v4 Rules & Mechanics Discussion

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Oh yes, I am well aware of what actual toxic behaviour on a forum looks like. One only has to visit some D&D, Battletech, Vampire and even Traveller forums to see that what has occurred here is people getting hot blooded and other people getting their feelings hurt because someone does not share their vision of what the game should be (and no, I am NOT leaving myself out of those categories)
This forum is actually pretty damned tame compared to some of the forums for those games listed above. I'm aware of arguments on some of those forums that have continued over a course of years. And the "version wars", oh my god! The things hurled back and forth on some of those threads would make any grumpy old curmudgeon feel like a puppy in the company of feral dogs - it's more a bloodfeud than a disagreement!

LOL! If you want to start a REAL FLAME WAR, just go over to a D&D5e Forum and post some "houserules" to make it more "gritty..." Like requiring an ARCANA PROFICIENCY Check to cast Spells or reducing the Proficiency Bonus to +1 thru +5.
I once posted that I changed Wisdom to Willpower because I saw that stat as a measure of "mental strength" while I viewed Wisdom as the sum of a PLAYER'S own experience. Not only did this start a flame war, but I made the mistake of quoting Mark Twain's "Wisdom is the product of Experience... and Experience is often the product of poor choices." Some poster there told me she was an English and Literature teacher and that Mark Twain was a racist and no longer an acceptable reference to use. Then she reported me for hate speech!

[Olefin]

Well I got to read the Beta and the whole reinforcement in 1998 remains problematical to me. The US moves 500,000 men and their equipment at the end of the year in 1998.

Oh so first off you need a crap load of oil, planes and ships to move 500,000 men even if they are all light infantry and smaller vehicles. Then it states that the US after the big air and sea battle with the Soviets doesn’t have the wherewithal to reinforce or even supply their forces in Europe.

I see several issues with this

One if even only 20 percent of the ships and planes survived that still leaves a lot of shipping left for supplies to be sent to Europe. And the Players Manual says the USN still has lots of ships still operational. If they have operational ships they can support the Army and Marines in Europe with supplies even if they had to use destroyers, frigates and anything else still afloat as cargo ships.

Two - where did the Soviets after almost two years of war with the US and its allies have enough ships and long range fighters to seriously be able to still battle the USN and the USAF.

Three - if the big reinforcement got to Europe in late 1998 why didnt the US attack in 1999 - the whole year goes by with no big attack?


Four - if even only 200,000 men got over that is enough to rebuild almost every US division back to full strength (alberit with light infantry and mortars and the like) - 500,000 would actually be enough to form new units let alone bring the old ones back to strength

So is FL trying to say that the Soviets somehow destroyed most of the reinforcements on their war to Europe? With a minimal fleet and almost no Air Force left? Keep in mind you need long range fighters to go after those air transports if they are in mid-Ocean. But this isnt Red Storm Rising where they took Iceland. Are they trying to say that somehow most of the US reinforcements died in the battle against the Soviet Navy and Air Force - if so that is farcical - its literally a huge deux ex Machina to somehow explain the US not winning the war.

Those half million men make it to Europe the war is over. Period. Not unless the Soviets went totally nuclear in 1999. And that isnt in the timeline.

Its another example of how badly written the timeline still is compared to V1 and V2.2.

Frankly they should have just added Sweden to the older timelines - which they could have done easily - and then concentrated on game mechanics. The current timeline is completely shot thru with holes. And it still doesnt explain where the Greeks, Turks, Italians, Spanish and Portuguese are - i.e. about half the NATO members.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

Then she reported me for hate speech!

Totally unsurprised. You committed the treasonous offence of "wrongthink"!

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Frankly they should have just added Sweden to the older timelines - which they could have done easily...

And that I believe is exactly what Lurken is working on for his own publication (with some divergences from canon, but nothing TOO significant all in all, and certainly nothing that renders previous products unusable).

[Olefin]

Comments on the Player Manual

The Beta only still has Poles, Swedes, Americans and Soviets? No British, no Germans, no Czechs, Hungarians, French, Belgians, etc.

