There was an RPG with a plot along the sames lines as the movie Red Dawn; the PC's having to resist a Soviet invasion. Can't recall the name of it just now but will eventually, probably when I should be listening to my girlfriend. 
Invasion of America
- Thread starter kafka47
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Border Reiver
SOC-14 1K
Are you thinking of The Price of Freedom from West End Games?
It makes me shudder just thinking back to it.
It makes me shudder just thinking back to it.
Border Reiver
SOC-14 1K
Of course the Keith Brothers designed an America Invaded game of resistance fighters around the same time as TPOF.
It's big difference was that it didn't have to be a Soviet invasion. Aliens, Commies, Nazis, Subversives, Bodysnatchers. All could be played.
Can't remember what it was called, Freedom Fighter or something.
It's big difference was that it didn't have to be a Soviet invasion. Aliens, Commies, Nazis, Subversives, Bodysnatchers. All could be played.
Can't remember what it was called, Freedom Fighter or something.
I play the game also chummy and have off and on since 1st edition. My point was and is that any near future setting should take real world politics and military capabilty into consideration during the design or you will end up with a setting that does not lend itself to "suspension of disbelief"
T2000 is not D&D and unlike traveller certain mechanics can not be hand waved as future tech.
If you are willing to settle than more power to you sir. I have a bit higher standards for my RPGs than that and in games set in our world like T2000 or top secret I like the game to be realistic. if you do not than /shrugs.
That was it. But I don't remember it being all that horrible; you must elaborate.Originally posted by Border Reiver:
Are you thinking of The Price of Freedom from West End Games?
It makes me shudder just thinking back to it.
One could also look as Africa as a beacon of hope. Largely ignored in the conflict save as the mad scramble over the top to get to Middle East oil reserves. Southern and Equatorial Africa could come to an understanding very quickly of keeping a balance of power within the continent with SA playing a crucial role...even brokering a separate power agreement for the black majority with the Afrikaans holding their own and blackmailing the rest of Africa with the threat of a nuclear strike.
Mounting an overseas expedition would be the ideals of finding a new Zion in America only to find Babylon reins supreme.
Mounting an overseas expedition would be the ideals of finding a new Zion in America only to find Babylon reins supreme.
Twilight 2000 has alot of real world politics in it, so it is a minefield. One thing about T2000 is that civilization recovers quickly and they go into space by the end of the 21st century becoming the backstory of 2300. What if we used a different timeline. Suppose 2300 was not a space opera, suppose civilization continued on its decline in the Twilight Wars. What if the barbarians took over and ran society into the ground? what if a massive plague followed from some biolab facility that spilled its contents and 99% of the humans that remained perished, and the ruins fell into disrepair and knowledge was lost because there was not enough people to pass it on. People spend the next two centuries surviving, and maybe by 2300 or later, only then they recover. All the old civilizations are gone, we start with a clean slate amongst a pile of ruins and civilization tries to rebuild itself in 2300, not in 2020. I think alot of story potential was lost by setting so recently after the Twilight War. Wouldn't it be interesting to play a bunch of barbarians rumaging around in the ruins in a howling wilderness that has not felt the hand of man for several centuries? The other model is GammaWorld for instance, but suppose we made a less fantastic model.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I always expected T2000 to eventually become an Aftermath like setting - the later modules introduced too much organisation and structure remaining in places like France and America for that to happen.
