For my part where possible I wouldn't want the overall tone to overly restrict players choice of families. I see the 'ruins with a touch of echoes' tone to really be the feel of the post-Fall world in general but that doesn't mean that player families (exceptional by design) aren't different from that. So there might only be one functioning AI in the whole world but that just happens to be the one behind the Synthetic Hive.

Also some of it is more in the way the families are styled than the family itself. A Synthetic Hive full of shiny chrome hoverbots might not fit a setting which a load of half-human cyborgs cobbled together from parts found in the wasteland might.

Don't mean to pick on the Hive here by the way, they just worked well as an example!

It does feel like we're moving more towards the weird style, but we could likely keep the look of tech rugged. Though having it where the Hive (in your example) are mysteriously clean and factory fresh being one of the things that helps people know the family, as well as question how they are doing it. Is there a secret factory or warehouse, and are doing everything they can to keep others away?

And did the supernatural lead to AI and tech coming along, or was it the other way around...?

So...should we decide upon families? I'm cool with the Deathless Elite - six individuals who have a supply of endless clones such that they are effectively immortal. They fancy themselves as gods, and have been living a decadent life with servants who are rewarded with a good life as long as they attend to the 'gods needs'. The 6 will likely survive each age...so you'll be seeing a lot of them ;-) Their refuge is on a mountaintop, protected and disguised so that they are not 'bothered' by the common folk. They use airships to travel and do what they can to maintain their god like lifestyle.

I've chosen to be the Lawgivers of the Wasteland. They sound right up my alley so that's who I'm going to play.

Planning on taking the Life Everlasting move then Player 2?

 The question I have, before I get fully in to family, is, where is our homeland.  Are we doing this on earth in a specific locale...another planet...and, if on earth, which continent...or has the fall totally misshapen the world?

I guess I like some geography before I finalize which of my ideas I like the best.

Player 1 - Absolutely!

New player jumping in!  I'll say at the outset that I have the 1e core book for this game but none of the 2e stuff, so apologies in advance if I miss something here or there.

I'll post my family and setting ideas in their respective threads.

Welcome, Welcome, glad to have you aboard. I'm interested to see what you choose to play.

Update - I found that the publisher's website has e free PDF of all the playbooks plus basic rules reference, so I should be good for 90% of things now.

My initial view is that it should be Earth, not least as then we don't have to come up with a load of alien fauna and flora and can rely on the 'normal' stuff except for the mutated versions which can be more...well, tentacley.

I was thinking to keep the actual area as vague as possible. Largely as I was going to randomly generate the basic map and it is unlikely to suit any real word place. Shall we call it, for the sake of argument, the continental United States (as was) as it is so well covered in the media everyone, no matter where the player lives, has a vague idea of what it is like?

That works for me - There is enough geographical options, with coasts, lakes, deserts, mountains, dense urban areas and small towns amid nothingness.

I usually like it narrowed down a bit, unless the GM allows us to make up our own hometown if we want. Usually a large village or small city, nothing major, just somewhere for our character to be from.

Am I wrong in my reading, I thought each of our families had their own town/haven/cave, etc. perhaps a few barter towns are set up and/or one of the player towns might be big enough for such.  I could be wrong as I am just reading and soaking in new knowledge.

We are all in the Homeland, a safe(ish) region. It would have towns, havens, threats, and other things besides our families there.

As we influence it with our families, as well as whatever the GM adds.

Maybe one side is coastal, with lots of woodlands, or a desert, ruined cities waiting to be explored, roving bands of monstrous humans, and so on.

I believe we collaboratively generate the maps as part of chargen. I don't have the pdfs at hand, but I thought that's how it goes.

Starting with the generic 'United States' works for me.

I definitely agree with keeping it on Earth, and vaguely US sounds fine.  As far as specific geography, whatever ended the world might have made some changes to the land, so no worries there.

My plan for the map is to randomly generate something which we can then play around with a bit before adding on the various specific features generated by each Playbook.

Might have to wait until the weekend so I can sit down with and figure out how to use hexographer properly though if I get a chance earlier I'll sort it out. I would certainly intend to have a coastline (because that opens up lots of options for all sorts of things) and at least one central hub/population center but beyond that see what the algorithm throws up!

If anyone wants to hash out ideas, you can get me on Discord - NuFenix#6922

As working things out can be slow on here at times, and all the important stuff can live on here.

I've put up some individual threads for the families I have names for to thresh out the fine detail. I think that just leaves two so just let me know the details and I'll get threads set up for you too.

Where do people stand on others commenting in 'their' thread? In my head I see a bit of a free flow of ideas but if the preference is that each thread is just for that player and me then I don't mind us all agreeing that and any other ideas and such can be shared here or in the more generic family thread.

Initial experiments with the map are going alright so I hope to have a first version up for comment over the weekend.

I'm fine with either TBH. Maybe keeping the comments in a central thread may be better to reduce clutter in the individual family threads (and to make it easier to see all the comments together)

The general family thread would be best for discussing things which involve treaties being formed. As some may be negotiation, general discussion, and means people aren't bouncing between all the threads to see what does(n't) apply to them.

As promised my first crack at a map for the Homeland should now be up in the 'game maps' section. I'm not overly wedded to it it people think it needs some minor (or substantial) changes. My thinking was that it's bordered by fairly significant obstacles which is why the families (and NPC population) managed to survive where so much of humanity did not.

There's a slight issue in that the labelling of the hexes is pretty much unreadable (on my computer at least) so I might need to have a think about how to do that a different way.

I haven't chucked any settlements, ruins or otherwise on it as I think it makes more sense for players to place their landmarks, settlements (if applicable) and suchlike first and then populate around that. In any even I wouldn't intend to put every random town, ruin or important site on the map as I think that would remove the joy of improvisation and making stuff up as we go along!

Is it possible for there to be a larger copy, as I struggle to read it, even when opening it in a new tab?

This is probably an inelegant way of doing it but this document from my Google Drive should be more zoomable!

https://drive.google.com/file/...xvU/view?usp=sharing