Version 4 of the game

[Legbreaker]

Which makes it near impossible for those of us working on new material to be sure we're heading in the right direction with it.
Speaking for myself, I'm a little annoyed that the wider community is only just hearing about this now and that we haven't been given the opportunity to express our preferences about the new game and in particular it's setting.
After all, without us, there is no game, just a collection of printed words that don't sell.
I HATE marketing (studied it long enough, worked in it far too long), but I know that if you're not finding out what your target market wants, you're not going to have a very saleable product.

[Olefin]

Leg - take it from me - neither I or Raellus are happy either - we basically got told that at this time there is no more interest in new works for either V1 or V2 versions of the game - meaning that the stuff we were working on as far as anything official is dead in the water.

Thus after three new releases in two years we get told thanks but the new owners arent interested in anything new for V1 and V2, at least for now. Hopefully they will be open to stuff from writers like us in the future.

[Olefin]

Only details on timing come from Twilight:2000 - Roleplaying In The Aftermath Of World War III facebook group and the person who is working on it - Marc wouldnt give me anything more either

Chris Lites - It will be officially announced in the fall. It's from a large publisher who I think fans will be pleased with. I'll see if I can share anything else.

He also said it wont be anything like Twilight 2013

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Me personally, I heartily encourage people to keep creating material for the earlier game versions if they wish to do so, specifically because there seems to be a trend in modern games for "streamlined" rules and more "narrative" content. Streamlined, meaning little in the way of rules to give you guidance.
I've found that games with those two concepts tend to leave me unsatisfied with the gameplay - they're dull and uninspiring

Naturally it depends on the game system you choose but I've found that for my tastes, certain older game systems offer the right mix of GM freedom and rules/mechanics. I like to have a rules as guidelines but I want those guidelines to be solid & robust. A lot of the games on offer these days come across to me like some tabletop version of interpretative dance while ignoring the idea of teamwork.

Now I'm not saying that this new version of T2k is going to be "rules-lite and catering to the angsty, whiney, tell-my-own-story-rather-than-follow-the-GM's-story player" kind of game but those types of games appear to be popular enough at the moment to be a market-influence on the rules designs.

EDIT: just realized that Chris Lites is probably one and the same guy that wrote the Dust rpg - which is a rules-light, action-adventure style game.
https://www.modiphius.com/dust-adventures.html
I'm not saying that that makes me think a 4th edition of T2k is going to lack the mechanics that make the game something you can sink your teeth into, but it does make me think that I'll wait for some game reviews before deciding to buy it or not.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Me personally, I heartily encourage people to keep creating material for the earlier game versions if they wish to do so, specifically because there seems to be a trend in modern games for "streamlined" rules and more "narrative" content. Streamlined, meaning little in the way of rules to give you guidance.
I've found that games with those two concepts tend to leave me unsatisfied with the gameplay - they're dull and uninspiring

Naturally it depends on the game system you choose but I've found that for my tastes, certain older game systems offer the right mix of GM freedom and rules/mechanics. I like to have a rules as guidelines but I want those guidelines to be solid & robust. A lot of the games on offer these days come across to me like some tabletop version of interpretative dance while ignoring the idea of teamwork.

Now I'm not saying that this new version of T2k is going to be "rules-lite and catering to the angsty, whiney, tell-my-own-story-rather-than-follow-the-GM's-story player" kind of game but those types of games appear to be popular enough at the moment to be a market-influence on the rules designs.

thank you that is what I needed to hear - even if for some reason the new game isnt looking for stuff on the older versions there is no reason that we cant still publish them even if its "fan canon"

[Olefin]

"EDIT: just realized that Chris Lites is probably one and the same guy that wrote the Dust rpg - which is a rules-light, action-adventure style game.
https://www.modiphius.com/dust-adventures.html
I'm not saying that that makes me think a 4th edition of T2k is going to lack the mechanics that make the game something you can sink your teeth into, but it does make me think that I'll wait for some game reviews before deciding to buy it or not."

Yes its the same guy - and yes I have the same concerns

Looked thru his bibliography and if he is writing for the game it is definitely going to go away from mechanics and more towards action adventure. Besides Dust he wrote several Conan Adventures, Mutant Chronicles, Infinity the Roleplaying Game, and Unknown Armies - none of which from what I can see have much in common with either the V1 or V2/2.2 version of the game - or even 2013 for that matter. I am hoping someone polls the fan base if they are deciding on that kind of change

[Olefin]

Based on who Chris Lites works for the new owners/licensee is probably going to be Modiphius Entertainment. Keep in mind this is conjecture as I have not heard anything at all yet officially.

People might want to look at their stuff and see what you think.

if its them this is their mission statement

Make partial or minor changes to (something), typically so as to improve it or to make it less extreme.

Transform (a structure) from its original anatomical form during development or evolution.

