How Do You Plan to Use 4th Edition?

[Raellus]

Free League has released the complete PDF of v4 today (to Kickstarter backers, at least).

I'd like to collect some quantifiable data on how T2k'ers plan on using the new version.

If you'd like to discuss elements of v4, we already have a couple of discussion threads re setting and rules.

General discussion of v4 (focusing mostly on setting):
https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread....ting#post86382

Discussion of v4 rules:
https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=6203

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[Adm.Lee]

Well, I *did* pay for it; I might as well play or run it at least once.

Ever since I've started running Savage Worlds (10 years ago?! ), I've wanted to run at least a short game with those rules in the T2k setting. I've read the alpha of these rules once, and they remind me of SW, so to play these would be a way to follow through on that experiment.

I don't have any actual plans to do so at the moment. My once-a-month "anything but D&D" group hasn't met in over a year, and I would be running for either that group, or at a convention.
As for my annual run at Origins, I might want to run the same adventure in both rules, just to see the differences up close?

Perhaps someone will be running it at a con someday, and I would give it a try there.
Perhaps someone else will open up an online game (I'm in a v2.2 game that's just started, and I don't think I have the time for another online game right now).

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Ever since I've started running Savage Worlds (10 years ago?! ), I've wanted to run at least a short game with those rules in the T2k setting. I've read the alpha of these rules once, and they remind me of SW, so to play these would be a way to follow through on that experiment.

Not to cause thread drift quite so soon, but Wayne of Wayne's Books has recently shifted his long-running campaign from v2.2 to Savage Worlds. I'm hoping he writes up a list of resources and any house rules he's using.

- C.

[Ursus Maior]

I'm going to one-shot gamemaster the new edition on my 40th birthday, which is on July 18th. Since that's the date of the "death of a division" in 2000 we're going to play into by birthday, starting on July 17th. The one-shot will be largely setting agnostic, too much background is not good in one-shots. But the general setting will be as published by FL.

I would like to transition parts of my regular gaming group into a proper campaign later on. If that happens, I will adjust the setting a bit, but keep the general idea of a resurgent USSR after a successful coup in August 1991. Points I would like to change are things that militarily seem unjustifiable to me, e. g. sailing a CVN into the Baltic to attack Sweden and counter the Soviet Baltic Fleet.

I will also have to rebalance Soviet might and personnel-power. In my opinion FL are overdoing it a bit. I think it's more likely that the USSR cannot escape its death-spiral on its own, but communication with the West fails somewhere around 1996 and the goal is to plunder the Baltics and then Poland to avoid running bankrupt. Of course this gets covered up in the usual spiel (i. e. "protecting Soviet citizens abroad", "pre-emptive strike against revisionist-fascist Poland" etc.). Since the West will still have had a Peace Dividend, though toned down from the historical version, the ensuing war goes more or less like written by FL.

The difference will be that as the arsenals gradually deplete, older material shows up. While the West can go back to M48s or in some cases M47s, the Russians still have some quantities of T-34s, T-44s, IS-3s, SU-100s, and ASU-85s that can be reactivated, though likely only on a 1:10 ratio (i. e. ten tanks can be cobbled together into one working tank). These tanks can be sufficient against NATO forces, if used against the mostly under-equipped light infantry brigades that remain. So the charge NATO that was Operation Reset will have come as a surprise to the forces of the USSR, but once reserves had been mobilized from the hinterlands and the 5th ID had lost its momentum, the offensive stalled and finally broke down, before reaching Łódź. Scattered survivors and remaining elements got mopped up by WW2 era tanks, which in turn could not go into a counter-offensive due to lack of fuel and being vulnerable to remaining NATO forces.

The storyline will end up, where it usually does in T2K, but I will be avoiding (hopefully) to make the USSR look like a super-power it could not have been in the Nineties. Not even with deus ex machina economic power and a military junta in control.

[Silent Hunter UK]

If a game comes up on RPOL or Myth-Weavers, I am hoping to join it.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Ursus Maior

I'm going to one-shot gamemaster the new edition on my 40th birthday, which is on July 18th. Since that's the date of the "death of a division" in 2000 we're going to play into by birthday, starting on July 17th. The one-shot will be largely setting agnostic, too much background is not good in one-shots. But the general setting will be as published by FL.

I would like to transition parts of my regular gaming group into a proper campaign later on. If that happens, I will adjust the setting a bit, but keep the general idea of a resurgent USSR after a successful coup in August 1991. Points I would like to change are things that militarily seem unjustifiable to me, e. g. sailing a CVN into the Baltic to attack Sweden and counter the Soviet Baltic Fleet.

I will also have to rebalance Soviet might and personnel-power. In my opinion FL are overdoing it a bit. I think it's more likely that the USSR cannot escape its death-spiral on its own, but communication with the West fails somewhere around 1996 and the goal is to plunder the Baltics and then Poland to avoid running bankrupt. Of course this gets covered up in the usual spiel (i. e. "protecting Soviet citizens abroad", "pre-emptive strike against revisionist-fascist Poland" etc.). Since the West will still have had a Peace Dividend, though toned down from the historical version, the ensuing war goes more or less like written by FL.

The difference will be that as the arsenals gradually deplete, older material shows up. While the West can go back to M48s or in some cases M47s, the Russians still have some quantities of T-34s, T-44s, IS-3s, SU-100s, and ASU-85s that can be reactivated, though likely only on a 1:10 ratio (i. e. ten tanks can be cobbled together into one working tank). These tanks can be sufficient against NATO forces, if used against the mostly under-equipped light infantry brigades that remain. So the charge NATO that was Operation Reset will have come as a surprise to the forces of the USSR, but once reserves had been mobilized from the hinterlands and the 5th ID had lost its momentum, the offensive stalled and finally broke down, before reaching Łódź. Scattered survivors and remaining elements got mopped up by WW2 era tanks, which in turn could not go into a counter-offensive due to lack of fuel and being vulnerable to remaining NATO forces.

The storyline will end up, where it usually does in T2K, but I will be avoiding (hopefully) to make the USSR look like a super-power it could not have been in the Nineties. Not even with deus ex machina economic power and a military junta in control.

You and I have the same birthdays!

and I agree - FL went way overboard and made the Soviets too formidable - its more a case with how they set it up why the Soviets arent on the Rhine given what they have versus NATO by 2000

[Ursus Maior]

Originally Posted by Olefin

You and I have the same birthdays!

and I agree - FL went way overboard and made the Soviets too formidable - its more a case with how they set it up why the Soviets arent on the Rhine given what they have versus NATO by 2000

Well, what a coincidence! We share that day with Vin Diesel (1967), Paul Verhoven (1938) and Nelson Mandela (1918). So, here's to good company!

I hope they'll tone down that "Russia Stronk" theme a bit in upcoming publications or explaing, why NATO and the USA acted in such ways that made this strategic surprise possible. However, I am not yet convinced this line of publications will generate enough revenue for us to see many additions. It migh become a self-fulfilling prophecy.