Campaign Starting Scenario Options

[Raellus]

Most of us have Escaped from Kalisz (or a similar small-unit-cut-off-behind-enemy-lines scenario) at least once or twice. I've seen a few campaigns start when (or shortly before) the PCs escape from an enemy POW camp, and others where the PCs are a small part of an extant military unit sent out on a special mission by a higher headquarters or government (a-la Kings Ransom).

What are some other ways you've started a T2k campaign, either as a player or the Ref?

Is there any starting scenario that you particularly like or dislike? Why?

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[Trooper]

Starting Twilight 2000 campaign!?

Probably I would send timelines for United States (Howling Wilderness), Persian Gulf (RDF Sourcebook) and Finland (my own timeline).

Players should vote which area they want play. No character creating. They would have to choose from premade characters. I was thinking Air Force and State Guard characters for New Jersey campaign. USAF characters for Iran and probably MP: s for Finland. No officers for start, only rank and file.

No epic adventures for start, only one shots for first games. (Probably using modified scenarios from Recon RPG.) When they are familiar with game and area, they could play adventures like Last Sub and King’s Ransom.

[sitrep]

I’m about to start a PbP game using 4ed rules. My idea is that the characters are from a National Guard division (possibly Texas) in Alaska that has been slowly wiped out. They are on their way home and the game starts with the characters about to enter Washington state from Canada. I’m allowing token Canadian and Russian soldiers in the group.

[Rainbow Six]

Haven’t done this but would like to at some point in time for a CONUS based campaign. The idea is that the PC’s are a group of European vets who are mustered out of service and given a land grant that gives them a reason to stick together and establish roots somewhere.

This Land Is Your Land

PC's are all veterans of the European campaign who have been engaged in anti marauder operations since they returned from Europe in Operation OMEGA. The Military Government now feels that conditions in (insert whichever area you plan to set the campaign in) are stable enough to allow it to undertake a partial demobilisation, code named Operation EXODUS, thus alleviating stresses on the military supply chain, particularly when it comes to feeding large numbers of troops.

The key points of EXODUS are as follows.

1. Demobilised troops will be subject to mandatory enlistment in the appropriate State Guard, and as such are subject to being called up to active duty at any time by order of the relevant State Governor.

2. Demobilised troops will be allocated a Land Grant in the form of a piece of farmland. This is the macguffin that is intended to tie the group to the local area

3. Recognizing that those who have fought together may wish to remain together, demobilised troops may team up with others to form small groups.

4. Due to the exigencies of the service certain MOS’s (e.g. medics, Special Forces) are designated as Stop-Loss and are not eligible to apply for Operation EXODUS (this is meant to encourage players to run ‘regular’ PC’s rather than Special Forces operators).

[Raellus]

@Rainbow Six: Very interesting concept. The idea of a campaign revolving around "base-building"/defense, and civil relations appeals to me. I tried my hand at Ref'ing this sort of campaign but it fell apart due to player conflict. Some folks are just too accustomed to run-and-gun style T2k gameplay.

Originally Posted by sitrep

I’m about to start a PbP game using 4ed rules. My idea is that the characters are from a National Guard division (possibly Texas) in Alaska that has been slowly wiped out. They are on their way home and the game starts with the characters about to enter Washington state from Canada. I’m allowing token Canadian and Russian soldiers in the group.

Are you using the amazing Pacific Northwest campaign sourcebook? If not, I strongly recommend that you check it out.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...ific-Northwest

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[Tegyrius]

I suggested The Last Days of the Red Diamond a while ago. The TL;DR is to start off with the 5th Infantry Division still intact and play through its entrapment and demise.

- C.

[kcdusk]

I've started a couple of games where the PCs are actually the "players" stat-ed up from real life (with a bit of generosity), and then the game takes place in the players real life town/city (ala Red Dawn). Players can try to rescue friends/family, escape, fight back, "hold" real life places of interest.

