A BW Campaign in the distant future

[Malcoros]

This is a campaign ive run in a few different systems. Its always worked well, but ive had problems with the rules, and it seems that Burning Wheel's would work much better (although it is really more science fiction than fantasy as you'll see)
Alright, the world is on earth but a few thousand years from now. The idea is that a massive war, caused by popular nationalistic movements in many countries and a shortage of resources, breaks out. It is fought with both conventional and nuclear weapons, and drags on for many years without any clear victor emerging. After a time, the powerful generals of many countries realize that theres not much to fight for anymore. Pretty much every country has had its political infrastructure annihilated by starving, desperate crowds and by "surgical" strikes made with high yield weapons. So, without any formal declaration of peace, army commanders all withdraw their forces to their own countrys and replace their practically nonexistant governments with military juntas.
After a time, some semblance af normalcy returns to life. Soldiers calm rioting crowds, and at gunpoint most citizens rebuild and return to their lives. In order to maintain their political power, generals also seize control of the big researching and weapons companies. They ostensibly wanted to ensure state security by controlling the development of technology and by preventing it from falling into the hands of the many marauding bands that had sprung up.
The actual campaign takes place a thousand or so years after this. Power has never passed from the army; generals subdivided countries amongst their most loyal commanders "to look over" and after time these positions became both hereditary and permanent. The result is a situation that somewhat resembles that of feudal europe: wealthy land owners preside over territory that they maintain by force of arms and their relations with more powerful lords. Added to this is the presence of the old high tech firms and weapons manufactures, now formed into a single massive institution known and the Guild. It gets a little complicated with the Guild (ask me if youre interested sicne this is already long) but the long and the short of it is that their job of restricting scientific knowledge has been so successful that not even the military descendents/nobility know about the science of weapons they use or of much else for that matter. Guns do exist but they have to be purchased from the Guild which charges extreme monopoly prices and as a result swords are more common for fighting and horses are for transport.
Whew, that was long, hope no one minds. If youre interested, theres more, and ive strarted to make the necessary adaptations to the rules.

[luke]

So, without any formal declaration of peace, army commanders all withdraw their forces to their own countrys and replace their practically nonexistant governments with military juntas.
After a time, some semblance af normalcy returns to life. Soldiers calm rioting crowds, and at gunpoint most citizens rebuild and return to their lives. In order to maintain their political power, generals also seize control of the big researching and weapons companies.

You have an incredibly idealistic view of the future apocalypse. Both in time and execution.

(Thought: If you're going to go "1000 years" into the future, why not go all out and have really fantastic technology?)

But if you're looking to do a post-industrial, apocalyptic medieval what-if?, I think you're on the right track. (If I were pitching the game, I wouldn't give any back story at all. I'd just say: There's a Guild, they control all war materials and the government. Economics of scale dictate that muscle-powered weapons and transport are still the norm. You're here. Your life sucks. Think pre-renaissance europe, except there are knights with mini-guns.)

Actually, now that I think about it, the next question does form in my mind: What do the characters and players do in your setting? What do they play? What are the implicit goals? How does the setting facilitate those goals?

-Luke

[Malcoros]

Well I think i know what you mean about idealistic, but that wasnt really how I intended it to be. The idea was more that everyone had killed each other for so long and so effectively that when one nation simply withdrew its forces, another sighed in relief since it could do so honorably, and so on until there just wasnt a war anymore.
As to the society afterwards, well soldiers come in and if they see someone not working they shoot him! Its a very nationalistic era so people are conditioned to look up to the army. The army brings, at the cost of civilian lives, order if not prosperity or liberty.
The technology is definitely more sedate than most sci-fi settings, but then again theres also a wide scale. For example, the Guild could make say a particle beam rifle, but they dont, because change is not in its interests. Or, if you were the emperor of a very wealthy nation you could have starship troopers style armor but its probably a relic from 1000 years ago of which not many have survived.
You are right that theres too much back story. I suppose that it always felt awkward just dropping people in an odd situation. Of course, I also liked having the feel of going through half-decayed ruins, but you dont need to tell people how they got there.
People usually play young Guild members or Sergeants (as knights are all called, the military terms have mostly been retained and are expanded to describe a person's social class as well eg peasents are simply civilians while a major is the equivalent of a baron or count), and within these two theres quite a bit of room for differences. The actual campaign is centered around the launching of a gigantic collaborative space ship called the Drakken. A Polish prince, Leopold, created the program to unite the powerful nations of europe and to make contact with colonies in space, which are all believed to be paradises. Its a very tricky political situation which PCs are all brought into in different ways. After a little bit of getting used to the setting they find that a Guild representative has been murdered and the first thing they have to do is investigate that. During this investigation, they become somewhat known and are dragged into taking sides on many of the issues of the day (unified europe? what is the role of the Guild? etc). After they solve it (or dont), the PCs have the opportunity of bording the Drakken (which many nobles hope help bring in an era of independence from the Guild) or of remaining on Earth.
Oh by the way, thanks alot for the feedback, I appreciate it immensely. Its very cool to have someone to bounce these ideas off of, and I definitely like your system