[Sprocketteer]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

A lot of the games on offer these days come across to me like some tabletop version of interpretative dance while ignoring the idea of teamwork.

You Sir, are a Poet.



I own several of the Modiphius games and really do not like their 2d20 system.

Part of what my group and I enjoyed of Twilight 2000 (& The Morrow Project), was the 'feel' of the systems. To us the mechanics of those games worked with, and were an important part of the settings - they belonged together, and worked together - and to us non military types, 'felt' a bit military (and yes, gung ho-ing over the gun porn helped too lol) - for my groups at least.
It is hard for me to imagine a twilight game that doesn't use v1/2 rules.
My groups almost always preferred percentile based systems over d20, always felt more natural to us.


My initial concern was that it might appear using the wotc 5e OGL lol.
"Sarge! The LT is hit, we need a long rest!"

[vihkr]

Originally Posted by Sprocketteer

Part of what my group and I enjoyed of Twilight 2000 (& The Morrow Project), was the 'feel' of the systems. To us the mechanics of those games worked with, and were an important part of the settings - they belonged together, and worked together - and to us non military types, 'felt' a bit military (and yes, gung ho-ing over the gun porn helped too lol) - for my groups at least.
It is hard for me to imagine a twilight game that doesn't use v1/2 rules.
My groups almost always preferred percentile based systems over d20, always felt more natural to us.

Fair point, and my feelings exactly, but I think those days are over, as far as market share goes. The notable exception would be Basic Roleplaying d100, which could make a decent, spiritual successor in terms of a system, to v1/2.2

Originally Posted by Sprocketteer

My initial concern was that it might appear using the wotc 5e OGL lol.
"Sarge! The LT is hit, we need a long rest!"

Monk's truck is hit by an RPG! Everyone make a save vs. spells to dive out and take no damage!

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by vihkr

Fair point, and my feelings exactly, but I think those days are over, as far as market share goes. The notable exception would be Basic Roleplaying d100, which could make a decent, spiritual successor in terms of a system, to v1/2.2



Monk's truck is hit by an RPG! Everyone make a save vs. spells to dive out and take no damage!

Caught you! There is NO save versus Spells! That would be a DEX save and you'd better have Proficiency too!

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Speaking for myself, I'm a little annoyed that the wider community is only just hearing about this now and that we haven't been given the opportunity to express our preferences about the new game and in particular it's setting.
After all, without us, there is no game, just a collection of printed words that don't sell.

I hear you and I'm sympathetic, but anyone who watched T2013 getting absolutely pummelled by naysayers during development, let alone once it was released, would understandably be EXTREMELY wary of saying much to the wider community if they were early into the development of a new system.


In any case, what I would want from a new T2K and what most T2Kers would want are likely very different things. I've resigned myself to never getting the levels of crunch I'd be happy with.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I understand your point but I think 2013 shot itself in the foot at least once and that didn't help things much. By that I mean the restrictions they put on people for contributions to the development - I seriously considered submitting information but when I saw the demand for proof of military service by submittal of your DD 214 Form (or equivalent) I decided not to do so.
I completely understand that they wanted to weed out the wannabes but for us in Australia, you can't just send military documents to foreign nationals and besides that, Army Reserve members didn't get discharge papers when they finished their service.

Among some potential contributors that approach created a feeling that there was some sort of elitism going on and they decided not to get involved. The timeline/history that 2013 provided deserved some criticism, for example it failed on some points of geography that would have been very easy to check with a simple internet search.
Having said all that, the rules were (and still are) good and a lot of the support material was equally as good.
But 2013 lost a lot of goodwill when the head honcho blamed die-hard fans of T2k for 2013's lack of success - purely military themed rpgs have always been a niche market, I don't recall any that have ever sold as well as T2k except perhaps Palladium's Recon/Advanced Recon game. So any new military rpg was never going to sell in large volume and 2013's release was around the same time as D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder were getting the lion's share of publicity and the hype for D&D 4 was building up.

[Legbreaker]

As I indicated earlier, market research when developing a product, ANY product whether that be a new design of shoes, confectionery, or a game is absolutely VITAL to it's success. With T:2013 that didn't appear to have happened, as as SSC has mentioned, what little external input they accepted was heavily cherrypicked.
With this new version we've heard absolutely nothing, even though (we presume) development has been going on for quite some time. This does not bode well at all for a successful release and acceptance by the gaming community. All we know for sure is there is a "press release" scheduled for publication sometime in the 3rd quarter of this year.

[Raellus]

I get it what y'all are saying, but I'm not sure that asking the 400-odd fans of a dead system what they want out of the new version of their favorite old-school RPG is the best path to developing a marketable new RPG, c. 2019.

