# Bikes & Nukes [by Gwannon](https://gwannon.com/)
«Bikes & Nukes» is a hack of the role-playing game «Lasers & Feelings» created by [John Harper](https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings).
You will play as a teenager scraping by with your posse in the nuclear wasteland that is now your world. Think Mad Max or Fallout, but instead of a Interceptor V8, you have a tuned-up bicycle; you have to be home when the Geiger counter starts beeping, and your mom is always reminding you not to leave the city walls or talk to strange cannibals from the wasteland.
I first heard the original idea for this game in a video on Tarhod's channel [+2 de Carisma](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8VxBAOaXv4&t=1700s) and they called it «Kids on Nukes».
To play this game, you will need paper, a pencil, and three 6-sided dice (known as d6s) and, optionally, depleted uranium.
## Player: Create your character
1. To **create your character**, you must give it **a name**. Also, choose **your pronouns**.
2. Next, it’s time to **create a nickname for your character** that describes you: the Scavenger, Bug-Biter, Troublemaker, Soft-Hands, Mister Gossip, etc.
3. **Choose a number from 2 to 5.** A «high number» means you're better at Bikes (running, jumping, fighting, riding a bike … in general, strength, agility, and endurance), and a «low number» means you're better at Nukes (Sciences, the humanities, deduction, research, information gathering… in general, intelligence and willpower).
4. In addition to your bike, you have a basic kit consisting of a snack, some pre-apocalypses comics and magazines, a Geiger counter, and an Oxy-Iron machete.
5. Finally, you must choose **what you want to be when you grow up**. Here are a few examples: peddler, mechanic, hunter, artisan, courier, radio DJ…
## Player: Tunning-up your bike
Your bike is the most important piece of your equipment and it's the thing your entire teenage life revolves around. You spend hours polishing the parts that aren't rusty, patching up the seat, and adding things to make it look cooler. Having a radical bike can make you the coolest kid in your posse.
To create your bike, **you must define it using two adjectives or very short phrases**. They need to be very general so that you can use them in a wide range of situations. For example: fast, resistant, lightweight, falling apart, reliable …
Furthermore, **your bike needs to have something special and very specific** that makes it unique—something you’ve invested a lot of time in, something one-of-a-kind that no one else has. Let’s look at some examples.
* Features a dynamo to generate electricity.
* Equipped with wings to glide a few meters after a jump.
* Radio receiver to listen to HoundDuck, your posse's favorite radio DJ.
* Large off-road tires for better traction.
* A trailer for hauling extra weight.
* Foldable, attack spikes, camouflage paint …
The special feature **must be approved by your GM**; having a nuclear engine or a death ray can be a problem in the story.
## Player: Social dynamics within the posse
Within teenager posse, there are social and emotional dynamics, and to understand them, you must secretly assign each of your peers one of the following relationships.
* **Adversary.** The person you compete with for everything.
* **True Love.** The person you care about most in the posse, romantically or otherwise.
* **Ghost.** The person you're least interested in within the posse.
* **Jiminy Cricket.** The person who serves as your moral compass. This doesn't necessarily mean they do good deeds.
These relationships influence how you behave and act. You'll likely put more energy and effort into winning over your adversary or saving your true love, while you might not lift a finger for the ghost.
## Rolling the dice
When you do something risky, roll 1d6 to find out how it goes. The GM can give extra dice (max 3d6) if the situation is advantageous to you for some reason, if your bicycle can be used in the action, if a posse member with whom you share an interesting relationship intervenes, or if your nickname or studies are relevant to what you are attempting.
Roll your dice and compare each die result to your number. If you’re using BIKES, you want to roll under your number. If you’re using NUKES, you want to roll over your number.
1. If **none of your dice succeed**, it goes wrong. The GM says how things get worse somehow.
2. If **1 die succeeds**, you barely manage it. The GM inflicts a complication, harm, or cost. Remember, if you rack up 3 points of damage, you’ll realize you have to go home to do your homework, skin «rabbeetles» for dinner, or kill the «radroaches» that are eating your crop of phosphorescent corn.
