Character concept knockabout.

[kamawell]

At the moment it looks like the Casino is a good place to tie all the characters together, though it'll depend a but on what kind of hocus the hocus is

Hey, if we're all in a floating casino, he/she'll be the kind of hocus that's found a good reason for hanging around in a floating casino!

[decfeeney]

I dont think the rules say anything about a holding having to be static - why not bring in the aircraft carrier idea, then we could have both the casino and the workshop as part of your overall holding...

An aircraft carrier might be overkill. A typical aircraft carrier has a complement of between 2000 and 5000 people (the USS Nimitz has a complement of 5800). We'd get lost in one of those things and never find each other again. Similarly a battleship, or Cruiser (and many Destroyers) are likely to be too big. Maybe a small destroyer or a large corvettes would make more sense. these would have a complement in the 30 - 150 range.

[Rich Stokes]

If someone wants to play a hardholder we can make that all work. The characters dont need to hang about together for a start. And nothing says the floating casino has to go anywhere.

I do quite like the image of a shanty town built on the deck of an aircraft carrier though. Again, that carrier probably isnt going anywhere.

Actually, thats a bit too much like Fallout.

[Zuki]

I kinda like the idea of us being mobile, it would be fun to be a roving band who can come to where the clients are - so maybe something container ship sized that can move, the repair workshop and the casino could just be two of the things on board - if we have an NPC hardholder who owns the ship that would be cool too, another antagonist.

[Silhouette]

And just because an aircraft carrier can house somewhere between 2000 and 5000 people it doesn't mean we actually need that many people on board. Just leaves more room for the various factions, I think.

I've never played Fallout, by the way, so I won't be disturbed by anything that's too much like it.

[decfeeney]

Since most of you seem on board with the idea of the Hardholder I'll go with that, and the abandoned aircraft carrier sounds like it will work.

If you hadn't mentioned the Fallout link I'd never have thought of it - I guess Fallout 3 didn't make that big an impression on me. Fallout to me is the first 2 games.

[Rich Stokes]

I'm still stuck wioth this image of the shanty on the deck of the aircraft carrier, only now the Hardholder lives at the top of the superstructure, where (s)he can look out over the whole town. Also it makes sense that lookouts would be posted up there, so his most trusted people are also to hand for personal protection.

[Silhouette]

Hmm, it might also make sense that the stronger gangs (including probably the hocus + followers) would live somewhere within the carrier, instead of on deck where they might be washed off by a big wave. Where would the Maestro'D run his/her establishment?

[decfeeney]

Either this campaign is all going to happen on the aircraft carrier and casino or we need some more vehicles. I can imagine people making extended walking treks across an apocalyptic wasteland but my sense of disbelief is triggered pretty quickly by the image of a PC swimming long distance through oil slicks.

I'm guessing even without choppers, drivers or savvy heads we'll have access to gigs, launches and other small boats

[decfeeney]

Not really, you pay your 1 barter to get admitted to the joint and that gets you chips as well?

That makes it a really high stakes place since 1 barter will cover a month's living expenses, if your tastes aren't too grand. Works for me - keeps the riffraff out.

[Zuki]

I guess this is a key point about the world....is transport pletiful or is a resource we have to fight over and is jealously guarded? I kinda like the latter, tho I agree, having it get in the way of getting anywhere is going to be boring...

Id guess going with the source material of plentiful gasoline and road warriors, the same should apply to the sea.

[Rich Stokes]

The Casino, ah, right.

I'm envisioning it as fairly big. It caters to people at every level of income, so there are exclusive areas at the top and and a large seedy open area downstairs with dancers, drink and craps/blackjack tables. People buy chips on entry. They pay for them with whatever they have: food, bullets etc. Exactly what is used as chips though? Actual poker chips is a good idea, but they'd have to be something specific and hard to fake. Like ones printed in a certain way from a specific casino maybe? Or something else, something uncommon but which I've somehow got enough of to make the casino work. Cogs or something.

I'd originally envisioned the Casino as it's own large boat/small ship. But maybe the casino is in the fuselage of an old, massive military transport plane which has been parked at one end of the carrier's deck since The End Of The World, it's engines long since either stripped and gone or used as turbines to generate electricity. Thing is, for it to work there has to be a steady supply of new people to part with their barter. So with either it's where people travel through regularly, or it moves to them, sailing up and down an archipelago, stopping in at various ports along the way.

I guess it depends on whether the carrier moves. If it's immobile (which makes sense, it's moored permanently with a bridge leading to land and is easy to keep people out). Maybe it's grounded and can't move anyway? Keeping it seaworthy is a job for a shipload of blokes with spanners and ****, more people than a Hardhold should really have.

[Silhouette]

if there's a bridge to land then some of the new influx of people can come from land, bringing their supplies along for trade and gambling. I really like the idea of the casino being a massive plane, and cogs would work for chips, though it could also be something shiny like coins. In a world where food and water are hard to come by, I doubt anyone is going to make a big fuss about a stack of shiny round things.

[kamawell]

How about having the carrier slowly drifting? If it starts going somewhere dangerous the hardholder needs to get tug boats to nudge it back to safety (introduces anther scarcity perhaps - those tug pilots dive a hard bargain.) People turn up in smaller boats or whatever to trade, raid or visit the casino?

[Rich Stokes]

Ooooh, an idea: the casino uses old coins, quarters, but not just any coins. They've been stamped specially by the Savvyhead. He's got this die which he uses to stamp a pattern onto the coins so that people can't just use any old coins they find out in the wasteland. He's got these things set up just so and it makes it really hard to copy. He can maybe use his "things speak" if he has it to confirm that a given coin is really one of his or not.