Sort of OT: Nostalgia for gaming/internet in late-1990s/early-2000s

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Title is self-explanatory, but the reason ain't so clear.
So here goes...
I have been combing through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine looking for T2k sites for vehicle stats, specfically I have this idea that one or two of them had stats for buses and if I can get my idea for a Twilight: 2020 campaign going then the first vehicle the PCs are going to get is a small bus.

As I looked through various archived sites and began picking through the Links pages, I was hit by some nostalgia for that period of time when so many T2k fans from all over the world were contributing their own material for the game. But there was also some sadness because many of these sites only exist now because they were archived and a whole bunch weren't and are now lost.

I really miss the variety of games and genres being played back then and the bunch of fans posting their own stuff onto the web. These days it seems the new audience feels that RPGs are all in the fantasy genre (e.g. D&D) and they seem unsure how to deal with a non-fantasy RPG. And they're all too busy to commit to anything as long term as a webpage supporting a game - if it can't be written in 120 characters or less then it's just simply too long to read dontcha know!

This era sucks, I want to go back about 12 years.
Bah humbug...

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Believe me, I hear you. I have a nostalgia for the 1970's and 1980's, but like you, I am beginning to toss in the 1990's and so on as well. I miss a lot of those sites too although I don't have time like I used to, haven't posted here as much in the last two years. The latter has been like a trip through Hell at times, I had my own "Twilight: 2013" when Mom got inflammatory breast cancer and passed away so I had to give up a lot and start all over. I did keep all my RPG stuff. IIRC, a good site is Paul Mulcahy's for lots of stuff. Another side I really miss and it has been quite a while was TR Walker's site, after he passed in 2006 it was gone. I have it archived somewhere.

[pmulcahy11b]

The music I listen to is 80s and 90s, but the early 2000's internet had a LOT of T2K sites. I archived most of them.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

My condolences Nowhere Man. I take it you're a 1966 kid, I'm a 1965 kid so you, me and Paul (as well as others here!) are at that time where older family members are in the later stages of their lives. Knowing that and mentally accepting it doesn't make it any easier to deal with though.

As for the gaming side of things, I originally thought to myself this was just one of those typical "I'm getting older" moments but the more people I've met while trying to pitch my new timeline for a T2k style game, the more I think that it's a phenomena of the mid-late 2000s and it's not simply a generational thing. There's 40-somethings who have the same attitudes/ideas about gaming as some of the 20-somethings I've met (see below).

There's been a massive push by some gaming companies to make RPGs as much like a computer game as possible so as to capture the computer players (who don't actually want to play tabletop games, if they did, they would already be doing it). This seems to have presented RPGs as one of only two genres - fantasy or sci-fi - but it also seems to have focused the games on "faster, more intense" action so they can finish a complete episode in a single session and also to a focus on episode of the week rather than long-term campaigns. The companies want to grab a bigger market share but it seems they don't realize the market isn't going to be like the computer/tablet/phone game market
To me it seems that they have not made RPGs simple and more accessible, they've made them simplistic, shallow and generic. There seemed to be a renaissance of gaming in the early 2000s, now it's like a corporate fast food chain, they're everywhere but they all taste the same and you only get what they serve but the audience is still lapping it up and thinking it's great instead of seeing it for the bland, mass-produced, very-average stuff that it really is.

I do miss TR's Wapahani site, Paul has it archived on pdf (so I grabbed a copy from there) but it's obviously not like having Tim update it every so often. And I really miss Antenna's site, I haven't been able to find any archive of that anywhere I've looked

[SquireNed]

As a 20-something myself, I find myself in somewhat of an awkward place in this conversation.

Of course, my interest in role-playing started on the internet; my brother and I are the only role-players in our family, and then only because I developed an interest and dragged him kicking and screaming into it (Shadowrun 3rd Edition, in case anyone's curious).

