New game in the planning: advice welcome.

[simonmark6]

OK, I have a great opportunity to run a FtF game of Twilight once again.

Basically, a group of ex-pupils want to get together and play. One was in the roleplaying group at school but the othes are friends of his and newbies. He learned the T2K system (V2.2) as part of a youth award scheme that goes on in the UK and really liked it. He's convinced the others to have a go.

So, during the summer holidays I've held preparation sessions wehere the newbies have become familiar with the rules and some of the background. They've opted for a "Polish Quartet" game starting as the Fifth gets ploughed under.

The game will start with them crewing a M-88 ARV and the final attack on the 5th.

There are six PCs in all and whilst they have a general idea of where the campaign goes, I've made it clear it won't stick to the books entirely. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to throw out RESET and I'm not sure about the Black Maddona.

I've sketched out the first few sessions, the escape with a set piece running fire fight, then an engagement with marauders and a potential lull in a farm. After that I'm re-cycling another set piece I've used before where the group has to assault a PACT strong point on a convoy route where they'll find a few things that will become plot twists later.

So, to my point. Does anyone have suggestions for encounters, NPCs or interesting variations they've done during these adventures? I have plenty of ideas, but more are always welcome.

Cheers,

Mark.

[kato13]

I agree with you that RESET has aged horribly and would be hard for someone with a modern take to accept. If only 1% of Personal computers that existed in 1997 survived there would still be multiple millions of them (and that does not take into account servers which are generally in much hardier facilities). It seems much easier to retask those computers than to try to build millions of chip surrogates.

I have suggested in another thread that RESET be replaced with something similar to the Linux OS.

[simonmark6]

Yes, I've read that thread before and I liked the idea. The other issue I have with RESET apart from the unbelievability of the macguffin is the fact that it is something that everyone wants, whilst that works well in a game of high adventure, in a military RPG like Twilight you eithe rhave to fudge things or eventually someone's going to show up with enough forces to screw you over.

I also don't know if a newbie group could cope with the intricacies of that sort of role-playing, hell, in twenty five years of gaming I've met maybe three people that could and I exclude myself from that category.

Still, as an operating system it wouldn't necessarily be so important as to have the WARTA, Polish Government, Criminal Cartels, KGB, DIA, CIA and the little old lady down the road after you to secure it. I'll think about that aspect and maybe I'll be able to keep RESET in.

Thanks for the input.

[Legbreaker]

RESET as a piece of technology definately needs updating. Even when first published, the idea of it was odd at best, totally insane at worst.
As a game concept it's not bad - something that everyone wants, is relatively easy to transport, etc. The problem is as you say Simon, balancing it all so that the PCs believe in it's importance, and the opposition, whoever they may be, don't completely swamp the PCs in their efforts to get hold of "it".

[pmulcahy11b]

To me, RESET reminds me of the old Overdrive chips -- if your motherboard came with a second CPU socket, you could make it into a primitive sort of dual-core computer. That was an early-1990s idea that never really went anywhere; not many people took the trouble to put an Overdrive chip in because they were so difficult to configure in the BIOS.

[simonmark6]

Thanks for the input both, you are right, getting the balance right could make the inclusion of RESET fun for the players, I'll keep it in mind and see how they handle the earlier plot points I insert.

[Caradhras]

One thing that came out of my recent rerun of the Polish campaign was the idea of 'who are the bad guys now?' and 'what is our goal/long term objective?'

Whilst this may seem odd at first, the throwing in of the real bad man of 'Randy' in the Reset story (can amend the plot) with a group of rogue NATO troops killing the recent comrades, and the encountering of benevolent ex-WP troops gives the players a dilemma.

The bad-guy Randy was great theme for 3 or more scenarios which I had semi-created and amended from the original stuff (he was eventually taken out by a female PC disguesed as a nurse in a heavily guarded ward of a Krakow hospital by lethal injection - they wanted him REAL bad ) Cheesy but good fun - and the players philosophical debates/arguements about who to side with and what their long terms goals were really important.

But no other specifics as I kinda give the players a free had using the base of the original scenarios with tweaks of my own - the players tend to evolve their own stories and encounters this way.