How about Twilight 2300? Lets say the population of the Earth is one million, what does this imply? Lets also assume that the primary cause of civilization's demise was a virus specifically engineered to attack humans while leaving most of the other animal life untouched, assuming this follows the twilight war. So some reason certain groups of humanity were isolated from the rest when this happened and so the virus killed of most of humanity and then the virus died as it had no more reachable hosts to infect, and then these isolated populations of humans spread across the globe and over the next 300 years their population increased to about one million. Of course they aren't one million in one place but scattered all over the globe. During the 300 years when humanity recovers from its tiny population, second growth forests spread to cover the devastated cities. Most of the houses that weren't in the cities are nothing more than foundations at this time. Wolves and Bears have taken over the forests and their are isolated bands of humans roaming the world. The places where buildings are preserved the most would be in the deserts. Language has evolved over the last 300 hears, alot of it is a polyglot mixture of several languages originating with the forgotten fallen nations. the old borders of the countries are largely ignored by the nomadic groups, some have settled down into farming villages, but people who venture into the desert can sometimes recover some of the ancient technology that still works. Guns will be around for a long time, and in the desert they won't rust so much. Cars would be something else. Perhaps the metal parts would survive in the arid regions, I'm not so sure about tires. I doubt that many of the nomadic groups would know how to fix them even if they found some spare parts. Anything that does work will appear like magic to many primitive tribesmen.
It sounds like a combination Gamma World & Mad Max. Which would have my vote if we could substitute cars with spaceships and do a kind of Junkyard race to the stars. Real raw Hard SF set in a post-appocalyptic world with a measure of cyberpunk (minus the cyber appendages) and it might just work.
P
Pickles
Guest
Ooh, now that sounds interesting: "I'm a hydrogen-injected suicide machine, baby!"
As an adolescent of the eighties, aftermath gaming is in my blood. Damn, I miss the cold war ...
As an adolescent of the eighties, aftermath gaming is in my blood. Damn, I miss the cold war ...
Well you could combine 2300 with Twilight 2000 and called Twilight 2600. Basically you posulate a timeline that's similar to 2300, except no stutterwarp drive is invented. Humans are confined to the Solar System, their are many nations and then a war starts, nukes are used and some biological weapons and as a result 300 years later there is a population of one million on the planet's surface. If the Twilight war occurs in 2300, it can't get everybody, there are remote corners of the Solar System and Earth that are isolated from everywhere else. Most of the space going humans can't maintain their technology so they settle on Earth.
CastleBravo92
SOC-1
& oil production. Concievably, which is why the North got whacked so bad, but places like NYC might actually be up & running.[/quote]
Ugh, ok. I've researched this subject, both "real life" and T2k quite a bit in the past. I'm going to provide some data here, use it as you will.
GDW published a target list back in the day. The primary targets were civilian leadership targets, SAC/Strategic Command HQs, and oil refineries. The primary source material for the target list was the Office of Technology Assessment's 1979 booklet called "The Effects of Nuclear War", which you can find at:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/7906/
The Oil Refinery Scenario, which GDW used, postulated an 8 SS-18 missile attack (80 total warheads) on the US refinery capacity. You can jump to that section here:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/7906/790606.pdf
Just as a side note, US refining has become much more consolidated since 1979, with about 200 refineries no longer functional (even though total capacity has increased by about 1-2 mbpd since 1980 through the expansion of existing facilities). The reason why I bring this up is the negative predictions in the OTA report are more easily achieved with fewer warheads today.
The primary conclusion from the OTA report is that 80 warheads would be sufficient to destroy about 60% of the refining capacity in the United States. A corresponding large percentage of the downstream chemical industries would also be destroyed, since they are usually located (conveniently) right next to refineries. Almost all of the remaining refining capacity would have to be allocated to agricultural production and distribution to prevent famines, especially in urban areas. That means all non-essential domestic & commercial traffic...disappears. Total economic collapse. And remember, this is just for the 80 warhead, refinery only scenario. GDW's attack scenario was a bit more liberal with warheads (but hardly the 5000 warhead doomsday scenarios).
