[X] My Assistant

[Kentares]

I GM'ed Twilight 2000 2.2 for several sessions (didnt finished the campaign I planned) before Shadowrun (2nd edition) and the players who liked Mad Max style of games/movies loved that game. It was very fun but some rules needed some tweaking IIRC.

[Snow_Fox]

We played it once or twice, when it first came out when you were still in 'Europe" and while were were interested in it, medical really was limited. Once you got wounded, you were pretty well screwed. true for real life but sucky for a game.

[Wounded Ronin]

We played it once or twice, when it first came out when you were still in 'Europe" and while were were interested in it, medical really was limited. Once you got wounded, you were pretty well screwed. true for real life but sucky for a game.

My approach in such a situation as a GM would be to have everyone make a 6 pack of characters so if someone is crippled or killed it's not a problem to keep playing.

[Spike]

I used to play this ages ago, and I think I had a copy of the game (though, unlike you I couldn't get out of my base to do anything....) on the computer.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I've played every edition of Twilight2000 (and Megatraveller and Dark Conspiracies...all the same basic system), and actually managed to get another hardback rulebook for nostalgia purposes.

One thing I recall, though at least part of the 'bad memory' comes from the asstastic GM was that while shooting people was brutally lethal (though I think at least one edition gave the PC's something like double the hp/health of most NPC's...) was that melee combat was horribly gimped in the damage department. I had a special forces guy that tried to 'stealth kill' a machine gun nest/ambush with a machete. After successfully whacking the one guy five or six times (and getting shot repeatedly in the process) I finally gave up and shot him back.

The one issue I've had over and over again with the GDW system is that you pretty much have to play 'old dudes'. Obviously this was more of an issue when I was a teenager, but even now I'm less than happy that a game tells me how old I have to be to be 'x' competent. Given the generally low skill totals and four year career blocks... (one of the first edition upgrades changed it from four skill points per career to six...)

[Snow_Fox]

yeah, I had that trouble with the original Traveller, I gotta be how old to have decent skills?

[Synner667]

yeah, I had that trouble with the original Traveller, I gotta be how old to have decent skills?

In Traveller, even skill:1 was good - skill:3 would be very good, I've never seen anyone with skill:5

Aeon/White Wolf did something similar, making the skill progression almost logarithmic.

[suppenhuhn]

What I never liked about t2k (we played 2nd edition) was that character generation was mostly roll based and you could screw a perfectly fine character by just rolling a 1 for initiative but dice based char gen was the standard during that time. The setting is great though and combat rules are imo decent and quick enough to play though the system is pretty lethal after all (not the direct combat as npcs generally die pretty quick but the infections following a wound eventually) which i liked to emphasize the constant threat the players are experiencing as well as stopping too triggerhappy playing styles.

They sell the pdf at drivethrurpg btw and afaik 2.2 is worse then 2.0 so get this edition if you want it (it's cheaper also (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )

[PBTHHHHT]

Well, the Twilight 2013 pdf version is out now.

[Fortune]

Is the new version any good?

[PBTHHHHT]

I just got it last night so I'm still going over the file and I've never played the original one also so I can't compare. It does have an interesting initiative/action system that uses/calls stuff ticks, ala ticks in a clock as it counts the seconds. The weapons though, they go by bullet for damage which is good. The ranges for hitting are target is actually nice also. The hit location you roll two d6, each d6 are different colours so you get the numbers and look at the chart, I think you need to roll a 1 on one dice and a 4 on another to get that head shot. Armour is important in this game especially where you're wearing the armour, such as a standard helmet has 2 armour value but only covers 50% of the head.
The first part of the book covers how the game world diverges from the real world in 2007. One thing that's the similar for 2008... the democrats have a majority in both houses and wins the presidency. Though the president is a guv'ner from the SW. heh. Anyway, since it diverges it doesn't have stuff like say the mortgage crisis/credit crisis that happened in 2008. In the end though, nukes are thrown, forces are stalemated, resources are depleted, food shortages abound, the US is broken up with conflicting factions such as CIVGOV's (more than one) and MILGOV, and the president tells everyone good luck in his farewell speech.

