What is your favourite T2K setting?

[kato13]

jtr 11-27-2005, 06:21 PM G'day,


What is your favourite T2K setting?


Personally I prefer the Twilight War over Merc2000 or other WWIII settings.

And of the theatres in the Twilight War I think I prefer Polnad,

specifically Krakow in the summer of 2000. Why?


1) Character flexibility. Characters can be almost anyone from

NATO or the Warsaw pact, or even a civilian.


2) Gear choice. Weapons and equipment can come from any of the

major players or from almost any European country.


3) Being in the Free City of Krakow means that the characters

are well outside the chain of command, even if they're still

following orders from someone. They are free to choose their

own leaders, set their own goals and make their own enemies.


4) Diversity of adventure opportunities. Anything from standard

military-type adventures, from guarding caravans to defeating

marauders, to espionage and political campaigns.


I don't think any other Twilight War or Mercenary setting offers quite the

same flexibility.


Thoughts?


John

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kcdusk 11-27-2005, 10:00 PM All good reasons John


I know I don't like playing in the USA. It looses its "adventure" feel. Treking through Europe feels different than the USA for whatever reason. Has more character.


Krakow is a good place to start ... Warsaw might be better though for an adventure. Krakow is good for starting and equipping PC's but for an actual adventure Warsaw is more "savage" and "primal", more like a frontier. I havnt played Boomer, but an adventure in Norway or in the ice cap would also be good I think, trying to survive against a savage world as well as NPC's would add to the adventure.


I'm not a Merc fan, but I don't mind more modern day settings like Kosovo street fighting or long range patrols in Afgahastan, this allows PC's the opportunity to have some vehicles and come up against some them (or a Hind!) also (adds variety vs a T2K world where vehicles are more scarce).


Australia being invaded, that'd be the go I think!

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ChalkLine 11-27-2005, 10:09 PM I'm not a fan of Krakow, it always sounded sort of contrived and I've spoken to an actual Polish infantryman who thought it was hilarious.


I'm a big fan of the PCs overwintering in a small village, trying to move on but limited in movement by wounded, lack of fuel, food and other supplies. It allows me to detail a whole town carefully, inhabitants and structures, and it lets the players feel based in a realistic setting. I also like basing PCs in armoured trains or off ships, I find the bonuses they get from them are offset by my control over their movement.


Poland, east of the Vistula is my choice, especially the town of Tarnobrzeg from the Pirates scenario. I have the Polish and Soviet troops adopt a live-and-let-live attitude to NATO troops acting as ORMO, especially in my house campaign when the PCs helped some Polish wounded get back to their unit. The real threat came from deserters, gung-ho COs and the criminal Warsaw ORMO (I ditched the 'Baron', why people think that Europe will revert to feudalism is beyond me, socialism started in Europe!)

Of course, I also have the predatory ZOMO lurking about, judicially murdering 'collaborators', non-Polish ethnic groups and NATO stragglers. Their bases are wonderful for morality-excusable raids, especially to free prisoners.

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DeaconR 11-27-2005, 10:49 PM I have to say that I actually am enjoying running TW2000 set in the USA the most. This is based in part on the fact that my players went from Europe to the Eastern United States and it is certainly the best part of our campaign. They really feel there is something worth fighting for, even though the situation is truly desperate. I'm happy to have players who feel that way.


I have to admit that when I started thinking "Okay, following the Polish adventures, where will this end up?" that my main choices were Iran or the USA. I actually know more about Iranian culture for instance than polish, and I had trouble thinking of normal everyday stuff for them to encounter in Poland. However, I lacked material for Iran whereas I managed to find or have people kindly offer me stuff to supplement my American adventures.


The modules I'm mostly using: "Armies of the Night" "Kidnapped" "Allegheny Uprising" as well as supplementary stuff from Challenge Articles like "Rifle River" "A Rock in Troubled Waters" are also providing me with a good scope for what is going on in the region overall.