In many areas isolated from attacks, the primary immediate effect would be the cessation of meaningful economic activity (in pre-attack terms). In areas where the rule of law is tenuous in the best of times, the loss of control would be almost immediate in the post-attack environment. Lawlessness and barbarism would appear almost immediately once it became clear that the "authorities" were no longer in control of the situation, and there was no cavalry to come to the rescue of the good guys. Ever hear of the "thin blue line"...that's the barrier between the police and chaos. And it's thin. It's not unusual for a major metropolitan area in the United States to have a police force that numbers only 1 or 2 officers per 1000 residents. A city like Dallas, Texas, for example, may only have 4,000 police officers, and only 1500 on shift at any one time. Police are, at all times, always outnumbered by criminals. They rely on the overwhelming application of local force to deal with crime and threats. But when the communication and transportation networks break down, as they would after a nuclear attack, their ability to respond is likewise broken down. Police response will be reduced from radio and helicopter range to gunshot range. And they won't just be contending with the criminal element, post-attack, but the hungry and desperate element.
Put yourself in the picture of the average urban or surburban survivor, 1 day after the attack. Your city has been spared. But a high altitude EMP burst took out the electrical and communications grid. Your car won't start because the fuel chip got fried by the EMP. You have $40 in your wallet, but you can't access any of the money in your bank account because it's all electronic...and the grid is dead. You rush to the grocery store or Walmart to buy food, but find that everyone else in your city already had the same idea and beat you to the punch. And anyway, the grocery store is charging $20 for just a gallon jug of water...Like a lot of urbanites, you eat out a lot. You have maybe 2 days worth of food in your house or apartment. A few days go by and you still can't get food. The little food that was in your refrigerator has spoiled now. The government declares martial law and says that food will be distributed "as available, as soon as possible". You go to a distribution point, but food still hasn't arrived. A black market springs up, and you start selling (bartering) everything you have in exchange for food to feed your family. Fairly quickly, you run out of things to sell. You have no job, your family is going hungry. And there are tens of thousands of people just like you in the city. A week, two weeks before, law abiding, peaceful citizens. Now, unemployed, hungry, desperate. The state can't call up the National Guard, because they've already been Federalized and mobilized to fight the war in Europe. So it falls to the local authorities to control the situation. A situation that is clearly out of their hands. And this is the best-case scenario. Worse case scenario is your city got imprinted with 3 550 kiloton airbursts and left a couple of million people either dead or dying.
Within a few months, large swaths of the United States, particularly urban areas, will have become "Indian country". Completely out of control and out of contact with higher authority. Islands of control would exist, probably centered mostly around intact military units. Things that we take for granted today, like being able to transport an 18-wheeler loaded with grain from Iowa to New York or Boston will be things of the past. Guess what happens to the folks in New York and Boston once they can't get food? They die.
Now, regarding the Mexican invasion of the American Southwest. I used to be one of the folks that said, no way, no how. But, remember, the Mexicans "invade" a year and a half after the nuclear attacks. And the attacks hit Texas and California especially hard (Los Angeles has one of the largest refining facilities in the world, and Texas has more refineries than any other state in the Union). Taking Texas as an example, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Houston, Baytown Port Arthur, Corpous Christi, Beaumont, Pasadena, Texas City are all major urban areas that disappear under mushroom clouds. The 49th (NG) Armored Division (now the 36th ID in real life) is up in Chicago doing disaster relief. There are literally no significant forces in Texas to oppose a Mexican invasion (which is spearheaded by a Soviet tank division with real tanks and real attack helicopters). This all happens after the population of Texas has spent a year and a half trying to survive on it's own in the aftermath of a nuclear attack...and then a couple of million Mexican refugees and a 100,000 Mexican troops and 20,000 Soviet troops cross the Rio Grande (I never really understood why a couple of million Mexican refugees would flee into the most heavily nuked part of North America, but I guess that was GDW's poetic license at work). Within any local context, the Mexican military will be the most powerful functioning military force present. Which is to say they'd be powerful enough to carve out enclaves and become de facto warlords, just as the U.S. military units would be.