And there are German and Dutch troops in Poland - but the Players Manual lacks information on how to play them as player characters.

What the heck? How hard is it after this was pointed out six months ago to add basic information on how to create British, German and Dutch player characters? There is literally a ton of information in the various V1 and V2.2 books on how to create those characters including a whole sourcebook on the British.

That just flabbergasts me - they mention that you can play campaigns in the UK or Germany but have no mention at all of how to create German or UK characters except as civilians??!!! And there are German and Dutch troops in Poland - and there is no option to play them as player characters?

Free League is supposedly creating the game for the T2K community and ignoring huge areas of the existing fan base who are in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands or who play characters from those areas? Let alone they finally bring France into the war as a fighting force - and then no French player characters? Or Belgians who for sure would be fighting with NATO.

I am sorry but that is a monstrous miss - are they trying screw this up?? I mean James Langham is one of the people advising them on the game - how the heck are there no UK player characters?? Why not have a simple blurb that the final release will have information on playing characters for the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belguim, etc.. Heck all they would have to do is copy the relevant section in the V2.2 and make some mods. But there is nothing that indicates (after months of input) that there are going to be those other characters.

And dont give me any garbage about the original V1 release lacking in information about other nationalities. This is a reboot of a franchise that has all that information in it - all you have to do is take it and modify it. I did it for the Rwandans, Kenyans, LRA and others in my African Sourcebook by using the V2.2 book (look at pages 69-71 of the final release version). And all I had was me, myself and I when I did it - not a whole team of game developers.

[mpipes]

Does Beta even mention Asia or the Persian Gulf?

Its supposed to be WORLD WAR 3; not the Napoleonic Wars round 2 in 2000 with those upstart Americans meddling after all.

As for the Soviet Navy, and please correct me if I am wrong, their doctrinal take was sea denial for 60 days. Their goal was to battle NATO for 60 days stimming the sea bridge. Once 60 days were up, they were strictly defensive with whatever tidbits of a navy the had left used purely as a defensive force for the SLBMs. No chasing after convoys or US battlegroups; strictly defense for the SLBMs with whatever was left.

If I am right about that, then I am with Olefin and the Soviets really knew that if they did not win within 30 days, it was not going to be pretty.

As I have said in other post, the Soviets knew their logistic and force limitations. They knew that a slugfest going on for a year or more against a united NATO was a disaster for them. I think GDW designers knew it as well, hence a timeline where war rages on multiple fronts and each side could survive the best "punches" of the other because NATO was splintered, the Soviets had ally issues, and the forces were so stretched.

Thus, the nukes start flying when NATO breaches "Mother Russia," as most military thinking believes the Russian's would. They have no intentions of the carnage of WWII repeating itself, and frankly, I have to agree with their beliefs and doctrine on that central, guiding principle that affects every level of their governmental and military doctrines.

A straight up united NATO v. USSR all alone war would end within 30 to 60 days or go nuclear, which - drum role please - probably ain't happening over an upstart Poland and a scrappy Sweden. Everyone is going to call game over, and go back to their original lines.

So again, how can Russia stop the reinforcements? Again, I sincerely think Russia knew they could only reliably disrupt reinforcements for 60 days. After that, the North Atlantic is a NATO lake, just as we knew the Baltic and the Black Sea were Russian lakes (ok, maybe not the Baltic, there it would be a near equal contest).

[Rockwolf66]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

One day the original Draft might be leaked (there's certainly enough copies of it floating around for playtesting amongst people who never directly signed an NDA like Lurken and I had to). On that day you'll see just how close to the truth that statement is.

You think the Beta is bad? Strap yourselves in boys and girls!

Understatement of the Year. The Timeline makes V2.2 look like Shakespeare and Non-Political.

I mean they seem to have gone out of their way to make the US president look like a warmongering idiot. Then they completely changed the reason that Milgov does not take orders from Civgov. Just so much garbage.

[Silent Hunter UK]

Shakespeare wasn't exactly non-political, mind.

