blooregardo
an eons worth of mud
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2011
- Messages
- 9,135
- Reaction score
- 18,256
(this timeline is copied, paraphrased, and truncated from the one provided in Twilight: 2000 4th edition by Free League Publishing. Information has been ommited or obscured for brevity's sake of either brevity, or for concealing spoilers.)
Germany is reunified.
Boris Yeltsin is elected president of Russia.
The Warsaw Pact is formally dissolved.
The "Gang of Eight" stage a successful coup in Moscow. Gorbachev and Yelstin are arrested, and vice president Gennady Yanayev – one of The Eight – is declared the new president of the Soviet Union.
In the USSR, Yanayev dies under mysterious circumstances. KGB Chief Vladimir Kryuchkov is named the new president of the USSR.
Harvey West defeats Bob Dole in the Republican primaries. Running on a platform of strengthening the military, West defeats Clinton's re-election campaign by a narrow margin.
Additionally, even electronic equipment that survived the EMP blasts still struggle to send and receive signals, making communication with command difficult and intermittent, often outright impossible. US and Soviet forces find themselves effectively stranded in a battered country full of cold, starving, and justifiably angry at those that wear the uniforms of the powers that ruined their lives.
What is left of the WHO estimates that nearly half of the world's population has died.
You are part of the US Army's 5th Infantry Division. Reinforcements, replacements, local recruits, and even a few veterans that have been in the country since the original '97 deployment. A little ragtag, sure, but the Red Devils are proud of a history that goes back to the first World War. It's April, 2000, and earlier in the month, you were hearing rumors that NATO was gearing up for a big offensive, the first in over a year. A movement part of a so-called "Operation Reset"; as far as you know, an effort to link up the scattered remains of units across Poland and push to retake Warsaw -- what's left of it.
The first week went well, so well you might have even been tricked into thinking this war was winnable. At first, they were taken by surprise and your unit took a suprising amount of ground in such a short time, given the fatigue and strained supplies, but you can get pretty far on good morale. What was even more surprising was the effectiveness of the Soviet counterattack that came after the first week. When the lines ground to a halt in a stalemate at Kalisz, the offensive began to fall apart. The 5th was scattered, and you are routed into the woods.
With your entire division in shambles and on the run, you overhear your final orders from NATO command, a grim, high-treble rasp from the radio inside an overturned Humvee:
"Good luck. You're on your own now."
Ever since first hearing about it a year or two ago, I've been pretty fascinated with the setting of Twilight: 2000. I got my hands on a PDF of the latest version to run a game for some local friends, and the more I've gone down the rabbit hole the more I realize it potentially scratches the itch of couple different RR's I had in the back of my mind, or RP I more generally wanted to see.
One was an original setting I had been writing alt-history Cold War lore for, until I realized there's a setting already out in the wild that put some together more concisely and eloquently than I ever could. Plus it's a setting that's existed since the 1980's and there's lots of official and fan made campaigns out there to draw inspiration from.
Another idea I had pitched to a couple people was an RR set around... not exactly an extraction shooter, but an RP setting that lets you realize your mental platonic ideal of what a game like Tarkov could offer as a roleplay setting rather than a competitive shooter game. I think that one's kind of a confusing sell and maybe unique to me, but whatever that itch is that I can't articulate, Twilight 2k scratches it with its post apocalyptic setting, cold war gear apocrypha, resource scarcity, and potential for setting up difficult moral choices.
Also I've heard people talking about TRP off and on again and I think there's some desire for another military RP. Not in the sense of rank-and-file order and having a command structure, since Twilight 2k doesn't really have that, but in the sense of the camaraderie of being part of a unit. That, plus the "you're on your own" element of being cut off from command makes the setting really compelling to me.
