The 1st edition had some conjectured vehicles, including the Sgt York (which was in testing at the time). 2nd ed had mobile laser vehicles for anti-aircraft defense. Most of the Soviet vehicles were true to form however, except for the hovercraft, and T-90. And they did change the BMP-3 to the real thing for 2nd ed. Some American vehicles that they did create for the game was the LAV-75, which was actually a pretty nice creation, and the remote turret M1 (and Leopard 3 in 2nd ed). In the design notes for 2nd ed, Frank Chadwick and Loren Wiseman both mentioned that they took those remote turret ideas from various things going on in military magazines and newsgroups. Both those two are still active on several T2k forums.
Twilight 2000 for T20
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Rereading the old 1st Ed T2K I really think it generally needs to be unchanged (the vignettes rock). But I still think the background can be made murkier or even multiple options presented as to why the war started.
The T-95 actually looks a bit like the T2K T-90, with a remote turret and 135mm gun (or 152mm depending on what you read -- I suspect it will be refitted later).
The T-95 actually looks a bit like the T2K T-90, with a remote turret and 135mm gun (or 152mm depending on what you read -- I suspect it will be refitted later).
Well you could always go for a Merc:2000 type game. Special Ops and all that. And since most of the equipment would also work for a Third World War, later release a TW2K supplement for Merc2000. As to the timeline, in 2.0 they just took a point (Hardline attempt takeover of Russia?) and said, "We deviate from history here" and ran with it. Works fine for me. Multiple options with no set in stone metaplot is also good.Originally posted by Tzeentch:
I'd be interested in helping out on such a project. But it has some hurdles:
-- The entire concept of the war probably needs to be rethought. Simply put the Cold War is long over and most potential customers have just a bare inkling of what was even being planned. Heck, most people in the military now have never even HEARD of REFORGER, much less how a war against the Soviets in Europe was supposed to have been fought. A Soviet invasion of Europe now is as fantastic as orcs in party hats
I only have the 2nd edition (not 2.2
) and it updated some of the equipment. 2.2 even more so IIRC. I remember the line about the T-80 or T-90. Something like, "That's it?"
I have problems with the lack of damage ranges and pure HP (ala D&D) that makes D20 Modern more compatible with D&D and more heroic. Maybe some of the weapons books coming out will change my opinion.
I do like the generic classes but I like Prior History from T20. T2K is one of those games you can just play by making characters and seeing how long they last before they get drafted.
Casey
I am not sure about Tw20. It was a great setting with a good system, but now the setting has dated into fantasy. Most D20 players were in diapers (OK, some of you were in elementary school) when the Sovet Union fell.
BTW, don't judge the Soviet stuff by the "monkey models" they sell to the 3rd world. It turns out that the old T-64s had ceramic armor sandwiched between steel that made it tougher than any NATO tank before the Abrams.
BTW, don't judge the Soviet stuff by the "monkey models" they sell to the 3rd world. It turns out that the old T-64s had ceramic armor sandwiched between steel that made it tougher than any NATO tank before the Abrams.
If you are going to do a D20 version of T2K (D2K?), I would stick with the history and equipment out of the orginal version (V.1). We are now talking about an alternate history, as opposed to a possible future. I always thought the history for the first version was more intresting than the ones they came up with for the latter versions to "keep up with modern events". I also liked some of the equpiment they came up with that were never developed. The M1A3 Abrams "Giraffe", the remote turnet T-90, and the ever popular LAV-75 (It was the most practical of the designs they came up with. It is a testimony to it that the US military came up with a vehical that filled the same roll, even if it was in a 90mm main gun instead of a 75mm main gun and maned turret rather than a remote turret).
I feel a D2K release would be more in the spirit of Space 1889. It is not a sim of what life was like at the time, but in a kind of fantastic version of it that the people of the time could see happening. You don't want to play Space 1889 on a Mars that is like we now know it is, but rather on a Mars as the people of the time thought it was. If you reall feel some "more realistic" appocoliptic vison would be nice, I would included them only as suggestions or optionn. Perhapes they could be presented in modules that could be purchased latter if the players felt the really want it.
