New Ideas

[BOHICA6]

To Anyone,

Does anyone know how to, or where to go to present new ideas to FFE? And administrator if your out there, HINT, HINT.

I see this game as suffering from fresh blood, and fresh ideas, so here is a few I'm goint to toss out there;

1. Make a CD with character creation on it to include;
- Basic Character Creation
- Equipment purchase & description
- A sample 'mini-adventure' so the new player can figure out how the gaming system works.
- All the players charts and character sheets on this disk. Other games have it?

2. New more modern, yet simple & realistic rules for combat, vehicles & damage. I know everyone will say "Version 2.XX", work with me here.

3. A NEW campaign!

So I CHALLENGE anyone, here and now to come up with these ideas, (And where the heck to send them too, FFE - We need a link here!)I have mine, let's hear yours, and lets hear your voices!

BOHICA 6

 

[Sgt Biggles]

Greetings,

I don’t administer this board, however, I am working on the T20 Twilight Source book. Many of the past links have discussed various concepts of what the update should include. As the project currently stands the Twilight Source Book will;
-Be based on the Traveller T20 rules engine.
-Take place during the original timeline presented in Ver 1.
-T20 rules will be streamlined to focus more on modern day ground combat.
-Contain information which will allow referees to start a campaign anywhere in the world. The focus will still be centered in Poland, though the referee could start his campaign in Oklahoma City, OK or Toronto, Canada for that matter.
-Will include flexible career building guidelines for both military and civilian careers
-Has a mustering out process designed specifically for ending a career and ending up in a war zone.
-There will be intro scenarios and combat examples.

You are welcome to place any ideas or thoughts you might have here on this board and I will look at them. Keep in mind, final approval for anything I submit for the Source book comes from MJD and Hunter.

My current line of thought has been along the lines of ‘what constitutes payment for services rendered?’ Another link has been discussing some of this. So here is an area for input;

“Why would a character want to establish a trade route between various cities and towns?” “What’s in it for her?” After all, money isn’t a sought after commodity. Even in the larger population centers gold and silver are barely holding their own as an exchange commodity.

I would like to hear your thoughts. I have enjoyed reading many of the threads listed here and have joined in on a few. I received a very good indoctrination on Canadian philosophy from several kind and patient folks.

As to sending links to FFE and Marc Miller, the website has a 'contact us' link. Many of the original Twilight 2000 materials are being reprinted by FFE and are available. They include the original text and artwork and are very well done.

Character generators and the like are not my area of knowledge. I suspect someone, somewhere will put one out sometime, probably as shareware. Many of the good generators for WoTC d20 games have been pulled from the shareware realms, for reasons I don’t know. There may be other issues involved. If you are interested in creating a generator it might be wise to check into the licensing policies and such.

SB

 

[kafka47]

I am intrigued by having a setting played out in Toronto, ON, Canada...

As one of the many cities, I am proud to call home. Toronto could make an excellent cyberpunk milieu when combined with the writing of Nalo Hopkins (minus the magic). One could visualize perhaps, Toronto becoming a free commune having gained immunity from tactical nuclear strikes by declaring its independence and taking much of Canada's ecumen with in a true representation of megacity. Although, much of Toronto's energy would be containment around Pickering (which if I recall was designed to withstand an airbust but maybe the Soviets didn't know that) and defending the agricultural land & hydroelectric stations at Niagara Falls.

Gee, this is being to sound like my first Traveller campaign (circa 1982) when the USSR & USA exchanged nuclear strikes around 1999. It was Canada who rose up and took over North America.

 

[savage]

I've been pretty verbose about a new T2k and I'm pleased with what I'm hearing. I do think that the
failure of chemical wpns on a massive scale is a bit unrealistic.

Perhaps you should send Frank a letter or email and ask him what he'd change if he had it to do over.

Of course, I'm hoping we'll see an updated wpn book soon to follow.

I think one of the most benficial tools we used was a quick combat tracking chart. It allowed everyone to keep track of combat activities for their characters...and allowed combat to move quicker.


Savage

 

[jcrocker]

While I would also enjoy a Toronto campaign, I don't know if their declaring independance from Canada would spare them. Wouldn't those nasty Soviets think it just another decadent capitalist trick and nuke TO anyway? They slagged a lot of sites just to deny their facilities to NATO, so the capitalist heart of that pesky NATO/NORAD nation would probably rank pretty high on their 'places to nuke' list no matter who was in charge.
That being said, I think Toronto would have a lot of things going for it in a standard 'rebuild' campaign, all of the things you listed and more.

 

[PBI]

One request I have for the new SB is that it come across a lot less US-centric, within reason. NATO-centric, no problem, but please get rid of the "highest ranking US character commands the unit" rule/suggestion.

 

[notagoodusername]

I have to concur with PBI. The idea of a US lietenant commanding other army's majors, colonels or whatever is kinda ridiculous (and under the articles of war in most countries it is insubordonation - which in wartime is punishable by death by firing squad...)

Shane

 

[aramis]

Why woudl someone want to establish trade routes?

Same reason pre-monetary societies had trade routes... If village A has an excellent glassblower, and woodright, and B has an excellent swordsmith and mechanic, the guy going back and forth can make a living by carrying stuff back and forth... and if you get enough trade, you get a wealthier merchant, who has a decent lifestyle and lifespan... especially if he can back it up with accurate force projection when accosted.

 

[tucker2]

I loved the old T2K timeline, but I wonder how it'd go over with kids these days? The campaign back then started in "THE YEAR 2000" to quote Conan O'Brien, and that's four years ago and in a different world.

It would be a little like playing a "What if?" game of WW2, we know what went on all those years too. The speculation is of a different sort now.