[Arcblood]

I ve played twilight 2000 from first print and shadowrun from first print. Both games pretty much destroyed the montyhall factor learned from D&D. Twilight really forces people to work out the short and long term tactics and logistics for team work.
I ususally had to recreate characters every third session due to combat effects. At the time two players let thier hatred for each other bleed into the game cause of previous history from other games( AA, D&D, Battletech, warhammer 40k) Hell a couple of us got really good at using our characters in game skills to provoke them.
The old game just like the new game basically forces teamwork on you if you want to survive. This game really helped our old core group evolve into roleplayers and help me become the G.O.D. of shadowrun for 5 straight years of real time campaign.
Twilight really is fun when you can bring in real life experiences to balance the games skill set. This game is really plausible cause our civilization is really only one generation from the darkages. WHen your group has one army, one gun nut, two farm kids, 1st generation korean, and one machinist. You can really demonstrate what you can a=team together given the time and raw parts. hell screw waterboarding we used an arcwelder and alcohol for our info gathering.
Remember Kerosine, gasoline, detergent and magnesium ribbon makes for a nice thermite package.

[Earlydawn]

Well, I've been pouring over Twilight 2013 for a month or so, now, and I have to say I absolutely love it. Haven't ran a game with it just yet, but its a solid game for anybody looking for a more simulation-y pen 'n paper. Character creation is honestly as much fun as playing the game seems to be, and they did a great job of making sure that any character concept is both balanced yet fun to play.

Anybody who likes accuracy, realism, and deep roleplaying. Ronin, for example, would probably love it, based on seeing his earlier work on weapon realism in Shadowrun. Check it out!

[ravensmuse]

Fun story: I got to play T2K at Gencon 2007, run by a friend of my girlfriend's.

The plot was that there was a tanker bearing nuclear material sitting in a mercenary compound and we had to go in and destroy it. The original idea (the one the GM had) was that we'd sneak in and blow the material up, thus rendering it unusable. Us being PCs though, we had another idea.

I forgot what I and the other players were doing (I think we ended up convincing the merc group that we were recruits and had some guys giving us a tour around the compound) while my girlfriend seduced the guy with the keys into a bathroom, where she promptly shanked him, stole his clothes, took the keys, and while we were distracting everyone, drove the tanker out of the base.

Did I mention we were all Russian? It was a blast.

[Wesley Street]

Character creation is honestly as much fun as playing the game seems to be, and they did a great job of making sure that any character concept is both balanced yet fun to play.

Cool! Would you mind sharing your thoughts on how character creation works? Is it chart based, random die-roll, or points system-based? As a player of GDW's Twilight:2000 "canon sequel" 2300AD, this game interests me.

I forgot what I and the other players were doing (I think we ended up convincing the merc group that we were recruits and had some guys giving us a tour around the compound) while my girlfriend seduced the guy with the keys into a bathroom, where she promptly shanked him, stole his clothes, took the keys, and while we were distracting everyone, drove the tanker out of the base.

I'm a big fan of the "seduce 'n shank" school of infiltration. Well done. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[ravensmuse]

I'm a big fan of the "seduce 'n shank" school of infiltration. Well done. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Congratulate her, not me. We had no idea what she was up to until she said: "I shank him and take his keys and clothes."

This is the same girl that decided that (in Shadowrun) after having pushed the local mob boss's grandma into oncoming traffic, that she'd finish the woman off, screwed that up, and took an orbital out to Tokyo where she went on to take on a job assassinating a fashion model while they were on the runway.

On this note, I think I should run more solo stuff for her.

[Earlydawn]

Cool! Would you mind sharing your thoughts on how character creation works? Is it chart based, random die-roll, or points system-based? As a player of GDW's Twilight:2000 "canon sequel" 2300AD, this game interests me.

You essentially start your character's life from the age of 18 (No matter how long before 2013 that is), and then run him through "phases". Phases determine what skills are trainable and what attributes are boostable. Paths are divided pretty evenly between civie and military options. Some paths also let (or require) you roll on a "Hazardous Duty" table that can either help you or hurt you.

Some other interesting elements of the skill system; degrees (the knowledge skill equivalent) actually add to rolls that are relevant to the skill you're using, so it's viable to build an academic or older and wiser character. Skills also roll against different stats depending on the context. Longarms, for example, lets you attack by rolling against Coordination, but using your longarms skill to maintain your M4 is an element of cognition instead (the INT stat). It's a great system if you like realism - min/maxing isn't as disruptive to the game.

[Wesley Street]

Ah, it sounds like the new developers have taken the next logical step with the older GDW system. 2300AD character creation works in a similar fashion but it's a little more "old school" and simplistic. Very cool, I'll need to check this new version of Twilight out.