I think that the whole point of developing a new version of the franchise is to move outside of the echo chamber of established fandom. Will this alienate fans of the older versions of the game? Probably. Will this ruin the chances of the new product making money. Probably not.

-

[Legbreaker]

Considering we are the majority of the market for them, it's sheer idiocy not to find out isn't it?
They don't have to cater for everyone, but don't you think it's a smart idea to at least try and cater for the majority?

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Considering we are the majority of the market for them, it's sheer idiocy not to find out isn't it?
They don't have to cater for everyone, but don't you think it's a smart idea to at least try and cater for the majority?

If we are the majority of the market, then there's not enough of a market to turn a profit on a new product and the project should be shut down.

My expectation is that they may try to broaden the scope to be a post-apocalyptic survival RPG that still has a lot of military backgrounds but also has more emphasis on the civilian side, to broaden the market. Essentially, look at what 2k13 did and do the opposite, because they narrowed the scope so much that they had no market. There's room in the market for PA games, and given what's out there, I think it's enough of a differentiator to have a serious game based on realistic tech (as opposed to a far-future PA with wondertech or the comic-book style mutations of Gamma World) without also pigeonholing players into strictly military backgrounds. The trick is to find enough of a differentiator to stand out without becoming so niche that you artificially limit your market.

That said, if it is going to Modiphius' 2d20 system, I'm almost certainly out of their market because I don't like that system. I'll just stick with my collection of GDW T2k and continue adding to it as I find old product in used book stores.

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I understand your point but I think 2013 shot itself in the foot at least once and that didn't help things much. By that I mean the restrictions they put on people for contributions to the development - I seriously considered submitting information but when I saw the demand for proof of military service by submittal of your DD 214 Form (or equivalent) I decided not to do so.
I completely understand that they wanted to weed out the wannabes but for us in Australia, you can't just send military documents to foreign nationals and besides that, Army Reserve members didn't get discharge papers when they finished their service.

Among some potential contributors that approach created a feeling that there was some sort of elitism going on and they decided not to get involved. The timeline/history that 2013 provided deserved some criticism, for example it failed on some points of geography that would have been very easy to check with a simple internet search.
Having said all that, the rules were (and still are) good and a lot of the support material was equally as good.
But 2013 lost a lot of goodwill when the head honcho blamed die-hard fans of T2k for 2013's lack of success - purely military themed rpgs have always been a niche market, I don't recall any that have ever sold as well as T2k except perhaps Palladium's Recon/Advanced Recon game. So any new military rpg was never going to sell in large volume and 2013's release was around the same time as D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder were getting the lion's share of publicity and the hype for D&D 4 was building up.

This very much. I’m an international politics major/history minor with a background in research and intelligence analysis and have done contract work for the NSA but they dismissed my offers out of hand. When this attitude was brought up on (I think) Yahoo Groups they were less than courteous. I looked over the finished project and found the whole background premise somewhat laughable.

[Benjamin]

The issues I worry about for V4 are...

1. that the Timeline will be too politicized given our current social climate.

2. it will be just generic PA game with no real Twilight War focus.

3. It will very quickly become dated with a background that almost immediately feels wacky.

4. It will overlook the longer conventional war that led into the Twilight, thus lacking leftover forces serving overseas and the foreign and abandoned feel of the original

5. It will lack a good vehicle combat system and all of the in depth vehicle descriptions

What I would really like would be for the designers just to suck it up and make it an alternate history background set in the same time period as the original. Look at how popular the Team Yankee table top miniatures game has become. Maybe do a tie in with that game if possible. Twilight 2000 with integrated miniatures rules and cool minis would be great. A generic Post Apocalypse game is totally worthless to me.

Benjamin

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

The issues I worry about for V4 are...

What I would really like would be for the designers just to suck it up and make it an alternate history background set in the same time period as the original. Look at how popular the Team Yankee table top miniatures game has become. Maybe do a tie in with that game if possible. Twilight 2000 with integrated miniatures rules and cool minis would be great. A generic Post Apocalypse game is totally worthless to me.

Benjamin

Thats why when I wrote the East Africa/Kenya sourcebook for the canon I set it in the same time period, with mentions of multiple other modules and events (Going Home, the RDF, Kings Ransom among others) to tie it completely into the current timeline. Extended the timeline a month or so - i.e. my "now" is around mid-May 2001 - but otherwise it fits. Even made sure that if I mentioned real world events they took place in the context of the timeline instead of breaking it.

Hopefully the new writers will do something similar

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Thats why when I wrote the East Africa/Kenya sourcebook for the canon I set it in the same time period, with mentions of multiple other modules and events (Going Home, the RDF, Kings Ransom among others) to tie it completely into the current timeline.