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jtr 11-27-2005, 10:52 PM I'm not a fan of Krakow, it always sounded sort of contrived and I've spoken to an actual Polish infantryman who thought it was hilarious..

Would that be Mat?


Yea, I think the whole Twilight War was contrived and somewhat unrealistic. I mean, the Italians turning on NATO and launching an attack into Bavaria? Please!


Within canon Krakow does offer some good oppurtunities for play.


Why people think that Europe will revert to feudalism is beyond me, socialism started in Europe!

Because it was written by Americans who think fuelasim is 'romantic'! That and the fact that socialism is just plain EVIL!


Cheers


John

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DeaconR 11-27-2005, 11:02 PM I dunno, I think you can edit the game to suit yourself. For instance, I didn't like what little was written about the fate of Canada either. I found the "Survivor's Guide to the UK" a bit silly in some parts. But the general idea of the game is fun enough that we all play it even though it is no longer sold in stores.

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Targan 11-27-2005, 11:14 PM I feel the same as DeaconR, my favourite campaign (until recent times) is my current one, because the characters fought their way across Europe and made it back to the States. The characters spent so much time in Europe reminiscing about home and thinking how great it would be to make it back, and were then demoralised and disappointed at the condition of the CONUS once they returned. Quite poignant, I think.


I agree that some of the world events portrayed in T:2000 are unrealistic, but history is a strange and varied tapestry, and some pretty strange things have happened in real life. Monarchy and feudalism are often linked to national pride, and the Polish nobility have a rich an ancient heritage. I don't think it would be entirely unfeasible that feudalism would return to parts of Europe in a post-war environment.

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kcdusk 11-28-2005, 01:32 AM I remember when i first got into T2K, they were the version 1.0 rules. I started to follow (but never bought) the modules. I couldnt believe, it was not possible, ever, for PC's to survive in Europe, get to any "coastline", and sure as shit there aint no way they are getting home ... to America.


Knowing what i know now, I still cant belive PC's have done it, and i just laugh because i still find it so unbeliveable that someone has done it.

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thefusilier 11-28-2005, 04:41 AM I'm not a fan of Krakow, it always sounded sort of contrived and I've spoken to an actual Polish infantryman who thought it was hilarious.


I'm not disagreeing with you, but would you like to explain more, I'd just like to hear a critical opinion.


I find playing North American based campaigns are the easiest to run, but as its been mentioned, playing in a far off land, trapped, seems to make it more of an adventure. So its always a toss up.


I have never run (or played a game) set in Korea or the Middle East.

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Badbru 11-28-2005, 11:18 AM One problem I faced downunder was that none of my players wanted to play an American. That makes the US sited adventures difficult cause if they didn't want to play Americans why and how could they be persuaded to give a toss about CONUS.


My longest running campaign featured an Irish Sniper (yes the same one that has been recreated for "The Stalemate War") a Welsh Engineer, a Canadian Helo pilot-sans Helo ofcourse, and a female Israeli Commando as PC's, along with about six US troopies and a trio of Fallscrimjaeger.


They most enjoyed the Pirates of the Vistula module.


Oh and some of you think the UK Source book or the coverage of Canada was poorly done? I direct you to the intricate detail poured into Australia's involvement.

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ChalkLine 11-28-2005, 05:01 PM I'm not disagreeing with you, but would you like to explain more, I'd just like to hear a critical opinion.


No worries,

It's just that it's well beyond wierd that a national army unit would hole up in a city and welcome anyone who turned up, even the enemy. Realistically, they'd be even more draconian than you'd expect if the sovs were there.


As Mat says, westerners have a very strange view of how Poles saw us. We were the enemy, pure and simple. They did hate and fear the Russians, but they hated and feared us just as much or more, and now we've gone and nuked the living crap out of their country, just as Russians always said we would. Now way would we be viewed as liberators, because we wouldn't be, we were pursuing a political vendetta against Russia in Poland as a battlefield.