As for the idea of the US being led by warmongering idiots, that is the way you've often come across to non-Americans, particularly three of the last four Republican Presidents. Not that the Democrat ones have been much better.

[Lurken]

Originally Posted by mpipes

Does Beta even mention Asia or the Persian Gulf?

Its supposed to be WORLD WAR 3; not the Napoleonic Wars round 2 in 2000 with those upstart Americans meddling after all.

I don't they have specified anything elsewhere other than the Israeli-Arab war and the PRC-USSR alliance? Don't it in front of me.

[sellanraa]

Here's a question regarding my biggest disappointment in 4e: character creation - specifically the lack of lifepaths and skills.

Is anyone who is thinking about jumping to 4e going to mod those rules anymore to add a bit more depth? The little I've pondered, it seems like to adjust the skill list a bit going from say, 12 to 20 or something would just break everything else down.

As far as the backstory, I agree it's lacking and ignores most of the rest of the world, but I think that's easy to ignore and adapt and they even include a note indicating such to empower anyone who is hesitant to make those kinds of modifications.

[sellanraa]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Comments on the Player Manual

The Beta only still has Poles, Swedes, Americans and Soviets? No British, no Germans, no Czechs, Hungarians, French, Belgians, etc.

And there are German and Dutch troops in Poland - but the Players Manual lacks information on how to play them as player characters.

This sort of relates to more character creation concerns. I suppose it's a calculation they made that they have enough of a Swedish base of interest to shift that focus, but agree that it ignores the narrative and fan community that may exist elsewhere. More fundamentally to your point too - it wouldn't have been that hard to add a few pages about this.

Hopefully they will in some sort of supplement that will follow.

Originally Posted by sellanraa

This sort of relates to more character creation concerns. I suppose it's a calculation they made that they have enough of a Swedish base of interest to shift that focus, but agree that it ignores the narrative and fan community that may exist elsewhere. More fundamentally to your point too - it wouldn't have been that hard to add a few pages about this.

Hopefully they will in some sort of supplement that will follow.

+1

FL is a business, not a charity and not a state-owned enterprise. They aren't going to release everything at once. They likely want what all businesses want - a continuing profitable revenue stream.

Yes, they could go pick over everything in v1.0 and v2.2 and pack that all in one book, but we'd likely be grousing about the cost of such a book* and how long it would take to be ready for publication.

A few of you have really have high expectations for what would be released in the FL boxed set for what is equivalent to $23.50 USD in 1984 (alternately 14.00 USD for the Digital Only edition, which wasn't an option back then).

The computation here is 498 SEK = 59.41 USD. Grab a handy U.S. inflation calculator available here https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ and enter 1984, 23.50 USD and you get 59.91 cent. Close enough for our purposes.

I'm curious - does anyone know what the price of the boxed set in 1984 was? The one where you got to play in one campaign location (Poland) with only 19 careers (all military).

Adding the RDF campaign location back in 198X cost money. Helicopter stats in FCK cost money. Yes, there's a lot of stuff from prior editions to grab from, but you didn't get it all for $25 on a CDROM in the 80's and 90's.

Leaving aside the mechanics and backstory that reasonable people can disagree on, I think, what you are getting for $60 USD is a bit more than you got back in 1984 for a similar product.

*or maybe you expect all that extra work and intellectual property to be free? Простите товарищ, коммунизм никогда не работал.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Spartan-117

I'm curious - does anyone know what the price of the boxed set in 1984 was? The one where you got to play in one campaign location (Poland) with only 19 careers (all military).

All American military, no less.

My 1e box doesn't have a printed MSRP that I can find. My 2e box's printed MSRP is $24.

- C.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

All American military, no less.

My 1e box doesn't have a printed MSRP that I can find. My 2e box's printed MSRP is $24.

- C.

Thats about right as to the cost - I have older modules that still have the price tags on them.

And yes the original offering was an All American military - but this is a reboot. Thus all the original information ever published is out there for them and they can use it all.

