I picked up the mail and got the boxed set for Twilight: 2000 on the same day the Ukraine War started. In some ways, it feels like we are living in a delayed timeline of this game, and what is here awaits us all. The game hits close to home.
My brother and I were big Twilight players when the first edition came out, and the concept and execution of the premise were second to none for a roleplaying wargame. When this came out, AD&D 1st Edition was dying, Car Wars was starting to fade, BattleTech was taking over, Rifts was doing well, and people were getting tired of the fantasy genre. People wanted something more than "level-based games with dwarves and elves."
We were into Aftermath and Gamma World, so the post-apocalyptic genre was familiar. It hadn't been done like this, though. This was the 1980s-fueled Cold War, with the Soviets as the ultimate bad guys sort of roleplaying. It was D&D meets Rambo to us, and we had a blast surviving, scrounging ammo and parts, navigating the map, and eventually stopping to call a place home. And, of course, taking the war back to the Soviets and chasing the Red Army out of Poland.
There are no drones or cell phones in this world. There is no Internet.
It was more of a peasant army with siege weapons, low-tech and high-tech gear, daring raids, alliances, food shortages, building fortifications, and negotiating with different sources of army supply in exchange for food and resources. It was an excellent post-apocalyptic "kingdom-building game" in this world. The units were scarce modern, mostly archaic weapons, with plenty of soldiers with crossbows, muskets, and melee weapons.
My players were brilliant. They used every source of supply they could find and augmented that with primitive units to hold back areas and keep the peace. It reminded me of how we played Mutant Future, a low-tech world with high-tech treasure. This was a Middle Ages world with limited access to tech, and having modern military gear was like super science stuff. Ammo was scarce and hoarded like gold. Some units used muskets. Everything your enemy had, you took.
But when you walked the streets of a settlement, it was all Middle Ages farming, food storage, churches, brewing, leatherworking, ranching, foresting, blacksmithing, gunsmithing, and mustering the local men to defend the settlement. Any decent populated town had walls, outposts, watch towers, and defenses. Refugees huddled outside the walls in squalor, with the church giving what they could.
Forget communications and electricity. Animals and carts provided transportation.
The world was a dark place.
Like some places in this world today.
As time passed, ammo and spare parts became scarcer, and the slow realization of 'what have we done' settled into the entire game. The world, month after month, felt like it was sliding back into the Middle Ages. The last battles were hard fought but had real meaning and sacrifice. Some questioned, 'Why do we keep fighting?' Alliances were made and broken, and it was some great Game of Thrones-level stuff when a warlord or baron threw in with the Soviets and betrayed our heroes in a surprise turn. Heroes were captured, rescues were made, and revenge was had.
Is that last piece of land, or that previous ideal, worth driving the world further into the grave? It turns out it was. Like a great Western, there are times when what is right defines who you are. We either fight for this, or nothing we did means anything. The game ran its course, and we moved on.
The Free League version brings back good memories, and I like this game for the "sim" and solo gaming elements it offers. The rules are more abstract, but I understand why you are tracking many variables, and the dice need to take some of the work off of the group with a few layers of abstraction. It is not the same game, but one more than worthy of picking up the torch.
So, off the shelf, it came, and I am thinking of games to play.
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