Mail Room: Twilight: 2000 v2.2

We were huge Twilight: 2000 gamers in college and ran an entire campaign. We just loved this game, the ethos, the alternate history, and the gritty feeling of survival and getting to play with all types of military hardware. We were big Aftermath gamers in the early 1980s, and this game in the 1990s picked up the torch and let you play with all of the cool toys. It is an amazing game, easily a peak GDW game, and reflects some of the best times we had in 1990s gaming.

I wish this game had a larger following today and better community support.

I know Free League has an updated version of the game that uses special dice and a level of abstraction that makes it easier to play and solo. The art is also amazing in the new version. But the immersion into the universe is here: you create a character. Each step is methodical but not hard; you create a unique soldier with a history and abilities, and you are thrust into a world gone mad.

This is very much a simulation game where your character has a lifepath, picks up skills along the way, and is then dropped into the world as-is. Adventures? How about survival? If you are a trained special forces survivor, then we are talking about the daring commando missions and raids, knocking off warlords, and taking the war to the Soviets.

Yes, these are Soviets, and they are the movie Soviets, very capable, deadly, efficient, and they are a formidable enemy. This isn't really historically accurate, given current events, but these were the cool Soviets that scared us during the Cold War, and, oh yeah, their gear mostly works as advertised here, which is another surprise.

And there are no drones to speak of! I know, what is this, science fiction?

No, no drones, this is an alternate timeline where drone technology does not exist. You want recon? You climb a tree or dare to climb the ruins of a teetering building, and use binoculars. Or you send someone on foot, and pray they don't get spotted.

The revision uses a d20 roll-under mechanic with a simple skill-plus-ability score system, and difficulty levels modify the success chance. A level 4 skill with an attribute of 5 is added together to form an "asset" number, 9 in this case, and a simple multiplier is applied: 4X for easy, 2X for average, 1X for difficult, 1/2X for formidable, and 1/4X for impossible. It is a clean, easy, simple system that is also shared by Traveller the New Era.

Strangely enough, this game uses the same d20, d10, and d6 dice as White Box.

The game is dense, with rules for just about everything. Just like Aftermath, you can find a rule for everything in this book, and plenty of basic math is used in calculations and formulas. It isn't that hard, and a simple hand calculator (which was a thing back in the 1990s) makes it quick. I love how complete this set of rules is, and it would make a great fantasy game.

I love the huge Version 2.2 on the cover. It looks tacky and like a cereal box, but the game went through three versions: the first using a d10 resolution mechanic, an unpatched 2.1 with the d20 mechanic and a bunch of bugs, and a final 2.2 where all the errata was incorporated and the final version solidified with some input from the team that made Traveller TNE with these rules.

Oh, and this seems like the first game to use the "roll 10 or less/greater for critical failure/success" rule that Pathfinder 2 resurrected many decades later. Twilight did it first, and it has a connection to Paizo's rules in this regard, and a fun fact.

You do have a huge selection of military hardware to play with, and how available anything is depends on an availability rating and the referee's judgment call. You could play this with brand new tanks and plenty of ammo lying around if you wanted, or practically nothing, where improvised weapons are the way people fight, and town militias are armed with bows, crossbows, and single-shot muskets. They have a baseline starting setup and order of battle in the book, with example military units and how many tanks they have left, so you can go from there.

The world is very much a blasted and apocalyptic wasteland, with most of the world knocked out of the technological age, and the ruins of nuked cities and military targets dotting the wasteland. Radiation and disease are real enemies, along with exposure and starvation. It is a grim, bleak, hard existence, and the whole book needs a trigger warning for many 5E players, since the worst parts of human nature turn the wicked among us into "monsters" of the "Monster Manual." And nothing is rewritten or retconned to make the world an easier, happier, or safer space for players.

Slavers exist here, and they are the reason your ex-Navy SEAL keeps finding easy targets. Humanity is both those you are trying to save and vanquish here, depending on how much they have fallen into barbarism and the worst nature of sin. While the cover may look a little cartoony and gung-ho, the game very much reflects the darker side of human nature.

As for those Soviets? How you handle them is up to you. There could be good ones who reject the war and just want to begin rebuilding and go home. There could be the hardcore communist types who run internment camps, enslave the locals, and seek to conquer surrounding lands and peoples for their evil ways. You could all be survivors, struggling together, united by a common cause of good. Or you could all be opportunists, looking to "get yours" and take advantage of a bad situation. You could be gung-ho types, looking to rally the troops and finish the war.

Or you could be trying to just get home, to a home that doesn't exist anymore.

A solid, throwback, alternate past, Cold War-inspired game of apocalyptic madness and military-grade bang-bang. Highest recommendation.

Off the Shelf: Twilight: 2000

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.

