Quote from: RPGPundit;1020003It's not about the recipes. It's about the raw ingredients.  It's hard to start up an industrial revolution again if you don't have easily-accessible coal and petroleum. Or to return to the computer/space age without rare metals.

Hmm, that is a very interesting point.  Even with all the knowledge, assuming a massive destruction of technological infrastructure, you can't just pick up where you left off, you have to start with basic tools to create the intermediate tools, to create the advanced tools, and there's not enough basic tools left to get started.

I don't think we're at the point where these resources simply don't exist at the levels required.  I would be concerned more with the fact that high-tech requires a global supply chain because at any location, you need multiple ingredients from halfway around the world.

Of course it would be hard, but humanity did it once already without the benefit of a roadmap or whatever metaphor you want to use. In the event of an apocalypse, rebuilding is hardly the doomed venture I infer Pundit is presenting.

Civilization happened once.  If destroyed, it will happen again.  Maybe after a  few hundred years, but it will.

It is important to note that Testament, Day After, etc are not really Gamma World.
You get exposed to radiation in Gamma World, you roll on a Mutation Table with lots of cool powers and useful body changes. The Mutation Table for Testament, Day After, etc have only 3 entries: Radiation Poisoning, Cancer, and Roll Again Twice.

When we first played Gamma World back in the 80's, my group and I kept trying to make it Mad Max. Only after failing several times did we realize that it was supposed to be Thundarr.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1020003It's not about the recipes. It's about the raw ingredients.  It's hard to start up an industrial revolution again if you don't have easily-accessible coal and petroleum. Or to return to the computer/space age without rare metals.

Surely the metals are still in the phones (etc) and can be recycled?

Fossil fuels do get used up, but we are a long long way from running out of fossil fuels.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018848Post-apocalyptic games are fun to play. But the truth is that if our civilization falls, that's the fast or slow end of all humankind. We're done as a species.

I'm not sure about that at all. There is a very good chance we would survive as a species.

Without civilization though we definitely couldn't sustain the population we have now of people. There would be a massive die off.

In 10,000 BC there were maybe five million or so people living. worldwide.
In 3000 BC there was maybe fourteen million people. Total.
In 0 AD there were about one hundred and seventy million people, maybe, ...and just maybe up to four hundred million. Worldwide.
In 1000 AD there were about two hundred and fifty million, and just maybe up to three hundred and fifty million. Worldwide.

So, without technology, and without civilization, only about one in twenty five people that are walking around right now, would be around. The Available food and crop yields would only support about 4% of the current world population.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1020003It's not about the recipes. It's about the raw ingredients.  It's hard to start up an industrial revolution again if you don't have easily-accessible coal and petroleum. Or to return to the computer/space age without rare metals.

You have a point, but we're not there yet. There are easily plenty of materials to return to a 1950s level of technology. Petroleum may be difficult, but coal is still very accessible. Between coal and a knowledge of hydropower's possibility, the climb back can happen.

Hmm. If you know it can happen, what is the lowest level of tech that can build a nuclear reactor? What's the shortest jump from charcoal / coal generated steam power to nuclear?

Quote from: GameDaddy;1020545In 10,000 BC there were maybe five million or so people living. worldwide.
In 3000 BC there was maybe fourteen million people. Total.
In 0 AD there were about one hundred and seventy million people, maybe, ...and just maybe up to four hundred million. Worldwide.
In 1000 AD there were about two hundred and fifty million, and just maybe up to three hundred and fifty million. Worldwide.

Numbers based on what?

Quote from: Manic Modron;1020102Of course it would be hard, but humanity did it once already without the benefit of a roadmap or whatever metaphor you want to use. In the event of an apocalypse, rebuilding is hardly the doomed venture I infer Pundit is presenting.

Building happened once already when you could get coal and diamonds and rare metals in relative abundance at relatively shallow depths, when you could drill a hole in texas and get loads of raw oil.

Nowadays, we need all the technological might we can muster to get the materials we need. If that is lost, there's no way to reach these materials.

Eventually, we're going to NEED to go out into space to get some of the things we need. How do you go into space for the raw materials to maintain an industrial society if you can't make rocket fuel?

Quote from: GameDaddy;1020545I'm not sure about that at all. There is a very good chance we would survive as a species.

Without civilization though we definitely couldn't sustain the population we have now of people. There would be a massive die off.

In 10,000 BC there were maybe five million or so people living. worldwide.
In 3000 BC there was maybe fourteen million people. Total.
In 0 AD there were about one hundred and seventy million people, maybe, ...and just maybe up to four hundred million. Worldwide.
In 1000 AD there were about two hundred and fifty million, and just maybe up to three hundred and fifty million. Worldwide.

So, without technology, and without civilization, only about one in twenty five people that are walking around right now, would be around. The Available food and crop yields would only support about 4% of the current world population.

Oh sure. We could survive as a pre-industrial species with several hundred million humans going around on horseback and burning wood for fuel and building with wood and bricks and stone. We could do that for 100 years, or 1000 years, or 10000 years or more, until an asteroid or some other natural disaster extinction-event hit us, and then we'd be done.
In the long term, that means it would still have been the collapse of modern Civilization that doomed us as a species.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1020872How do you go into space for the raw materials to maintain an industrial society if you can't make rocket fuel?

Salami!
Lots and lots of salami.

Quote from: Baron Opal;1020953Salami!
Lots and lots of salami.

I suspect a salami-based civilization won't quite cut it.