The Morrow Project
| Designer(s) | 1st, 2nd, 3rd Edition: Kevin Dockery, Robert Sadler, Richard Tucholka 4th Edition: Chris Garland |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | TimeLine Ltd |
| Publication date | 1980 (1st edition) 1980 (2nd edition) 1983 (3rd edition) 2013 (4th edition) |
| Genre(s) | Post-apocalyptic fiction |
| System(s) | TimeLine System |
The Morrow Project is a science fiction role-playing game created by Kevin Dockery, Robert Sadler and Richard Tucholka and published by TimeLine Limited. It is set after a devastating nuclear war. It was first released in the 1980s, and it still has a loyal following. The fourth edition was released as of December 15, 2013 by Chris Garland, the head of Timeline Limited.
In 1974, Robert Sadler wrote an outline for a post-apocalyptic adventure. Richard Tucholka added a second chapter, but then the project was buried for a year or more. In 1975, they were introduced to role playing, and Tucholka suddenly realized that the Morrow Project could be an adventure background for a roleplaying game. He used Sadler's story as a guide to write that game background. Then the two joined forces with Kevin Dockery to flesh out the military portion of the game.
After months of playtesting, it was run at an early Michicon and became a real hit. From there, Timeline Games was born and shortly thereafter, due to internal conflicts, both Richard Tucholka and Robert Sadler left Timeline Games and created Tacky-Tac Games that later became Tri Tac Games.
In late 2012 after several years of development a Kickstarter campaign was run to provide the funds to finish the 4th edition of Morrow Project. The Kickstarter campaign easily exceeded its goal and finished successfully on January 3, 2013. The new edition was released on December 15, 2013.
The game is based around the idea that a group of American industrialists predicted the coming of an apocalyptic nuclear war, and began to create a plan for an emergency operations and reconstruction infrastructure that would survive that war. This plan is the eponymous "Morrow Project". A number of volunteers were cryogenically frozen in hidden bunkers called boltholes. They were provided with caches of supplies and equipment, intended to help the teams rebuild civilization—once the war had ended and the resulting nuclear fallout had diminished enough.
The plan was for the Morrow Project to be coordinated by a central command post and record-keeping facility called "Prime Base." This is an immense self-contained bunker with various annexes, hidden underground in Nevada, in the canyons near Soldier Meadow. Its details are explained in the game book entitled "Prime Base." The facility's advanced life support systems and huge variety of other equipment were intended to allow the Project's leaders not to sleep through the war, so as to chronicle it and be in the best position to figure out what should be done next. The Project's "Phoenix Team," a highly secret tier-I special operations unit of approximately platoon strength, was also here, but kept frozen to be used only on the highest authority if there was no alternative.
...
Wikipedia