Or should Star Wars have been rebooted using only the first movie and ignore the next two. Or Star Trek been rebooted using on the original pilot episode and not the one with Kirk in it and ignore the entire series as well as all the follow up ones? (Notice that Star Trek Beyond used material from Star Trek Enterprise in it and made direct references to the "Giant Green Hand" from the original series")

So trying to give FL a break citing the original boxed V1 focus only on the Americans as a comparison is non-sensical. Sorry but they have literally dozens of modules, sourcebooks, three Version guides (and thats not counting 2013), Challenge magazine articles, you name it - let alone four books released since 2017 including your own.

Also the effort it would take to add the othe ranks and armies for player characters would take them at most, given all the information out there, about a day, maybe less. If I can do it, ON MY OWN, using the rank and Army guides in V2.2, for the forces in Africa in a couple of hours then they can sure as heck do it.

So lets not give them an excuse for shoddy worksmanship and a massive omit of a very large part of the T2K player base.

Oh and by the way Tomas himself told me there would be UK, German and Dutch player character information in the initial release - so where is it?

[sellanraa]

Speaking of - that's one great thing about the new edition. In the back they have 1e and 2e conversion guides, so we don't have to rely on them to do the work of some of this.

Originally Posted by sellanraa

Speaking of - that's one great thing about the new edition. In the back they have 1e and 2e conversion guides, so we don't have to rely on them to do the work of some of this.

Very nice. I glanced over them but since they aren't applicable at this point, I didn't explore them in depth. I do have myriad v1 and 2.2 character in text files, so being able to convert will be useful for me later on.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Spartan-117

Very nice. I glanced over them but since they aren't applicable at this point, I didn't explore them in depth. I do have myriad v1 and 2.2 character in text files, so being able to convert will be useful for me later on.

Except the conversion guides dont offer what is needed for playing the other nation's militaries characters unless they are basically saying that its all the same as V1 and V2.2

If thats true then why even detail out the American forces - they have been massively covered in earlier guides.

[Raellus]

Serious question- how hard would it be to generate an American military PC and then do some gear and backstory adjustments and call him a UK military PC? Or US to German? Or Polish to Czech?

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[Ewan]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Serious question- how hard would it be to generate an American military PC and then do some gear and backstory adjustments and call him a UK military PC? Or US to German? Or Polish to Czech?

-

Honest answer probably not hard, just convert the US military rank to the equivalent nationality (this might help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranks_...rmies_enlisted)

The book gives you the G3 and SLR (FN FAL) but you don't have the SA80. You also have some British and German vehicles which could be used.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Serious question- how hard would it be to generate an American military PC and then do some gear and backstory adjustments and call him a UK military PC? Or US to German? Or Polish to Czech?

-

If you are an experienced GM or player and have the old V2.2 guide and the British sourcebook and have the NATO and Warsaw Pact books you can do it without a lot of effort.

But if you are a brand new player and GM - ie the so called target audience to bring lots of new people on board - pretty damn hard unless you want to do a lot of research on ranks, weapons, equipment, vehicles and other things.

It’s one thing if you are an old hand and have all the older books - it’s quite another if all you have is the Beta - which lacks basically just about everything to do the job right - unless you don’t mind a half ass not even close to reality

[Olefin]

FYI check out the comments on the Beta - the UK players are not happy

So basically Tomas ignored one of the biggest group of existing players that there are

And his comments earlier to me that I posted shows he has no concept of what role the UK played in NATO - ie he created the Soviet Sea Lion to give UK characters something to do - excuse me? Ever heard of the British Army contribution to NATO?

[Amagi]

Imagination has always been used by players and GMs alike.

Originally Posted by Raellus

Serious question- how hard would it be to generate an American military PC and then do some gear and backstory adjustments and call him a UK military PC? Or US to German? Or Polish to Czech?

The vision.

"The first edition of Twilight: 2000 was an iconic game for me back in the '80s, and we are humbled and honored to work with Marc Miller and Game Designers' Workshop to bring a new edition to life. The original game was really ahead of its time. Our goal is to build on the amazing sandbox survival gameplay and develop it further, making it more accessible using the tools of modern game design,"*says lead game designer Tomas Härenstam

.