[Mahatatain]

I've never run this but one idea for a campaign starting point I've considered is for the PCs to be an advisor team working with a partisan unit deep behind enemy lines. You can then either run scenarios with them working alongside the partisan unit attacking enemy forces or have them leave the partisan unit for some reason (e.g. the partisans are destroyed or break up when their charismatic leader is killed, the partisans become bandits, the PCs receive orders somehow to travel somewhere else, the PCs decide that they just want to go home, etc).

Essentially it opens up a situation where the PCs are resource poor and probably constructing their own objectives.

It also opens up the possibility for Special Forces PCs if you have players insisting on that kind of character.

[Ursus Maior]

Originally Posted by kcdusk

I've started a couple of games where the PCs are actually the "players" stat-ed up from real life (with a bit of generosity), and then the game takes place in the players real life town/city (ala Red Dawn). Players can try to rescue friends/family, escape, fight back, "hold" real life places of interest.

Did this as a double-session one-shot for my birthday with the 4E rules. We had quite the blast and except for two the group of six players played themselves. There was a twist, however. Those playing themselves had to come up with ideas, how their biographies forked off during the war.

So one didn't play the kid, who moved from Warsaw Pact Poland to Germany during the 80s and become a disillusioned punk in the 90s, but in this incarnation he went "home" to Poland during the 90s and became a nationalist partisan during the war. Another joined the Bundeswehr during his university years, because he was told he can finish his "war critical studies" there "as an officer far from the front". Obviously, after the nukes came, that promise didn't last and he ended up in Kalisz like the rest.

The scenario was actually pre-Kalisz. The party needed to get to Kalisz, support the US troops of the 5th ID and prevent the Soviets from breaking through. We all had a lot of fun!

[Cherper]

I have had the seed of a campaign floating around in my head set in Eastern California, Owens Valley and south against the Mexican Army. Players would be in the local cavalry unit and could tie into City of Angels and Satellite Down. Lots of areas to explore, Las Vegas is close, Area 51, Edwards AFB, China Lake.

[Raellus]

If you ever pursue that idea, Cherper, member Webstral has worked out quite a few details for the US Southwest (mostly Fort Huachuca in S. AZ)- he was working on a project centered on Las Vegas- "Silver Shogun", I believe it was called- when he went dark. His stuff is in the Thread Map Long under User: Webstral. You might want to check it out.

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[chico20854]

I've always wanted to try running (or participating in!) a campaign where the PCs start out as escapees from a POW camp in Siberia or Ukraine. I'd use the background information from Gateway to the Spanish Main for what starting equipment they would have, but to prevent it from being a really, really short campaign one of the first encounters would likely provide them with some reasonable weapons and the possibility for some means of mobility. PCs could have a variety of backgrounds and stories of how they were captured (shot down bomber crewmen, troops from any Allied nation, from Romania to China, Korea, Iran, etc.) and probably at least one Soviet collaborator, whether a corrupt/friendly MVD guard to a dissident (or criminal) that was a fellow prisoner (since I'd say the POWs were quickly handed over to the Soviet prison system for detention) to bridge the language/cultural barrier and provide cover. (i.e. I am Captain Vlasov of the MVD and I am transferring these NATO prisoners to Camp 157 to the West. Let me see YOUR papers!).

[Adm.Lee]

I've got a similar-but-different idea: most of the PCs are in a prison, probably recently captured because of a betrayal or mole. One of the PCs is a friendly undercover agent or defector-to-be, who knows who the mole is on the other side, and springs the rest of the PCs so they can all escape back to friendly lines.

For example, a NATO spec-ops team is captured, and the Polish staff officer who knows who (at NATO HQ) betrayed them to the Soviets is able to unlock their cell doors.
- a session or so to break out of enemy HQ (ideally, from the dungeon of an old castle!)
- time evading across enemy rear area, perhaps with more KGB on their tail?
- having to cross no-man's-land, with part of the Pact army stirred up!
- getting to their own HQ to arrest the traitor, and then convince higher-ups what's happened.