PROLOGUE:
The Second American Civil War was not fought over civil rights. Nor were lines drawn between economic classes, religious beliefs, or even loyalty to an organized political party. No, the Second American Civil war a battle over technology and scientific advancement and its application within human society.
And it was over within a week!
By the end of the third decade of the twenty-first century, American politics was in shambles. The needs of the citizens were a long-forgotten ideal as the Supremacy of the Political Party took center stage. Leaders were less concerned with ending poverty, fighting crime, protecting rights, and defending the borders, and more about making sure they were as uniquely distinct from their opponents as possible. Campaigns were no longer an exchange of ideas but a mish-mash of insults, criticisms, and blame all intended to convince the public that a candidate’s opponent was unfit for office while deflecting attention from their own shortcomings. Voters were eager to forgive the sins, failures, and opinions of those they supported (even when contrary to their own core beliefs), while quickly condemning their neighbor should they support someone else. Division grew, love lessened, and the rest of the world waited for the county to implode.
Fortunately, alongside this turmoil, the Anti-Party movement was formed. This grassroots movement grew in prominence until it reached national attention and the Anti-Party Amendment to the Constitution was passed, outlawing the formation and fundraising of any group organized for the purpose of supporting multiple candidates in several races. This didn’t solve the problem right away, since the party concept carried on, if even unofficially. However, without an officially recognized body directing its members how to think and vote, the party remnants began to splinter and dissolve. As individuals began examining issues themselves and relied less on a single source to feed them its own agenda, they found that they had much more in common with their neighbors than they thought. Societal walls came down and divisions lessened, and by the middle of the twenty-first century, there was a sense of unity and fellowship throughout the land.
Beneath this renewed sense of brotherhood, however, a new division was slowly growing.
Great strides were being made in the areas of technology and science. Advances in medicine and biology led to new ways to treat diseases and bodily damage. Genetic research, though still slow and uncertain, continued to offer promises of human engineering and the possible development of new life forms. Computers became faster, smaller, and more integrated into every part of daily life. The military developed advanced weaponry that harnessed the power of lasers and sonic waves. Artificial intelligence, while far from anything resembling the self-aware androids often portrayed in digi-novels or holo-feeds, had become reliable enough to safely perform many tasks without human supervision, such as drive cars and fly planes, operate and troubleshoot all of a building’s electronic systems, perform janitorial duties, tutor students or teach entire classes, take out the trash or walk the dog, or any other menial or repetitive tasks. The goal of Big-Tech was to lessen the burden on mankind and fill it with a more healthy, leisurely existence.
With these advancements, however, also came those wary of the new technology. First and foremost were obviously those whose livelihoods depended on human labor or input. As more employers purchased or installed computerized systems, more human-based jobs disappeared. Beyond that, many people whose jobs weren’t threatened still found reasons to be concerned. How dependable were these systems? What safeguards were in place to keep them from being hacked? Was biological experimentation being done in an ethical manner? Was a shift from work to leisure actually beneficial, or did it breed laziness, apathy, and lethargy? One of the biggest divides was within the military. While many in leadership considered fully automated defense system a way to protect the country while saving the lives of soldiers, others raised concerns of foreign cyber-infiltration or the inability of Mili-Tech, as it had come to be known, to react adequately to ever-changing conditions on the battlefield as well as a critically-thinking human could.
Gradually, this split in ideology manifested itself in a physical split geographically. In the early 2000s many technological and research companies were located in the western portion of the county, while the east was home to many factories, manufacturing plants, and military bases. As new industries developed or relocated they gravitated to “friendly” states. As a result, by the later half of the century the tech industry, including Mili-Tech, was primarily located in the most western portion of the United States, while manned production and military could be found east of a line reaching from Louisiana to Minnesota.
Surprisingly, the nation’s leaders recognized the growing division early and took steps to avoid the same polarization that came with the old party system. Foremost in this plan was to reassign the roles of the President and Vice President. The two were given nearly equal power. The President was assigned to oversee human-based ventures and concerns while the Vice President's focus was on tech and science interests. The idea was to have two individuals working toward different specific interests, yet of one mind concerning the overall interests of the nation. The hope was that debate, compromise, and agreement could be handled civilly at the highest government office. It was even decided to move the office of the Vice President, as well as a portion of congress, to the west coast. In a moment of wit, someone suggested the new capital should also be in Washington, thus the city of Spokane became the second seat of the United States government.
Unfortunately, even these best laid out plans were doomed to fail. Tensions continued to grow between the two groups, more commonly referred to as the Techs and the Humanitarianists. The President and Vice President found balancing the desires of their individual constituents while maintaining National interest more difficult than anticipated and, instead of coming together, the two offices grew increasingly contentious. Each side did what they could to put pressure on the other. Eastern manufacturers withheld products and resources necessary for the Tech companies to assemble their computers, robots, and other equipment. In a countermeasure, Tech-West either raised prices on components and software necessary for manned businesses to continue to function or refused to ship at all unless certain agreements were made or laws passed. However, despite these maneuvers, each group depended upon the other and neither was able to gain full independence.