Krakow does work if you have the city held by an unwilling ally with ties to the west that can't get home, Finland is a perfect example although I don't know if the Fins had a treaty with the soviets that meant they had to field units against the west.

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thefusilier 11-28-2005, 05:09 PM Ok, good views. Thanks. I like to collect as much opinions and people's own work as possible to try and convince myself of my own Tw2000.

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jtr 11-28-2005, 05:18 PM As Mat says, westerners have a very strange view of how Poles saw us. We were the enemy, pure and simple. They did hate and fear the Russians, but they hated and feared us just as much or more, and now we've gone and nuked the living crap out of their country, just as Russians always said we would. Now way would we be viewed as liberators, because we wouldn't be, we were pursuing a political vendetta against Russia in Poland as a battlefield

Yea, that whole attitude made me laugh. The Germans invade Poland AGAIN, and this time the Anglo-Saxons back up the Germans. Yet the game and the modules are written as if we were LIBERATING the Poles from socialism or whatever. Hell, they should be GRATEFUL we invaded them!


It's a very American-centric view of the world. The Americans are the good guys EVEN when they invade and occupy your country.


Of course it could never happen in real life...


Cheers


John

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Enforcer 11-28-2005, 05:44 PM I, being American, have never agreed with the cannon idea of the US "liberating" a foreign country by invading it. I know it did kind of happen in Kuwait, but invading Poland to attack the russians and liberate the country beacuse some government in exile said it was ok does not make me believe in it. When my group was in Poland, they encountered nothing but resentment from the people of Poland (actually from most of the European nations, even former allies), and were more than happy to leave. They were even more demoralized when they got home (at least the Americans in the group). They had a real hard time adjusting to life in the new America. They survived however, and I would still have this group, but three of the 5 people (including myself), died in a real car wreck. My newest group that is trying this out is splitin the middle as far as people are concerned. One is playing an officer of the Polish army, and is regarded as a traitor by most of the people they meet, but he does not care.

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jtr 11-28-2005, 05:51 PM Sounds to me like some quality role-playing. Kudos.


Cheers


John

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DeaconR 11-28-2005, 06:03 PM Hm....my impression of the Poland modules is that only a small number of Poles saw the NATO forces as liberators. However, I presented such persons as General Bohusz-Szysko as being more neutral and out for their own interests than favourable towards NATO. In fact if anything I depicted him turning a blind eye to KGB activities (because of not visible deals with local Soviet commanders) but being wary of NATO intelligence. Krakow was in my game a very dangerous city, swarming with Warsaw Pact sympathizers or people who had a grudge against NATO.


This was in part based on other modules, for instance "Black Madonna" which shows that NATO forces seriously destroyed certain areas of Poland earlier in the war. It was also based on attitudes I gathered from reading a number of sources, though the best for dramatic purposes was "Red Army" by Ralph Peters. The best for backing it up I found to be "Inside the Soviet Army" by Suvorov. I do agree that it is important to try to understand other peoples' point of view.


I know that there are two partisan groups and a few villages supporting independance, but overwhelmingly I found that people in the games (from my perspective) were either just trying desperately to survive, were anti-NATO actively or trying to achieve their own agendas, with a handful of others who were pro-NATO.


One thing I once did when depicting the more hostile attitude was to have my players as they were fleeing Kalisz startle some villagers who were removing burning rubble from their town, who fled in terror from the invaders, not knowing the outcome of the battle.

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Webstral 11-29-2005, 01:31 AM I don't see the Poles as being particularly pro-American. I see them as being horribly pragmatic three years after the nukes started flying. They know the world has gone to the dogs. There have been Americans running around Poland since 1997. Whatever. If the Americans have something to offer, good. If the Soviets have something to offer, good. If they don't--hit the road, Jack! The Poles work with whoever can further their own aims.

