Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Post-Apocalyptic Tales => Topic started by: Machinegunkelly on July 29, 2012, 07:34:12 AM
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Hello. I am not going to start this thread with a hardcore rule discussion, but rather a more philosophical mindset.
Why Twilight 2000?
What will it give me that I can´t find in other set of rules?
I have spent lots of time this summer pondering over these two questions, while sitting on my porch watching the rain fall on my ever growing lawn.
The answers that slowly solidified in my brain was interesting. It was the setting of during the apocalypse that spoke to me. The world was going to hell right at the front of our eyes. Also it was the background and contempurary setting that GDW had put so much thought and love into, to make it believable. I also remembered the lack of supplies and the neccesity to adapt to the fact that you had to find everything you needed. Like one of my characters whom started out his campaign as a american sgt equipped with all american stuff. But ended his campaing dying leaning on a barn door equipped with an AKMR and an old .38 revolver.
I also like the high turnover rate of characters making the groups goal constant shifting. To go back to my sgt. In the beginning they where an all american force trying to get home by heading south to find boat transportation back to USA. When we stopped playing there where only one american in the group. But two soviet soldiers, one polish pilot and a norweigian doctor in group. There goal was to secure and rebuild a small polish town. (Whom to my dismay the GM had decided to call Bögenhafen. I still haven´t forgiven him)
When I had reached this point I had to start thinking about the next step. How to take this and turn it from a RPG setting into a tabletop setting, and introducing players into it who had never played Twilight 2000 at all? I am not sure yet and there will be lots and lots of playtesting but I have made some decisions.
1. The player group should be from 4 - 6 players and me as the GM. I will play the bad guys and the rest of the players will take on the role of NATO soldiers. In this case I will start with ´mericans.
2. It will be a campaing game, where each campaing turn involves approximatly three set encounters they will need to play before moving to the next campaign turn. There will be possibilities for the gaming group to choose to play more small encounters that if they succeeds with them will give them extra bonuses (like information about the enemy, extra weapons...) in the set encounters. I am going to explain this even more indepth a little later so just hang in there.
3. To capture the sense of lack of supplies and men I will make them scarse. The player group starts out with a set number of men with different experience. There is also a set number of M16 clips to give the men and every clip that are in a gun at the end of the encounter is considered spent, no matter if it has been fired or not. This will make the cost for putting a soldier on the board at least one clip.
At the end of each campaing phase there will be some reinforcement and supplies sent their way. The early campaing phases there will be many clips but always less than before. In the early phases they will get more men but of lesser experience. Later they will get less men but of higher experience.
4. To make the game easier in the beginning for the gamers I will set it slightly before the famous "You´re on your own" order. That way I can control their weapon choices and introduce new weapons when I feel we are ready for them. I can also control their vehicles this way.
The setting.
The players are controlling a platoon securing an area in Poland. The high command think it is out of the way of the real fighting and therefore it is lowly prioritesed in supplies and reinforcement. The platoon has 24 men combat ready. 4 of them are veterans, 13 of them are experienced and 7 are Rookies. Everyone is equipped with an M-16 and a M9 with unlimited amount of clips. The M9 are only allowed to be used if they run out of ammo of their main weapon during the encounter to stop abuse of my charity.
The first briefing the players get will be.
"A small recon party of Rangers have informed us that a small force of marauder are heading in our direction, These three farms will be hit and needs to be defended. The enemy forces will reach them at the same time so you will have to divide your forces into three groups."
Then I will give them a mission card for each encounter. (With mission card you will have to look up Stargrunt 2 to figure out what I mean). The players will quickly realise that on the mission card there are lots of information missing so I will suggest to them that they could send out a scout force first to try to find out more information. If the scout force are successful I will fill in the approximated number of forces attacking each farm. (When I start discussing rule changes I will tell you more about scouting).
If the players manage to defend all the farms I will grant them a bonus of finding a prisoner in the marauder camp they set free. It is one of the rangers and are of elite experience.
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Wow, I own a set of the rules and a copy of the computer game.
The former was fun to build characters but the loss rate meant you needed a stack of PCs ready to keep the campaign going. The latter never ran on any machine I ever had.
I wish you well. I take the rules books out and think about playing the game but can no longer work up the will to run it.
Gracias,
Glenn
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T2K brings back some really old gaming memories! I'd love to find a group interested in something like this, but I guess it's one of those "never meant to be" games (like so many, sadly).
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@Conquistadore: I think the computergame is available as a "freeware". I have it on my backup harddrive somewhere. After boxing down the computer speed with like 99% it is almost playable.
