Thoughts about Nuclear Sunset

So I have begun work on Nuclear Sunset: Northeast and it's got me excited all over again about the project in general.

And apparently, I'm not alone, as the first book, Nuclear Sunset: Southwest is still in the top 15 list at RPGNow. That's an unusually long stay for me.

But I digress into weird proud poppa mode.

One of the things that popped into my head while Darrin and I were brainstorming this, was to have each region be its own genre to make each sourcebook feel truly fresh and not just the same campaign slathered over different geography.

I started in very familiar PA territory- namely, the gonzo Western. Now Western as post apoc story goes at least as far back as Mad Max and recently made a triumphant return in Book of Eli but what I did was a gonzo Western, which has no less a hallowed history in the post apocalypse genre, thanks to Fallout.

BTW- Fallout 2 one of those things that makes 1998 the greatest year ever in gaming- though I'd forgotten that little series had you?

If you want to have a gunfight with pimps and mobsters in New Reno, Fallout 2 has your back. On the other hand, if you want to fight mutant cyborgs and aliens, Fallout 2 also has your back.

But the tabletop genre had moved away from the gonzo. I have no idea why, except a brief idea that RPG writers like to take themselves very seriously. There's nothing wrong with this, just don't let it get in the way of the fun.

And btw, I am definitely guilty of taking myself too seriously. Maybe right now.

So, while the Southwest really grabbed me first, mostly because of this Marshall Chronicles idea floating around my laptop in various files as a novel/novella/game/who the heck knows, I also had an idea to do something really different, which is what I'm working on now.

Post apocalypse as superheroes.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. You have all these mutants running around a post apocalypse landscape. It's almost as if we were telling the stories of pasts of future days... future days of the past... eh... it'll come to me.

And we still have the gonzo because these latter day mutants (and yes, I would welcome a pamphlet from the Church of Latter Day Mutants, thank you) are getting the idea that they need colorful costumes, code names and a nemesis from "historical documents", aka comic books.

Cue the Galaxy Quest theme.

And the Northeast makes perfect sense for that, because that is still ground zero for the comic book industry.