I feel a D2K release would be more in the spirit of Space 1889. It is not a sim of what life was like at the time, but in a kind of fantastic version of it that the people of the time could see happening. You don't want to play Space 1889 on a Mars that is like we now know it is, but rather on a Mars as the people of the time thought it was. If you reall feel some "more realistic" appocoliptic vison would be nice, I would included them only as suggestions or optionn. Perhapes they could be presented in modules that could be purchased latter if the players felt the really want it.
I agree, although I prefer Tw20.
A little minor tweaking of the equipment list might be in order (T64 and T72 have better armor, the Sergeant York is tempermental), but no big changes.
Although my vote doesn't count, since I still won't run any game where I have to buy a D&D book.
Okay, I can go with Tw20. It looks cool.
I'm still not sure if the York was bad or if it just suffered from bad PR. I remember when we were all told that we shouldn't go with the M1 because it was to tempermental. It's some times hard to tell the truth from the hype. I kept hearing how poorly the AH-64 was preforming in Desert Storm, only to find out later how deadly they had really been. Weapon systems are turned down for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with performance. The York was cancled in the development stage long before any bugs could have been worked out. I'm not saying it wasn't a peice of junk, just that I don't know. I could live with a quirky peice of hard wear that no one really wants to get stuck with.
As for the armor values of Sov tanks, I'm not an expert on the matter. I didn't even know they put different armor on their export tanks.
I'm still not sure if the York was bad or if it just suffered from bad PR. I remember when we were all told that we shouldn't go with the M1 because it was to tempermental. It's some times hard to tell the truth from the hype. I kept hearing how poorly the AH-64 was preforming in Desert Storm, only to find out later how deadly they had really been. Weapon systems are turned down for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with performance. The York was cancled in the development stage long before any bugs could have been worked out. I'm not saying it wasn't a peice of junk, just that I don't know. I could live with a quirky peice of hard wear that no one really wants to get stuck with.
As for the armor values of Sov tanks, I'm not an expert on the matter. I didn't even know they put different armor on their export tanks.
There really are only a few things needed:
1) revised armor on the T-64 and T-72 along with ERA rules.
2) add the AT8,10,11 and 12 gun launched ATGMs (Real world in-service of 80 - 84 IIRC). These would have been a nasty surprise to NATO and would have made short work of everything not an M-1
3) Keep the York but remember - it was based on old M-48 hulls - slow and poorly armored. There would have been very few surviving to see 2000.
4) Lose all the giraffe models - that was a big fad in the armor community in the early 80's but there were too many problems to produce them. If you have a source for old issues of Armor Magazine, some of the article from then are interesting
now.5)Tweek the equiptment list a bit - add some small arms (say the OICW and OCSW
), digital radios, etc. 6) Drop the LAV-75 for the M-8. The M-8 was what really grew out of the LAV-75 and LAV-90 design studies and would have certainly been in production in 1995 in this timeline. Plus it fires all standard NATO 105mm ammo - can you say Willy Pete and Beehive boys and girls?
Thats really about all that I think is necessary. The rest still holds up reasonably well if you are using the idea of an alternate universe and the original timeline.
William
Ah yes, add in the Land Warrior 2000 system. Although, given the number of nukes that went off, you'd have to figure that most of those would have been slagged by EMP effects, or lack of parts. </font>[/QUOTE]Hmm... Perhaps. IIRC from my active duty days, the EMP pulse only lets the magic smoke out of electronics that are powered at the time of the burst. When we did our nuke drills in the M-60A3 tank, we would turn off the radios, pull the antennas inside, and button up. This would have the effect of using that big steel hull like a faraday cage. I would think the M-113, M-1, and M-2/3 would be similar. So, the question then becomes how many times things got fried by unexpected (ie opposing sides) nukes. Since in the T2K world the electronics of thermal sights and ATGM systems survived, that shouldn't a difficult issue.
No, the real killer of these systems is what do you do when the batteries are all gone? Then they become pretty art-deco objects.
The armies might, after the nukes fly, retrofit at least some of these with rechargable batteries and could provide a recharger that either runs off of vehicle current or off of solar panels. But these should be as rare as a jerry can of premium unleaded... <cue GM evil grin here>
William
I'm working on a Russian equipment guide for GURPS and I must say that the old T2K material is unusable as a resource if you want accuracy. Not that it's necessarily the fault of the writers -- hard data was in very short supply back then.