Twilight:2000 and Modern War

 

A very strange comparison today, especially since both of these games should be close in spirit and content. We have Free League's reboot of Twilight:2000 using the year-zero engine, and Zoser's OGL Cepheus Engine (2d6 Traveller style) game of squad combat, Modern War.

Twilight: 2000

You are on your own now...

This is more a Year Zero, survival, resource management, and sandbox-focused game. We have lots of special dice, a map to traverse in any direction you choose (preferably west), and a really tight set of rules that covers everything you need to know to survive and deal with everything the game's random encounters throw your way.

The game feels like sort of a throwback game to the old Avalon Hill Outdoor Survival game. You are given a map of hexes, there are specific rules for how far you move and how encounters go, you expend resources; encounters and combat may expend more resources; you track your health, food, and water; and along the way you are offered roleplay opportunities where you make decisions and expand upon your interactions with the locals.

The game can be played solo with encounter tables, cards, resource tracking, and hex movement - and that is a part of the core design. If you used a GM emulator you can have a lot of fun here since the game supports solo play.

The game assumes World War III has come and gone, and the world is in that post-war phase where everyone is either trying to establish order, get home, get ahead, or just survive. So there is this huge depressing pall over the game where none of this was really necessary, the war was a waste, and the world is struggling to find food and water for the next day.

The timeline stops at the year 2000, and that will be important when comparing these games - especially if you want to use Modern War as a vehicle and weapon resource for this game, which I am highly tempted to do since it is an excellent guide. So all of the equipment in Twilight:2000 will be about a generation out of date compared to today, a lot of these systems are still in service, but there are weapons used in current warfare (drones are a huge one, but not in this book) that only came into service in the last 20 years that have changed the nature of warfare.

Modern War

Let's play army men!

Seriously, this game is like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on crack. You get so many cool toys to play with, a squad-based "adventuring party" fully loaded out with all sorts of guns and explosives, an action-packed military objective like something out of a World War II movie, and you are cut loose to cause mayhem and deal with everything that goes wrong.

You need to survive, but not in the same way. Surviving here means playing smart, saving ammo, using terrain, getting to the objective, and unloading so much hell on your target they turn into a smoking pile of charcoal. And then you need to get out alive. It is like an action movie where a squad of soldiers goes in to "do something" and they deal with tons of complications and problems along the way.

It is like the movie Predator without the Predator. You know, just the cool part at the beginning where the squad goes in and raises hell with the enemy soldiers? That.

The tone of this game is the complete opposite of Twilight: 2000. There is an active military command. World War III is not happening (or has not ended yet). You are a part of an active unit, and you are (hopefully) going home. You are given a mission with an insertion, objective, and extraction. You get to play with all sorts of cool toys.

You do not worry about long-term survival, planting wheat for the fall harvest, marauders, random hex encounters, or rebuilding the world when you get home. When you get home, another action-packed mission awaits!

You are a part of a squad of soldiers. You can play any part of the unit, or create a specialist (like a sniper or demo guy) and have them escort you to the mission location. You can play the machinegunner. Or just a rifleman. The radio guy. The medic. The unit commander. If you play with friends, you can each take one and let NPCs fill the rest.

I am a bit gung-ho, but you can play this seriously and be realistic if you want. If you were in the military you can use all your unit procedures. You can try and get in and out without firing a shot. If all you know are the movies, go to town.

Since the game was published in 2020, all of the gear is up to date. This is not really a great weapon reference for Twilight: 2000 since there is a ton of modern gear in here, many antitank and missile systems that rely on a generation of electronics ahead of Twilight: 2000, and systems that were only in development back then. Many of the vehicles here are in the world of Twilight: 2000, so it is a good resource if you know your dates and hardware, but then again, some of these vehicles were upgraded from 2000 to 2020 so the details probably won't be exactly right. If you are willing to overlook that and "modernize" your war a little to 2020, then you won't have a problem (but you will be doing a lot of conversions).

Great Games, Different Tones

Both of these are incredible games, and the only place where they come close is in production values (but Twilight: 2000 wins that fight with all the extras in the box and color art). The research and data in Modern Warfare is a joy to behold, and you may find yourself on Twitter looking at pictures of destroyed tanks and looking them up in the book.

Twilight: 2000 is more of a "gamers" game and less of a simulation. There are encounter cards, tables, and special dice. Your skills rank up with dice size. There are a lot of almost Euro-game design parts to this, and it all works. They minimize record-keeping and abstract a lot. It all works from a game rules perspective. It also works on a macro-campaign level, much like Forbidden Lands, where you level up, try to improve the world around you, and be a roving group of heroes.

Modern Warfare is a military sim, like the Arma 3 videogame but in pen-and-paper RPG form. It does not assume a destroyed world, and there is a command structure to give you your next mission. You can play almost like the old Squad Leader game did, with mini-scenarios and linked missions, and take control of that unit sent to knock out a bunker or take a house and rescue the VIPs hiding in the basement. You get to drive all the cool tanks and trucks. You get to fly the choppers or call in air or artillery support. You get to take out the terrorist leader and raid his hideout. You get to rescue the downed pilot.

