Not going to happen. Tomas is one of those writers, and in fact probably 95% responsible for the entire background. It was after all he who I watched in real time doing all the edits.

Well then the V4 is truly screwed - FYI he seemed unaware of the last line on page 148 of the Players Manual showing every division associated with Reset was overrun and destroyed - but not sure if that was malarkey

It seems to me that looking for supplies in the Free League reboot seems a bit too difficult.
If I understand it correctly, each hex is 10 kilometres but only one person can forage or hunt or scrounge or fish in a hex at a time.
The implication is that if others want to do so at the same time, then they need to wander off to another hex so that the characters end up about 10 klicks apart from each other - a profoundly stupid idea when you have hostile forces potentially in the vicinity.

Upon a success, you find one ration of food and I think you can only score up to two success. Living off the land seems to be so damned difficult I can't imagine anyone with real experience of being in the wilderness would find this game satisfying or enjoyable

I didn't really like the Year Zero rules to begin with and if anything, the rules they are hashing together for their reboot of T2k reinforces my bias against Year Zero rules.

So in an area of 86.6 square kilometres, only one person can forage, hunt or whatever, and can find a max of 2 man-days of food.....
Right....
Sounds a little low even for somewhere like the central Sahara or inland Antarctica.

Either Tomas and his guys have never foraged or hunted before or the game/wild berrries/etc. situation in the game is a hell of a lot worse than anything I have ever heard of - thats a hell of a lot of territory for such a little gain

Fine Tooth Comb
 

Maybe the scarcity is that areas near human habitations have been repeatedly picked over by scavengers, military and civilian. By 2000, anything within a few clicks of a settlement of any size would have been picked over real good. You'd have to be really skillful or lucky to find useable supplies, forage, or game.

-

I could agree if it was specifically stated that settlements and other obvious attractive targets for scavenging were mentioned but the rule appears to apply for every hex regardless of what is found in that hex.
From the talk I see on the Free League forum, the rule seems to be heavily influenced by one of their earlier games. However there appears to be some agreement that the rule works for the earlier game but seems overly harsh for a T2k setting.

"Overly harsh"?
Hmm, seems like you're being too kind to them.

Even in populated areas there's still going to be plenty to find - overgrown and forgotten vegetable gardens, rabbits, rats, pigeons, and a host of other options we may turn our noses up to in better times.
And that doesn't even account for caches of canned or bottled food tucked away in odd places.

Ok a math nut chime in here.

I have walked 70 miles (112km) in 20 hours (flat paved terrain). I'm gonna say that is near human max to allow for scanning for food (I know super endurance people would laugh at that number but they move too fast to forage). Assuming I could see 50 m in each direction (and spot a mushroom at that distance) and not allowing for ANY time for forage or hunt, that allows me to "cover" 11,200,000 meters.

86.6 Square Kilometers = 86,600,000 square meters so even with insanely exaggerated numbers it would take a minimum of 8 people to just scan the terrain, cursorily

Yup, you're seeing the problem. That particular rule, if it's being reported accurately, is insanely bad. There are entire farms feeding many people that are less than 1% of the size of an FL hex. Even taking into account the possibility nobody is actively growing food or raising livestock anywhere in that area, there's no possible way 86 square Km couldn't feed an absolute host of people, except as I mentioned previously, in some very extreme circumstances.

That gives a very good perspective on the situation. I am left to wonder if Free League have done their thing simply for gameplay purposes without any deeper considerations taken into account.
I know from my own experience that when foraging for mushrooms and berries in the Australian bushland, we had multiple people pick over one spot because there was always the chance that one person spots something the first person missed.
And we weren't spreading out over a 10 kilometre area to do so, we probably foraged an area no more than a few kilometres for half a morning or thereabouts (so in game terms say, roughly one to two 4 hour periods).

And the Australian bushland does not have the amount of wild food freely growing that you could expect in Europe but we still left sites without finding all the wild food that was there. How do I know? Because other people would go to the same site the next day and come back with the foodstuffs we missed.

Maybe it's intentional? A badly thought out mechanic to keep PCs on the move?
Yeah, I don't think so either.

