How dark is the future of the Morrow Project

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

It is true. The setting of the Morrow Project is dark. A team wakes up, does a little recon, and drives to the nearest community. They let the team believe they are helping and, once lulled into a false sense of security, whack them in the head and take their goodies. Soon the team (and the players) go rogue and abandon the MP goals for basic survival. Players quickly tire of a game without hope.

The solution is to provide the team with a friendly base for operations. I tend to favor university towns, preferably one more than a couple hundred miles from MM, KFS, and WoK that was home to a medical school (for teaching future eemdees), which had a county wide pre-war population of 100-150,000. Assuming a war survival rate of just one percent and a growth rate of one percent (equals the world population growth rate from 1800 to 1987) for 150 years, the community will have a population between 4500 and 6700, plenty of folks for growth and protection from entities smaller than MM, the KFS, and the WoK. Another possibility is that a command team for a Combined Team woke up several decades ago and was able to establish a friendly base. (A good area for such a base of operations would be the Wilson, Rocky Mount, Greenville, NC triangle of small cities. Greenville is home to ECU, a university with a medical school. Such an operations base with about 18,000 people might be the source of MP teams that the KFS’ Fourth Regiment was sent out to find and destroy.)

Teams do not want to spend time building their own base; it’s boring to most players. Players want action; why else do their characters have the weapons?

That is up to the PD to roleplay the NPCs well, and Players to find solutions in something other than 5.56.

Why should a village throw open their arms and welcome strangers with weapons and an armored car? After 150 years of scraping by and fighting off those with weapons that have come to kill and plunder. Why should that same village cooperate with the next one down the road, likely the one that raiders have come from before?

Role play or Roll play?

[Ieqo]

The future is dark for Project teams. Bleak, even. For me the central conflict of the game is and always will be, "How do they react to the darkness?"

Do they try and find other Project teams and assets? [Generally, unless something really big and unsubtle (read: the setup for Desert Search) hits them in the face, very few take it upon themselves to try and locate any Project resources.]

Do they try to do their mission anyway? [Generally, yes, though quite often "Rule Number 3" very quickly begins to take precedence over the other two until in short order the "Project" shows little difference from any other despotic "do it our way or else" pocket empire. They may try to be enlightened despots, but they still want to take over.]

Will they come up with ambitious missions and projects of their own? [Same as above.]

Do they go native? [This is almost always an unqualified "no". For some reason, despite whatever hints you might give them that the locals they encounter have managed to survive and thrive without any help for 150 years, the Project team still feels themselves to be intellectually and morally-superior. They never assimilate into the post-oops culture.]

The answers in brackets are, of course, my own cynicism born and reared of what I consider to be unsuccessful games. It is really hard to find a mix of players who, given the darkness of the world they find themselves in, can retain the idealism of the Project while still being pragmatic enough to adapt their mission to current conditions. If you've got them (and I finally found a great core group), great. Keep them. Listen to them.

[RandyT0001]

Originally Posted by Ieqo

Do they go native? [This is almost always an unqualified "no". For some reason, despite whatever hints you might give them that the locals they encounter have managed to survive and thrive without any help for 150 years, the Project team still feels themselves to be intellectually and morally-superior. They never assimilate into the post-oops culture.]

Survive, yes; thrive, no. IMO to be considered "thriving" they would have to have developed beyond individual communities into city-states or small nations that had re-learned more of the lost technology than is typically portrayed in games in the given 150 years. The teams are intellectually superior to the average person in the MP setting because the average person does not have a college degree. If the characters (or the players through their characters) present a condescending attitude toward the people that should have consequences. Isn't rule three about the teams assimilating into the post war culture of depotism? IMO the team is not supposed to assimilate to the new culture but strive to change it back to "pre-war American" culture.

The answers in brackets are, of course, my own cynicism born and reared of what I consider to be unsuccessful games. It is really hard to find a mix of players who, given the darkness of the world they find themselves in, can retain the idealism of the Project while still being pragmatic enough to adapt their mission to current conditions. If you've got them (and I finally found a great core group), great. Keep them. Listen to them.

Amen.

[stormlion1]

The current game has hope built right in. One of the first jobs had been to get communications up by entering Philadelphia (parts were radioactive but several large buildings had survived) and setting up and repairing a radio antenna then setting repeaters all over the place. When we returned to base we were pleasantly surprised to hear voices on the air talking to each other, our people's voices. The various teams were spread out, separated by hundreds of miles and essentially uncrossable terrain but there were teams out there and the project was moving forward. Sometimes a friendly voice is all a team really needs.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

The current game has hope built right in. One of the first jobs had been to get communications up by entering Philadelphia (parts were radioactive but several large buildings had survived) and setting up and repairing a radio antenna then setting repeaters all over the place. When we returned to base we were pleasantly surprised to hear voices on the air talking to each other, our people's voices. The various teams were spread out, separated by hundreds of miles and essentially uncrossable terrain but there were teams out there and the project was moving forward. Sometimes a friendly voice is all a team really needs.

That can happen in "Final Watch" or "American Outback". Your point is a valid one, presenting the players with NPC contact with authentic MP credentials would help to keep the team as Project members versus becoming AD&D murder hobos.

[stormlion1]

Which was why it was done I think. The group I was with tend to do that after a while as they start looking for a home and base and then lord it over the locals. Because someone always pulls out the lighter and goes "Look, I can make fire!" to impress someone.

But having a Command and Control or even just a friendly word over the radio changed all that. The team actually began to do there jobs in hope of hearing a 'atta boys!' over the radio from others or hear how bad they got it or better than our team.

[mikeo80]

This is why in most of the games I have played, the team had a First Contact person. Non-GI hair. Dressed in blue jeans, with either a 12 gage shotgun or a .44 Winchester. Several trinkets from the trade pack. This person WALKS in. There is no sign of the V-150 or whatever vehicle the team has. Yes the team is probably in fire positions to assist the FC IF everything goes south. The FC probably has an open mike communications, but no reception. NO EAR BUD is visible.

Because of the 150 year FUBAR, the FC still has a LOT of explaining to do. Excellent area for role play by FC and locals.

(Note to GM, PLAY THE LOCALS STRAIGHT UP. These are not ignorant savages. They, and 4-5 generations before have SURVIVED The Day. AND what came after.)

My $0.02

Mike

[RandyT0001]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

That is up to the PD to roleplay the NPCs well, and Players to find solutions in something other than 5.56.

Why should a village throw open their arms and welcome strangers with weapons and an armored car? After 150 years of scraping by and fighting off those with weapons that have come to kill and plunder. Why should that same village cooperate with the next one down the road, likely the one that raiders have come from before?

Role play or Roll play?

Roleplaying is the key. Trust is earned, both ways. Typically, the team has to do a series of tasks for the community, not all requiring gunplay. The community has to assist the team by providing material (tires, metal stock) for repair of the vehicle, reloading of brass, food and medical supplies and/or surgery for bullet removal, etc. After a few months, maybe a year's, worth of gaming the PC's are integrated into the community.

Do your players-characters come into town on foot without weapons and roleplay the team's instruction and education of the locals about crop rotation, germ theory, representative government, etc. for a year, two or five to convince the community of the team's sincerity? Or do they run from one community to another, constantly fighting off everybody wanting to steal their weapons, vehicle, etc., until they meet their final ambush and are killed?

Isn't it a balance of the two?