twilight2000-digest Sunday, August 8 1999 Volume 1999 : Number 063 The following topics are covered in this digest: Re: PC Unit Size & NPC's SV: PC Motivation Re: electrical systems General Staff Organisation Re: SV: PC Motivation swedish military Re: swedish military Re: SV: PC Motivation Re: SV: PC Motivation Re: SV: PC Motivation Another Question (Long) Re: Another Question (Long) Re: PC Unit Size & NPC's ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:43:18 -0700 From: Ron Hale Subject: Re: PC Unit Size & NPC's Snake Eyes wrote: Say you've only got 3-4 players in your group. How do you guys handle initial PC unit size or do those PC's represent the total extent of their unit? When starting this would be the whole unit. Do you flesh out a couple major NPC's to supplement the PC's, or give them enough manpower to round out a squad or platoon? If possible I try not to use NPCs at all, but the PCs usually manage to get a couple. When an NPC does join the party he/she is never anything but Cannon Fodder. What about starting gear & vehicles? Starting gear I have changed. Everyone gets 5K per military term, or 200 per point of SOC, whichever is greater. Next I use 1d per 3 PCs for vehicles. The vehicle role gets a basic model, and the PCs must buy up-grades (i.e. a hummer rolled would get the PCs a hummer Squad carrier, and if they want it to be a weapons carrier variant, they need to buy the basic kevlar armor package includes weapons mount(1K), and a weapon to go in the mount. fording kit, brush guard, and winch are all extra. Also, no vehicle comes with a full tank and ammo rack. Have you ever allowed players to run more than one PC at a time? Yes, won't ever happen again. If so, what were the advantages & pitfalls you encountered? To horrorfying to talk about. What's worked best for you? The above is what seems to work best for me. TTFN Ron Hale *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 12:09:34 -0000 From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Mathias_K=F6ppen?=" Subject: SV: PC Motivation > Has anyone else attempted bad player versus good player campaigns and how did >it work for you. Haven't been GMing this but I've played the "evil" character in a campaign. I played a chaos warrior whose primary interest was how to get his chaos god of combat to enter this world and spread havoc on the masses. In his last adventure, may God have mercy on his evil soul, he found the way to do this as gigantic magical storms raged the lands. But as he got very close to accomplishing this, the rest of the group ganged up on him and killed him, but not without own losses (hehehe). I found this extremly fun to play and the GM enjoyed it alot, but in order to get it to work right we (I and the GM) spent a lot of time working out how this character behaved in different situations, how he was against the other players, creating the chaos god he worshiped (I later found out that if I had succeeded in bringing him to this world, he would have slain me first, as a token of his good will...), creating extensive background and so on. I also played an evil character in Star Wars. He was, of course, a sleeping imperial agent and sent some crucial information to the Empire (like the location and layout of our base...). This time it wasn't that fun to play (No, I won't join the main assault. I will, ehhh, stay here and, ehhh, guard the ship...). If you play the evil character it's much more fun being in the open with it (Hey, here I am, and I am BAAAAD!!!) instead of sneaking around with it. It puts a lot of demands on both the player and the GM but also on the rest of the group (how do they handle things when he gets out of order? Kill him? Let him have his fun?). It's not good if you end up with the players divided in two camps over this, each going their way. If you think about adding an evil character to your campaign I would suggest you talk it over with your players first. Regards, Mathias Köppen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 08:43:09 +0100 From: "Roger Stenning" Subject: Re: electrical systems This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01BEDF1E.8B9715A0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hmm... Well, we only used Bedford TM four tonne trucks, Landrovers (Defender = 110 Military) and Armstrong 500cc bikes in the RMP(v); AFAIR, all TMs had the usual 24v large vehicular systems, but I know for = a fact (I helped a tiffy (REME Fitter) replace a couple of batteries for = the L/Rs, which used 12v, and the Armstrong's, which used 6v. The = Armstong's have all now been replaced with Harley-Davidson 450cc = Trailies, BTW. I do know that all AFVs use 24vdc, but that's the extent of my info, as = at 1997. Best regards, Roger Stenning Intelligent Web Design Services http://homepages.enterprise.net/isgwds00000/index.html (Contact me for my PGP Public Key). - ---------------------------------------------------- Member of the HTML Writers Guild http://www.hwg.org/ -----Original Message----- From: Lee Williams To: Twilight 2000 lists Date: 31 July 1999 00:51 Subject: electrical systems =20 =20 When I used to be a driver for the British Army in the