Post-apocalyptic stories are now a well-established genre, and that includes LARP, e.g. of course Fallout: Dead Zealand run in our Waikato region. It’s an interesting genre, and one I enjoy dipping my toe into when I can, but, as an Iron Maiden song got me thinking about, there’s not really much done about experiences during or immediately after the apocalypse, in any medium (or at least not that I’m aware of) - excluding zombie apocalypses of course. There have been a couple of TV shows that have kinda examined it that I can think of, namely the first series of each of Jericho and The Tribe, and the movie The Mist, but I’m struggling to come up with anything else. I think one of the ghouls in one of the modern Fallout games might talk about it a little bit. I think there might have been some sort of super-depressing total end of the world LARP though.
Anyway, the point is, it got me thinking that it could be quite interesting to play in a LARP about living through the apocalypse, whatever form it may take. Maybe the threat of nuclear war has been ramping up lately, and near the start of the game the players have to rush into a cramped bomb shelter - and then manage to live with each other for the next few days while it is unsafe to go outside. Or the first that the characters are aware of anything going wrong is when monsters/evil flesh-eating fog/nasty survivalist types turn up. Even more interesting might be a campaign, where the first game is about living through it, then subsequent games could be about trying to survive in the new world, while that world is still emerging.
Is any of this making sense? I feel like I’m rambling here. Just yeah, I thought that a game about living through the apocalypse, rather than in the world that has come to be, could be something to try. Not that I’m planning to run something myself.