I do find it interesting to note how my role-playing peers have changed from the people that I adopted the habit from (which would've probably been in the mid 2000's, but I don't have a solid time-frame). Only three of my peers have ever created any content for a game, to my knowledge, and two of those don't focus on traditional tabletop roleplaying.

There has definitely been a change in the industry. Back when I started playing, only D&D players even talked about things like "balance"; we played for fun and power level was less important than eking out a story. This hasn't been my experience with my current group; only I and one of my players who alternates GM roles with me have really ever been interested in ars gratia ars roleplaying, and he's only into it because I've rambled at him about it for hours.

The problem is that I feel like when I play a modern game, I've got as much worrying about numbers as I do about storytelling. Even in 5th Edition of D&D, which largely got back to basics and prevented some of the more egregious cheese of 3/3.5/Pathfinder, it's still so heavily focused on "playing" the numbers rather than getting into the game.

Honestly, that's part of the reason I still play games that are as old as I am/even older than I am; they've got less thought put into how to "make the experience good for everyone" and actually offer engaging, authentic experiences.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by SquireNed

As a 20-something myself, I find myself in somewhat of an awkward place in this conversation.

Sorry 'bout that Certainly wasn't my intent, I just wanted to have a whine about things and as you've proven, not every 20-something thinks the way I described, it just seems that they're few and far between!

Originally Posted by SquireNed

Of course, my interest in role-playing started on the internet; my brother and I are the only role-players in our family, and then only because I developed an interest and dragged him kicking and screaming into it (Shadowrun 3rd Edition, in case anyone's curious).

ShadowRun, nice! Played 2nd Ed. myself and am currently in a 5th Ed. game.
I think part of my nostalgia for the past is because I was involved with gaming before the net came along and it was always a local area sort of thing, real small scale in some towns.
We all knew there were other gamers out there and we even communicated with some of them via snail mail & telephone. Then came the internet and we could all be connected at any time day or night at any distance, we could share ideas amongst not just tens of people but thousands. The possibilities were endless...

But now the internet has given us MMOs and the RPG companies think that this is what we all want to play. We don't but hey MMOs make so much money that surely the pen & paper game makers can grab some of that pie by making RPGs just like MMOs...
Mobile gaming (i.e. tablet & phone) and casual browser gaming have devoured so much of people's time that they claim they never have enough of it and so they should get instant gratification instead of having to work for it. After all, they don't have enough time to wait five minutes for something to happen... except for the fact that they're wasting time by playing a game.
It's one thing when you're on the bus or train going to or from work and you play the game while you travel but it's totally different when you're sitting at the table and doing something for the fun/enjoyment of it. Unfortunately the instant gratification mindset has migrated to console, desktop computer and tabletop gaming.

Originally Posted by SquireNed

I do find it interesting to note how my role-playing peers have changed from the people that I adopted the habit from (which would've probably been in the mid 2000's, but I don't have a solid time-frame). Only three of my peers have ever created any content for a game, to my knowledge, and two of those don't focus on traditional tabletop roleplaying.

There has definitely been a change in the industry. Back when I started playing, only D&D players even talked about things like "balance"; we played for fun and power level was less important than eking out a story. This hasn't been my experience with my current group; only I and one of my players who alternates GM roles with me have really ever been interested in ars gratia ars roleplaying, and he's only into it because I've rambled at him about it for hours.

Yeah, that whole "balance" thing, to make everyone feel special and equal has been a pet hate of mine. It was generally understood that different characters bought different skills to the PC group and some were highly specialized. The PC group was stronger for it and everyone contributed their skills to the overall success - that was the idea of a "team" and the idea of playing out a story to see where it would go.
The games have gone from the idea of a bunch of disparate characters forming an adventuring band to the extreme of "you must have a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a magic user otherwise you cannot complete this quest" to the opposite end of balancing everything to the point of making some classes feel kinda pointless.
And on top of all that, you have players brought up with the idea that they will be entertained without any effort on their part, that they are now so lacking in imagination or ability to take the ball and run with it that they ask "What's my class/role/motivation cos I won't know how to play unless you tell me how to?"