Accidentally, On Purpose?
 

That actually makes a lot of sense. Hasn't FL described their approach to T2k as a "hex crawl"? I have a sense of what a hex crawl is, but I'm not sure I really grasp the concept, or see an obvious connection to traditional T2k RPG'ing. Hopefully, someone here can explain it to me.

-

That would fit in with the rules for encounters when players ares stationary. Those rules are ambiguous when it comes to spotting (implies automatic discovery of PCs), and encounters get more severe as time passes.

Reading the part about stationary players, seems like they are forcing the players to keep move all under the assumption that there are enough Russians and hostile Polish troopers to round up all the fleeing NATO troops.

The risk of being stationary seems directly opposite of what is supposed to happen when you need to brew up a still of alcohol fuel. Since if you have a small still you can only produce 5 liters of fuel per shift. While a larger still can produce a 50/liters a shift. Or fight hunger or find that part to fix the vehicle you have.

With a Hummer taking 95 liters of fuel, an M113 taking 360 liters, a couple of the Swedes vehicles taking 80-100 liters. Taking a quick look at the vehicle stats.

So the way they have the rules written, you move. Roll an encounter, set a watch, brew up fuel, forage for the next movement to the next hex and run out of fuel again, repeat steps 1 through 4. Oh and you have to have a body that can watch the still as well. So there is less than two PCs out of your team that need to stay by the base camp.

Makes no sense. Then combine that with the rules that rest does a body good to heal from wounds and stress. Means your watch you set might as well be the most broken PC in the team at the moment. With the still operator as the 2nd most broke team member. While all the more able body folks run through foraging, fishing, hunting, whatever per a shift.

Unless I am misreading these rules or misunderstanding the intent here. Seems like the idea is forcing the PCs to be on the move almost constantly and that someone in the group will always have stress on their person.

This is very much the impression I am getting from the alpha rules (for what it's worth, I have the same understanding of the rules as you do).
I'm finding it a tad difficult to figure out what the actual point of the game is, if its design is to keep you moving for "reasons".

If that's the intention then it makes staying put and trying to hole up impossible. Firstly their rules mean you WILL starve before long and secondly, with the encounters ramping up, you WILL be killed.
The ramping encounters also lends weight to the "uber soviets" complaint most of us have.

Has anyone found anything that actually WORKS with these mechanics?

I've been tinkering with some solo play (which, for me, is really more of writing prompts). The v2.2 encounter tables and travel rules, combined with Jed McClure's hex overlays of the original boxed set maps, seem to work fairly well for sandbox gaming. What you guys are describing sounds like it's more story- than simulation-focused, and leaning very hard toward survival RPG play.

- C.

Some stationary encounters issues:
* Increased severity of encounter for longer stays . (stationary encounters table).

detection rules:
Allow the PCs a RECON roll to spot the scouts (opposed roll). If spotted, the scouts might attack, retreat, or negotiate, depending on their goals.
* Automatic discovery of the PCs and the enemy know when the PCs have detected them?

* Some parts implies automatic detection of PCs, other parts says RECON is necessary to spot a hidden camp.

First time poster, so be gentle . . .

The Alpha rules provide a step-by-step description for creating characters sing the life-path on page 31, and a step-by-step example of creating a character on page 39.

T2K v1 PH didn't even have that: it detailed US Army soldiers, said you could play a foreign soldier attached to an American unit, but that Americans were in charge, no matter what.

I'm not clear on what you're saying, to be honest. Could you give an example?

That's a fair point, but it's also part-and-parcel of random character generation, and even if the specialty you roll doesn't play to your character's strengths, it significantly improves on their weaknesses, frex, making a success five or six on d6, improving your character's chance of success from 16% to 33%

That said, while I personally prefer random character generation, if I'm the referee I'd strongly consider just letting players choose their specialties if they prefer. Optimized characters don't bother me much.

It sounds like you may be confusing skills and specialties. Can you cite a page number?

An officer does pick a branch as well: "OFFICERS must qualify for both the Officer career path and for the functional area in which they want to serve. They also get to choose which of the two columns to use for each career bonus" (page 32).