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This is a great idea, really interesting. We have had some great gaming time with Twilight 2000 as well and still have all rules and adventures I belive. One of the few RPG systems that I kept when I had a great clear out some ten years ago. That and Warhammer Fantasy RPG... hehe saw your comment about Bögenhafen ^^
Plenty of models and vehicles should be available for this, and any WWII or modern gaming terrain would be fine.
Keep us informed about what you came up with.
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Wow, I own a set of the rules and a copy of the computer game.
The former was fun to build characters but the loss rate meant you needed a stack of PCs ready to keep the campaign going. The latter never ran on any machine I ever had.
I wish you well. I take the rules books out and think about playing the game but can no longer work up the will to run it.
Gracias,
Glenn
There was a computer game?
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There was a computer game?
Yep ;)
http://magisterrex.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/magisterrex-retro-game-of-the-week-twilight-2000-1991/
And you can get it (legally) here:
http://www.myabandonware.com/game/twilight-2000-1am
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Yep ;)
http://magisterrex.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/magisterrex-retro-game-of-the-week-twilight-2000-1991/
And you can get it (legally) here:
http://www.myabandonware.com/game/twilight-2000-1am
Our household went 100% Mac :-* 8) :) a year ago so I have tons of software (Atari ST, IBM clone, Pre-Mac Apple,) I will sadly never, ever use again. :'(
I have an Atari ST computer, (still my emotional favorite,) too out in the garage but it has a major problem - push a key and two characters (neither one the key you push,) show up on the screen. :o Schizoid computers...
:(
Gracias,
Glenn
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Our household went 100% Mac :-* 8) :) a year ago so I have tons of software (Atari ST, IBM clone, Pre-Mac Apple,) I will sadly never, ever use again. :'(
I have an Atari ST computer, (still my emotional favorite,) too out in the garage but it has a major problem - push a key and two characters (neither one the key you push,) show up on the screen. :o Schizoid computers...
:(
Gracias,
Glenn
Glenn, with virtual box you can use it. I'm also 100% mac, but sometimes Virtual Box helps...
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Twilight 2000 was a brilliant game, and very much of it's time. A little odd to think if your grandchildren ever asked "What did you do in the Cold War?" this might feature in the answer.
Yep ;)
http://magisterrex.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/magisterrex-retro-game-of-the-week-twilight-2000-1991/
And you can get it (legally) here:
http://www.myabandonware.com/game/twilight-2000-1am
Thank you very much. 8)
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All the Twilight 2000 stuff is available as a bundle deal on RPGNow (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/81450/Twilight-2000-v22-%5BBUNDLE%5D).
That link is for the 2nd edition, but the 1st edition is also available. The first edition is page scans, but still readable. Not sure about the 2nd edition PDFs...
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Had exactly the same idea 6 months ago :)
Even started a blog (HERE (http://tw2k.blogspot.co.uk/))
Only one post as we started to actually rpg the game instead. lol
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I own all the rpgnow-stuff. 1st and 2nd-Edition is scanned, but ok. 3rd Edition is very good. I think they published it in full quality.
I wait for my empress-kickstarter to use them for my Twiight 2013-Project. All the Empress-modern-Stuff is good for it.
Have a look here: http://www.empressminiatures.com/
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I dug my old copy of Twilight 2000 from the back of the garage last year. A bit smelly, but good memories of my youth :)
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I love the bleak and desperate setting of T2000, but the rules suffer from tableitis.
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I love the bleak and desperate setting of T2000, but the rules suffer from tableitis.
Yeah, but with anything, proper management tableitis can stay under control. :-)
Grimm
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I always liked Twilight 2000. Of course growing up during the 80's in the States, and living with the fear of limited nuclear war kind of made it more comfortable-if that is the right word-as a background. I grew up in a fairly isolated rural area, maybe that had some appeal to it as well. I remember losing power for several days, and folks living with a lot less than they were used to all around me. I'ts really hard to get that feeling across unless you have lived through similar experiances. It ain't camping!
One thing that has bugged me with most games that are heavy on firearms is the lack of rules concerning maintenance of firearms. Unless you happen to have spare parts and the tools to do gunsmithing with, certain repairs are impossible. A fully functioning machine shop is worth it's weight in gold in such a situation, as long as you have skilled machinists. Most simple fixes are easily accomplished by replacing components in the field. But it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes the fit isn't quite as good as it should be and the firearms don't function correctly, or at all. This becomes even more accute, I would imagine after replacements become harder to find.