Originally Posted by SquireNed

The problem is that I feel like when I play a modern game, I've got as much worrying about numbers as I do about storytelling. Even in 5th Edition of D&D, which largely got back to basics and prevented some of the more egregious cheese of 3/3.5/Pathfinder, it's still so heavily focused on "playing" the numbers rather than getting into the game.

Honestly, that's part of the reason I still play games that are as old as I am/even older than I am; they've got less thought put into how to "make the experience good for everyone" and actually offer engaging, authentic experiences.

This is part of what I miss about the 1980s-2000s period of gaming. It was still small enough that there was a game to suit most people. If you wanted rules heavy, there was a system for it, if you wanted rules light, there was also a system for it and then there were systems that walked the middleground - something to please everyone, except the big businesses that saw the potential profits in RPGs.
I really feel that since RPGs got to be big corporate affairs, there's too much risk aversion happening and very few decisions are made about making a really indepth and interesting gameworld & rules system. Instead it's about making the gameworld very generic so anyone can just drop in and out as they please and making rules that are overly simple (for the same reason), the end result is a bland mix of everything we've seen before but now it's mass produced and aimed at the "casual gamer" who apparently doesn't have time to think about the long term.

I said it once and I'll say it again... Bah Humbug!

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Title is self-explanatory, but the reason ain't so clear.
So here goes...
I have been combing through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine looking for T2k sites for vehicle stats, specfically I have this idea that one or two of them had stats for buses and if I can get my idea for a Twilight: 2020 campaign going then the first vehicle the PCs are going to get is a small bus.

As I looked through various archived sites and began picking through the Links pages, I was hit by some nostalgia for that period of time when so many T2k fans from all over the world were contributing their own material for the game. But there was also some sadness because many of these sites only exist now because they were archived and a whole bunch weren't and are now lost.

I really miss the variety of games and genres being played back then and the bunch of fans posting their own stuff onto the web. These days it seems the new audience feels that RPGs are all in the fantasy genre (e.g. D&D) and they seem unsure how to deal with a non-fantasy RPG. And they're all too busy to commit to anything as long term as a webpage supporting a game - if it can't be written in 120 characters or less then it's just simply too long to read dontcha know!

This era sucks, I want to go back about 12 years.
Bah humbug...

If you have access to Dark Conspiracy, there is a large bus statted. Not sure about the smaller ones like I used for Aircrews. RW events make Twilight 2020 a viable campaign. Lots of elements to weave together like the currency, economic stuff.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

My condolences Nowhere Man. I take it you're a 1966 kid, I'm a 1965 kid so you, me and Paul (as well as others here!) are at that time where older family members are in the later stages of their lives. Knowing that and mentally accepting it doesn't make it any easier to deal with though.

As for the gaming side of things, I originally thought to myself this was just one of those typical "I'm getting older" moments but the more people I've met while trying to pitch my new timeline for a T2k style game, the more I think that it's a phenomena of the mid-late 2000s and it's not simply a generational thing. There's 40-somethings who have the same attitudes/ideas about gaming as some of the 20-somethings I've met (see below).

There's been a massive push by some gaming companies to make RPGs as much like a computer game as possible so as to capture the computer players (who don't actually want to play tabletop games, if they did, they would already be doing it). This seems to have presented RPGs as one of only two genres - fantasy or sci-fi - but it also seems to have focused the games on "faster, more intense" action so they can finish a complete episode in a single session and also to a focus on episode of the week rather than long-term campaigns. The companies want to grab a bigger market share but it seems they don't realize the market isn't going to be like the computer/tablet/phone game market
To me it seems that they have not made RPGs simple and more accessible, they've made them simplistic, shallow and generic. There seemed to be a renaissance of gaming in the early 2000s, now it's like a corporate fast food chain, they're everywhere but they all taste the same and you only get what they serve but the audience is still lapping it up and thinking it's great instead of seeing it for the bland, mass-produced, very-average stuff that it really is.