Howling Wilderness postulated a quartering of the surviving US population, which had already been halved from the 1997 nuclear strikes and the 5 years of chaos afterwards. That means, out of a pre-war population of 300 million, there would only be around 40 million people left by 2003, and the population that is left is factionally divided between CivGov, MilGov, and New America (which is supposed to be the most powerful domestic US faction). Mexico, in comparison, would probably see it's population halved which puts it at rough population parity with the United States. Mexico has it's own series of civil wars happening at the same time, but in a race to the finish, you don't have to be fast, just first. It would be a partial die-off of the native population combined with a demographic transition as immigration from the south dislocated traditional cultural and national identifications. It's already happening in slo-mo today with the difference in Latino birth rates combined with high levels of immigration (both legal and illegal).
Ugh, ok. I've researched this subject, both "real life" and T2k quite a bit in the past. I'm going to provide some data here, use it as you will.
GDW published a target list back in the day. The primary targets were civilian leadership targets, SAC/Strategic Command HQs, and oil refineries. The primary source material for the target list was the Office of Technology Assessment's 1979 booklet called "The Effects of Nuclear War", which you can find at:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/7906/
The Oil Refinery Scenario, which GDW used, postulated an 8 SS-18 missile attack (80 total warheads) on the US refinery capacity. You can jump to that section here:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/7906/790606.pdf
Just as a side note, US refining has become much more consolidated since 1979, with about 200 refineries no longer functional (even though total capacity has increased by about 1-2 mbpd since 1980 through the expansion of existing facilities). The reason why I bring this up is the negative predictions in the OTA report are more easily achieved with fewer warheads today.
The primary conclusion from the OTA report is that 80 warheads would be sufficient to destroy about 60% of the refining capacity in the United States. A corresponding large percentage of the downstream chemical industries would also be destroyed, since they are usually located (conveniently) right next to refineries. Almost all of the remaining refining capacity would have to be allocated to agricultural production and distribution to prevent famines, especially in urban areas. That means all non-essential domestic & commercial traffic...disappears. Total economic collapse. And remember, this is just for the 80 warhead, refinery only scenario. GDW's attack scenario was a bit more liberal with warheads (but hardly the 5000 warhead doomsday scenarios).
In many areas isolated from attacks, the primary immediate effect would be the cessation of meaningful economic activity (in pre-attack terms). In areas where the rule of law is tenuous in the best of times, the loss of control would be almost immediate in the post-attack environment. Lawlessness and barbarism would appear almost immediately once it became clear that the "authorities" were no longer in control of the situation, and there was no cavalry to come to the rescue of the good guys. Ever hear of the "thin blue line"...that's the barrier between the police and chaos. And it's thin. It's not unusual for a major metropolitan area in the United States to have a police force that numbers only 1 or 2 officers per 1000 residents. A city like Dallas, Texas, for example, may only have 4,000 police officers, and only 1500 on shift at any one time. Police are, at all times, always outnumbered by criminals. They rely on the overwhelming application of local force to deal with crime and threats. But when the communication and transportation networks break down, as they would after a nuclear attack, their ability to respond is likewise broken down. Police response will be reduced from radio and helicopter range to gunshot range. And they won't just be contending with the criminal element, post-attack, but the hungry and desperate element.
Put yourself in the picture of the average urban or surburban survivor, 1 day after the attack. Your city has been spared. But a high altitude EMP burst took out the electrical and communications grid. Your car won't start because the fuel chip got fried by the EMP. You have $40 in your wallet, but you can't access any of the money in your bank account because it's all electronic...and the grid is dead. You rush to the grocery store or Walmart to buy food, but find that everyone else in your city already had the same idea and beat you to the punch. And anyway, the grocery store is charging $20 for just a gallon jug of water...Like a lot of urbanites, you eat out a lot. You have maybe 2 days worth of food in your house or apartment. A few days go by and you still can't get food. The little food that was in your refrigerator has spoiled now. The government declares martial law and says that food will be distributed "as available, as soon as possible". You go to a distribution point, but food still hasn't arrived. A black market springs up, and you start selling (bartering) everything you have in exchange for food to feed your family. Fairly quickly, you run out of things to sell. You have no job, your family is going hungry. And there are tens of thousands of people just like you in the city. A week, two weeks before, law abiding, peaceful citizens. Now, unemployed, hungry, desperate. The state can't call up the National Guard, because they've already been Federalized and mobilized to fight the war in Europe. So it falls to the local authorities to control the situation. A situation that is clearly out of their hands. And this is the best-case scenario. Worse case scenario is your city got imprinted with 3 550 kiloton airbursts and left a couple of million people either dead or dying.