I'm not really clear what the usefulness of keeping the funky vehicles in would be, they just take space from real equipment. Some sort of decision would have to be made regarding equipment that may or may not have actually been deployed at the time of, or during, the Twilight War (such as the F-22 or Ka-50).
BTW the OICW and OCSW do have actual XM designations now...
I'm not really clear what the usefulness of keeping the funky vehicles in would be, they just take space from real equipment. Some sort of decision would have to be made regarding equipment that may or may not have actually been deployed at the time of, or during, the Twilight War (such as the F-22 or Ka-50).
BTW the OICW and OCSW do have actual XM designations now...
IMO the T2000 setting should be updated to the current equipment/technology (both to attract new players and keep the old more techy ones like me happy). History wise it should provide a few different options (based on the old setting... maybe) to give GM´s room to adapt to his/her gaming group.
What´s your opinion Hunter?
To Tzeentch: Welcome! Glad to see you here.
P.S. Sorry for taking so long to comment but I´m moving right now (and posting from a friends computer) so it may take awhile until I read this forum again.
What´s your opinion Hunter?
To Tzeentch: Welcome! Glad to see you here.
P.S. Sorry for taking so long to comment but I´m moving right now (and posting from a friends computer) so it may take awhile until I read this forum again.
I don't have a problem with leaving the conjectural equipment in Tw20, but I also don't have a problem with leaving it out and making the information that is there more accurate. If space permitted, it would be nice to have a core game that consisted of the original background along with a corrected equipment list. Optional backgrounds, and stats for some of the conjectural equipment, could make up the appendixes or appear in another supplement.
I think the equipment lists should stand. The stats for equipment already on the list can be corrected, within reason (i.e. the Sergeant York is tempermental, but was developed until it was not a complete PoS.)
I might move to include 1980s tech like SINGARS radios, but stuff that wasn't imagined until after 1990 (like the OICW and OCSW) are right out.
I might move to include 1980s tech like SINGARS radios, but stuff that wasn't imagined until after 1990 (like the OICW and OCSW) are right out.
Why not create an alternate universe where the Cold War never ended? The obvious departure date is when the hardliners seized power in the Soviet Union from Gorbachev. In our history the hardliners were overthrown, but what if they weren't? What if Boris Yeltsin was killed? Following that I could see George Bush Senior becoming a 2 term President. The Persian Gulf War might have ended differently. I don't Think Bill Clinton would have stood a chance of getting elected under these circumstances. As things deteriorated between the US and the USSR, perhaps we might see a President Oliver North in the White House by 2000, if he survived the War.
The single event that invalidated the timeline was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. A republican would likely replace Carter, but none of them had the vision to see how vulnerable the Soviet's were or the nerve to push them to collapse.
The internal rot would have made the Soviets eager for war by the 1990s.
The internal rot would have made the Soviets eager for war by the 1990s.
What is this vision thing, that you talk about Reagan possessing. Don't you mean the puppet masters? It's hard to believe that much of the United States seem to believe that Reagan was nothing but a moron, at best...an idiot at the worst.
Regan came at the juncture when the USSR needed reform and Detente had outlived its usefullness for the West. Any amount of pushing would not have swayed any of the leaderships in East Europe, rather it was the actions of, We the People. Maybe, the East Germans with access to West German TV or Estonians could admire Reagan. The only time his image or words were broadcast was through VOA and Radio Freedom, and that only served to reinforce rather the negate the official line.
As to events in China, remember, that it was not the Statue of Liberty that was errected but the Goddess of Democracy...better viewed Athena or Liberty from the French tradition. I am sure some students really became enamoured with the United States, but, it was Gorbachev they called for, not Reagan or Bush. True, it was moral bankrupcy that Gorbachev refused to meet with them...but what can one expect from the leader of CPSU.
Americans ought to rewrite history to suit their narrative. If T2000 is to come out, hopefully, their will be a more balanced approach.