Both of them are incredibly fun, and both can coexist side-by-side. If you are interested in one, I would instantly recommend the other. And they complement each other because the technical, unit, country, weapon, vehicle, and order of battle information in Modern Warfare would be things that Twilight: 2000 would know.

Modern Warfare characters may want to know what is waiting for them should the world go to hell, or at least have that opportunity to play without a command structure and decide what type of hero you would be given complete freedom in a destroyed world.

Both of these have my highest recommendation, great games for different reasons.

Off the Shelf: Forbidden Lands

I liked Free League's Twilight:2000 so much I pulled Forbidden Lands off the shelf to give it another look. The games are similar, using rules built off the same underlying engine, and I wanted to give this one another chance.

I also got the Forbidden Hero solo play rules to go along with this off Drive Thru RPG. This looks like a fun set of solo play rules (different from Mythic) that also has suggestions on how to make a solo game in this system flow a little better and be more survivable.

I do want to get back to Twilight:2000, but I felt like giving this game a go would be a fun way to start with this system and have some fun in a fantasy setting. I am waiting for a second set of Twilight:2000 dice as well, so until those come I wanted to play with this and see if it worked for me.

I never gave this game a fair chance, honestly. I sort of gave it a quick look, realized I needed special dice, got the dice, and moved back into a Pathfinder 1e campaign, which proved to be a mess to play solo. The initiative system killed that game, huge lists of initiative order written over and over again on scrap paper, and characters that could be created using Hero Builder and the printouts were page after page of data and notes. Pathfinder 1e and Starfinder convinced me that if I needed a computer program to manage my characters, the game probably was not for me. So I went back to B/X and bounced around some until the Alien RPG captured my imagination.

And I honestly started giving Free League's games more attention when Twilight:2000 arrived. What fascinates me about Forbidden  Lands is the DIY map, and I bet if I give it a chance it will be a fun solo playthrough. I got these cool multicolor stickers off Amazon that I will number using a marker (before I stick them on) to use for my DIY map creation, and that will give me a better assortment of color-keyed locations for my adventures.

This way I can track dungeons, towns, the locations of pre-published adventures, and other points of interest on my map easily. I have a metallic gold marker around here somewhere so I will be able to use the black and dark purple dots as well for things, my feeling are towns since black with a gold number will really pop. Red will be dungeons, and white could be pre-published adventure locations. Gray could be gravestones. The other colors I will save in case I need them for other things.

Twilight:2000 does not feel like a "DIY map building" game, though it could be. The play-throughs I watched felt like "escape the map" games more than realizing, "Well, the whole world is destroyed, so doesn't matter where we start rebuilding." If I did a Twilight:2000 game with these sort of "legacy game sticker" map changes, I would likely use a mixture of stickers and plastic pawns (or wooden cubes) to track military units that move around the map, since there may be a tactical element to that game.

If a military unit was moving through the area a colored pawn could be the center of the unit's influence and that would likely change encounters in an area around the unit's rough location. Since military units in Twilight:2000 have to self-supply, they would need to setup cams to farm, scavenge, and base themselves out of for a while before they are able to move on. This idea may work for Forbidden Lands if there is a "tribal raiders" sort of thing going on, but it feels more appropriate for Twilight:2000 since there should be a feeling of push and pull in a more "tactical" feeling game.

If the war is over and nobody cares and you play that way, then you could just do DIY map locations as everyone gives up and begins returning home or settling in. Either way, Forbidden Lands was designed for DIY map play, and if I am ever going to use these 10,000 tiny stickers I need a way to start using them. Plus this will get me experienced with DIY map play and give me ideas on how to best manage and use these as I play.

Or you could say that a colored dot was a major encampment, number key it, and if it is destroyed, moves on, or stays put just make a note of it in your journal and keep the dot there as a record of the encampment and activity. That works too.

Either way I need a journal to make a note of what numbered dot goes with what encounter or location.

I wish Free League was doing more with Forbidden Lands, but I know they have a lot on their plate with their upcoming One Ring game (and just having gotten Twilight:2000 out). But then again, it is up to me to use what I already have and explore this world before I need anything else for the system.

Mail Room: Twilight 2000

What a day to have Free League's Twilight:2000 dropped on my porch in a box filled with packing peanuts today. For those of you reading in the future, near or far, it is February 23, 2022, and I am listening to the slow motion Ukraine invasion news in the background as I write this. Planes are turning around from that country's airspace. Cyberattacks are ongoing. There are reports of explosions in cities happening. Politicians are saying the invasion is underway. Some livestreams have the sounds of gunfire on them, and the flashes of explosions. The military operation has just been announced.

