Post-Apocalyptic Roleplaying Games

“So it was that, after the [Flame] Deluge, the Fallout, the plagues, the madness, the confusion of tongues, the rage, there began the bloodletting of the Simplification, when remnants of mankind had torn other remnants limb from limb, killing rulers, scientists, leaders, technicians, teachers, and whatever persons the leaders of the maddened mobs said deserved death for having helped to make the Earth what it had become.”

– A Canticle for Leibowitz

I’ve never really immersed myself in the handful of post-apocalyptic roleplaying games released over the years. Sure, I own some, acquired more out of curiosity and an interest in dabbling, but even the few I’ve played never really struck a chord. Perhaps it’s because I grew up with a sheen of anxiety about nuclear war. Maybe it’s because – for the first time in more than 25 years – the threat of nuclear war on even a small scale seems frighteningly possible. Yet I still look fondly at my small collection of post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, day-dreaming of a time when it was considered escapist “fun” to indulge in settings ranging from gritty reality to gonzo fantasy.

Returning to Traditional Board Games

A package from Lulu.com recently arrived containing a few books of interest, two titles I knew I wanted – Bob Cordery’s Developing the Portable Wargame and Dyson Logos’ 2016 Dodecahedron Cartographic Review – and one I discovered on a periodic search of the Lulu site (which still doesn’t have a wishlist function or any means of more specifically searching categories)...Damian Gareth Walker’s A Book of Historic Board Games. Frequent readers know I keep a shelf of books about games across the adventure gaming spectrum, including those about more traditional board games like R.C. Bell’s Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, David Partlett’s The Oxford History of Board Games, and Jeffrey A. DeLuca’s comprehensive Medieval Games. Walker’s contribution proves a worthy edition to my reference shelf and opens the door to other resources to aid one’s exploration of more traditional board games from throughout history. It invites readers to discover board games from across history and cultures, a pursuit that can vary our diet of adventure games.