Tech-West, however, held the advantage in this battle.
The eastern states could do little to develop their own science and technology industries in a short period of time, but western states could certainly build new manufacturing plants in a couple of years and develop relationships with foreign countries to import raw materials. Once western manufacturing reached a point that they could sustain themselves, they officially broke all ties with the east and outright stopped all scientific exports, including medical. The President declared the move an act of treason. The Vice President challenged him to do something about it. The result was war.
Tech-West struck hard. Within hours of the declaration, AI-controlled Mili-Tech aircraft were launched and heading east. Their first target was the military bases. Even though these bases primarily housed the majority of the nation’s soldiers, each had its own arsenal of Mili-Tech. Still, the armada from the west outnumbered them and by the end of the day, the eastern military was neutralized.
Less than twenty-four hours later, large cities, industrial centers, and transportation networks were attacked next. Nuclear weapons had been outlawed and dismantled years ago in a rare global display of planetary concern, however, the west still had plenty of conventional and biological bombs at their disposal. The bombing was relentless and non-stop for two days. Explosive weapons destroyed buildings, bridges, roads, and rails. Biological weapons covered vast areas with clouds of chemicals, many of them experimental. Some of these were poison, killing many who breathed them in. Others contained fast-acting mutagens which twisted and deformed all who were caught in their path, human and creature, alike.
As damaging as this blitzkrieg was, western leaders knew many people would survive. Furthermore, many smaller towns were unscathed. For this reason, they launched one final attack to clean up and control this remnant. Survivors watched as large transport ships landed all across the eastern United States. Cautiously, they approached, primarily hoping the ships were dropping off relief supplies, but also willing to surrender if it meant they would be taken to safety outside of the warzone. Neither of these was the case. Transport doors opened and armies of android warbots and mutated beasts poured out to slaughter the survivors.
By the end of the week, the President was dead and the eastern half of the United States was devastated and in ruins. Survivors, some still human, others mutants, gathered in whatever towns remained or hid in the wilderness. Transports returned to the west coast leaving behind their horrific cargo of robots and beasts to continue to terrorize those left alive. Around the globe, the rest of the world sat back and watched as this once great nation and world super power tore itself apart.
The Vice President (now promoted to President) and what remained of congress were quick to make moves to show the world that the United States of America was still a strong political power. A big part of that was retaining the ideology of a united nation. Unfortunately, the reality of the civil war suggested otherwise. The solution, however, seemed easy. America could still be a coalition of united states, as long as statehood was revoked from those defeated by the west.
Therefore, mere weeks after the end of the Second American Civil War, congress unanimously passed a resolution declaring the states west of the ninety-fifth degree of longitude the new United States. As for the rest of the county, from then onward, would be known as the Eastern Wastes of America.
GAME INFORMATION:
Welcome back, reader, and thank you for your interest in my next solo campaign. My next story will have a post-apocalyptic theme. As you can probably tell from the prologue you just read, I’ve put a lot of thought into the background and setting. I didn’t want to just set my characters down in a random wasteland and send them off with little to no explanation as to why the world is the way it is. Nor did I want to simply fall upon the trope of the entirety of civilization being destroyed in some generic world war. So I spent a lot of time coming up with and writing an explanation before even a single die was thrown or oracle or table consulted, an explanation that frankly may not even play much of a role in the campaign other than giving reasons for the types of creatures and enemies the characters will encounter.
The rules system I will be using for this game is OmegaLite 20 (affiliate link), a MicroLite20 variant based on the Omega World RPG. The system is similar to 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons in that combat is based on a d20 roll (adjusted for skill bonuses) against an armor class, damage is calculated by a weapon’s dice type, and success or failure is determined by a skill roll against a difficulty class. In typical form, I will give a brief explanation of the rules the first time a particular system or mechanic is used in the game, After that, I will rely on some type of shorthand for the remainder of the campaign. If you want a more detailed explanation of OmegaLite20 or any of the Microlite 20 games, the reference material is free and available online.
GM EMULATOR:
One of the few benefits of the pandemic is that a lot of game companies gave away products for free in an effort to entertain gamers while they were stuck at home. One product that I picked up was the PDF version of the GameMaster’s Apprentice Card Deck (affiliate link) created by Nathan Rockwood and Larcenous Designs. Each card in this deck is divided into several sections, each providing information the solo gamer can use to answer questions, create scenes, get inspiration, develop characters and NPCs, and even roll dice. Instead of printing out a physical set of cards, I will be using an image viewing program to randomly display an individual card when it’s time to draw. (Individual images of each card are included with the PDF version of the deck.) Like the rule system, I will explain how I am using the emulator as it comes up in the story, but there are a few items I wish to touch upon before we begin.