It allows players to opt for different skill sets before getting swept up as draftees once the war starts. That's not really my personal cuppa - I prefer the familiar T2K conceit of a band of brothers and sisters in arms - but they're trying to make a dollar and cent here, and if increasing the diversity of character options helps their bottom line, then they'd be fools not to do it. I seriously doubt their business plan was 'sell a copy to everyone who played this game since the Eighties.'

I took that to represent the possibility of an injury, abandoning a workout plan, &c, but that said, I'm not wild about it either and would house rule this if it stays in the final version.

That's incorrect - you roll d6 for the length of the term in years, and once the war breaks out, your final term is three years without rolling, so that everyone's life path concludes with the same three years, syncing up the characters. It's not 1d6+3 every term.

Agreed - the wording is wonky; that said, telling people to divide by one-quarter doesn't really improve on that, in my opinion.

Contacts are v2, yes? My own experience is limited to v1, and I don't recall that.

The Moral Code, Big Dream, and Buddy rules seem to follow tagging Aspects in FATE. That's literally the only thing I like about FATE, so I'm curious to see how they work in v4.

Well said.

It can give you another die to roll to avoid Stress and remain Cool Under Fire.

So, last night I created a character using the life path rules, and I can walk you through the steps.

Character is an American with Coolness Under Fire D (d6). Starting attributes are Strength B, Agility C, Intelligence B, and Empathy B; I don't favor or slight any of the attributes, which would allow me to increase an attribute to A at the cost of dropping another attribute to D - a nice call out to v1 there.

The Alpha rules suggest a referee can allow the player to choose his childhood, but since I don't really have a character concept in mind yet, I'll roll: Working Class. I can choose from Brawling, Stamina, and Tech as my starting skills; I take Stamina and get the Load Carrier specialty - that's a lucky confluence of skill and specialty, and speaks to the idea that characters should get to choose their specialty to match their skill, or roll for the specialty first, before choosing the skill to take or improve. A possible house rule there.

His first term will be spent getting an Education - I think I'm going to go for officer here. He meets both minimums, for Liberal Arts and Sciences, and I elect to Sciences, getting Recon D and Tech D. I have to make skill roll to earn a specialty, which is d6 and d10 to roll a six for success, and I miss on both dice - no specialty. I roll for term length duration and get a 4, and add four years to the character's age. Since I can't roll under a 1 (1st term), there's no risk of losing an attribute level yet. At the end of the 1st term, my guy looks like this.

My Guy, Age 22
Strength B (d10) - Stamina D (d6)
Agility C (d8)
Intelligence B (d10) - Recon D (d6), Tech D (d6)
Empathy B (d10)
Specialties: Load Carrier
CUF D (d6)

Second term is military service and he's qualified to be an officer, so he commissioned as 2LT; with four years in Education, maybe he's ROTC? or USMA? He's eligible for three of the four branches - needs AGL B for Special Forces, so that's closed to him - and opts for Combat Arms; I thinking cavalry if he gets the Tanker specialty. I'm required to take Ranged Combat D and choose Stamina C - two of the six specialties are gunners, so he's gotta be ready to hump a load. I roll a skill check against Stamina - because his Stamina improved, I roll d6 and d10 and get my six this time, gaining the specialty Combat Engineering. As my fellow pirate Captain Jack Sparrow says, that's very interesting. Blowing shit up is cool. Because I passed the skill check, he also gets promoted to 1LT and his CUF goes up to C. I roll for term length, get a one. This time I roll for both aging and the start of the war; neither die comes up a one, so on to term three. At the end of two terms, here 's where he is.