I don't have specific maps or content in mind yet, but content is easily obtainable for cold war/early GWOT weapons and vehicles and maps that can pass for Europe. This thread is less a cohesive plan --I'm still working my way through the literature surrounding the TTRPG, even-- and more just to see if this is something people would be interested in. I know there's a lot of projects on TnB's plate and this is something that can and should happen only after things aren't so busy. But, if it is something people are interested in I'm more than happy to flesh this out a little more, find and curate content, write more plot than "get the hell out of dodge". On that last point, the ideal length of time for such an RR would be a couple weeks, no more than a month if we really want to push it, but if it's a setting people find they want to have a permanent server on later on down the road, the official expansions surrounding the city of Kraków --a neutral city that has supplies, luxuries, a functioning government, conditionally electric power, and several crisscrossing seedy plots--could make for a compelling longer-term setting. But that's if people find that they like the RR enough, and that's if people are interested enough in an RR in the first place.
Is this an RR you'd be interested in participating in? Have you played the TTRPG before and have some experiences you want to share? Are there aspects of this setting that you really like, or aren't too fond of that want to be changed?
1989
The Berlin Wall falls.1990
Iraq invades Kuwait, starting the Gulf War.Germany is reunified.
1991
The Gulf War ends.Boris Yeltsin is elected president of Russia.
The Warsaw Pact is formally dissolved.
The "Gang of Eight" stage a successful coup in Moscow. Gorbachev and Yelstin are arrested, and vice president Gennady Yanayev – one of The Eight – is declared the new president of the Soviet Union.
1992
With the efforts of the Gang of Eight, the collapse of the Soviet Union is halted. The Eight spend the year purging their opposition within the government. In the US, Bill Clinton wins the election running on an economics-focused platform. Francis Fukuyama publishes The End of History and the Last Man.1993
President Clinton visits Poland and the Baltic States, signaling that they can depend on NATO support. In time, perhaps even membership.In the USSR, Yanayev dies under mysterious circumstances. KGB Chief Vladimir Kryuchkov is named the new president of the USSR.
1996
Soviet tanks cross into Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Clinton administration hesitates in sending support, and within a week each country falls back under Soviet control.Harvey West defeats Bob Dole in the Republican primaries. Running on a platform of strengthening the military, West defeats Clinton's re-election campaign by a narrow margin.
1997
West is inaugurated as the 43rd President. Immediately, he begins increasing military presence in Germany, including a number of tactical nuclear weapons. Kryuchkov orders the invasion of Poland to prevent it from falling into the NATO sphere of influence. In response, West initiates an air bombing campaign in Poland, initially unwilling to send troops. However, these reciprocal escalations continue, and by June, US and Soviet ground forces are fighting in western Poland, engaging one another direct combat for the first time.1998
Nuclear strikes are detected in the Golan Heights. Losing in Europe against the NATO offense, Kryuchkov --using the strikes in the Golan as justification and precedence-- approves limited tactical nuclear strikes against troop concentrations in Poland. NATO is devastated, and they respond in kind. Initially, both side only strike military and command and control targets. As the duel continues, so does the escalation of force; industrial and eventually civilian centers are targeted. Not strictly in Poland, but throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, and eventually mushroom clouds erupt on US and USSR soil. Both side show enough restraint to stop short of nuclear annihilation-- at least for now.1999
The winter of 1998-1999 is Europe's coldest in living memory. By New Year's Day, civilian losses have surpassed fifteen percent in most cities that have not been completely leveled. The resulting EMP effects from the nuclear strikes collapses communication networks and supply lines for all sides. Ammunition becomes scarce enough that there are anecdotal accounts of armorers removing the auto sears from issued rifles. Fuel becomes scarce enough that vehicles are converted to run on alcohol, and units that can feed them turn to using horses instead of jeeps. Medical supplies are scarce, and diseases thought to be eradicated in modern times have returned. Food becomes scarce, and you don't want to know what people resort to in order to fill their bellies. Soldiers now fight to survive rather than to conquer. Those civilians not recruited to replenish the dwindling NATO and Warsaw Pact ranks are even worse off. Where the rule of law survives, it is unforgiving and carried out by armed militias. Ordinary people have turned to banditry. Additionally, even electronic equipment that survived the EMP blasts still struggle to send and receive signals, making communication with command difficult and intermittent, often outright impossible. US and Soviet forces find themselves effectively stranded in a battered country full of cold, starving, and justifiably angry at those that wear the uniforms of the powers that ruined their lives.