I do miss TR's Wapahani site, Paul has it archived on pdf (so I grabbed a copy from there) but it's obviously not like having Tim update it every so often. And I really miss Antenna's site, I haven't been able to find any archive of that anywhere I've looked

Yeah, I was born in 1966 so we are close to the same age as some others are here. I think also with games like Twilight and Morrow Project, we grew up during the Cold War so that makes it more real to us in many ways although I do admit even in today's world, there are still triggers that can happen where TSHTF.

Yeah, losing Mom was tough on me and still is but I have to deal like all of us do.

[NanbanJim]

I got into gaming in the early 90s. The broad and terrible glory of Palladium, 1st and 2nd Ed AD&D (and yes, 5th Ed is--to me--the real third edition; 3-4 are just dalliances into making a pen-and-paper computer game), Shadowrun, Battletech, and of course T2k.

I've seen tabletop games walk face-first into trying to simulate computer games on paper. When it first started, I loved the idea... right until I tried playing it.

I understand why that was attempted, after seeing CCGs pull the rug out from under them, and then MMOs yank the linoleum out too. I can understand why balance became such a big thing, too--the games that stole their market growth were huge on balance. The wrong lesson--that all characters should be basically interchangeable--was learned from it.

I really liked nWoD's Hunter. It's the first WoD thing I liked unreservedly. It really found the core essence of what it is to hunt monsters and managed to find a way to portray that. It also encourages customization: using the whole setting doesn't really work well, but picking a few hunter groups similar in power level does. So does picking a focus of the story (the hunting, the horror, the group dynamics, whatever)--it's pretty feasible to have a low-fantasy gritty (if quite Hollywood) shootout game, or a high-drama social game with the hunts being done essentially in the background (with interesting systems for doing them in the background, or close enough).

What has really excited me recently is Dungeon World (and Savage Worlds and all those other things by the same guys). This looks quite promising, and even if I don't enjoy it as such it's a very good statement on these games being about telling stories--not game-ifying a math test.

[.45cultist]

Born 1971, got into gaming in the '80's with T2K 1st Ed. BTW, the big touring type buses are in T2013. Had to go to touring buses on the International sight to find suitable vehicles.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I have been combing through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine looking for T2k sites for vehicle stats, specfically I have this idea that one or two of them had stats for buses and if I can get my idea for a Twilight: 2020 campaign going then the first vehicle the PCs are going to get is a small bus.

If you can point to the kind of bus you want, I can whip up an unarnored, unarmed bus easily. Partridge family bus?

This era sucks, I want to go back about 12 years.
Bah humbug...

Sounds like a Time Traveler's complaint, one who uses public access time travel and has to wait for the next machine....

Uncle Ted

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Hey .45cultist, I meant to post a Thank You for your suggestion but yeah the one in Dark Conspiracy is too big for what I had in mind. I know T2k was a military themed game and all, but the complete absence of buses is frustrating. Even a generic offering like they did for sports cars would have been helpful.

I kinda see my new game, at least in the beginning, playing out like a "wagon train". That is, the PC group pick up and drop off people on their travels and they acquire and lose vehicles along the way.
So in a sense, the bus would be like the Partridge Family's bus, a central & long-term element in the group and as much a character itself as any of the NPCs.

I've found some examples of the type of bus I'm thinking of and to give it a reasonable ability to travel over damaged roads I've narrowed it down to a few buses from Russia. These buses have all seen service during the Soviet era and were found across many Eastern Bloc countries.
They are: -

the PAZ-3205 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAZ-3205


the PAZ-3201 (apparently it uses the same running gear as the GAZ-66 truck)


the KavZ-3976


and the KavZ-685


My biggest source of frustration is that I have found very little technical info on these vehicles so I'd be guessing at the game stats. There is a little bit of help though as many of the buses are derived from particular trucks e.g. the PAZ-3201 being derived from the GAZ-66.