Build on and develop.

Serious question: did it?

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Amagi

Imagination has always been used by players and GMs alike.



The vision.

.

Build on and develop.

Serious question: did it?

Serious answer - no it didn’t - the old game included the whole world and information on all the countries in Europe except for a few exceptions - like Italy for instance - this one ignores most of NATO most of the Eastern European countries and is rife with contradictions

Like no way home for players and no supplies - but then the USN still has a significant number of operational ships in the seas around Europe - last I heard you can pack a bunch of troops or supplies in ships like destroyers - the Japanese and British did it quite well in WWII as did the Germans. Did these guys even take a simple course in history - heard of Dunkirk or the Tokyo Express or the German invasion of Norway?

We had a name for work like this - it’s called shoddy.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Ewan

Honest answer probably not hard, just convert the US military rank to the equivalent nationality (this might help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranks_...rmies_enlisted)

The book gives you the G3 and SLR (FN FAL) but you don't have the SA80. You also have some British and German vehicles which could be used.

Yup you can create a half ass character that doesnt have the right equipment, with no background for their army, navy and Air Force - but good luck doing that with the Dutch, the French, the Turks, the Belgians, etc.. since they were basically ignored.

The reality is - why should we? This is basic game design and also basic business sense. You are trying to appeal to a worldwide audience and then you limit your characters to four nations?

Lets be honest - any actual game designer who ignores so much of the target audience is either being lazy or ignorant or both. And I have done this before myself for my module. I gave people enough information to build Kenyan, Rwandan and LRA characters as well as Somali and PARA. It didnt take long - I used the V2.2 book and some basic research.

I could have put all the information in the Players Manual that was needed for all the different countries in about two days of work and that would include ranks, background, weapons, vehicles you name it. They had months to do this - and didnt. I did it for my module and so did Raellus on his. And we arent paid game designers. They were paid to make a good game with all the info needed - and its not going to add a ton of pages to do it. So yes they have a bottom line - and ignoring a lot of potential customers is a pretty stupid way to run a business. Not when the work needed to properly appeal to them takes so little time.

And frankly FL needs to be called to task on this and have a lot of us say we gave you our money - either deliver on your promises and do a good job or give the money back and call it a day. Its going to take a lot of work by them to fix a screwed up product later after they have turned off a lot of people. It may mean they only make 20 percent profit off the money they raised instead of 22 percent. Its worth it - go ask Coke and Ford and Schlitz about what screwed up product releases can do for the bottom line.

[Raellus]

I've been giving the discussion on this thread a lot of thought. I realized that some people in the community are literally grieving T2k. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' 5 Stages of Grieving are...

1. Denial: "They can't be doing this to T2k!"
2. Anger: "Those duplicitous so-and-sos ruined my beloved T2k!"
3. Bargaining: "I could accept v4 if X,Y, & Z were changed to my liking."
4. Depression: "T2k is forever ruined. It'll never be good again."
5. Acceptance: "v4 is what it is. It's not for me, but I hope others enjoy it. Maybe I can even cherry pick a couple of pieces I do like. Or not. Anyway, I've still got v1-2.2/2013, so life goes on."

I can understand why some of those who had some personal connection to v4 (i.e. consulting, playtesting, what-have-you) may have extra cause to be bitter. Being ignored and cast aside must have hurt.

I realize that the grieving process is different for everyone. It may take others longer to move through the various phases. I moved on to stage 5 a long time ago, but it's unfair of me to expect others to hurry up and get there.

What seems pointless to me is spending so much time and energy trying to convince others that there is no Phase 5, and camping out in Phases 1-4. But again, it's unfair of me to expect others to grieve just like me.

I think now that I was wrong to try to push people to move past 1-4. That seems to have entrenched some folks even deeper in those unpleasant phases.

If some of you need to continue to vent, go ahead. I hope that you can do so with the intent of moving through the denial, anger, bargaining, and depression stages to get to a place of peace.