I'm writing the ANZAC book so it can stand alone without tying in too closely to any of the other books - the only connection really will be to Korea where I intend to send about a Brigade of Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Islander forces to join the UN mission there.
Haven't settled on the date as yet, but likely mid 2000.
Hopefully this new edition won't impact what I've already done too much, and they won't be overly protective of their edition and will actually allow the community to add quality work to the base materials. It'd be even better if they published my work and I actually got paid!

Originally Posted by CDAT

Um is Team Yankee still even a game?

I've never even seen it myself, let alone know of it being played anywhere in the whole of Australia. It's possible though I suppose....

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

...

What I would really like would be for the designers just to suck it up and make it an alternate history background set in the same time period as the original. Look at how popular the Team Yankee table top miniatures game has become. Maybe do a tie in with that game if possible. Twilight 2000 with integrated miniatures rules and cool minis would be great. A generic Post Apocalypse game is totally worthless to me.

Benjamin

Um is Team Yankee still even a game? At least in my local area (5 games stores all with places to play) none of them even knows anything about it. We had one member of our local group pick some stuff up for it, but then they killed the forums and that killed what little interest there was in my group. But I have never seen a game played, or even heard of one being played with in at least two hours of where I live, lots of other games that I know nothing about. But if that is the definition of a popular game I think we might be in trouble. As "dead" games have more talk around here than Team Yankee. (Dead games I am talking about are like AOG Babylon 5 Wars, and even Twilight 2000).

[Olefin]

There has been new modules released for Twilight 2000 including one new canon module - thus there are new releases for it that are "in print" - i.e. you can buy new material for it instead of having to depend on either a used bookstore or a pdf of material released years earlier

Thus technically the game was revived from the dead back in 2017

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by CDAT

Um is Team Yankee still even a game? At least in my local area (5 games stores all with places to play) none of them even knows anything about it. We had one member of our local group pick some stuff up for it, but then they killed the forums and that killed what little interest there was in my group. But I have never seen a game played, or even heard of one being played with in at least two hours of where I live, lots of other games that I know nothing about. But if that is the definition of a popular game I think we might be in trouble. As "dead" games have more talk around here than Team Yankee. (Dead games I am talking about are like AOG Babylon 5 Wars, and even Twilight 2000).

I’m referring to the newer table top skirmish game. It just came out with a new book “Oil War” which covers armies in the Middle East.

https://www.team-yankee.com/

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

This very much. I’m an international politics major/history minor with a background in research and intelligence analysis and have done contract work for the NSA but they dismissed my offers out of hand. When this attitude was brought up on (I think) Yahoo Groups they were less than courteous. I looked over the finished project and found the whole background premise somewhat laughable.

Had a similar experience, and they were even less impressed because I'm a civilian and always have been.

[Olefin]

Better yet would be to just pick either V1 or V2.2 timelines and then make possible rule changes (i.e. incorporate changes to the combat system, make the fuel more realistic as to what kind of energy you can get out of ethanol or methanol, show JL8 jet fuel as what the military was using as a distinctly different fuel than high octane general aviation gas, correct some of the issues in game play that people have found over the years) and then either have the releases be during the current timeline (i.e. up to April 2001 and have them occur during the period that the games covered) or better yet extend the timeline and take it forward thru 2001, 2002, etc..

When I was told they werent looking at Africa or Australia it immediately made me think this was going to be a very North America or Eurocentric game and not expand it to include events all over the world like Raellus and myself did and like the Challenge articles did.

Frankly all we dont need is another aborted Twilight 2013 type launch

FYI as to political views - check out Frank Frey's facebook sometime - not exactly conducive to anyone who is either Christian or voted for Trump or Bush (either one of them) - but he checked his political views at the door when he wrote back in the 80's and 90's and they really didnt impact his work in a noticeable way - same with most of the other canon authors

Hopefully the new writers will be able to follow in their foot steps

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

This very much. I’m an international politics major/history minor with a background in research and intelligence analysis and have done contract work for the NSA but they dismissed my offers out of hand. When this attitude was brought up on (I think) Yahoo Groups they were less than courteous. I looked over the finished project and found the whole background premise somewhat laughable.

As a man who has had "boots on the ground" in a number of places including The Middle East, South America (as a Civilian tourist in the bad parts of town no less), and Africa, I almost laughed OUT LOUD when I saw the number they attributed to suicides in the intro. The people in Africa live in INHUMAN conditions and aren't killing themselves. That number would have been more realistic if it had been attributed to murder and cannibalism in order to survive. The human animal is "hardwired" to survive and only a small percentage of humans choose to end their lives through suicide. The numbers may seem large when you look at them without context, but the number TW2K13 quoted was like (and I'm guessing because I don't have my copy with me) 2 BILLION(?) who committed suicide. That is a ridiculously large number. ALSO, keep in mind I'm talking about people who actually KILL THEMSELVES NOT people who think about it and don't go through with it in the end. Two billion is a ridiculously large number of people to die by their own hand.