Random Apocalyptica Table?

I dont suppose there is a list anywhere of random Apocalyptica that we could put in a random 1d100 list and use as inspriation for the tired and hungover GM who hasnt seen any post-Apocalyptic movies for a month?

Thx.

SJE

If it´s an events-list, like -travellers attacked by gangs, or -a food merchant capturing unaware people, then it´s not gonna work, in my opinion. The best you can do in these cases is hear your players and what do they want their characters to deal with, during the first session. The key is to use the stuff from the first session to create the trouble, and it´s double win, because it´s not your entire responsibility to come up with a suitable opposition, it also deppends on your players´ decisions when playing the first session.
But hitting the group with random trouble rolled on a list might not prove so useful.

If it´s a "color inspiration" list of stuff, like:
-an abbandoned mall.
-a green water pool, with mutated fish on it.
-etc.
...then maybe it would be useful. I tend to rely on the common trappings of the genre, or to be very short on details and color, so it would be nice to have some ideas or images to pick and drop as needed during play.

Why random roll when you can simply pick and choose the first that jumps at your face? I'd prefer a tick-off list.

O There's an old factory down there with a fire pit that burns green. The building's all torn and busted, there's busted machines all over the place and there's that round concrete pit, you could chunk a car in it, and at the bottom there's a fire that never goes out. And it's green.

O Sometimes the pidgeons come. They got no eyes, there's tumorous tissue where there should be some and it's gross as hell, but they fly all right. Balls say they navigate using the maestrom but Balls' full of shit. They come when badness is about to come and leave just before the shit hits the fan.

Is it your first time? If so, just ask your players. Ask questions like crazy.

At the first session, either just ask them "So, what is the apocalypse like?" or have them pick playbooks first and then start asking them about their characters. Hardholder, what does your hold look like? Oh, it's a derelict building in a ruined city. Chopper, what are you and your boys riding, and where? Oh, you're riding on a sprawl of high ways connecting the city ruins. So, what's the wilderness like? Desert, forest, tundra? What's dangerous about it?"

In play, ask things like "Okay driver, where do you never go no matter how well you get payed? Oooh, there's a nutjob cult living in an old crater, I see."

If your players are shy or inexperienced with this sort of play, ask small questions and follow it up with more questions. Like so:

"So, Angel, where do you get your supplies?"
"The market"
"Cool, where's that?"
"Um, it's in an old building, I guess"
"Yeah, what kind of building do you think?"
"An old football stadium"
"What does it look like now?"
"It's been rebuilt in sticks and blankets and other scrounge"
"Nice, and what does it specialize in? What's the best part of it? What's scary about it? What does it sound like, what does it smell like, who wants it demolished?"

I was thinking things like "the rain is black and fine toner dust"  or "the fish have a trilateral symmetry - three eyes and threes fins along triangular bodies"

etc. Ramndom colour/apocalyptica for the brain frozen MC.

SJE

For little details:
When I hit that brain frozen MC moment, I stop and visualize the scene until I find something interesting. Nouns are good. Last night, October the Skinner sent Nash to steal a jar from Dusk. Jar! Ok, what is it, because clearly it's not a jar. Oo, what about it being an old industrial light fixture? With like a slightly bowled bottom and little ridges up the sides? Cool!

For bigger things:
Scale up. Ok, this mine pit, what's it's deal? It's like an inverted step pyramid, and the containment pool is leaking all into the living areas people have carved out deep in the tunnels. The stuff is toxic, and it's like a pink rust, on machines and people. Also, most of the old tunnel-drilling machines are rusting hulks, but there's one that is just running around down there by itself, with no driver at all. Sometimes it runs over people.

In a Wicked Apocalyptica?

I was thinking things like "the rain is black and fine toner dust"  or "the fish have a trilateral symmetry - three eyes and threes fins along triangular bodies"

etc. Ramndom colour/apocalyptica for the brain frozen MC.

SJE

What I'm saying is, don't feel pressured to deliver to the players. You're not supposed to have a world (or story) prepared when you play, you build together by adding to each other's contributions.

I don't know, tell me if I'm being snarky. I just get the impression you're new to this deal and a little uncertain, but I could certainly be wrong.