The less said about the band of prog-rock loving free Poles living in the national park area NW of Krakow the better hehe

[simonmark6]

Yes, the blurring between the bad and the good is something that the player who really pushed for us to do TK2 enjoyed. There will definately be some of that in there from the American Deserters to the honourable Russians. Mind you, much of it will rely on what the PCs do, if they carve an indiscriminate bloody path through Poland, they'll find that enemies are easy to make and hard to get rid of.

Recurring villains are always cool storywise, but as a Player I always felt a little cheated if my plan didn't annihilate the big bad. That's something for me to work on.

As for prog rock, I'm not sure I want to expose impressionable minds formed in the Twenty-First Century to the horrors of the Eighties and Nineties: nuclear war, bloody combat, sure. Prog Rock might be getting too close to cruel and unnatural however....

[simonmark6]

Apologies to anyone who likes Prog Rock. The nearest I get to Heavy Metal is playing in a Brass Band.

Still, that's good for TK2 as well, I can tell you the location of hundreds of caches of about half a ton of good quality brass throughout the UK.

[Caradhras]

Prog rock is a 60s/70s phenomenon actually, still practised is modern forms - and yes, I am a guilty fan.

Funny how it came about - PCs were scouting a camp of an unknown armed group men. Late at night two stealthed up to within hearing range to try to identify the language and hope for some snippet of conversation to ID them.
As GM I rolled a d100 to see how useful the present conversation of the 2 guards was for the PCs and rolled 00. On the spot I had to think of the most trivial subject matter possible....and prog rock loving Poles were born.

Weirdly..I subsequently found out prog rock is really huge in Poland, a band called Riverside being relatively famous.

Maybe you could substitute Brass for prog

[headquarters]

we usually allow for PCs to have a specialty skill of 1D10 points in a skill that is thought to be irrelevant to the game as such .favourites include musical instruments ,oil painting ,us civil war history ,computer game expert,football trivia etc just to flesh it out a little.

In in a few instances the skill is a good opener with NPcs and the tuning of a banjo in the back of an IFV can lead to tension among the players who need the rest and those who dont have any fatigue.

My merc character was a US civil war buff , Willis char in our T2k campaign plays the banjo (poorly ) etc

[weswood]

Originally Posted by Caradhras

Prog rock is a 60s/70s phenomenon actually, still practised is modern forms - and yes, I am a guilty fan.

Funny how it came about - PCs were scouting a camp of an unknown armed group men. Late at night two stealthed up to within hearing range to try to identify the language and hope for some snippet of conversation to ID them.
As GM I rolled a d100 to see how useful the present conversation of the 2 guards was for the PCs and rolled 00. On the spot I had to think of the most trivial subject matter possible....and prog rock loving Poles were born.

Weirdly..I subsequently found out prog rock is really huge in Poland, a band called Riverside being relatively famous.

Maybe you could substitute Brass for prog

I made up a short introduction type adventure to use if I can ever get a FtF game going. I based it in Milicz, southwest of Kalisz. In it I have a squad of Russians with a BTR stationed in some old castle ruins, watching over the main road.

I later looked up Milicz on the web, and found out there actually is castle ruins just outside of town.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by headquarters

we usually allow for PCs to have a specialty skill of 1D10 points in a skill that is thought to be irrelevant to the game as such .favourites include musical instruments ,oil painting ,us civil war history ,computer game expert,football trivia etc just to flesh it out a little.

In in a few instances the skill is a good opener with NPcs and the tuning of a banjo in the back of an IFV can lead to tension among the players who need the rest and those who dont have any fatigue.

My merc character was a US civil war buff , Willis char in our T2k campaign plays the banjo (poorly ) etc

I had a player who wanted to know how good at sex his character was. I told him to roll a d100 (it was v1 rules), and he rolled a 14 -- in other words, he sucked. (Or maybe he didn't...)

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I had a player who wanted to know how good at sex his character was. I told him to roll a d100 (it was v1 rules), and he rolled a 14 -- in other words, he sucked. (Or maybe he didn't...)

Harnmaster (and therefore Gunmaster) has a skill called Lovecraft which everyone who isn't a virgin has open. The best Lovecraft skill level in my campaign belonged to Corporal Virgil Morris Price, a Canadian infantryman who was the star of several dozen X rated films before the Twilight War.

