I chose the one game that has always haunted / intrigued me the most, GDW's Twilight: 2000.
Published in 1984 = Bonus points!
You see, like many of us grognards, I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s; I vividly remember the Reagan years, the concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)," and watching The Day After on prime-time TV with my family. So post-apocalyptic futures did not seem so fantastical (or wacky) to me as they might to some; I genuinely feared the possibility of nuclear holocaust during my junior-high and high school years. So much as I loved Gamma World --and much as I totally enjoy playing Mutant Future today -- I guess I always saw the post-apocalypse as a pretty dark and grim place, a la movies like Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and the highly militaristic RPG Twilight: 2000.
Then, lo and behold, Joe at Greyhawk Grognard called my attention to a pdf sale at Drive-Thru RPG on the Twilight 2013 Bundle! For a mere $10 I could obtain pdfs of ALL the current Twilight: 2013 products released by 93 Games Studio!! I could not resist. Now, many joyous downloads later, I am one step closer to my Open Friday wish coming true. . .
(And while I was scouting Noble Knight for Twilight: 2000 box cover images, I noticed that they have the first edition of the game available for a very reasonable price too. . . . does it never end?)
I loved the weirdness of the first edition of the game. It used a bunch of rules that stranged out some players (like "shots" instead of "rounds" in guns - each shot being roughly 3 bullets so a typical .45 has 2 shots), and often became an RPG of weight allowances and travel economy...
ReplyDeleteBut I loved it.
I was not nearly as enamoured with 2nd ed (although 2.2 is somewhat better, but not a major change), and haven't had a chance to dig into 2013.
Back in the day we had numerous "friendly fire" incidents as we tested out rocket launchers and belt fed automatic weapons on fellow PCs.
ReplyDelete"Sorry, man, I didn't know it was you in the trees. I thought you were a commie."
@Dyson: Yes, as my post suggests, I definitely want to check out the First Edition, as the rules are legendarily tricky and the setting will evoke the '80s end-of-the-Cold-War vibe I grew up with.
ReplyDelete@Christian: I had some friends who played Twilight:2000 ONCE -- and I missed it! But I heard that the session devolved into a lot of "modern weapons playtesting" as well.
A GREATFUN IDEA BUT JUST TO MAKE A CARACTER TOOK NINE HOURS AND THEN THEY DIE OF SOMER ANDOM DICK WITH A AK4-7. BUT I DID BLOWED UP A TANK
ReplyDeleteONE
TIME.
Nine hours to make a character? I put this guy together in under an hour, and that included the time spent writing it up as a post for my blog...
ReplyDeletehttp://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/twilight2000-private-jean-guy-levesque-canadian-armed-forces/
I did play T2K back in the world of MAD and having "The Day After" shown in class in middle school. What sticks in my head is the importance of having "caches". I wish I knew why that mattered now.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of "The Day After" I think of Jason Robards, and then I think of "Johnny Got his Gun", which makes me think of Dalton Trumbo and immediately Metallica's "One".
I have to say I had Synchronicity I stuck in my head all this week, and I assume this is why. Tying into another conversation we've had this week, Andy Summers is funny because he was older than Stingy and Copeland, played with the Animals, and in this video we see him mocking or aping Pete Townshend with the windmill guitar strumming (as Copeland lashes parodically at his snare). So at the same time he evokes the previous generation he was a part of, he mocks it, and also claims it as his own for MTV kids that don't know better.
And then the band breaks up and it doesn't matter.
Egads!
@Dyson: Thanks for the link and the supportive words. I'm really excited to have Twilight: 2013 in my hands (or on my computer screen -- it's a pdf) but the rulebook is long and the historical introduction is pretty world-spanningly complex. I surely plan to acquire the First Edition and may even prefer to use that edition's Cold-War, NATO vs. Warsaw Pact historical framework even if I go with the new edition's rules chassis.
ReplyDelete@Spawn: Yes, The Police. The last time "Stingy" was cool. I loved the Synchronicity album, and the song Synchronicity II in particular, but it surely marked the end of an era. MTV took over from then on out.