abstract
| - Imagine for a moment a world without politics. Imagine a world without religions, where people's views no longer mattered, where there was no longer any distinction between old and young, rich and poor, Atheist or Believer, liberal or conservative. Imagine a world where every person was equal regardless of skin color or ethnic background. The United States and China have over 30,000 nuclear devices in their arsenals as of February 2001. It would take 800 such devices to end most human life on this planet. In the half-hour between the launch of the missiles and the detonation of the last bomb, it would not be difficult to imagine a world where racial, religious, class, and national distinctions no longer mattered. In the days and weeks after the bombs, the remaining people would struggle to survive in a vastly different environment. The Earth as well as humankind would bear the scars of that wound for hundreds if not thousands of years. Fallout is a post-nuclear RPG set sometime after a great nuclear conflict in the year 2077. 99% of humanity and a good deal of other life perished in the nuclear war. Of course, millions still survived, although some were altered beyond imagination. One can play Fallout either as a campaign-oriented RPG, with a series of smaller adventures in a larger story, or as a single-story game with a minimum of involvement in the larger workings of the world. It can be played on a single Saturday night with two or three friends or in a group of 7 or 8 two or three times a week for months on end. The only limits are scheduling and the boundaries of imagination.
|