[simonmark6]

In my old Cuthulu games, a skill in Lovecraft would have meant something very different!

Cue old gaming story: When I used to teach in Cumbria I ran a CoC game for a bunch of 6th Formers. It became quite popular and one night a couple of new comers were sitting in when the party encountered a set piece with the Great Beast himself, Aleistair Crowley, one of the girls perked up and said, "He's my Great Uncle".

That pretty much freaked all the old school gamers out, apparently Crowley's brother moved to Canada to escape all the hype and years later his son came back to the UK and started a family. It was a funny moment, like when we watched the US Marshalls film and realised that Gotham and Golgotha were actually places quite close to each other in the US.

As for hobby skills, I like that idea and we'll look into it in the final preparation session.

The group of soviets in a ruined castle's a nice idea, I might make that the way post instead of the abandoned refinery I have at the moment. i have loads of floorplans for castles (an advantage of living in Wales where we have more castles per square mile than anywhere else in the world apparently).

I appreciate all of this stuff, it's helping get the creative juices going, but none linked to Lovecraft.

By the way, couldn't virgins have a variant skill of self-Lovecraft, or is that below the level of granularity even for Harnmaster?

[Targan]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

By the way, couldn't virgins have a variant skill of self-Lovecraft, or is that below the level of granularity even for Harnmaster?

That has been the subject of much discussion over the years. Some skills such as Lore/Craft skills in Harnmaster can have specialities once a certain skill level is reached so I guess you could have Lovecraft (Self). Kind of pointless though. I think it is safe to assume that most characters that are concious and not paralysed can effectively pleasure themselves if they feel the need. Haven't had it happen in an RPG session yet though (and hope I never will).

[simonmark6]

I most sincerely hope you are correct in that, the mind boggles at the thought.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I had a player who wanted to know how good at sex his character was. I told him to roll a d100 (it was v1 rules), and he rolled a 14 -- in other words, he sucked. (Or maybe he didn't...)

Or maybe he did...

This discussion of "self-love" rules belongs in the T2K forum hall of fame (or is it hall of shame?) for weird discussion topics. Quite amusing.

Simonmark6, good luck with your FtF sessions.

[simonmark6]

Thanks, I just hope I'll be able to run something that comes a little bit close to the fun I have in your game.

[B.T.]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

Prog Rock might be getting too close to cruel and unnatural however....

In a Lovecraftian sense?

Man, I've overlooked this thread before ...
Can we have this "T2K forum hall of fame", Raellus, please?

[Olefin]

Will it be a M88A1 or an M88A2 by the way? Just wondering as I work with the M88A2 every day. If you are starting them with a full load out of weapons dont forget that the M88 can carry multiple man-portable anti-tank rockets as well - in Afghanistan the Marines have carried as many as 5 on board, but the normal load is two. Also while you can carry six guys in an M88 it will be a very tight fit to do that long term and have any stuff with them.

One thing you can do with the M88 is hire it out to Krakow for their work on building up their walls or for tank repairs - its not glamorous but it would earn you needed supplies, food and fuel most likely.

[simonmark6]

I went with the M88A2. It was a tight squeeze to start with but after hitting a Soviet convoy they had a couple more vehicles to play with.

The campaign finished a couple of years ago, it ran for about thirty sessions over two years but then the kids all went to college in different parts of the country.

The M88A2 was a great vehicle, it kept them alive until Krakow and then gave them Hell as the authorities started shennanegins to get the vehicle off them.

[Olefin]

I bet they wanted that vehicles - a traveling machine shop and crane that can defend itself as well. Plus the ultimate vehicle for recovering other vehicles for either spare parts or putting them back into action.

I.e. Boris we could use the M88 those Americans have to finally get that T-72 that is stuck in the swamp out so we could use it!

[simonmark6]

That was pretty much it.

The party were given a heads up that the WK were going to raid their camp and they used the raid as a diversion to rescue their informant who had traded the info to get him and his girlfriend and her dad out of town.

The girlfriend happened to be Kurtzeba's mistress and the party managed to get away with a couple of heavy weapons and some ammo and an introduction to Adam Rataj as a way out of Dodge.