If you want lower stake stuff, you could use plot hooks like an organized crime ring (including some local officials) using a local coop as a front to move smuggled contraband or stolen goods (maybe some dangerous old world tech wound up in malicious or careless hands, and the tacitly-tolerated criminal syndicate is believed to have smuggled it in either knowingly or not), resolving a dispute over some farmers stealing supplies from the communal farm for their own private plots, dealing with the aftermath of local corruption that led to a deadly infrastructure accident (a train derailed because corners were cut in laying the rails, a bridge collapsed because substandard materials were used, etc), that sort of thing. Small-scale, more personal level crimes where there's more negligence than malice.
I suppose, my real issue is what are alternatives to fighting, and conflict that’s driven by hatred and greed?
just steal from any episode of star trek
Depends on the kind of game you want to run. On the more combat-heavy side, you can have them fight things that can't be negotiated with (zombies/killer plants/capitalist skynet/etc). Alternatively, you can have them on the frontier, dealing with non-communist societies, either peacefully or not; this is how Lancer gets away with having conflict while still having FALGSC. For a more peaceful game, you can have them traversing ruined cities to find mcguffins. For example, trying to find functioning computers with information on how to treat disease, or needing to find a seed bank to supplement your crops.
As a fellow GURPShead, I can vouch for the recent After the End books. Even if you don't plan on using any of the content in them, they're a good jumping-off point.
I played in one short campaign and ran another, both of which were road trips with a decent mix of fighting, scavenging, and dealing with non-combat hazards. In the first, we were searching around floating cities off the coast of china (the mainland having been nuked during the apocalypse) for a legendary ultra-tech food processor that could make food from electricity and water. In the second, the survivors drove across the ruins of the US to get to the "safe zone", which turned out to be Cape Canaveral, where the remnants of NASA had been working on an FTL spaceship that had started construction immediately before the nukes fell.
you could steal ideas from this simple game which has a free download. it's a small system about resolving contradictions after a revolution, and the way it tracks the contradictions could be easily ported into another system to drive conflict
I have never used GURPS, but if its post-apocalyptical, you could have a city builder system where you have to worry about food and water. Maybe you have to go into ruins to find old technology to research and upgrade your stuff kenshi style.
I have found that some players enjoy avoid combat at all cost, while other enjoy finding every opportunity to jump into it. The best you can do is provide tools to deal with it. Like dnd has a lot of abilities related to combat because that’s what they want you to focus on. You can try to find some rpgs that have don’t have a combat focused for inspiration. Edge of the empire has the colonist class that is not focused on combat. Although I have never played them, I hear that games of thrones rpg and star trek adventures has focuses on that don’t rely on violence. Also Comrades: A Revolutionary RPG might be worth checking out.
I guess a bigger question is what type of game to you want it to be? It could be a spy romp where you are counter intelligence against some fascist/capitalist nation. It could be a survival focused where you try to solve issues that face the society that is try to survive in an uncaring world. Could be a bit of both or something different. That should guide your conflict and how it appears in your world, as well as the tools the players have to resolve them.
organized crime smuggling guns to spies or something
legit just make it into a hammy bond thing but on the good side
Enviromental changes cause a need to more efficiently distribute food/supplies. The conflict arises from farmers being needed less in the fields (in the moment) and more in rail construction. Factory workers needing to be in the fields later in the year to try to catch up on harvesting reduced crops and late season planting. Neither group is comfortable working outside their specialty while knowing the work they are good at is going unfinished. Both need to be given confidence that they won't be viewed poorly when the work they normally do is reduced to failure levels normally deemed unacceptable.
:shrug-outta-hecks:
You're welcome.
I think there's a handful of people with farming or hard core gardening experience 'round these parts to answer some general farming questions at the very least.
I've had this plot idea in my head for a while where the players have to meditate the negotiations between two related industrial groups (ie miners vs blacksmiths). For both groups I would have, in secret, a list of demands that that group considers non-negotiable, their much more extreme initial set of demands, things that they would never concede to the other side, etc and it would be up to the players to interview and gain the trust of the leaders of both sides to learn what those things are in order to craft an agreement that both sides will accept. It should take place over a bunch of in-game time and involve the players having to balance their own integrity versus their need to win the trust of the leaders, ie one side asks them to wiretap their conversations with the other and other sketchy dealings like that.