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ChalkLine 11-29-2005, 03:15 AM It's my experience that we generally present ourselves as 'white hats', especially back in the cold war days when we were absolutely sure the soviets were the black hats, but we're all a lot more cynical and less starry eyed now and know that we've not always been as squeaky clean as we like to think. This is especially true when we think of Europe, and it's strong memories of WW2. Looking carefully into the history of WW2 is kind of depressing, we find that the allies (all of them) spent a large amount of time undermining each other and ensuring that they got a place in the sun, but presented the war to their people as a glorious and simplistic crusade. Of course, in many real ways it was a crusade and this is what has made the falsehoods so enduring.

So it is with our cold war past, it's been 15 years now and we can see that the east with it's simplistic propaganda was miles behind our advanced propaganda, and easterners knew that they were lied to regularly and generally automatically assumed the opposite!


Back to Poland, if we look at Krakow as an example we just have to ask "Would a unit in our respective countries act like that?" Ie; become neutral, occupy a city while enemy units were still active on our territory and accept anyone who had means to support themselves, even hostiles. The answer is usually 'no'.

As I said earlier, it does work if the unit is not the nation where the conflict is taking place, and that has not had direct territorial breaches by NATO or the WP*. A unit like this, perhaps far from home and more interested in maintaining it's integrity rather than being used as a 'colonial shocktroop' by one side or the other, may well take up a fairly neutral posture and be keen to be fair to both sides.

It works even better if you try for a seccesionist border state, but Krakow doesn't really fit that bill, and the Silesian cities have to much ethnic bad blood to allow the formation of a neutral entente in my limited experience.


(*I was suprised to find out that the Poles did not call themselves 'Warsaw Pact', but rather the 'Warsaw Alliance', and in fact called us the "North Atlantic Pact"! )

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DeaconR 11-29-2005, 05:32 AM Actually I entirely disagree with what you said about not imagining one of our own units doing that. What after all happens to the 47th Infantry Division? The 194th AB is believed to be about to set up shop for itself should things get any worse according to the description in "Howling Wilderness". It doesn't matter where you are, there are likely to be units not really following orders from higher headquarters.


What I think is being forgotten by those who dislike the Krakow scenario is that society as a whole has broken apart almost everywhere. The actual point of winning or losing the conflict is largely lost.

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thefusilier 11-29-2005, 07:06 AM I think with Krakow they pretty much know the war is over (well the last of the great offensives are), so its all about getting ahead. If that means NATO strangler troops can come by and do business and benfit the city, thats a means to help stay ahead.


I know it is not the same, but after the Chinese civil war, a nationalist regiment on the run made it across the border to the south. Well they (and some supporters and dependants) are still there 50 years later in (Burma?) and then Thailand. After the the war they set up shop as a little kingdom kinda like Krakow.

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abaumgartg 11-29-2005, 07:25 AM I agree with ChalkLine that, as written, the timeline is a bit silly. Russia's justification for keeping many of its WWII gains was to maintain buffer states between it and Germany (this is second hand info). They certainly did tell everyone in Poland and the other countries Germany would invade again and the US would drop the bomb on them.


I am not sure why GDW chose Poland, but they did. For the PC's to have any real chance, as well as to make the game more interesting, Poland needs to be a disputed land with plenty of opportunities for GI's to find refuge.