 

[mike wightman]

I think someone should be brave enough to redesignate this product as Twilight 2020 or some such date.
Setting the game in some alternate historical universe stretches its credibility IMHO.
One of the things I "liked" about T2000 was the possibility of its future history.
It shouldn't be too hard to extrapolate current events forward a few years to come up with a near apocalypse scenario.
Even GDW apparently revised their "history" for second edition. Why not do the same?

 

[PBI]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I think someone should be brave enough to redesignate this product as Twilight 2020 or some such date.
Setting the game in some alternate historical universe stretches its credibility IMHO.
One of the things I "liked" about T2000 was the possibility of its future history.
It shouldn't be too hard to extrapolate current events forward a few years to come up with a near apocalypse scenario.
Even GDW apparently revised their "history" for second edition. Why not do the same?

That's not a bad idea, moving the storyline ahead a few years, though there'd be a fairly big question as to how really likely a WWIII scenario would be vs a more Merc:2000 kind of world.

Personally, I would prefer a more "traditional" war-based storyline; if I want to play in a world where corporations are challenging nation-states, I'l go play Shadowrun or something similiar

As for GDW's revision of the timeline for v2.0, it was nowhere near as drastic as a revision would be to bring things up to 2020 or 2010. For 2.0, all GDW did was slightly rework what happened from '90, onwards. The history essentially remained the same from 1.0 to 2.0 with the exception that in 2.0 there was a (truncated) Warsaw Pact, a re-unified Germany, etc, but the war started in similiar fashion, in Asia, and spread to Europe when opportunistic officers and politicians in Germany made a grab for western Poland.

As long as players and designers alike were prepared to see good old Poland (possibly) no longer be the primary campaign area, a new, updated history might be doable.

 

[Sgt Biggles]

The decision to stay with the original timeline has been the source of a lot of discussion. The original concept was to be a 2020 setting which would maintain the feeling of "This could really happen.” M. Miller holds the rights to the GDW games and in conjunction with QLI, myself and even Colin (2330AD) we batted the various ideas around.

The end result was to keep the original timeline. The final timeline will be a mix of Ver 1, Ver 2 and real world events, but the game will still start in June 2000. Through several discussions here it looks like the majority of members tend to lean toward maintaining the original timeline, looking to game play as more important than when it occurred.

Although I pushed for the future timeline, I am pleased with how the rewrite has turned out. MJD will add some polishing and I think you all will be pleased as well. After spending some time on adjusting and adding the rules base I have focused on the setting and the quality of play. I have attempted to add a greater depth for role-playing instead of the “kill everything and then sort it out” style of play inherent to Ver 1.

While the game still starts in Poland, it should be very easy for referees to adjust the setting to their favorite local. There has been a lot of talk about a Canadian focus, as well as an Asian and Australian setting. These should be easy to create using the information provided in the Source Book. I am looking forward to reading about the new games that referees and players will bring to life when the Twilight Source Book hits the shelves.

 

[tucker2]

I suppose the T2020 would be a nightmare in the way of updating the vehicle and equipage info for all concerned armies, that alone would be a giant pain when all that work got done once already.

Still, a World v. USof thing for a T2020 game would be a hoot. A kind of Warday/Red Dawn thing.

 

[PBI]

Hey, don't get me wrong, I love the original timeline, be it 1.0 or 2.0 I spent the first third of my adult life training to die heroically trying to stop the Sovs on the North German Plain, well, actually, somewhere around Fulda-ish, but still, so I'd be quite at home RPing in a setting where the WP didn't quite fall.

 

[savage]

Glad to hear things are going well. Perhaps the better approach is to do alternate timeline sourcebooks....


Savage

 

[mike wightman]

Good idea. I remember looking forward to the proposed Armour21 game. Maybe that could be resurrected as an alternate setting for an "in the future" versus an "in an alternative universe"?

(

then we could have a universe hopping, Sliders type game

)

 

[savage]

Yes. And earlier we (COTI members) came up with about 1/2 a dozen alternatives that were fun.

Savage

 

[Alathan]

If anyone is looking for a Twilight War scenario moved ahead 20-30 years, I am currently working on such a scenario on my website. I invite anyone interested to check it out and use it for their own games if they like. I've only completed the first drafts on things like the introduction, timeline and some of the new technology; army lists, maps and the like will appear later as I have time to work on them (or if anyone wants to help fill that stuff in). I'll try to include stats for V1, V2 and d20 when possible (for new weapons, vehicles, etc.). And as always, feedback is always welcomed.

It can all be found at http://www.twilight2000.net; just follow the World War IV: 2033 link on the left side.

 

[Alathan]

As an addendum to my previous post, I do have to admit, despite my own 2033 updating of the Twilight War, I've always been fond of the original Twilight:2000 setting and played it long after it became outdated. I don't have any problem with the new T:2000 book keeping the original timeline with some revision, and I in fact look forward to seeing what changes are made.

 

[TKalbfus]

War with the Soviets seems so quaint these days. On the other hand it looks like were heading for a clash of civilizations with the Islamic world. Opinion polls in a number of Islamic countries have ranked Osama Bin Laden very high in popularity, he murdered 3,000 Americans, and to many in the Islamic World, that makes him a hero. To bring the scenario up to 2033, we need a series of vacillating US presidents who let various arab countries build and develop nuclear weapons. Once they build enough to seriously damage the United States, the launch an attack. The US responds of course, but the Islamic fanatics don't care as in their minds, they've punched their tickets to paradise and 72 virgins. The offending Arabs are quickly exterminated and the rest of the scenario deals with the aftermath of the nuclear war.