twilight2000-digest Thursday, 13 June 1996 Volume 1996 : Number 005 The following topics are covered in this digest: 1. [none] 2. Re: 3. Re: twilight2000-digest V1996 #4 4. Re: twilight2000-digest V1996 #4 5. Satellite down 6. Typo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DDOUGAN@bfsec.bt.co.uk Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:37:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: [none] Loren, It's good to see you on the list - GDW have always been my primary publisher (from 2300AD, my first roleplaying game, to TNE) of roleplaying games, it's sad to see them go down. Is there any chance of us ever seeing Armour 21 (why do yo gys always leave ot the u's in yor words? :) And the Vistula Campaign that was being reissued - did that make it out the door? We have a hard time in Belfast getting non-AD&D products as it if, but its unlikely anywhere would be getting in stocks now that GDW is gone. >I'm using a somewhat modified version of the 2.2 rules myself. Some >changes such as autofire and adjustments to skill learning and rolling >against skills. But I've still got some problems with the basic skill >structure -- while I like to have the effects of recoil included (and use >strength to control it) the current skill system overvalues strength -- >players modify it up all the time as it is the most important single >thing in the game, mostly because all the combat skills go under it. Yeah, I had that problem with my players (STR 10 DEX 9 CON 12 INT 4 EDU 4 CHR 2) - - I can't remember whether it was an actual rule, but I enforced a maxiumum stat increase of 2, and introduced alot of people who couldn't speak English to force them to increase CHR language skills etc. >One thing that we could hopefully look at, once this list gains more >subscribers, is to make our own net.books. I am (or used to be, before I >ran out of time to everything I want to) active with Shadowrun on the >net, and there the players have made a number of books, which are a >collection of new equipment, background material, and such submitted by >the players. There are also books which give conversions to materials for >other games (in this case for TSRs Cyberpunk). Yeah, that's a great idea. Once we get some more subscribers, we can start looking at areas which need development, and assign people to net books for the areas they're interested in. >Was this done as a Merc adventure or for "the original" TW:2K? What was >the motivation for the PCs -- did they want to keep the tanker, or the >oil it was carrying? Were they working for the U.S.? I did it for the Twilight 2000 universe - I had the scenario worked out for quite a while, just had to wait until an oppourtunity arose to send the players off on the adventure. I do have the Merc 2000 source book, but my players are too happy killing things in Twilight to start another campaign. The PCs where working for the U.S. (they where all Nato soldiers, and had just returned to friendly lines after a lengthy Escape from Kasaliz (sp)). *** SPOLIER *** They didnt stand much of a chance of keeping the tanker if they wanted to sail off into the sunset with it - the scenario climaxed with the Russian fleet closing in on the tanker while a rag-tag Nato fleet tried to off load the oil (and a sweaty palmed PC tried to defuse the bomb which has been set by the Spetsnaz to destroy the precious cargo). *** END SPOILER *** >Have you got the Satellite Down module by GDW? No, the only module I have is Operation Crouching Dragon (???) where the PCs are hired by a corporation to investigate oil reserves in the Pacific (pretty vague description, I havent ran the module yet). Out of interest, what was the basic sysnopsis of the Satellite Down module? >Sounds a lot like Twilight Nightmares, which I didn't particularily like >(sorry Loren). Or some other "after the bomb" game. Have you placed your >game further in the future, or do you have "primitives" in Berlin already >in the beginning years of the 21st century? I quite liked liked Twilight Nightmares - my group really enjoyed the occassional step back from reality - they like playing (and I like running) Twilight as a heavy military game, but one nightmare every few months adds a nice twist. I also try to add a little humour - kinda contrasts the bleak hopelessness of the Twilight world - Flight of the Valkyre playing in the background as a dozen hot air balloons drift over a tree line, the PC's madly dropping impact grenades out the sides of their baskets... There was one character, Thomas Beckett (I believe, named after Tom Berenger in Sniper) who was a walking accident. In the first session, his motorbike got caught in a tank shell explosion (the player also has a fixation on Steve McQueen in the Great Escape), burning his hair off. A few sessions later, he was attacked by a bear, and had a considerable number of kilos removed from his person - the guy looked like a shark attack victim. Later still, he tried an Indiana Jones style attack into a tank. While he was fighting the crew inside a well meaning PC hit the tank with a rocket. It took Beckett several rounds to get out, flames leaping off him. Luckily, the tank was positioned on a bridge, so he jumped off into the river. He cooled so quickly that his dog tags are now partially molded into his skin. So now he is all bandaged up, and is modelling himself after The Dark Man. My game is running in the opening years of the 21st Century. If I can ever find a copy of Dark Conspiracy, I may try and interweave the two - if my players are happy with it. Damien ------------------------------ From: Rob Miracle Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:12:05 -0400 Subject: Re: At 05:37 PM 6/12/96 +0100, Damien wrote: >Yeah, I had that problem with my players (STR 10 DEX 9 CON 12 INT 4 EDU 4 CHR 2) >- I can't remember whether it was an actual rule, but I enforced a maxiumum >stat increase of 2, and introduced alot of people who couldn't speak English >to force them to increase CHR language