Saving the best for last


Now aside from buses and although it will have extremely limited use (and assuming I get enough players to even start the game!), if the group ever decides to use the railways at all, I simply must have this as well (and at least the game stats will be a lot easier to create considering how well known the baseline vehicle is!)


I stole the picture of the Kombi from a Flickr site called The Rail Bus, many more images of some interesting rail buses can be found there particularly road vehicles refitted for railway work
https://www.flickr.com/photos/765218...7632961966913/

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Hey .45cultist, I meant to post a Thank You for your suggestion but yeah the one in Dark Conspiracy is too big for what I had in mind. I know T2k was a military themed game and all, but the complete absence of buses is frustrating. Even a generic offering like they did for sports cars would have been helpful.

I kinda see my new game, at least in the beginning, playing out like a "wagon train". That is, the PC group pick up and drop off people on their travels and they acquire and lose vehicles along the way.
So in a sense, the bus would be like the Partridge Family's bus, a central & long-term element in the group and as much a character itself as any of the NPCs.

I've found some examples of the type of bus I'm thinking of and to give it a reasonable ability to travel over damaged roads I've narrowed it down to a few buses from Russia. These buses have all seen service during the Soviet era and were found across many Eastern Bloc countries.
They are: -

the PAZ-3205 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAZ-3205


the PAZ-3201 (apparently it uses the same running gear as the GAZ-66 truck)


the KavZ-3976


and the KavZ-685


My biggest source of frustration is that I have found very little technical info on these vehicles so I'd be guessing at the game stats. There is a little bit of help though as many of the buses are derived from particular trucks e.g. the PAZ-3201 being derived from the GAZ-66.


Saving the best for last


Now aside from buses and although it will have extremely limited use (and assuming I get enough players to even start the game!), if the group ever decides to use the railways at all, I simply must have this as well (and at least the game stats will be a lot easier to create considering how well known the baseline vehicle is!)


I stole the picture of the Kombi from a Flickr site called The Rail Bus, many more images of some interesting rail buses can be found there particularly road vehicles refitted for railway work
https://www.flickr.com/photos/765218...7632961966913/

I'm used to left and right hand drive International buses courtesy USAF motorpool. Schoolbuses would be common , the bus statted in the games are rare, most bases have one, if any. `

[unkated]

OK, I found reasonably detailed spescs for the buses. Coming up.

I will remind you that I did post a VW microbus last spring.

I specs on another couple East European/Russian vans. I'll add those to teh package.

Uncle Ted

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I think I grabbed your stats for the VW the first time around but it's worth reminding people that it's there.
And more importantly, a very big Thank You for your time & effort in finding info and creating the stats for all the other vehicles

It was a minor though constant irritation to me that there weren't more civilian vehicles in the game books and while I realize it wasn't economic to produce stats for a full assortment of civvy trucks, buses and cars, a few here and there would have been good game flavour and very handy!

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I think I grabbed your stats for the VW the first time around but it's worth reminding people that it's there.
And more importantly, a very big Thank You for your time & effort in finding info and creating the stats for all the other vehicles

It was a minor though constant irritation to me that there weren't more civilian vehicles in the game books and while I realize it wasn't economic to produce stats for a full assortment of civvy trucks, buses and cars, a few here and there would have been good game flavour and very handy!

They did a few in Merc, a few more in Special Ops. They might have done more in the Merc line given time, one never knows. A few more older vehicle that are easy to repair EMP damage might be nice. Though newer models still have surprising resistance.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

They did a few in Merc, a few more in Special Ops. They might have done more in the Merc line given time, one never knows. A few more older vehicle that are easy to repair EMP damage might be nice. Though newer models still have surprising resistance.

The merc line's civilian vehicles are, of course, all generic. Which is fine, and probably avoids all kinds of licensing issues.

In a way, it's like weapons:

Given the way they fall into game mechanics, all 9mm P pistols or 5.56mm assault rifles, except for minor various of range, function pretty much the same.

