judging from what you're wrote, Gamma World wouldn't be post-apocalyptic, since the apocalypse is far enough into the past that the precursor civilization has already passed into myth. Is that assumption correct?

I read Gamma World a long long time ago, and maybe didn't even read it all, so I can't make any definitive statements about Gamma World. However, I will say that if a setting makes a special point to emphasize recovery of lost technology, that can influence my perception. There's a familiar style of late post-apocalyptic story where the characters in general aren't aware of any ancient civilization, or unaware of an apocalypse, but the audience is. Sometimes, the story is about the characters figuring out that there was an apocalypse, that something was lost. We see that in Logan's Run, for example, or in Battlefield Earth. Sometimes, there's a character who is aware of history, like Princess Ariel in Thundarr, who shares in-jokes with the audience. I think there's something of that in Gamma World and Metamorphosis: Alpha. We find artifacts, and we the players can take a guess about what the artifact really "is", but the characters don't know, so we have ape-men using a 356 Magnum as a hammer, or things like that. Half the fun is the humor when the players discover what the artifact really is.

I don't know so much about later editions but reading through the OD&D booklets always gave me a bit of a post apocalyptic vibe. I always read an implication of a fairly advanced civilization at some point in the past. Could just be seeing what I want to see though.

Quote from: Arkansan;746696I don't know so much about later editions but reading through the OD&D booklets always gave me a bit of a post apocalyptic vibe. I always read an implication of a fairly advanced civilization at some point in the past. Could just be seeing what I want to see though.

Later version of Temple of the Frog mentions aliens and advanced tech. Not sure if OD&D did? Theres a later module that has a followup and a crashed starship. Wasnt there some sort of weird tech in Blackmoor?

Quote from: Omega;746712Later version of Temple of the Frog mentions aliens and advanced tech. Not sure if OD&D did? Theres a later module that has a followup and a crashed starship. Wasnt there some sort of weird tech in Blackmoor?

Yes, weird tech was a big part of what made Blackmoor awesome.

Arguably, Second Age Middle Earth is fairly apocalyptic, what with the drowning of Beleriand, and even the fall of Numenor  at the end of the Second Age is a sort of mini-apocalypse.

For me what makes me look at D&D as post-apocalyptic in nature is the way that forgotten tombs tend to be the most reliable source of powerful magical items. I can't recall off-hand the degree to which different editions support this mechanically, but the sense I got from it was always that the ability to create the more powerful items was now largely lost.

Quote from: Grymbok;747265For me what makes me look at D&D as post-apocalyptic in nature is the way that forgotten tombs tend to be the most reliable source of powerful magical items. I can't recall off-hand the degree to which different editions support this mechanically, but the sense I got from it was always that the ability to create the more powerful items was now largely lost.

Lost or just closely guarded secrets. Stuff that you only find out about after XYZ empire falls apart and is long gone.

Modern example is we still arent sure gow ancient Greeks or Romans for example did certain metals. And are still uncovering amazing tech from way back that would not be re-discovered for centuries. The Antikythera mechanism is a great example.

Both of my current fantasy campaigns could be considered post-apocalyptic, though the DCC game obviously moreso than Albion.