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One thing that has bugged me with most games that are heavy on firearms is the lack of rules concerning maintenance of firearms. Unless you happen to have spare parts and the tools to do gunsmithing with, certain repairs are impossible. A fully functioning machine shop is worth it's weight in gold in such a situation....
Aftermath is a set that works along these lines. Weapon condition, wear & tear, maintenance, reloading and the value of 'brass' were all big factors in our games.
Very gritty game and heavily dependant on number crunching and tables, but fun times.
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Loved both games, still play aftermath! Rules heavy and combat is complex but I can gm a combat between 5 players vs 30-40 brigands with ease, mind you 26/27 years of playing helps.
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I think Twilight:2013 is easier to play. Less tables, more gaming...
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Oh, I found an article in the Challange-Mgazine 25. The rules for Twiiight-Miniature-Games.
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Thanks for all the input. It seems there are more people than me who have fond memories of TWK2000.
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Just my experience: The key failure of the game was that you could spend "hours" making a pile of characters (you would need more than a couple of spares in any but the shortest of gaming sessions) and after all that work you can use them up in an all night game session even if you don't make any serious errors in combat because the GMs were almost universally focused on the tables more than the game play.
And nothing was gained with having a highly skilled technical specialist with low combat skills. Yet... yet... most of the people in the post 1914 militaries were not in jobs that exposed them to large amounts of combat. I enjoyed recreating the people/skills I saw in the USAF in the 1970s but the life span of those characters was incredibly short and almost universally unappreciated by the "run and gun" players in my area. That most likely was also inpart the result of the 4F type GM who ran the games though...
War gamers can get some really unrealistic ideas about the military from games...
I'm done whining...
Gracias,
Glenn
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I think T2K is a game which must be lead by a good gamemaster. I always had the luck to play with excellent gamemasters with a lot of sensitivness. So at the beginning o each sesion I hadn't to make new characters.
But in the moment t2K for me is more an environment for my modern troops to use it.
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I've used it to run non WW3 but still post war games with great success- key I find is 1) get the scenario right and 2) remember psychology in the firefight don't get fixated on the hardware (easy I know).
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I agree with what you are saying 110% lots of army jobs are non combat. To be fair though combat or not I think the short lifespans are fitting for someone in the thirld world war in its major theatre.
as for shoot everything gaming, as a GM i dont have a problem with people shooting lots and thinking little. They just have to deal with the consequences they create if they do that.
GDW also had a very war focused set of products. Most of their games were military sort of RPG's. This led to lots of Role playing a wargame from its players which I think is total shit. Frontline combat is not good RPG fodder.
In fact the more you move away from military style games the more fun you have. If you must do a milli game then do a behind enemy lines on their own sort of thing.
A war as a backdrop on the other hand is a fine thing.
I think that is why Traveller type rules/games was less attractive in the early days (1970s and 1980s) to me because most of my games were by war gamers turned to RPGs and that bias affected the game experiences. RPGs and War games overlap but a lot less than some people think in my experience.
Still, there can be good mixes if the group is capable and the GM is willing to put in the work.
Gracias,
Glenn
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For real fun try morrow project, combat was lethal!
Btw Aftermath had 30 hit locations, you may be mistaking 52/53 for location 12, groin shot! :o
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One thing that has bugged me with most games that are heavy on firearms is the lack of rules concerning maintenance of firearms.
In a T2K style environment you are rather unlikely to have the ammunition supply to seriously wear out most small arms.
E.g. the first thing to fail on a CZ pistol is the slide stop (this is a design feature/bug). They typically last 5,000-10,000 rounds. The likelihood of anyone except a sportsman training for competition shooting 5k rounds with a pistol is virtually nil.
And when it fails, you can replace it with almost any metal rod of similar diameter, e.g. a piece of cleaning rod. The slidestop won't work but otherwise the gun is fine.
In case you were wondering, the CZ is not a particularly robust firearm. Try this for size:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=523220
If we are talking "Mad Max" type of setting where the collapse happened long ago and you have to figure in long periods of bad or no maintenance, things get a bit different. Discounting actual rust problems, springs can lose tension in the long run. This makes the arms less reliable and can turn (semi)automatics downright dangerous. Otherwise there is generally nothing wrong with a 100 year old rifle.
Africans have a habit of burying AKs in the ground and digging them up as needed. The biggest problem they have is termites eating the wooden parts -- so they just carve new ones and off they go...
Yes there is wear and tear -- but it's a long road from not having optimal accuracy to not working at all.