Within a few months, large swaths of the United States, particularly urban areas, will have become "Indian country". Completely out of control and out of contact with higher authority. Islands of control would exist, probably centered mostly around intact military units. Things that we take for granted today, like being able to transport an 18-wheeler loaded with grain from Iowa to New York or Boston will be things of the past. Guess what happens to the folks in New York and Boston once they can't get food? They die.
Now, regarding the Mexican invasion of the American Southwest. I used to be one of the folks that said, no way, no how. But, remember, the Mexicans "invade" a year and a half after the nuclear attacks. And the attacks hit Texas and California especially hard (Los Angeles has one of the largest refining facilities in the world, and Texas has more refineries than any other state in the Union). Taking Texas as an example, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Houston, Baytown Port Arthur, Corpous Christi, Beaumont, Pasadena, Texas City are all major urban areas that disappear under mushroom clouds. The 49th (NG) Armored Division (now the 36th ID in real life) is up in Chicago doing disaster relief. There are literally no significant forces in Texas to oppose a Mexican invasion (which is spearheaded by a Soviet tank division with real tanks and real attack helicopters). This all happens after the population of Texas has spent a year and a half trying to survive on it's own in the aftermath of a nuclear attack...and then a couple of million Mexican refugees and a 100,000 Mexican troops and 20,000 Soviet troops cross the Rio Grande (I never really understood why a couple of million Mexican refugees would flee into the most heavily nuked part of North America, but I guess that was GDW's poetic license at work). Within any local context, the Mexican military will be the most powerful functioning military force present. Which is to say they'd be powerful enough to carve out enclaves and become de facto warlords, just as the U.S. military units would be.
Howling Wilderness postulated a quartering of the surviving US population, which had already been halved from the 1997 nuclear strikes and the 5 years of chaos afterwards. That means, out of a pre-war population of 300 million, there would only be around 40 million people left by 2003, and the population that is left is factionally divided between CivGov, MilGov, and New America (which is supposed to be the most powerful domestic US faction). Mexico, in comparison, would probably see it's population halved which puts it at rough population parity with the United States. Mexico has it's own series of civil wars happening at the same time, but in a race to the finish, you don't have to be fast, just first. It would be a partial die-off of the native population combined with a demographic transition as immigration from the south dislocated traditional cultural and national identifications. It's already happening in slo-mo today with the difference in Latino birth rates combined with high levels of immigration (both legal and illegal).
Good analysis CastleBravo92. Furthermore, in the 70s/80s, there was a weakness in American the joint chiefs that allowed them to question the civilian government. Military scientists then believed that the US could handle 3 simultaneous wars/fronts on a global level. Mexico is free to do its own thing. People like freedom but most like stability and eating more...some would initially welcome anyone providing it.
The American campaigns we're really not fully exploited by GDW. The game moved to and end prior to really exploring the aftermath. T2000 was a good tactical game but campaign level activities require tremendous effort by the ref. The entire 1980s covert ops element was an effort to redirect a game system that had a heavy negative undertone. After all, the one sad thing about the Poland campaign was that America was the bad guy, the invader, however the war started.:smirk:
The American campaigns we're really not fully exploited by GDW. The game moved to and end prior to really exploring the aftermath. T2000 was a good tactical game but campaign level activities require tremendous effort by the ref. The entire 1980s covert ops element was an effort to redirect a game system that had a heavy negative undertone. After all, the one sad thing about the Poland campaign was that America was the bad guy, the invader, however the war started.:smirk:
China lacks the capability to successfully take an island off their coast
I don't think you understand how difficult it is to move large numbers of troops great distances. Only a handful of countries even have a deep blue navy
In T2K, China is knocked out by the USSR, Japan has no long range transport nor military will. South Africa can flex massive muscles in Africa but any type of logistical operation involving deep water would result in the loss of massive numbers of soldiers
The only threats facing the US (non-strat nuke anyway) are Mexico (realistically, slight beyond about 100 km of their border) and fellow Americans
The question I always had for T2K post 1990 is 'why did their USSR survive?'
