Twilight: 2000 4E by Free League

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I think the best thing T2K gave us is force organization, vehicle, and weapon allocations. GDW did the research so you don't have to. Next to that the rules are no big deal.

I did a T2K / Mutant Chronicles inspired game a few years ago, even forced some playtest. I've been noodling around with it just lately. I'd gone with a level based game where experience points were tied directly to time and thus the levels were basically a hidden life path system. You basically listed ten things (skills) that you got +1 / level for and rolled your attributes on 1d6 +7.
 
House system is Year Zero system.

I would have to disagree that MY0 or FL are focused games. Both are sand boxes with adventure options. Hex crawling is fundemental to both as are random encounters. Both also have ways for PCs to build a stronghold.
Yeah, but both are also very tightly metaplotted. It’s really a unique way to do things. It doesn’t matter whether your PCs are in New York, London, Tokyo or Canberra. The events of the GenLab Alpha, Mechatron, Elysium and M:Y0 campaigns all leading into the Grey Death are really the intended flow of play. It doesn’t matter where your campaign takes place...these things will happen. Sure, Rule Zero exists, and you *could* flush everything about all the campaigns and just use the rules, but that’s not really how they created things to go.
 
Elysium flows into Grey Death but I don’t recall any links from Mechaton or Genlab. There is a link between Genlab Alpha and a Elysium but it’s unrelated to Grey Death.

The books are linked but so far aren’t headed to any particular place other than the same setting as presented in MY0. Each book is a lead in storyline into that setting, which is populated by a series of zones that you can connect however you wish.

If the books have any focus, I would say it’s going to be Ad Astra, which we haven’t seen yet, but only because that looks to be a potential direct sequel to the events in core book, and could act as an indirect sequel to all the other books as a result.
 
As someone who bounced off the crunch of previous iterations hard, this new version of T2K seems a lot more manageable. Still has some fiddly bits, but manageable. Initial skim & reading of the task resolution and combat rules has me very pleased.
 
I was in the army reserves from 1989-97 in an armor training division (100th) and I've always wanted to play any edition of T2K. I want to start the game off with the players huddled around an M1 Abrams tank knowing they will have to soon abandon it due to it's fuel consumption (gallons per mile not miles per gallon!) and it being such a big target.

Pre-pandemic I was stockpiling 3D printed vehicles like this BRDM:
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My group switched to virtual/Zoom and now they prefer it to a table top (and we picked up 2 out of state players). And I'm like, "Come on, guys! I have all these cool minis!!"
 
I want to start the game off with the players huddled around an M1 Abrams tank knowing they will have to soon abandon it due to it's fuel consumption (gallons per mile not miles per gallon!)

About a year ago I finally got a copy of the aircraft book for second edition. I love that there’s a passage to the effect of “Lack of fuel may limit use of aircraft in a standard T:2K game, but in Merc: 2000 campaigns there’s always fuel for airstrikes on PCs!”
 
About a year ago I finally got a copy of the aircraft book for second edition. I love that there’s a passage to the effect of “Lack of fuel may limit use of aircraft in a standard T:2K game, but in Merc: 2000 campaigns there’s always fuel for airstrikes on PCs!”
One of the few things that I don't recall from playing/running old 1st/2nd edition Twilight 2000 back in the day, was whether or not the mechanics/rules took into account the short shelf life of diesel/unleaded/leaded fuel. Diesel lasts upwards of 12 months, unleaded etc around three to six months before losing its potency. Doesn't take long for it to be worthless to power vehicles. Fuel refining of petroleum would be vitally important. I don't recall us really giving it much thought back in the day and as I said I don't recall if there were rules for it a the time.
 