However, just as having a picture, a name, makes the game more real, it's reality more solid.

I have been collecting car data, mostly just to see how they stack up vs trucks. I collected a bunch of earlier Soviet vehicles for possible use in Dark Conspiracy (they seem to fit what's available to the lower end of the scale).

What doesn't get covered anywhere is the higher susceptibility of non-military vehicles to suffer damage from excess abuse. All

At any rate, here are the buses, plus a couple vans and other vehicles built in Russia and exported across WP nations. And that is the limit of what can be uploaded in a file.

Uncle Ted

[SquireNed]

Suddenly I feel the urge to ask my GM about a Zaporozhets, even though I've got a perfectly good UAZ.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by SquireNed

Suddenly I feel the urge to ask my GM about a Zaporozhets, even though I've got a perfectly good UAZ.

I told you they were cute. Even better in color:



"Gosh, sarge, it followed us home. It doesn't eat much. Can we keep it?"

It does share its 23-hp engine with the LuAZ-967, a mini-jeep developed for use by VDV (airborne) units.

One joke was that the motor was the starter engine for tanks.

Uncle Ted

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Hey unkated, great work on the bus stats, very much appreciated
One would have been great but four of them (plus stats for the 4WD variants as well) is fantastic!
The UAZ 452 & 452D, Niva and Riva are a very welcome addition and the ZAZ-965 is a fun bonus!

It's exactly these sorts of things i.e. vehicles like the UAZ 452D & Zaporozhets, that give some extra flavour to the game world. We have plenty of infantry weapons and military vehicles from the game books but as has been mentioned, the civilian vehicles are sorted into nothing more colourful than generic versions. I know that there's going to be thoughts of licence issues for including "name" vehicles but that didn't seem to be a bother with weapons or military vehicles and for civvy vehicles in Dark Conspiracy and it wasn't simply that there were no Fords, Porsches or Triumphs in the game, it was the lack of utility vehicles like small vans/cargo trucks, buses and other potentially useful types like beachbuggies, ambulance and fire vehicles and yeah, even farm tractors.

The way I see it, there are many more civilian vehicles likely to have survived so it's more likely they will be encountered. However, you rob something from the game if you tell your players they've for example, come across a car-salesyard and it's full of generic sedans with a few generic sportscars in the showroom. Yeah I'm labouring the point but in most games they talk about making the world feel alive to the players, for me the lack of civilian vehicles is a good example of doing the opposite of that.

Now after all that blather, a question. I'm wondering, does anyone else include fording depth on their vehicle cards?

At one point for Dark Conspiracy vehicles, I even added a penalty/bonus for a factor I labelled as "Handling" that loosely represented how hard or easy the vehicle made it to drive. For example, the AC Cobra sportscar was heavy in the front, high powered and light in the rear making it a handful to keep on good roads let alone bad ones or twisting roads and the 3-wheeled Reliant Robin had an almost constant desire to tip over on its single steering wheel if you turned too quickly or tried to turn at speed.

This was a simple +/- 1, 2, 3 or 4 to the PC's Skill rating whenever a situation required a driving test and didn't apply to basic driving tasks. So for example, the AC Cobra was Handling: -2 while the latest luxury sedans with power steering, power brakes & computerized "everything" were typically Handling: +2.
+/- 1 or 2 was common (-1 would be your typical bad handling car/truck), +/- 3 was rare (-3 would be the kind where you needed arms like a weight lifter to wrestle the steering) and +/- 4 was extremely rare (I didn't actually find a vehicle that was so bad it rated a -4 but some PC modified cars hit the +4 rating).

It was part of an overhaul to the vehicles to allow PCs to modify them beyond just adding some armour or a more fuel efficient motor or puncture-resistant tyres. The idea was that PCs could add enhancements like power steering and so on to make the vehicle easier to control but also to offer something beyond the "a car is just for travelling from point A to point B" mentality.