3. If **2 dice succeed**, you do it well. Good job!
4. If **3 dice succeed**, you get a critical success! The GM will grant you some **extra benefit**. They should be things that make you stand out and look cool.
5. If you draw **exactly your number**, an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) is triggered. Amidst the high-stress situation, the radiation will course through your body, and you will notice something—a smile, a glance, hands clasped together—among your teammates. You will be able to ask one of your teammates a yes-or-no question about their relationships, and they must answer truthfully.
If you want to help someone else who’s rolling, say how you try to help and make a roll. If you succeed, give them +1d.
## GM: Create an adventure
Roll or choose from the following tables.
|1d6|Who are causing problems?|
|---|---|
|1|Intelligent zombies|
|2|The Nazi Legion|
|3|Vampimutants|
|4|Wastelands Looters|
|5|The Uranium Mafia|
|6|Robotons|
|1d6|Where?|
|---|---|
|1|Fusion City, the brilliant neon star in the desert|
|2|A massive, unexploded H-bomb that attracts pilgrims|
|3|The ruins of Old York, home to treasures waiting to be discovered|
|4|Radioactive ruins of the nuclear power plant where a meltdown occurred|
|5|Closed secret military facilities|
|6|Underground cave network used by Morlocks, raiders, and fusion vampires|
|1d6|What are they trying to do?|
|---|---|
|1|Stealing food and water people need to survive|
|2|Feeding themselves|
|3|Human sacrifices to their dark deity|
|4|Obtaining fissionable material to fuel a mega-laser or super-robot|
|5|Testing a dangerous new biological or nuclear weapon|
|6|Kidnapping all the children to enslave them|
|1d6|What's the weather like?|
|---|---|
|1|Perfect day in the wasteland for a bike ride|
|2|Radiotoxic clouds|
|3|Nuclear-electric storm|
|4|Nuclear heatwave|
|5|Irradiated sandstorm|
|6|Radioactive rain|
## GM: Run the game
The **objective of this game** is to embark on a grand adventure before curfew, get fun with your posse, and survive another day in the radioactive wasteland you call home, battling mutants, radioactive zombies and anachronic robots.
The **technological level** of this setting is on par with today's, but with a 80s aesthetic; furthermore, technology is very scarce. In other words, while mobile phones exist, they are rare and resemble walkie-talkies. Computers and tablets function just like modern ones, but they feature monochrome displays and rely on buttons and dials for operation rather than touchscreens.
When you are **playing with teenager characters**, here are a few **tips** that the GMs and the players can apply:
* Everything is a drama and when I say «everything», I mean «everything».
* They think adults don't understand them. And the truth is, they really don't, they barely even speak the same language.
* They want to be important and emphasize it with phrases like «I’m going to do important things», «I’ll be better than my parents» and «I’m getting out of this godforsaken hole and making it big».
* Horny as hell.
* The most important thing is being cool.
This game is set in a post-apocalyptic world, so there are a few things you need to keep in mind. We’ve already discussed the scarcity; on top of that, survival takes precedence over ethics and morality, and people yearn for the «non-radioactive old days».
Naming items, monsters, gadgets, keep in mind that a lot of knowledge has been lost and radiation has introduced plenty of new threats to flee from. So people just «fusionate» two words together however they can or shorten them to avoid wasting time while running for their lives. For example, mutant cockroaches become «radroaches» instead of something fancy in Latin, and you say «rad» instead of «radioactivity».
## License
Created by [Gwannon](https://gwannon.com) under **[CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.es)** License. You can get all the source code from **[Github](https://github.com/gwannon/ideasRoleras/tree/main/BikesNukes)**. Created for the [One-Page RPG Jam 2026](https://itch.io/jam/one-page-rpg-jam-2026). Background image from [magnific](https://www.magnific.com/free-photo/photo-metal-texture-pattern_199974939.htm).
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