One of the few things that I don't recall from playing/running old 1st/2nd edition Twilight 2000 back in the day, was whether or not the mechanics/rules took into account the short shelf life of diesel/unleaded/leaded fuel. Diesel lasts upwards of 12 months, unleaded etc around three to six months before losing its potency. Doesn't take long for it to be worthless to power vehicles. Fuel refining of petroleum would be vitally important. I don't recall us really giving it much thought back in the day and as I said I don't recall if there were rules for it a the time.
T2K 1e:
"After years of war and a breakdown in the world transportation system, Europe is starved for petrochemicals, and most machinery is grinding slowly to a halt. There are still isolated wells and small oil fields pumping, but the need for lubricants is so great that virtually no one can afford the luxury of actually burning the oil. As a result, the most common fuel in use is alcohol. A few vehicles were originally equipped with multi-fuel engines that could, in a pinch, burn alcohol. Over the last several years’ virtually all-remaining vehicles have been converted to alcohol burners."
 
T2K 1e:
"After years of war and a breakdown in the world transportation system, Europe is starved for petrochemicals, and most machinery is grinding slowly to a halt. There are still isolated wells and small oil fields pumping, but the need for lubricants is so great that virtually no one can afford the luxury of actually burning the oil. As a result, the most common fuel in use is alcohol. A few vehicles were originally equipped with multi-fuel engines that could, in a pinch, burn alcohol. Over the last several years’ virtually all-remaining vehicles have been converted to alcohol burners."
Oh, right they were being converted to mostly being alcohol burners. I recall that now, as I started reading what you posted. Now I see why we didn't give it much thought. Thanks Tristan. :smile: Heh. Reminds me, one day I was hauling ass past a military convoy in my M151 while going between points for border patrol and glancing to the right noted the M60A3 road wheel was smoking something fierce. Seems the DAT hadn't checked the lube in the road wheel and it overheated and was starting to catch fire. (chortle) Tankers.
 
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I was in the army reserves from 1989-97 in an armor training division (100th) and I've always wanted to play any edition of T2K. I want to start the game off with the players huddled around an M1 Abrams tank knowing they will have to soon abandon it due to it's fuel consumption (gallons per mile not miles per gallon!) and it being such a big target.

Pre-pandemic I was stockpiling 3D printed vehicles like this BRDM:
View attachment 37432

My group switched to virtual/Zoom and now they prefer it to a table top (and we picked up 2 out of state players). And I'm like, "Come on, guys! I have all these cool minis!!"

There's a video somewhere with a soldier explaining the M1's turbine engine, which has the fabulous line "Takes 16 gallons to start it up."
 
So, pretty fuel efficient, then? lol
Yeah M60 and M1's were terrible even at idle. Though M113's ITV's and M557 etc weren't all that much better. Seriously though for the tanks one quickly understood why they'd shut them down as quickly as they could. It might just be your imagination or not that you could hear the fuel sucking into the engine. Hmm now I'm craving spam and chili... we used to toss a can of those onto the engine block to quickly heat up. When you're cold, spam and chili with crappy ole Velveeta cheese really rocked. lol.
 
There was a season of Walking Dead where the heroes for a while had a SWAT vehicle. That seems like a fun way to run a post apocalyptic campaign. Give the party some sort of home-base vehicle so they can wander in relative safety from place to place. Sort of Star Trek, but in WWIII earth.
 
One of the few things that I don't recall from playing/running old 1st/2nd edition Twilight 2000 back in the day, was whether or not the mechanics/rules took into account the short shelf life of diesel/unleaded/leaded fuel. Diesel lasts upwards of 12 months, unleaded etc around three to six months before losing its potency. Doesn't take long for it to be worthless to power vehicles. Fuel refining of petroleum would be vitally important. I don't recall us really giving it much thought back in the day and as I said I don't recall if there were rules for it a the time.

The fuel going bad thing is usually overstated, although does depend on what is using it. I drove my Landcruiser 300 miles on gas that had been sitting in the tank for a minimum of 3 years and included some premium quality mystery fuel (old chainsaw fuel mostly, maybe a splash of diesel fuel and motor oil), hey when a truck gets 11mpg and you have the opportunity to get 10 gallons of free gas you take it. Granted old Landcruisers are not that picky about fuel, kind of like those guys who are really cheap and smell food, make that "doesn't smell too bad" face before they scrape of the suspect bits and eat something they found in the back of the fridge. Sure the first hundred miles or so until it got some fresh fuel the truck smoked, and stumbled occasionally, a few loud as hell backfires but it ran on some pretty crappy old fuel.