1LT My Guy, Age 23
Strength B (d10) - Stamina C (d8)
Agility C (d8) - Ranged Combat D (d6)
Intelligence B (d10) - Recon D (d6), Tech D (d6)
Empathy B (d10)
Specialties: Load Carrier, Combat Engineering
CUF C (d8)

Third term I can choose two skills, and this time I take Command D from the officer skill list and Stamina B. I roll another skill check against Stamina, this time with d10 and d10, easily beating six on both dice and d10, picking up another Combat Arms specialty, Tanker; that actually works well with being a combat engineer, because it also covers bulldozers. My Guy's taking shape! Because he made his skill check, he is promoted to CPT and his CUF is now B. a d6 says two years pass,, and I roll again for attribute loss and war; he doesn't lose an level, but the war d8 comes up 1 - it's on! As he ships out for Europe, here's how he looks.

CPT My Guy, Age 25
Strength B (d10) - Stamina B (d10)
Agility C (d8) - Ranged Combat D (d6)
Intelligence B (d10) - Recon D (d6), Tech D (d6)
Empathy B (d10) - Command D (d6)
Specialties: Load Carrier, Combat Engineering, Tanker
CUF B (d10)

CPT My Guy is now At War; he can increase two skills by one level each - he goes Command C and Tech C - and gets an At War specialty automatically: Improvised Munitions. I hoped for NBC or Ranger, but IM tells me a lot about how he spent his time in combat.

Now it's time to give him a name and fill in some of his other blanks.

CPT Tomas 'Tom' Andrej Ruzicka, USMA '94, Age 28
Strength B (d10) - Stamina B (d10)
Agility C (d8) - Ranged Combat D (d6)
Intelligence B (d10) - Recon D (d6), Tech C (d8)
Empathy B (d10) - Command C (d8)
Specialties: Load Carrier, Combat Engineering, Tanker, Improvised Munitions
CUF B (d10)

Appearance: blond crew cut, grey-eyed, rock-jawed
Moral Code: Duty, Honor, Country
Big Dream: We all get out of this alive
Buddy and How You Met the Group : TBD

Born in Kewaunee, WI, moved to Green Bay at age 6. Attended Xavier HS in Appleton, living with an aunt. Father's family is Czech; mother's family Norwegian and German. Dad's a roofer, and Tom helped out during the summers, humping bundles of tar sheets and plywood. Solid grades; lettered in football and basketball, inside linebacker and small forward respectively - not the most talented, but coaches respected his toughness. Accepted to USMA, played football, deep on the depth chart; only made the travel team twice, but once was against Navy so it was all worth it. BS, Civil Engineering; AOC 12B, Combat Engineer, CO, 'B' Company, 7th Engineer Battalion, 5th ID (Mech) - served as battalion XO in Poland for six days, battalion CO for about three hours . . .

He needs a nickname.

My first impression is v4 characters tend to be less capable overall than their v1 peers, but that may be deceiving; I think I'll try re-creating this character in v1 to see the differences.

Are you one of the creators of the new edition?

I backed the Kickstarter - does that count?

No, I've never tried my hand at designing a game, beyond house ruling other people's games.

You know, I've only been marginally keeping up with with the v4 developments, until tonight when I read the entire thread in one go.

And v4 just seems screwy. Like if I wrote new T2K rules when I'd been off my antipsychotics for a couple of weeks. OK, new ideas are good, and I'm heavily shackled to 2,2. but v4 just seems strange --like it's not T2K, but rather a post-apoc game that should have a different name and have no ties to "real" T2K. At best, mine v4 for ideas and then throw out the rest.

And having v4 basically take place in Sweden and northeastern Europe? That's a module, not a T2K game. Yes, you have to start somewhere, but from what I've read here, the writers of v4 seem to have not paid any attention to previous T2K works -- the sort of short-shortsightedness that led (That Movie That Should Not Be Called) Starship Troopers. Use the name to draw the fans in, then make it anything you want -- you'll already have the money, so what if the fans feel suckered?

That's the feel I get here. Someone came up with a set of crazy rules and a game region that should be a module, then slapped Twilight 2000 on it to draw us in.

That's my take.

That sounds about right. The behavior of FL makes it worse. Some of us who had seen the pre-Alpha stuff complained but were ignored. I've been playing TW2K for 20 years and I want new stuff. Alas what i have seen is not TW2K.

As far as the foraging rules go I wish I could drop the FL people out in the woods and let them find out how easy it is to eat well in the woods. Mind you I am all of three generations away from Subsistence poachers.

I've been on this forum a while, I just don't post a lot, and I've been a fan of Twilight 2000 for a long, long time. Wow, actually... Longer than I thought... LOL

Anyway... Am I happy there's a new version? Definitely... But not so much for the version itself I hate to say, but more for the renewal of interest in the concept. More for the fact that with interest comes the possibility of new sourcebooks that could be revamped and refactored and slipped into my own version of the game. More for the fact that additional fluff could add color to my own T2K universe, or new rules could be retconned into my version.

My version, by the way, the game I play, is v2.2 with a whole bunch of mods and rules and such all carefully crafted and added into the game to make things...well...mine... mine and my players...

The Year Zero engine just feels....lack luster to me... I'm not sure how else to explain it, and although I happily grabbed the alpha and dug through it, I'm just not....happy with it. Will there be a market for it? I'm sure. I guess I'm either too set in my ways, or too much of an old grognard to appreciate it, either way, it is what it is.

I'm sure there will be people who will like it, and for that I'm glad there's an audience... And I'll admit I'm looking forward to new material, new ideas, new possibilities...but I'm not going to be moving to the new version any time soon... Thankfully most of my players are very much of the same opinion so will more than likely be happy to stay as is for a while, though I do have one who's less long in the tooth and is already a player of at least one YZ game but I believe understands us old folks...

And all I can hope is there's enough like minded individuals (at least in part if not in full) around so that there will remain a corner of (for instance) this forum that I can still return to share ideas, rules and such.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, and thanks for letting me air them!
I'll go back to my semi-lurking for now... :)

~Ty

You're right on the money with all that.

My thoughts are FL's game will be regarded much like T2013 - a variant and not core. It may be discussed from time to time, but certainly won't be a significant part of the conversation.

Time may prove me wrong, but I doubt it.

While not disagreeing with you, Leg, I will note that 2013 was never intended to be "core" in the sense of revising the Cold War/2000 timeline or extending its continuity. Different timeline, different historical backdrop, different era - another path leading to a familiar (but not identical) post-WWIII setting. 4e is very much being billed as a new edition of the classic Cold War timeline. "Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was," indeed.

- C.

I was thinking about this in the last couple days. What if there is some kind of copy right issue? For instance whoever wrote the original time lines for v1 and v2 would need to be paid for or possible sue for likeness rights. Could FL be avoiding having to pay some of the original game designers by changing just enough of the game and saying its a whole new take? If so Why not just say that to everyone? I get they are a European company and they are obviously opening up the game to Swedish fans as I once read there was a huge following of twilight fans in sweden, but it kinds of just pissing on everyone else. I believe they could have written in sweden joining the war to support finland and norway very easily. I dont know just my two cents.

Free the oli 1

I somewhat agree, but I feel Leg had the right thought that v4 will be, essentially, a variant...

I essentially agree with Paul as well that I for one will very much be looking to 'mine' v4 for my own game of v2.2

Like I said I'm happy at the prospect of new interest and new support, I just don't see it being of 'use' to me except as potential to be mined for my own game.

~Ty

That shouldn't be an issue if they do, in fact, have a licensing contract for the property from Marc Miller/Far Future Enterprises. Based on what I've seen here and elsewhere, I believe they do have a legitimate license. Otherwise they'd be in trouble just for attempting to profit from the Twilight: 2000 trademark.

- C.

Huh.... That's an interesting take, I hadn't thought about it that way...

Of course, doesn't change my view of the YZ engine, but makes sense from the background perspective.

~Ty

That I believe was a good move on your part. I only wonder if it wouldn't have been better to push it back another decade though to give more room to mould the world to fit the intended outcome.

If there is ever a 5th edition, I see two options - keep it set in 2000 and compatible with 1st and 2nd ed, or push the time forward to at least ten years after the publication date (20 might be better). I'd definitely like to hear people's opinions on those two ideas.

In retrospect, perhaps. 1e was published in 1984, so it had a 12-year offset between publication and the beginning of the war, with the start of play being 16 years in the future. We had our first major setting design meeting in June 2006; at the time, I believe (memory hazy, it's been a while) we were targeting a 2008 release. Keeping the original timeline, we might have been better served by making it Twilight: 2025 or 2030.

