...was 50 years ago.

One of the things that has struck me about the setting is how post- it is: the apocalypse was 50 years ago.

So it's likely the PCs are the children or even grandchildren of survivors. But more than that - 50 years of neglect on the environment, on the man-made structures.

They're not going to find an unlooted supermarket, food rotting in the aisles. The only pre-apoc food around would be canned, dried, spices, salt. No refridgeration.

50 years of no repairs - a library would be a ruin, books pulped.

In many ways, what they need to find if they want random loot is the ruins of the previous generations failures to adapt. That might mean only 10 years neglect - buildings patched and repaired before abandoning to encroaching plague or giant cockroaches.

Of course, the creepiest thing in the world would be coming across something that does look untouched - clean, tidy, not even overgrown...

I like to think about when a game's apocalyptic event happened.  I know it's ~50 years before the start of the game; what I mean is when, as in what year, did it all go down.  In the game I MC'd we didn't really define the date, but we all assumed the apocalypse happened during our present day.

Imagine how different Apocalypse World can be in terms of color and characters' crap if the event happened in 1940s (meaning the game would take place in the 1990s).  Or the 1920s.  Hell, even 2020!

Is this something you all discuss in your games?

In many ways, what they need to find if they want random loot is the ruins of the previous generations failures to adapt. That might mean only 10 years neglect - buildings patched and repaired before abandoning to encroaching plague or giant cockroaches.

I love the idea of finding ruins of first & second generation doomed try at survival.
:)

Is this something you all discuss in your games?

Not really, but I wish we would, it in my list of things to look for our possible next startup.

I like the idea of a 40s apocalypse.  What if the first atomic bomb blast really *did* turn into a run-away chain reaction, igniting the atmosphere?

Yeah that's totally bad ass! I love the idea!

It's funny you guys should say that, Jim Crocker just ran a 1930s apocalypse set in the ruins of the Chicago's World Fair.

Prohibition gangs! Suffragettes! Gimps! Bootleggers! Speak Easies!

It was lots of fun.

Yep, been wanting to run both an old-apocalypse (industrial revolution) and a new-apocalypse (post-singularity)... but there's only so many apocalypses one can fit in a busy schedule!

We had a rock-pocalypse set in the 2000's, after the gyrations of Elvis's hips caused society to break down

Of course, being a lover of creepy little details it occurs to me that having it be common knowledge that the Apocalypse was 50 years ago could be disjointed from current time keeping schema. That is to say, we don't call this Year 50 Post A, we call this three months after Keeler lost an eye, or fourteen winters since I killed that bear you're sitting on.

And that consequently, someone at some point could say "Sure, 50 years ago. That's what my grand-pa told me when I was a kid".

Yeah, I see "50 years ago" being akin to the "forty days" thing in the Bible- it's a long ass time and nobody really bothered to keep count because no calendars, so "forty days" became the general expression for "a long ass time."