Some more modern vehicle run like that when you put 87 in them. Pssssha, I don't think so, its 91 octane or we aren't going anywhere together. :hehe:


One thing that T2000 really missed the boat in was gasification. It is a simple known technology and one very well known in Europe. Millions of civilian vehicles were being by run on onboard gassifiers at the end of WW2, and the German military made wide use of it as well. Allows vehicles to be run on coal, wood or other sources of carbon (dried animal droppings, the dried bodies of your enemy etc), is less complicated than alcohol and doesn't require you to stop and brew up the fuel, the fuel is made on the move.

The other bit about the fuel, is in the game they just reduced the range, when it should have impacted performance across the board. Alcohol has far less energy per gallon than gasoline or diesel, so an engine just isn't going to put out the same kind of power without significant modification. Alcohol needs a lot more air to create the same power as well as burning a lot more fuel so going to need a supercharger or turbocharger with a lot of boost. Topfuel "Alcohol" fueled racecars run a fuel mixture of mostly nitromethane with a small amount (usually around 10%) of methanol and typically have very powerful superchargers. Just tuning your Ford pickup to run on methanol is going to give you about 1/2 the power of gasoline and way worse fuel economy.

Sorry one of my pet peeves, they went to all this trouble of making fuel rules and apparently didn't do much actual research. Sticking a gasifier on the back of an M113 is just so much cooler to me.

Panzer 2 with gasifier

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A car with a gasifier in postwar Europe 1948

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Pickup converted to gasification, 1.5 mile per pound of wood



Rats the video won't show, but it is a good one showing what is involved and worth going over to youtube to watch if interested. This guy has a much more detailed how to series on the conversion if you want to go wild and have some time.
 
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Toadmaster Toadmaster The video was pretty interesting. Not easy to get the truck started but once he did get it all set correctly it ran, fascinating.
 
Toadmaster Toadmaster The video was pretty interesting. Not easy to get the truck started but once he did get it all set correctly it ran, fascinating.

Yeah, but he does say that is the first time he tried to start it after the conversion. Not as simple or reliable as starting a regular car, but probably not too bad once you get everything set up properly. From what I understand running a car on "wood gas" is not that much different than running one on propane.
 
Broadly speaking, I think that they simplified the rules for fuel in order to make it playable, the same way they designed the ranged combat rules to reduce the complexity (ammo dice, npc's just giving a +1 per additional shooter, etc).
 
Look what landed...

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Only had a quick look through (prep'ing for a Vaesen session in a few weeks so don't want to get distracted) but it looks very nice. Really like those dice!
 
I'm pondering snagging the old Dark Conspiracy 1e pdf from DriveThruRpg and mining it for ideas to use for Twilight 2000 to add supernatural elements to the game at some point. Back when I ran T2000 1st/2nd edition I started doing that bit by back back in the day but never actually fully developed it due to a change of duty station and then getting busy.

More directly on topic, I wonder if anyone in the USA has received their copies of Twilight 2000 yet. I've not even received shipping notification yet, though from my past experiences with Free League Kickstarters that isn't unusual.
 
I'm pondering snagging the old Dark Conspiracy 1e pdf from DriveThruRpg and mining it for ideas to use for Twilight 2000 to add supernatural elements to the game at some point. Back when I ran T2000 1st/2nd edition I started doing that bit by back back in the day but never actually fully developed it due to a change of duty station and then getting busy.

More directly on topic, I wonder if anyone in the USA has received their copies of Twilight 2000 yet. I've not even received shipping notification yet, though from my past experiences with Free League Kickstarters that isn't unusual.
Yes, I got mine. I'm in Maine.
 