What is left of the WHO estimates that nearly half of the world's population has died.
TWILIGHT: 2000 - ESCAPE FROM KALISZ
You are part of the US Army's 5th Infantry Division. Reinforcements, replacements, local recruits, and even a few veterans that have been in the country since the original '97 deployment. A little ragtag, sure, but the Red Devils are proud of a history that goes back to the first World War. It's April, 2000, and earlier in the month, you were hearing rumors that NATO was gearing up for a big offensive, the first in over a year. A movement part of a so-called "Operation Reset"; as far as you know, an effort to link up the scattered remains of units across Poland and push to retake Warsaw -- what's left of it.
The first week went well, so well you might have even been tricked into thinking this war was winnable. At first, they were taken by surprise and your unit took a suprising amount of ground in such a short time, given the fatigue and strained supplies, but you can get pretty far on good morale. What was even more surprising was the effectiveness of the Soviet counterattack that came after the first week. When the lines ground to a halt in a stalemate at Kalisz, the offensive began to fall apart. The 5th was scattered, and you are routed into the woods.
With your entire division in shambles and on the run, you overhear your final orders from NATO command, a grim, high-treble rasp from the radio inside an overturned Humvee:
"Good luck. You're on your own now."
Ever since first hearing about it a year or two ago, I've been pretty fascinated with the setting of Twilight: 2000. I got my hands on a PDF of the latest version to run a game for some local friends, and the more I've gone down the rabbit hole the more I realize it potentially scratches the itch of couple different RR's I had in the back of my mind, or RP I more generally wanted to see.
One was an original setting I had been writing alt-history Cold War lore for, until I realized there's a setting already out in the wild that put some together more concisely and eloquently than I ever could. Plus it's a setting that's existed since the 1980's and there's lots of official and fan made campaigns out there to draw inspiration from.
Another idea I had pitched to a couple people was an RR set around... not exactly an extraction shooter, but an RP setting that lets you realize your mental platonic ideal of what a game like Tarkov could offer as a roleplay setting rather than a competitive shooter game. I think that one's kind of a confusing sell and maybe unique to me, but whatever that itch is that I can't articulate, Twilight 2k scratches it with its post apocalyptic setting, cold war gear apocrypha, resource scarcity, and potential for setting up difficult moral choices.
Also I've heard people talking about TRP off and on again and I think there's some desire for another military RP. Not in the sense of rank-and-file order and having a command structure, since Twilight 2k doesn't really have that, but in the sense of the camaraderie of being part of a unit. That, plus the "you're on your own" element of being cut off from command makes the setting really compelling to me.
I don't have specific maps or content in mind yet, but content is easily obtainable for cold war/early GWOT weapons and vehicles and maps that can pass for Europe. This thread is less a cohesive plan --I'm still working my way through the literature surrounding the TTRPG, even-- and more just to see if this is something people would be interested in. I know there's a lot of projects on TnB's plate and this is something that can and should happen only after things aren't so busy. But, if it is something people are interested in I'm more than happy to flesh this out a little more, find and curate content, write more plot than "get the hell out of dodge". On that last point, the ideal length of time for such an RR would be a couple weeks, no more than a month if we really want to push it, but if it's a setting people find they want to have a permanent server on later on down the road, the official expansions surrounding the city of Kraków --a neutral city that has supplies, luxuries, a functioning government, conditionally electric power, and several crisscrossing seedy plots--could make for a compelling longer-term setting. But that's if people find that they like the RR enough, and that's if people are interested enough in an RR in the first place.
Is this an RR you'd be interested in participating in? Have you played the TTRPG before and have some experiences you want to share? Are there aspects of this setting that you really like, or aren't too fond of that want to be changed?
Last edited:
