Driver Tasks and Events
Much of Twilight 2000 is going from A to B.
However, due to recent activities the interval tends to be somewhat "modified" by various events. This means that drivers, the unsung heroes of the Twilight games who don't get to man the cool guns, should be doing things to keep their interest high.
Now, this is going to be a very long post. You might want to skip much of it and go to the end bit which will be situations to navigate if you don't want to read the waffle.
I really can't labour the point enough as to just how much the infrastructure of your World War Three is smashed. Yes, there will be some relatively untouched places but on the whole they will be rare. Bombing, artillery, heavy vehicles (those rubber track cleats disappeared in the first year and the soviets never even used them at all) all abuse the infrastructure. Modern buildings are actually rather fragile compared to some of the mediaeval houses you see in The Second World War images and modern buildings have a habit of collapsing into a pile of crap although Eastern European modern buildings were often built with an eye towards survivability in a conflict. However even just neglect can do immense damage to infrastructure as culverts block up, pot holes blow through the road base and stuff falls down dragging other stuff with it, making an awful mess. If you do any damage and then don't fix that damage immediately it's ten times worse within a few months as nature starts trying to make new systems around the heaps of rubble.
The players and the hordes of NPCs are going to insist on driving over this wreckage. Most military vehicles can climb absurd slopes, usually sliding at about 60º, but even they won't be able to get over most wreckage. For instance an MBT usually has only about a just over a metre obstacle clearing height and wheeled vehicles often are less than this. So, how does the GM adjudicate all this?
First off you need to know that it's there. As usual trawling through images of wreckage gives the GM great ideas and tools to use in play. Making up a list beforehand is I'd say essential and I'm going to ask the list members to add more hazards in the comments below so we can create a file the GMs can use. I actually recommend never rolling on tables, they're awful things that break immersion and frequently give silly results but rather craft an adventure using the lists provided.
Now, there's essentially two methods of negotiating a hazard and that's under pressure and not under pressure. This is because when not under pressure the Driver or the Ground Guide can diagnose the hazard(s), evaluate if the vehicle is capable of negotiating it and then developing a strategy for dealing with it. After that it's up to driver skill and the vehicle's capabilities to deal with the hazard. Under pressure simply means there's no time for that and often the driver has no idea there's even a hazard there until the vehicle is in it. They have to rely on skill, experience and the vehicle's innate off-road capability to deal with the problem.
The Ground Guide.
Ground Guides help vehicles of whatever size and loading condition get through hazards by giving instructions to the driver whether they can or cannot sense the environment themselves. Ideally the Ground Guide and the Driver should both have at least 4+ in the same language. From bitter experience I can tell you the Ground Guide and the Driver should ideally have negotiated many smaller obstacles together first before tackling a difficult obstacle together so they understand each other's assessment criteria and it's relation to reality. It is vital that a Ground Guide have vehicle driving experience themselves, sending a non-driver out to assess a hazard is an exercise in futility.
Note that a driver can always get out and go and look at the obstacle themselves, acting as their own ground guide in a sense.
If there is time an obstacle can be diagnosed to ascertain what hidden hazards and features it presents. Succeeding in this task reduces the drive task by one level with GM approval. Of course sometimes no matter how much you check out a problem the essential difficulty still remains.
Diagnose Hazards -
Drive (wheeled) or Drive Tracked): [Task difficulty varies]
Of course, if you have all the time in the world you can actually just bust a gut and make a road over it. broken down small bridges can be filled in with logs, dirt heaped over them and a road made. Sure, it will wash away soon but you'll be gone. Similarly, craters can be filled in, rubble cleared away and so on.
Mitigate Hazard -
Civil Engineering or Combat Engineering
Finally, there are composite hazards/obstacles. These may need several rolls to get past. The GM should require a diagnose, engineering and drive roll for each one.
A short list of actual hazards for your trip away:
(Important note: Hazards are often observed by the enemy and covered by their fire or used as IED/mine locations.
A note in Attribute Only tasks: multiply all Attributes by 1.5, rounding up)
- A small bridge has been demolished/collapsed creating a "V"-shaped gap about a truck-length long.
The ground on each side is soft. A tracked vehicle requires an average task to negotiate the soft banks, failure means it cannot get across. A catastrophic failure results in it getting bogged.
Wheeled vehicles require engineering assistance to fill the gap. Even with the gap filled the task is still hazardous as the filling material can shift, sliding the vehicle into the gully on one side of the ruined bridge. Note that very long vehicles such as the HEMMT are at a bonus due to their trench-crossing ability due to their long wheel base.
Task: To fill the gap
Civil Engineering or Combat Engineering: Easy [1 period for two personnel to cut material, transport material and place it. For every extra two personnel halve the time to a minimum of one hour]
- A small bridge has been demolished/collapsed creating a "V"-shaped gap about a truck-length long. The centre of the bridge has been filled in with logs and dirt.
The same as above but the work has already been done by someone else. However the in-fill might have already started to shift and the driving task is slightly higher.
- The road is heavily cratered by a heavy artillery/bombing strike.
This is only of importance if the players can't get around it such as in a street or some other choke point.
This is a composite task. There are several hazards in a row and the ground guide is quite exposed moving through them, finding the best path. Note that you can get serious problems with this simple hazard as a vehicle gets far in before bogging and then the extraction vehicle bogs trying to get in to remove the first vehicle.
- A bridge or causeway about fifty metres long is flooded.
Downstream there is a blockage and the watercourse has backed up, making it impossible to see the nature of the structure underneath due to the muddy water. Standard practice is for a ground guide to get soaking wet walking across the flooded structure first. That's right, out there in the open. Pucker up and put on your armour.
- A bridge or causeway about fifty metres long is flooded.
Recent rains have flooded the area, making this a potentially lethal situation that kills hundreds of people each year. The water flowing over the structure occasionally has debris ranging from floating items no bigger than a suitcase up to whole trees moving at high speed, root-ball first and striking like a battering ram. The structure underneath the water has taken serious damage and may or may not be repairable. Whole sections of the sides of the structure are missing in a random pattern and trying to get across blindly will result in going over the downstream side and being swept away or the upstream side and being pinned by the current. This is as deadly as a firefight and many sensible people will simply avoid it and go back the way they came.
Tasks:
To walk across the flooded section
Agility: Average to Difficult
To recover a swept away individual:
Strength: Average
(Swept away individuals have to make a Swimming: Difficult task to avoid drowning rolls. This increases to Formidable if the individual is wearing other than minimal equipment)
Note that all recovery attempts for vehicles will be at a level higher and catastrophic failures result in an individual being swept away if they don not make a swimming check
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