Snowpocalypse: The Game

In late December of 2010, shortly before Christmas, the Danish government declared the island of Bornholm a disaster zone. This declaration came as a response to the unexpected amount of snow falling during a heavy blizzard. Roads closed, traffic came to all but an absolute halt, and bridges became impassable. Military armored vehicles were used as ambulances, barely managing to respond to distresses as they occurred.

Here in my part of the country, the army had to dig out dozens or so people from their cars on the highway, where some had been stuck in the snow for up to 12 hours at a time. People who thought they could make it to work anyway – oh, the humanity of it- were trapped in the white storm, until rescued. They were taken to schools and universities to be interned for the two days that would pass until it eventually became safe to drive again.

I tracked the snowpocalypse on the computer, safe and sound in my house. Well, safe and sound when I wasn’t running out into the yard acting out the invasion of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. But anyway, watching from the sideline so to speak – or in the center of the storm, actually – all of this bore some strange resemblance to an action oriented roleplaying game scenario.

Natural catastrophes vs. man-made catastrophes

The natural catastrophe category includes any disaster not directly caused by man; hurricanes, storms, floods, earthquakes, etc. It may be argued that floods can be the result of the depletion of the ozone layer, and the ice caps melting, and thus are man-made as well; but no single man actually pressed a button or made a phone call to launch them. The difference between a natural disaster and a man-made can be summed up to what the sighting of an APC means: Rescue, or even more trouble.

Man-made disasters include any major catastrophe resulting directly from human action: War, nuclear holocaust, and revolution, just to mention a few. The common characteristic of man-made disasters would be that sighting an APC is a troublesome thing – enemy troops, rebels having seized military engines, religious fanatics or terrorists out to wreck havoc and kill.

Disaster as a backdrop to the game

Every once in a while, a writer comes up with a rather plain idea for a story-line. This typically involves a group of characters following false and true leads through a city, beating up a few bad guys, surviving the final encounter, and some sort of epilogue. The hero probably gets to kiss the heroine in the end.

If you’re looking for a couple of hours of easy entertainment, these storylines will work. I think most gamers and writers will agree that such a story needs to have more to it than fast cars and guns to get really interesting, though. Placing the story against a backdrop of natural disaster, such as the blizzard that nearly tore Christmas out of the Danish calendar, is just one way to get the conventional whodunit to wear a little flesh on its well worn skeleton.

A backdrop is, essentially, a setting, but with a little more detail. In the example we’re looking at here, the setting is a small country in modern-day Scandinavia. The backdrop, then, is the blizzard that sent the nation off to do that bear thing, hibernating. The setting is where the story happens; the backdrop is what makes the setting special at the given time the story is happening.

The basic question almost always comes down to the backdrop. Someone once wrote that there are only four stories in the world of literature. It’s all a question of how you twist ‘em. The backdrop is what makes the setting interesting at the time the story takes place.

Backdrop: It’s very, very white out there

The backdrop of a heavy blizzard comprises one question which must be answered first: Are the authorities up to handling such a situation or not? In Greenland or Alaska, the authorities would probably be accustomed to dealing with the effects of a blizzard. The backdrop is not very interesting here, because snow happens. In Rome, though, a blizzard would be a major surprise, and the lack of ability to handle it would most likely result in chaos and casualties. Disaster is with a capital D here, because the authorities don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of handling this situation. Once the snow is down, it will be quite some time before the situation is normalized. Not to mention what the melting snow will do to the major rivers of Italy; there will be floods, and eventually, financial chaos and maybe even famines. Insurance company stock holders will be leaping off buildings everywhere.

It turned out that Denmark was well prepared. We had a fair amount of chaos, a few casualties, and serious material damage. Let me just quote the director of an insurance company on national radio:

The only reason we can come up with not to compensate people … would be to prove that they’d been driving their houses while drunk.