Like others, I bought the original game back in the day but disliked the rules. The concept is pretty awesome, however, and I was always disappointed that the rest of the game never quite lived up to it. I like the way ALIEN is written and if TWILIGHT 2000 is at all similar it should be fantastic! :grin:

One thing that always bothered me in the day was the fact that it was centered in Poland, and I don't have a great feel for the geography or culture there. I would have enjoyed the game a lot more if they had created some US modules) similar to the old SPI "Invasion America" or MB "Fortress America" board games) so that I could have run a post-WWIII campaign near my locale.
For a rules set spread over two slim pamphlets I thought it (v1) was pretty good. Disease, chemical weapons, sharp things and fast moving lumps of metal. All pretty neat (though the range to damage tradeoff was pretty savage (5.56 rounds do not lose a quarter of their potential for harm after 50m and big lads don’t automatically resist pain and shock that much better than lit’luns).

”Did you hit? Where? How hard?“

We used to slow-mo the vehicle damage like Len Deighton did in Bomber - “the first cannonshell of the three round burst hits just below the commander’s hatch. It rips through the armoured turret side in a spray of white hot droplets that ignite the wiring in the radio and pepper the TC, Sergeant Ivan Koslov, a 23 year old father of one, originally from Minsk.
Koslov barely has time to register the blinding flash before the second shell hits 6” to the left of the first and decapitates him, then explodes in the ready ammunition rack.
The third round merely clips off the antenna for the already smashed radio. -Irrelevant .

The driver’s hatch pops open with the overpressure and the BRDM comes to a shuddering halt as the driver decides to bail out.”

The pain was character generation- skills cost 1point per rank except where skills cost half, or double….until you reach 50% when the previous cost doubles. This cost is modified by nationality and service branch.

rolling up a replacement PC could take ages
 
For a rules set spread over two slim pamphlets I thought it (v1) was pretty good. Disease, chemical weapons, sharp things and fast moving lumps of metal. All pretty neat (though the range to damage tradeoff was pretty savage (5.56 rounds do not lose a quarter of their potential for harm after 50m and big lads don’t automatically resist pain and shock that much better than lit’luns).

”Did you hit? Where? How hard?“

We used to slow-mo the vehicle damage like Len Deighton did in Bomber - “the first cannonshell of the three round burst hits just below the commander’s hatch. It rips through the armoured turret side in a spray of white hot droplets that ignite the wiring in the radio and pepper the TC, Sergeant Ivan Koslov, a 23 year old father of one, originally from Minsk.
Koslov barely has time to register the blinding flash before the second shell hits 6” to the left of the first and decapitates him, then explodes in the ready ammunition rack.
The third round merely clips off the antenna for the already smashed radio. -Irrelevant .

The driver’s hatch pops open with the overpressure and the BRDM comes to a shuddering halt as the driver decides to bail out.”

The pain was character generation- skills cost 1point per rank except where skills cost half, or double….until you reach 50% when the previous cost doubles. This cost is modified by nationality and service branch.

rolling up a replacement PC could take ages
Welcome to the Pub, 2 2WheelsGood.
 
I received an email that mine in on its way. :grin:

Broadly speaking, I think that they simplified the rules for fuel in order to make it playable, the same way they designed the ranged combat rules to reduce the complexity (ammo dice, npc's just giving a +1 per additional shooter, etc).

Twilight 2000 just had this annoying habit of complexity and trying to be simple. Like 1E with each "shot" actually being multiple bullets. In general I don't care for this anyway, but in T2000 it was just silly. The combat system wasn't simple and abstract so this simplification really didn't fit.

The fuel rules strike me as much the same, they came up with a far more complex fuel system than most games (because like ammo fuel is important in a PA game), but they kind of failed in application. It's like one of the guys had an uncle who was a moonshiner back in the day so they just glommed onto how you make alcohol and failed to do any research into what people have actually done during fuel shortages.

T2000 has always been a love / hate game for me. 1E had a great setting, the rules were interesting, but needed work. 2E had better rules overall, but it adopted a far less interesting / less plausible history. All is forgiven for the backstory in 2E due to the setting provided in MERC2000 which is a kind of cool slow motion apocalypse (and sadly a bit prophetic only even slower than described).
 
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