When you are playing and it's raining, just say your first impulse about the rain to describe it. Yes, that is the best method. Or, if you're completely frozen, just ask your players/one of your players. "So, what is the rain like after the Apocalypse?"

Finally, this might help?
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=53.0

I love the idea of a pre-written table! I could roll a d100 and look stuff up.

But that's why I need to MC Apocalypse World - to break this sort of habit.

I have spreadsheets for most games with lists of NPC names, randomencounter tables, statted up generic folks, hit locations, currency calculators. I make maps, write background, develop histories for famous NPCs. And then when we play I get frustrated. My players won't read 27 pages of the history of Madeuplandia, don't care it's Baron Fred rather than his twin brother, Viscount Eric and so on. All that one sided prep, going to waste!

With AW the point seems to be that the game has to be collaborative. Even if only because the background is 11 words - "The apocalypse was fifty years ago. There is a psychic maelstrom.".

But being stuck for inspiration needn't be solved by having concrete details. I'd get some inspirational phrases on a piece of paper and stick it on the wall opposite me - so when I look beyond the players and try to picture a scene I see it.

"Smells, looks, tastes, feels, sounds wrong."
"Everything is fucked up. Except/Including"
...that sort of thing. (c:

Yeah, no offense, man, but this sounds like the worst.

When you join in with your group in a sort of collaborative world-building deal in the first session, you build up investment in the world. It's yours and what are you going to make of it, yeah?

Outside of being apprehensive about barfing forth cool apocalyptica, I'm not sure what the point of a random description table would be.

This is flat-out copy-pasted from my Images of ApW thread, which also might be helpful to check out: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=53.msg217#msg217

For me, there's two big steps to getting to good apocalyptica. First, figure out a basic state of the world. Dry and cold and grey? Moldy and hot and damp? Over-run lush, with broken stuff sticking through? Then I layer something everyday onto that, like say, clothes on a line.

Dry etc: There's a clothesline with the usual shapeless drab garments, but on the end is a little girl's party dress dancing in the wind, so bright a blue your eyes nearly weep with relief. (or else: It's too cold to wash anything, and there's no water to spare anyway, but there are some people beating clothes against a pole. Little clouds of dirt billow around them. Some of the specks are florescent.)

Moldy etc: Nothing's ever *really* dry, but people keep trying. If you don't need to wear it at the moment, you hang your clothes on pegs. If you wear wet stuff too long, red goo starts to form in the creases. The goo eats through clothes, and maybe through skin, too?

Over-run: The vines have started to creep along the clothesline already. The flowers have violet centers and smell like fruit three days past ripe. They drip gobs of sticky sap on everything. It sounds like a thousand leaky pipes all out of sync.

Why random roll when you can simply pick and choose the first that jumps at your face? I'd prefer a tick-off list.

O There's an old factory down there with a fire pit that burns green. The building's all torn and busted, there's busted machines all over the place and there's that round concrete pit, you could chunk a car in it, and at the bottom there's a fire that never goes out. And it's green.

O Sometimes the pidgeons come. They got no eyes, there's tumorous tissue where there should be some and it's gross as hell, but they fly all right. Balls say they navigate using the maestrom but Balls' full of shit. They come when badness is about to come and leave just before the shit hits the fan.

This idea seems more on-target than a random list does, especially because it seems to imply bigger situations. It's less "here, grab something to plug the gap" and more "ruminate on these ideas, and borrow as desired."

Some post-apocalyptic random tables:
http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2011/04/random-table-things-you-find-in.html
http://buccaneersguild.com/one-hundred-random-post-apocalyptic-junk-items/
http://critical-hits.com/ch-presents/gamma-world-junkulator/
http://hoe.whatt.us/index.php?page=ranjunk
http://hoe.whatt.us/index.php?page=newsettlement
http://www.forumopolis.com/showthread.php?t=95673
http://www.freeyabb.com/goblinoidgames/viewtopic.php?t=1231&mforum=goblinoidgames

And not an actual random tables:
http://arcana.wikidot.com/post-apocalyptic-decay
http://critical-hits.com/2010/11/30/gamma-world-you-can%E2%80%99t-handle-all-this-junk/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PostApocalypticMayhem
http://www.examiner.com/classic-movies-in-washington-dc/tropes-of-the-apocalypse-or-5-classic-ways-the-world-can-end