Reactions, on the larger scale

Large scale reactions include what the authorities, the police, and the army do to prevent the situation from developing further. In the case used as an example, these reactions included:

• APCs served as ambulances, responding to life-and-death situations and generally digging people out of the snow. Short-wave radio was used to ensure communication, even when the phone nets broke down. Radio stations periodically updated on the situation.
• Municipal workers worked twelve hour shifts to keep the main traffic lines open (with little success, but kudos on the attempt!). This resulted in at least some ambulances getting through to hospitals in time.
• Radio spots instructed drivers caught in the snow on the highways to check in regularly on the people up front and behind, to see if they were alright, and to check that the engine exhaustion was not covered by snow. This service undoubtedly saved lives – and probably helped form a few new friendships here and there.
• Travel by train was pretty much out of the question, but the railway stations were kept open nonetheless. People who insisted on making the attempt settled in the halls and waited until next time the winds cleared the rails so much that someone would dare to attempt to send out a train.

The master (or author) has to be aware of, and keep track of, what the authorities are doing to relieve the situation. This is not always immediately relevant to the storyline. However, it determines the answers to important issues such as whether the main characters can make a long-distance call, travel to another city, or even just mail a letter.

Reactions, on the smaller scale

Small scale reactions include all the things that people do on their own without encouragement or instruction from the authorities. This is an important factor because — apart from saving lives and making the whole mess less messy for everyone — these are the workers of small miracles that the characters are most likely to interact with during the storyline.

Not all of the small scale reactions are good. Some are just curious, or amusing. These help pant a very important picture of the situation, the people, and the drama.

Small scale reactions in our example included (just in my region):

• Residents of a small village near a large highway took it upon themselves to get out there and offer coffee and cookies to drivers trapped in the snow.
• Some twenty truckers refused to be rescued from a diner on the highway; they were quite cozy in there, and thought that the APCs could be employed better elsewhere. One van was full of blankets and one driver had a small television set, so we have to assume that they all had a very comfortable night out there.
• While some of the bridges were opened, police directed truck drivers away, however, trying to keep the road through towns clear. One truck driver promptly got impatient, broke through, and consequently wound up blocking the traffic for everyone for several more hours. As a reporter put it, “Some 20 to 25 drivers, friendly but determined, went off to convince him of the need to wait his turn in the line.”
• The shop owners on some of the main business streets – those who could get there to open shop at all, that is – unanimously came up with the idea of serving hot coffee and cocoa to the few customers who dared venture out. While this indubitably was also in order to draw commerce, it added to the overall community sense.

On the smaller scale, the master (or author) has to come up with the responses of almost every person encountered. While most people – you’d hope – will be smart enough to lie low and wait it out, some will take foolhardy action to get to that important meeting, or simply fail to understand how serious the situation is.

At the same time, the smaller reactions are the ones that the characters are the more likely to get themselves involved with. If they come upon someone freezing to death in a snowdrift, will they stop to save his life? If they are asked to help accommodate 24 drivers stuck somewhere, will they do it? If the old lady next door is starving because the municipal food service can’t get through, will they get in there and make her a sandwich?

The heroes of the great white open

This is where the characters really are involved. Assuming that the storyline is a fairly plain whodunit type of thing, there will be a need for ‘small’ encounters, events which serve two purposes: Passing time, and making the setting come alive.

A conventional storyline would revolve around the characters getting hooked by a clue or lead, investigating it while moving around the city, and solving the affair eventually by identifying, finding, and retiring the bad guy. That’s as it should be. The interesting part is what happens while they investigate, and what we substitute for the worn-out car chase.

The good old car chase becomes more interesting when undertaken in stolen APCs, or better yet, on mountain bikes through the snow.

The great escape could involve the nearest farmer’s sleigh and his kids’ pony. Instead of the classic scene where the villain cuts the phone cords, the villain of the blizzard story just has to lean back and laugh; if the characters can get a connection at all, it will probably just be a voice repeating: “This is the phone company. Please hang on. You are in line. This is the phone company…”.

Dropping by at the local library to search for clues and leads becomes a challenge; they have to make it there in the first place. And finally – the classic shoot-out at high noon – ooh… snowballs?