I fixed the timeline by having the Russians using nukes before their counter attack that pushed the Allied forces out of Poland in 1996 (not sure about the date). Not the perfect fix, but I feel most Polish would want all foreign forces *out* of Poland. Others would get caught up in supporting one side or the other. The main thing is to create the right feeling for our poor hapless heroes.:nuke:


As for feudalism in Europe, gotta disagree with ChalkLine's take on that. Sarajevo was touted as the model city for tolerance and European integration for quite some before recent disputes tore that to hell. Also, you don't have to look hard to find historic examples of Europeans going after each other (with all due respect to our European friends on this page). Plus the infrastructure and resources don't exist in t2k for real cooperation, everybody has to take care of their own. I think feudalism is likely across the world (that plus it makes for a more interesting game)


Krakow, and a few other modules, strikes me as typical post apoc fiction. Maybe not the most realistic, but good enough; and it makes for good gaming


Anywho, didn't mean to babble on so much and hope I didn't offend anyone. :1panzer:

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Twilight2000V3 11-29-2005, 09:34 AM My new game group is more into the Apocalyptic thing. They are interested in playing more of a "Omega Man" or Deathlands. So Im having to come up with new themes and ideas.


I got a cue from http://welcome.to/bloodredsky and cahnged my timeline for this group. Its now 2012.


The Chinesse occupy Alaska, Western Canada, and most of Washington State. Oregon is a buffer between whats left of teh Californian Govt in the North fo teh state. The Southern half of CA is glowing and occupied by Mexico. Most of Idaho is controlled by NA. The East coast glows. There was more Nuclear/Bio Chem weapons released than in teh original timeline.



Max

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DeaconR 11-29-2005, 01:16 PM That's a great example of how USA based campaigns can be interesting, and a nice PBEM site. BTW, have you got the Challenge Articles associated with that area? There is stuff there related to British Columbia for instance.

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Twilight2000V3 11-29-2005, 03:05 PM Deacon,


I wish I did.


Right now the other thing Im workgin on is a campaign in Maine same time frame. With Canadian units (mayeb rogue territorial units) taking over the north end of Maine, NA in central Maine (Controlling the nuclear power plant) and MILGOV/CIVGOG figthing for control of Southern Maine.


Max

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DeaconR 12-01-2005, 09:42 AM I don't know if you got your telegrams but just to be redundant:


I would be interested in sharing campaign notes with you since I haven't developed that area but am interested in doing so. BTW, I also have some info on Canadian forces for TW2000 if you are interested.

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thefusilier 12-02-2005, 03:32 AM DeaconR I have put together a bit of info on Nova Scotia/Atlantic provinces a while back. I could go thru it and send some if you would like.

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Targan 12-02-2005, 03:55 AM Cool, I look forward to any further info. In my campaign the USS Sturgeon sank off the coast of Nova Scotia, with five SEALs and SDV operators the only survivors. The local Canadian military authorities marked the position of the sub with bouys and had plans to attempt a salvage operation.

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DeaconR 12-02-2005, 08:46 AM DeaconR I have put together a bit of info on Nova Scotia/Atlantic provinces a while back. I could go thru it and send some if you would like.


Thanks very much, I'd appreciate it.

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copeab 12-02-2005, 09:43 AM My friend was planning on a different background, with China invading Russia and pushing it's forces back into eastern Europe. Never really got farther than that premise.


I have toyed with starting my own campaign (using a different ruleset), playing up the apocalyptic angle and downplaying the military side (which would basically just be a justification for where the PCs' toys came from and how they know how to use them). Absolutely broken chain of command. Campaign would look more like _The Road Warrior_ than _Team Yankee_. Also partial to the old book series Traveler by D.B. Drumm.


Brandon

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DeaconR 12-02-2005, 10:05 AM Would you encourage your players under those circumstances to have non military professions?

It would be interesting to think about such an angle actually.

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copeab 12-02-2005, 12:44 PM Would you encourage your players under those circumstances to have non military professions?

It would be interesting to think about such an angle actually.


I would probably encourage them to have civilian careers until their last term, when they were drafted for the Twilight War. Then I would stick them in the middle of Poland

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TiggerCCW UK 12-02-2005, 08:31 PM I would probably encourage them to have civilian careers until their last term, when they were drafted for the Twilight War. Then I would stick them in the middle of Poland


This is the angle I've gone with for my new campaign - none of my players have any kind of military background, so this made the most sense to me.

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