Regan came at the juncture when the USSR needed reform and Detente had outlived its usefullness for the West. Any amount of pushing would not have swayed any of the leaderships in East Europe, rather it was the actions of, We the People. Maybe, the East Germans with access to West German TV or Estonians could admire Reagan. The only time his image or words were broadcast was through VOA and Radio Freedom, and that only served to reinforce rather the negate the official line.
As to events in China, remember, that it was not the Statue of Liberty that was errected but the Goddess of Democracy...better viewed Athena or Liberty from the French tradition. I am sure some students really became enamoured with the United States, but, it was Gorbachev they called for, not Reagan or Bush. True, it was moral bankrupcy that Gorbachev refused to meet with them...but what can one expect from the leader of CPSU.
Americans ought to rewrite history to suit their narrative. If T2000 is to come out, hopefully, their will be a more balanced approach.
Originally posted by kafka47:
What is this vision thing, that you talk about Reagan possessing. Don't you mean the puppet masters? It's hard to believe that much of the United States seem to believe that Reagan was nothing but a moron, at best...an idiot at the worst.
And they made Socrates drink poison as a corrupting influence. Reagan has never sat well with media figures or academics, but remember he was elected twice by subsantial majorities and George H. was elected because we thought after eight years as VP he had learned something.
Regan came at the juncture when the USSR needed reform and Detente had outlived its usefullness for the West. Any amount of pushing would not have swayed any of the leaderships in East Europe, rather it was the actions of, We the People.
Actions of the people, like the Praque Spring of 1968 or the Hungarian Uprising of 1956? Or Tianimin Square? Will of the People mean nothing if Tyrants have tanks. The Soviet leadership had a crisis of confidence in the late 1980s that loosened their grip on thw Warsaw Pact countries. That loss of confidence was deliberately engineered by Reagan, usually against the advice of everyone else in his administration.
There was no confidence in the Army after Afghanistan, where their defeat was largely engineered by Reagan's money. The economy was bankrupt largely trying to keep up with US military spending (which had been increased by Reagan). The trillion-dollar Strategic Rocket Forces were made instantly obsolete by SDI (SDI, or "Star Wars" was Reagan's bluff, and a good one).
What is this vision thing, that you talk about Reagan possessing. Don't you mean the puppet masters? It's hard to believe that much of the United States seem to believe that Reagan was nothing but a moron, at best...an idiot at the worst.
And they made Socrates drink poison as a corrupting influence. Reagan has never sat well with media figures or academics, but remember he was elected twice by subsantial majorities and George H. was elected because we thought after eight years as VP he had learned something.
Regan came at the juncture when the USSR needed reform and Detente had outlived its usefullness for the West. Any amount of pushing would not have swayed any of the leaderships in East Europe, rather it was the actions of, We the People.
Actions of the people, like the Praque Spring of 1968 or the Hungarian Uprising of 1956? Or Tianimin Square? Will of the People mean nothing if Tyrants have tanks. The Soviet leadership had a crisis of confidence in the late 1980s that loosened their grip on thw Warsaw Pact countries. That loss of confidence was deliberately engineered by Reagan, usually against the advice of everyone else in his administration.
There was no confidence in the Army after Afghanistan, where their defeat was largely engineered by Reagan's money. The economy was bankrupt largely trying to keep up with US military spending (which had been increased by Reagan). The trillion-dollar Strategic Rocket Forces were made instantly obsolete by SDI (SDI, or "Star Wars" was Reagan's bluff, and a good one).
Hmmmm... I think this is what people mean about the vission thing:
The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we’ll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.
That statement is from 1981, a full decade before the formal end of the Soviet Union and 8 years ahead of the promulgation of the "Sinatra Doctrine". Reagan saw the moral bankruptcy of Soviet Communism clearly. It has always amused me how much the left in general and academics in particular despise Reagan because he could see so clearly what they could not; that Soviet Communism was doomed because it could not meet the fundimental needs of the people it controled. He saw clearly what the 'Academy' could not. That is why he is disliked by the 'educated' of the west, and loved by so many of the 'comon folk'. He had a clear vision of the present and the future and spoke it honestly. And, by the way, he was right, and the 'Academy' was wrong.
End of rant,
Rob
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