The challenge in any non-Cold War timeline, of course, is generating a plausible WWIII with widespread nuclear devastation but without the Cold War's preconditions for such an occurrence. An immediate post-WWIII setting is Twilight: 2000's defining trait, which sets it well apart from almost every other post-apoc RPG on the market.

Based on 2013's reception, I find it pretty clear that the core of the fan base will violently reject any setting that doesn't let them play in the aftermath of the Cold War in which they grew up and/or served. I think you have to keep that year if you're calling it Twilight: 2000. If you modernize the setting, you have to call it a spiritual successor rather than a new edition. That leaves a future 5e with an intensively-researched Cold War setting (or one vague enough that there aren't details over which the piranhas can swarm) coupled to modernized rules.

- C.

I actually have two 'flavors' of T2K running at the moment.

One is the more standard timeline (nipped and tucked here and there, but essentially v2.2 with some more classic flavor).

The other is actually Twilight 2019, an update so that things are a little more modern (at a request from a couple of my younger players) where there's little details like having smart phones and tablets (no network for the most part, just useful for whatever is on the device) as well as a few other less obvious details, different vehicles (like the JLTV) and so on.

My group are happy with either, and I've found the 2019 setting seems to fit better for M2K.

My point being, as obtuse as it might have been, is that a v5 to me could be either an update or a classic interpretation, I wouldn't mind either, as long as the implementation of it 'spoke' to me.

For those more hard line enthusiasts though I think a v5 with a thoroughly investigated and cogitated classic Cold War timeline would be best, with, perhaps, a modern update being something more of a 'setting' supplement later...

~Ty

v5 and Alternate Versions of Twilight 2000
 

To help keep discussion in this thread focused on the OP topic (v4 rules), I've created a separate thread for "v5" and alternate versions of T2k.

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread....6096#post86096

-

No. FL apparently licensed the copyright from whoever now owns the copyrights to the GDW game (FFE). The copyright owner possesses all of the rights that the writers had in their work. The writers gave up/assigned those rights to GDW years ago, which of course inured to the present copyright owner.

However, you are sorta correct. Given just how dramatic the Alpha version departs from the original - from the backstory to the mechanics - I wonder why they even bothered to get a license - it really is that much of a change. Alpha certainly does not match up with the fully compatible "continuation" that I understood FL advertised. :confused:

They bought the name and product recognition I think. Not like they kept much else. Paid for the goodwill associated with the title as a marketing boost for their product.

That's my theory anyway.

So, I'm new here, but have been enjoying the game all the way back to v1 (withoutv ever having had the opportunity to consistently play...)

I love 2013's mechanics with v2.2's timeline. Adjust the prerequisites for the 2013 life paths to make it easier to realistically gain some of them, and expand them in line with v2.2's quantity of life paths (or Paul Mulcahy's or Mitch Berg's expansions) and I'd be happy.

I've even tried adopting 2013's core mechanics to D&D...

I would be happy to try v4 - except I've seen Tales from the Loop and Year Zero mechanics in action. Not a fan. Not a fan of them at all. I'll probably buy a pdf version of v4, for completeness only. The system just doesn't feel like it'll work well to support the flavor and atmosphere intended.

I just can't see what are essentially one-shot mechanics sustaining a sandbox campaign. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong.

I can relate. That's how I feel about Mongoose's version of Traveller.

The good news was, all of my original, 'classic' Traveller books still worked just like new the day after the Mongeese shipped their edition. 'My game' didn't go anywhere.

I don't believe Fria Ligan's motives are suspect: they wanted to create an edition of T2K using their house system as the base, and they were pretty clear about that from the start. There's a legit argument to be made about taking a less-grognard oriented approach to the game in order to find a new audience. Sucks to be on the grognard-positive side of that decision, though. I wasn't involved in the playtest, so I can only imagine the additional frustration that brings.

Good news is, I pulled out my v1 box set last night; still works, just like new.