Worse of all, people are dying. A game is trivial compared to the terror and suffering going on over there. I feel bad even bringing it up.

I know, what a day for this to arrive.

My first impressions on opening the box?

Okay, do I even want to open the box?

Pandora's box.

Might as well open it, as I would hate to have regrets later.

Wow, what a nice game.

Honestly, this box is heavy and packed with books, maps, dice, cards, SITREP guides, counters, and all sorts of cool stuff. You get a lot with the boxed set and this is an incredible value. I wish there was more to buy, as I would in a heartbeat.

My history with the game? My brother and I played a 20-year campaign using the original rules. This was one of our go-to games and sat alongside the greats of Car Wars, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, AD&D 2nd Edition, and Aftermath at our table. This was one of our great campaigns, and we loved the world and concept. Honestly, with my brother gone, it feels a little bittersweet opening this box, and I bet he would have loved this edition even though we were done with the game and the world.

We played this world to a satisfying end, one of hope and peace.

We were hopeful, and I still am.

And I can't fault the game's designers for the world this game was released in. This game was obviously a labor of love from true fans, and they poured their hearts out into this game. The art, presentation, and materials that come with the game are all top-notch, this is a high-end Euro-game in quality and presentation.

Then again, if you wanted to roleplay a side in a world similar to the one we now live in, I can't think of a better game. For some, they need to escape this world and I would not recommend this game if the subject matter upsets you. For others, you may want to roleplay a war movie or fantasy of being a hero on the front lines, and that experience provides a relief and way to cope with a world that feels strangely similar. In a great referee's hands this game could be very therapeutic to those worrying about the future and give players a sense of control and comfort about current events.

Face your fears by playing them in a game.

To the game's credit, it presents itself as a game of survivors and it does say the game is not a military game. I get it. For our original campaign, it did turn into a military game. One thing I love about this edition is they present the game in a manner similar to Forbidden Lands or Mutant Year Zero, they give you a map (Poland or Sweden), they give you scenarios and encounter cards, and they sandbox the entire world around you.

You can take this game in any direction you want. Rebuilding. Survival adventure. Drama. Humanitarian missions and peacekeeping (a theme I would recommend for players who stress about war). Heists and intrigue. Spy missions. The world is a lot like a traditional fantasy setting in modern times, as central authority has broken down and there are many opportunities for adventures of any kinds. This does not have to be a war game, and even in our campaign we had a lot of different things going on, even adventurous treasure hunting.

Don't let the war setting and bleak presentation intimidate you. What is beautiful here is a modern world that is very familiar to us and a blank canvas for you to craft adventures on. The setting is one of the greats in tabletop RPGs, very much on par with any D&D world or Traveller's Third Imperium.

Where else can you rewrite the modern world with your own adventures, conflicts, and stories? Unlike a spy game where the modern world and all of its politics and rules have to be accounted for, this game gives you a blank slate to change the world to fit any idea or adventure in your head. It is very much like a Car Wars type post-apoc world minus the armed cars, with more of a gritty survival and interpersonal focus.

Yes, you can still play this grim and gritty like a less science-fantasy Aftermath survival game as well. You could focus on crafting, exploring, and scrounging like a hex-crawl adventure game and forget the larger conflicts. You could do a kingdom-building and trading game of reconstruction. You could ignore all of the included SITREPS and lines of battle and just make it all up yourself.

Or yes, you could play this as a World War II type military adventure game with special missions, commando raids, a broken but still operational allied command, and all sorts of fun rescuing POWs, destroying enemy supplies, capturing plans, doing raids, and driving back the bad guys. The difference between this and WW2 is the future has not been written, and those in command (and it could be the players eventually) need heroes since they are in short supply. Also, since all the big hardware and weapons have been destroyed, the focus of heroism and changing the world takes place on a smaller scale where a single hero matters.

The above was our game. The one me and my brother enjoyed so much. It was both an homage to our favorite WW2 heroic movies and action serials as it was an escape from the paranoia of the 1980's and Cold War nuclear fears. We could take back the night. We could play Rambo or Chuck Norris. We could have moments of gritty survival. We could have tragic stories of loss, balanced by moments of hope and redemption.

The game is yours.

Free League went with the blank canvas model for this game and I feel it works very well. It gives you the freedom to rebuild the world for your adventures and stories, and your players a say in this new world as well.

Highly recommended, with a warning that the game may feel too real at times given current events. Know your players and talk to them. Don't force those uncomfortable with the concept to play, but if they are interested, offer them a humanitarian and peacekeeping option for a campaign. But give the game a chance if you are interested, and realize the power of conquering our fears through safe and play that lets us discuss the world we live in.

As for this world, I am hopeful we will avoid ending up in this reality. Hope springs eternal.

...Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore!
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

~An Essay on Man, Alexander Pope, 1734.