skills etc. The other thing you can do is through more puzzles at them and such. Or require minimum INT/EDU/CHR per rank. Consider the following: You have to have certain educational requirements to be certain ranks. My Father got to Staff Sgt in WWII, but because he did not complete High School, he could go no further. Now pops was pretty charismatic and fairly bright (considering his lack of education). The moral of this story is this: You want to be an officer? You gotta get through college or OTC. This means that an officer will have a minimum education of say 8. The military is always educating their officers, so you want to be a Major? EDU 10, and oh by the way, to progress that far requires some smarts, so you also need an INT of 8. Also, that promotion you want requires some leadership abilities, and such, so your CHR is pretty important to. Which brings me to one of my gripes with the GDW house system. Its real easy to be smart, yet un-educated. It is less plausable that you can have high levels of education and be dumb as a brick. Almost any putz can get through high school. College is a different story, some bricks get through. I think the max education should be INT+2 for a player. Now I know that education is more than just school. It include on the job training. I suppose I am getting to is why do we have an education stat at all. It seem that the Skills should be representative of your training, which is what education is, and they are factored off of your intellegence. I think the house rules would make more sense with WillPower as a stat instead of a skill, and toss education all together. Comments? (Flames to /dev/null or alt.flame) Rob - -- Rob Miracle Tantalus Inc. Be patient or be a patient. -- Anton Devious ------------------------------ From: GDWGAMES@aol.com Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 16:33:13 -0400 Subject: Re: twilight2000-digest V1996 #4 David Reed asked: > If I may be so bold, for whom? And what do we have to > look forward to in the near future? Nothing I can get specific about just yet. As to what you can look forward to in the future, I cannot speak for Tantalus, but I assume that this list is being used to help them measure the potential audience for any further Twilight: 2000 material. > On the subject of Twilight Nightmares, has anybody else noticed > that while other GDW books proudly present the name of the > author, this one doesn't? (Yes, probably there is a good reason > for it, such as a large number of authors That was the reason, pure and simple. I felt that "Edited by Loren Wiseman" was too self-aggrandizing, and there wasn't room to list everyone. I liked the book myself, but I knew it would not be everyone's cup of tea. Loren Wiseman ------------------------------ From: Matti Aistrich Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:52:45 +0300 (EET DST) Subject: Re: twilight2000-digest V1996 #4 On Wed, 12 Jun 1996 GDWGAMES@aol.com wrote: > As to what you can look forward to in the future, I cannot speak for > Tantalus, but I assume that this list is being used to help them measure the > potential audience for any further Twilight: 2000 material. > As I seem to be behind the times, does that mean that Tantalus currently holds the rights to Tw:2K or that they are contemplating buying the rights? - --------------------------------------------- : Perfect is : Matti M. Aistrich : : only just : : : good enough! : aistrich@kyyppari.hkkk.fi : - --------------------------------------------- - -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GB d+(++) s-:+ a- C+ W+ w PS+ PE++ Y+ t--- X- R++ tv+ b+ D++ G e++>+++ h-- y+++ - ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ ------------------------------ From: Matti Aistrich Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 12:40:07 +0300 (EET DST) Subject: Satellite down On Wed, 12 Jun 1996 DDOUGAN@bfsec.bt.co.uk wrote: > >Have you got the Satellite Down module by GDW? > > No, the only module I have is Operation Crouching Dragon (???) where the PCs > are hired by a corporation to investigate oil reserves in the Pacific (pretty > vague description, I havent ran the module yet). > I've got everything that GDW published, except the rehash of the Krakow module (skimmed it through and could not find anything new in it, how about it Loren, does it have any new stuff?) > Out of interest, what was the basic sysnopsis of the Satellite Down module? > It's placed in the U.S. (somewhere in the southwest I think), a satellite has crashed and the PCs are sent to recover it. > My game is running in the opening years of the 21st Century. If I can ever > find a copy of Dark Conspiracy, I may try and interweave the two - if my > players are happy with it. > I've got DC, but I play it on its own --- although I use all the TW:2K sourcebooks for equipment of course. - --------------------------------------------- : Perfect is : Matti M. Aistrich : : only just : : : good enough! : aistrich@kyyppari.hkkk.fi : - --------------------------------------------- - -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GB d+(++) s-:+ a- C+ W+ w PS+ PE++ Y+ t--- X- R++ tv+ b+ D++ G e++>+++ h-- y+++ - ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ ------------------------------ From: Matti Aistrich Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 13:35:24 +0300 (EET DST) Subject: Typo > >the players. There are also books which give conversions to materials for > >other games (in this case for TSRs Cyberpunk). Sorry, meant Talsorian of course. - --------------------------------------------- : Perfect is : Matti M. Aistrich : : only just : : : good enough! : aistrich@kyyppari.hkkk.fi : - --------------------------------------------- - -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GB d+(++) s-:+ a- C+ W+ w PS+ PE++ Y+ t--- X- R++ tv+ b+ D++ G e++>+++ h-- y+++ - ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ ------------------------------ End of twilight2000-digest V1996 #5 ***********************************