A Collapse of Many Causes

A.C.: After Collapse is a post-apocalyptic role-playing game, its development was inspired by many real-world factors that included a long list of similar RPGs.  Woven in to this fabric of this fictional future is a high-tech international news media that calls the slow decline they so vigorously report on "a collapse of many causes."  We began this project with the intention of providing participants with the tools they'd need to play before, during, and after the Collapse.

As much fun as post-Collapse play can be, there are always going to be some gamers who want to know, "What in the Hell happened?"  How did things get this way?  Why in the world was anyone stupid enough to just let this happen?  Those are good questions and they do deserve to be answered.  Throughout human history, chroniclers of all sorts have in some way documented the decline and fall of the empires or civilizations they lived in.  We wanted to use every tool at our disposal to bring you that option, as a form of game play.

Justin Oldham, creator of A.C. recalls: "No matter what game system we used, somebody always wanted to know more about the pre-apocalyptic world.  That inevitably lead to many game sessions in which we--the players--went looking for clues in some very dark, deep, and inhospitable places.  Searching for libraries, government bunkers, and such turned out to be an immense challenge for the referees who had the job of presenting that game to us.  That can sound simple enough, but it's not.  When you are an armchair historian and books are some of your best friends, you can do this without feeling overwhelmed.  The chore can seem much too big, when you're just not in to doing all of the research that ends up on the game table.  When it was my turn to run games, I may have gone just a bit overboard with my preparations.  I had simulated maps and pre-Collapse documents of all sorts, always ready when the next player wanted to go digging."

Everything from terrorism and climate change, to rogue AI and regional wars have played some part in the backstory presented in A.C.: After Collapse.  You can use some of it, all of it, or none of it--as you see fit.  No matter what mysteries your players prefer to solve, there's always going to be some "thing" for everyone to enjoy in this dynamic world.