OT Twilight: 3200 - The Stars Outnumber Us

[M-Type]

TSOU is an idea I cooked up a few weeks ago. Stars Without Numbers is my favorite RPG, but I also love Twilight:2000 for its gritty theme of post-WWIII survival.

So I theorized The Stars Outnumber Us, a SWN campaign with the same themes as Twilight:2000, but using the SWN system.

The basic story is that the PCs would be part of an Expeditionary Force sent to some enemy planet many drills from their own homes in some galaxy-spanning conflict, but everything falls apart, leaving them star systems from home with no support or hope of rescue. They'll have to rely on their wits and skill to break out from enemy occupied space and maybe get back to their homeworlds someday...

The game would have a military bend (PCs will all be soldiers, drafted or otherwise), though it would by no means be a complete recreation of military life (I have not, or am currently serving in any armed forces, my knowledge of military life is close to none), but focuses more on the characters and how they react to the rapidly changing situation around them. Their enemies will be ruthless in carrying out the extermination of all invaders, so the PCs will have to be one step ahead to survive.

One idea I was tossing around was that every PC was a squad leader, and had a thread to themselves, though they could correspond through a special 'radio contact' thread that would be open to everyone. This would allow everyone to live a bit of their own story, have meat shields, cover a larger world, but still remain grounded in the theme of survival, since they'd have to look out for their men.

I might even try to 'port' some of the Twilight: 2000 adventures I have (the Poland arc for example) into scenarios for TSOU. I will also throw in some things from the many, many SWN supplements (I own them all), but all a player would need to play is the core rules.

New players to SWN are welcome (it's very friendly to newcomers, character generation is quick and easy, and if you're not careful in combat you'll be dead in a heartbeat, I've seen it happen.). SWN is based off of Basic/Expert D&D, and Traveller.

This would be run over on RPOL, and I already have a 'tiny' gathering for it. If there is any interest here, I can create the game and RTJ threads for people to join up. My username on RPOL is the same as here.

So, can you survive when The Stars Outnumber Us?

P.S. Did I mention SWN is free?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Keith Laumer's Bolo stories are a pretty cool "Twilight:4000" read, if you can find them.

Basically they deal with a post-intersteller apocalypse where the Terran Concordiat has fought various wars over the centuries, until it finally collapsed after a war with an alien race known as the Melconians. Their chief weapon were the super-intelligent BOLO tanks whose ancestry dated back to later model Chieftain and Abrams tanks that had expert systems to assist the crew, then gradually were upgraded, then new models were created, on and on until they culminated in the Mark-XXXIII Planetary Siege Units (to wit: you park one on a planet and say: "Mine, now." thanks to their superior firepower). After the collapse of the Concordiat, during what is referred to in the over-arching canonical plot as the "Long Night", the abandoned Bolos protect pockets of human refugees who've fled to worlds on the fringes of the contested areas of the galaxy. Sometimes refugees would find them, and not understand that they were still active until some new threat arose and the Bolo would awaken to defend them.

Good stuff.

[M-Type]

BOLOs are pretty neat. The story I created is a mix of T2000 and the SWN lore, but basically six systems unite to fight the Mosgorod Compact that is invading their territories. They send Expeditionary Fleets into MC space after crushing a MC fleet at the neutral Haldeen system. However, the United Alliance grossly underestimated the power of the MC. They pushed deep, even into the Mosgorod home system, landing troops on the capital planet, but the MC fleet and ground forces retaliated with WMD strikes on the UA landing zones, destroying countless ground troops. Meanwhile, the 5th EF (wink wink) was sent to the out of the way system of Asa, to sniff out any MC activity. The planet is at a medieval tech level, and since they haven't developed nuke sniffers, the 5th EF use some of their nuclear devices on the ground targets. They figure their job is all done, and ready themselves to join the others.

The entire war then turned around in 'The Long Week' (Which is funny considering you talked about a Long Night, mine is a play off of Big Week in WWII), where MC counter-attacks obliterated the invaders of their home system, cut off the 3rd and 4th EF, and left the survivors of the 5th EF on the planet they just nuked, and with MC ground troops combing the surface for them.

With their support and rides home destroyed, the soldiers of the 5th EF have to survive on a backwater planet where the MC are hunting them down, the natives are a bit ticked off, and they are dangerously low on ammo/food/supplies due to the low tech level of the planet.