Dice: While the cards do have a section to determine dice rolls, I will not be using that feature, at least not for regular dice rolling. I will be using physical dice (my preferred method) or a digital dice roller, such as the one included in RPGSolo.com’s game engine.
Oracle: The oracle printed on the cards seems pretty straightforward at first glance, but it does have some intricacy and specific rules that I will establish right upfront. As with most oracles, you ask a question and choose a card to determine a yes/no answer. GMA does offer a Likely Odds option that allows the player to sway the outcome based on how likely a “yes” answer is expected: Even is a 50/50 chance, Good offers a 75% chance of yes, Bad offers a 25% chance of yes.
Each option, yes or no, has two possible results: Yes or YES!, and No or NO!. The YES! and NO! are intended to be emphatic results, but I will use them to add the “and” or “but” modifier. Whenever I pull one of these options I will roll a d2. A “1” will add “and.” A “2” will add “but.”
Random Events: Whenever I ask a question of the Oracle I will also check for a random event. For this, I will use the Difficulty Generator, or the number on the card just to the left of the Oracle. Each scene will have a Tension Level. Whenever a question is asked of the Oracle I will compare the Difficulty Number against the Tension Level. If the Difficulty is equal to or less than the Tension a random event occurs. The method I will use to set the Tension Level is a simple progression. Tension will start off at “1” in the first scene. Every scene after that the Tension will raise by one until a random event occurs. When that happens, the tension will reset to “1.”
I will also use the GMA to determine the details of each random event. While my method might change or evolve over the course of the adventure, I am going to start off with the following steps. First, I will draw a Norse rune. The deck instructions have a table that provides descriptions and story seeds for each rune. That will provide a broad idea for the event. Then I will draw further cards and consult the appropriate generators (Verb/Adjective/Noun, catalysts, sensory snippets, tag symbols, etc) to come up with the details.
Searching; Whenever I have to search an area, container, body, etc. I am planning on using the cards to determine the result of the search. Primarily, I will be using the Tag Symbols. These are ten different symbols that can be used in many different ways. For searching, I will draw a card and randomly choose a symbol. (Each card has three symbols, so I will roll a d3.) The resulting image will tell me if there is anything to find and what type of item it is. I have two sources for loot that I will be using for this game. One is a random post-apocalyptic item table I found online that produces mostly common, mundane items. The other is OmegaLite20’s relics table, which produces more significant, powerful finds. Using the Tag Symbols, one system might be a crown, sword, shield, or wand results in a mundane table roll; a tower or target results in a relic roll; while anything else results in nothing being found. Once again, this could always be adjusted based on the situation in-game or how well the system works in general.
GEOGRAPHY:
Unlike my past campaigns, this story occurs in a real-life location. Even though it is approximately 50 years in the future, locations, civilizations, and the land itself doesn’t change that drastically. I am not extremely familiar with the part of the country in which this story takes place: the northeast United States. I spent my early childhood in New York and, of course, I’ve visited or driven through many places in the northeast, but I certainly don’t know it anywhere as well as my current state and the state I’ve lived in for the last 46 years or so of my life. Therefore, I’m not going to make any claims of accuracy regarding my settings. I plan to consult maps, street view sites, and other resources to get a general idea of the locations I am writing about for at least a modicum of reality, but this is not intended as an ultra-accurate, highly researched novel. It is a fun roleplaying game that is primarily fanciful and I will be treating it as such. All this is to say, please bear with my ignorance of the places I am writing about and try to avoid critical posts and emails about how I’ve gotten everything wrong. (Now, the ones that offer some humorous insight, constructively compare my fantasy to reality, or generally leave us laughing or feeling good are always welcome and encouraged.)
POINT OF VIEW:
Finally, I am going to try something new with this adventure. I am going to try to present this story in the first person, at least for the scenes that involve the main character. (Scenes that don’t involve them will be written in typical third.) Not having written a solo-roleplay like this before, I’m not sure if this will work. I don’t see why not, but if it becomes too cumbersome I will just switch to what works best.
That’s about it. With all this background and planning you might think that I’m ready to start or have already played out a few scenes. Well, you would be wrong. I have a general idea about my primary characters and their backgrounds and how this whole story starts, but that’s it. As I mentioned before with the prologue, I haven’t rolled a die or consulted a single table yet. I still need to generate my character sheets, make up a few random encounter lists, and possibly even create a map or two before I start to play. Hopefully, I can get the first chapter out in the next two to three weeks.
Stay tuned.
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