>>47542276

Depends what stage you want to play.

Generally it's not very fun playing a game where everything is getting worse and there's nothing you can do about it. That's what reality is for.

>>47542303
The 40k setting is a thing.

>>47542276
Yes.
>>47542303
You are not very imaginative are you? The players in a game like this are the heroes who stand up and bring the civilization back to its former glory. Or create a new civilization from the smoldering embers.

Or maybe they're taking advantage of the poor helpless society to further their own selfish agendas.

>>47542276
Yes. And there's five of those already, the oldest having recently received its second edition update.

>>47542276
>Could a game about the slow death of a civilization be fun?

It *could*, but the typical post-apoc genre better lends itself to the kind of action-oriented situations that conventional RPG players enjoy.

>>47542276
check out the Dying Earth series by Jack Vance or Xothique by Clark Ashton Smith. they are major aspects of the old "dying earth genre" which is what you're describing.

>>47542276
I imagine the growing demand for basic necessities, crime rates, black markets, and various gang, paramilitary, and even political parties vying for control of the wreck of a civilization would give plenty of opportunities for all kinds of shenanigans. Save the place and restore it to its former glory, but in what particular way, and with whom? Take over it all in any of a wide variety of ways, like drug empire, market dominance, or plain old armed dictatorship?

Sure, it could be fun. You aren't fighting dragons or even for basic day-to-day survival (at least, not necessarily), but there's still lots of stuff to do. Society's falling apart around you, so grab a few pieces and ride them down to hell.

>>47542415
Well, the Hyperborea stuff is also in places, sort of about the decline, too. Although yeah, it is more of a theme in Xothique.

And for what it's worth some of the events that more or less end civilizations or cities/city states in Xothique are pretty dramatic, and occur in quick, cataclysmic time frames.

>>47542276
>Most “collapse” scenarios are like most human thinking, linear and binary. Suddenly there is a huge SNAP! and society just falls apart, leaving a smouldering ruin through which starvation-crazed people wander. In reality, collapse is like Brazil

You are ignoring that most collapse scenarios either take place after the slow collapse has happened, or after something dramatic happened that, in fact, did make it more binary than gradual. Nuclear war. Aliens. Environmental disaster etc.

>Could a game about the slow death of a civilization be fun?

You're locked into the videogame style thinking where the whole game is about the fate of the world and you get roped into saving it.

Don't do that.

Games TAKING PLACE DURING the end of civilization can be fun, and be about more or less anything.

The decline of civilization should be a SETTING, not a plotline.

This is also why post-apocalyptic stuff is more popular. Everything has already gone to hell, and now it's a perfect playground for all kinds of stories that thrive in setting without strong central authority or peaceful comfortable living.

>>47543996
>The decline of civilization should be a SETTING, not a plotline.

This.

It's not a game that'd be popular here for a lot of reasons, but Dream Askew works on this concept.

>Imagine that the apocalypse didn't happen everywhere at the same time. Instead, it happened in waves. It's still happening in waves. You were hit recently. You've fallen out of the society intact.

>>47542276
>Could a game about the slow death of a civilization be fun?

we're living this thanks to degenerate sjws, why would we want to play it?