I looked back for a 'moment in time' that would change the history. And I found it.
In 1993, during a visit to South Korea, North Korea actually had plans to assassinate Reagan. It was largely Reagan's plan to bankrupt the USSR with an arms race they could not win that hastened the end of the Evil Empire. Bush Sr, away from Reagan's influence and facing domestic pressure, may well have gone back to Nixon's brand of anti-Communism: talk a good story but live in detente
No Reagan massive build up = no pressure on the USSR
No Reagan funding of the Mujahadeen, including the supply of Stingers = Russian grind but eventual victory in Afghanistan
No Reagan support for Solidarity in Poland = eventually the lights go out
I don't think you understand how difficult it is to move large numbers of troops great distances. Only a handful of countries even have a deep blue navy
In T2K, China is knocked out by the USSR, Japan has no long range transport nor military will. South Africa can flex massive muscles in Africa but any type of logistical operation involving deep water would result in the loss of massive numbers of soldiers
The only threats facing the US (non-strat nuke anyway) are Mexico (realistically, slight beyond about 100 km of their border) and fellow Americans
The question I always had for T2K post 1990 is 'why did their USSR survive?'
I looked back for a 'moment in time' that would change the history. And I found it.
In 1993, during a visit to South Korea, North Korea actually had plans to assassinate Reagan. It was largely Reagan's plan to bankrupt the USSR with an arms race they could not win that hastened the end of the Evil Empire. Bush Sr, away from Reagan's influence and facing domestic pressure, may well have gone back to Nixon's brand of anti-Communism: talk a good story but live in detente
No Reagan massive build up = no pressure on the USSR
No Reagan funding of the Mujahadeen, including the supply of Stingers = Russian grind but eventual victory in Afghanistan
No Reagan support for Solidarity in Poland = eventually the lights go out
G. Fieendish
SOC-12
This sounds like the scenario that Whitley Striber & James Kuetnka described in their 1988 novel, Warday, which has a limited nuclear war, occuring between the U.S & U.S.S.R in the late 1980's, in which both sides use EMP weapons to cripple the other....
As a result of this, there are European Union military units in the U.S in order to provide "Humanitarian Aid" for the survivors, Mexico's trying to reclaim Texas & New Mexico, with the result, there's a low level gurrella war in parts of Texas, and finally, the U.S West Coast states are seriously thinking about sucession from the rest of the U.S ....
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Poor Merchant
SOC-7
If I recall I think Streiber et al cited the OTA report in their bibliography so this is not a surprise. I think with most of these games one takes the parts of the backstory you like and run with them - anything else just gets junked. As long as you are not planning to publish your adventures (or even if you do you can just label them "variants") there is no problem.
Militarily I think the TW2000 scenario of foreign invasion would be unlikely outside of small scale Russian incursions into Alaska, and the SW USA (although given demographic trends and the fragmentation of communities in the US after the Bomb it may be a case less of Mexican invasion and more of an Anschluss situation - if the Mexican player handles it right).
Given Canada's economic relationship with the US I think her situation would be as bad as the US and hence she would be in no condition to do anything - I would see local changes (in both directions) as local economic relationships post-Bomb redefine boundaries. But national incursions, no.
Europe, South Africa, China et al? For the reasons already listed (supply lines, nothing to gain when they get there etc) this is a non-starter. But I'm sure you could write some scenarios where you encounter foreign forces in the US - but at the squad and company level (securing foreign nationals, seeking a spy, documents, equipment etc) rather than an invasion.