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[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I've been giving the discussion on this thread a lot of thought. I realized that some people in the community are literally grieving T2k. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' 5 Stages of Grieving are...

1. Denial: "They can't be doing this to T2k!"
2. Anger: "Those duplicitous so-and-sos ruined my beloved T2k!"
3. Bargaining: "I could accept v4 if X,Y, & Z were changed to my liking."
4. Depression: "T2k is forever ruined. It'll never be good again."
5. Acceptance: "v4 is what it is. It's not for me, but I hope others enjoy it. Maybe I can even cherry pick a couple of pieces I do like. Or not. Anyway, I've still got v1-2.2/2013, so life goes on."

I can understand why some of those who had some personal connection to v4 (i.e. consulting, playtesting, what-have-you) may have extra cause to be bitter. Being ignored and cast aside must have hurt.

I realize that the grieving process is different for everyone. It may take others longer to move through the various phases. I moved on to stage 5 a long time ago, but it's unfair of me to expect others to hurry up and get there.

What seems pointless to me is spending so much time and energy trying to convince others that there is no Phase 5, and camping out in Phases 1-4.

I think now that I was wrong to try to push people to move past 1-4. That seems to have entrenched some folks even deeper in those phases.

If some of you need to continue to vent, go ahead. I hope that you can do so with the intent of moving through the denial, anger, bargaining, and depression stages to get to a place of peace.

-

I am not grieving at all - the new version is shoddy and slapdash and an insult to many of the long term gamers. As for acceptance - ha ha ha ha ha. Go tell that bullcrap about the stages of grieving to Coca Cola when they introducted New Coke - the people who tried this tact at Coke all got fired and they brought back Classic Coke and saved the company

[Olefin]

So back to reality after the little jog into psychiatry

How do you fix the Players Manual - you dont have to describe every armed force and nationality that is in the world. You have a base play area that is Poland, Sweden, northern Czechoslovakia, eastern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland and western Russia

So what do you need to add to make the PM complete for the base set up

One page blurbs describing the Germans, British, Dutch, Czechs, Danes, Belgians, Finnish and Norwegian armed forces and how to create their characters. Dont need a huge background just the basic info that that was given about the other four.

Add equipment for each army including their self propelled artillery and recon vehicles

Then add a simple one to at most two page general concept, as was done in the V2.2 to describe the Hungarians, French, Romanians, Turks, and other nations that might be there but who wont be described in detail for now.

Now you have the armed forces detailed that you would 100 percent meet in the areas desribed in the setup and havent ignore anyone.

And it would take less than a dozen pages and two days to do it.

[Lurken]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Serious question- how hard would it be to generate an American military PC and then do some gear and backstory adjustments and call him a UK military PC? Or US to German? Or Polish to Czech?

-

Quite easily enough. As people have pointed out. Each GM could guesstimate the practical differences in gear, vehicles, basic training, what sort of training each route should have and so on. It is what made v2 fun, each country had various variants, good and bad.

But this is not Bethesda, that is expected to release incomplete games that are later fixed with mods. I mean, it's Bethesda.

If it is easy, then we should be able to expect it in the base game? Especially for the featured countries, at least?

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Lurken

Quite easily enough. As people have pointed out. Each GM could guesstimate the practical differences in gear, vehicles, basic training, what sort of training each route should have and so on. It is what made v2 fun, each country had various variants, good and bad.

But this is not Bethesda, that is expected to release incomplete games that are later fixed with mods. I mean, it's Bethesda.

If it is easy, then we should be able to expect it in the base game? Especially for the featured countries, at least?

Hell yes it should be expected - especially from a company that has all the base material to do it.

And Frank Frey and James Langham as consultants

[Raellus]

I don't want to be accused (again) of trying to stifle free speech, but this thread is kind of a dumpster fire now, and the discussion has drifted miles from the thread's original, stated purpose.

How would y'all feel about separate threads about v4- one dedicated to complaining (where folks that so choose can trash it all they like) and another for only constructive discussion re rules, setting, etc.?

-