mid-eighties, = all smaller vehicles used 24 volts with one BIG battery. At least that's = how I remember it... =20 Alpha Tango 32 - ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01BEDF1E.8B9715A0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hmm... Well, we only used Bedford TM four tonne = trucks,=20 Landrovers (Defender 110 Military) and Armstrong 500cc bikes in the=20 RMP(v); AFAIR, all TMs had the usual 24v large vehicular = systems, but=20 I know for a fact (I helped a tiffy (REME Fitter) replace a couple of = batteries=20 for the L/Rs, which used 12v, and the Armstrong's, which used 6v. The=20 Armstong's have all now been replaced with Harley-Davidson 450cc = Trailies,=20 BTW. I do know that all AFVs use 24vdc, but that's the = extent of my=20 info, as at 1997. Best regards, Roger Stenning Intelligent = Web Design=20 Services http://ho= mepages.enterprise.net/isgwds00000/index.html (Contact=20 me for my PGP Public=20 Key). ---------------------------------------------------- Member = of the=20 HTML Writers Guild http://www.hwg.org/ -----Original = Message----- From:=20 Lee Williams Date:=20 31 July 1999 00:51 Subject: electrical=20 systems When I used to be a driver for = the British=20 Army in the mid-eighties, all smaller vehicles used 24 volts = with one=20 BIG battery. At least that's how I remember it... Alpha Tango=20 32 - ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01BEDF1E.8B9715A0-- *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 17:02:00 +0100 From: Eddie Hallahan Subject: General Staff Organisation Hi i was wondering if someone would be able to point me to where I could find general organistional structures for the US forces and the British forces just now. Chains of command, staff divisions(S1, S2 etc) Any help would be appreciated :) EddieH *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 17:32:56 -0400 From: Scott David Orr Subject: Re: SV: PC Motivation At 12:09 PM 8/5/99 -0000, Mathias Köppen wrote: >> Has anyone else attempted bad player versus good player campaigns and how did >>it work for you. > >Haven't been GMing this but I've played the "evil" character in a campaign. I played a chaos warrior whose primary interest was how to get his chaos god of combat to enter this world and spread havoc on the masses. In his last adventure, may God have mercy on his evil soul, he found the way to do this as gigantic magical storms raged the lands. But as he got very close to accomplishing this, the rest of the group ganged up on him and killed him, but not without own losses (hehehe). > We seem to be talking about two different things: I think some of the earlier posters were referring to having a player who took the role of what's usually known as "the adversary"--that is, he played evil characters who would otherwise be NPC's played by the GM. I can't imagine why an "evil" character would even be part of the PC party, except for the case of the spy, of course. Scott Orr *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 14:53:29 -0700 From: Peter Vieth Subject: swedish military I remember in reading about the Saab 37 Viggen and that the swedes design stuff in systems-- that is they would design an AFV at the same time as an aircraft or something. Does anyone know more about this? - -- ([-[Peter Vieth]-) (-[fitek@ix.netcom.com]-) (-[http://sanitarium.computers-radio.com]-) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1999 01:58:16 +0200 From: Antti Henttu Subject: Re: swedish military Peter Vieth skrev: > I remember in reading about the Saab 37 Viggen and that the swedes > design stuff in systems-- that is they would design an AFV at the same > time as an aircraft or something. Does anyone know more about this? Well, the only time as I know that has happened is the Saab 37 Viggen and S-tank. But the Swedish military was considering three options for a new tank in the 60's... Alternativ A - Anglo-American (M60) Alternativ T - German-French (Leopard 1) Alternativ S - Swedish (Strv 103 "S") And we know now that Swedish military choosed "Alternativ S", well when starting to plan the Saab 39 Griphon (Gripen) they had the almost same alterntaiv.... ALT A - (M1-series) ALT T - (Leopard 2) ALT S - (Swedish) Now due to the great costs to develope a new tank for a small country like Sweden, they didn't choose "ALT S", instead they choosed to buy Leopard 2 and Leopard 2 improved, but installing Swedish electronics.... Sweden tryes, or has been trying, to develope own weaponsystems, we have our own Recoiles rifle (M3 Carl Gustav), ATGM (Bill & Bill 2), SAM (Rbt 70 & Rbt 90), howitzer (FH77A & FH77B), Anti-tank-mortar-round STRIX, our own type of "Armbrust" (US design: M136, Swedish design: AT-4), IFV (CV-90 and variants), SP howitzer (Bkan 1), BV206 (M973 carrier), APC (Pbv 302)..... But due to budgetcuts in the defencebudget, the Swedish military has been seeking for cheap equipment (compared with own developement).... Examples Leopard 2, MT-LB, BMP-1, all the rifles and machinguns in the armed forces... Antti "Antenna" Henttu http://antenna.campus.luth.se/t2k/index.htm *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1999 23:23:03 -0500 From: Steve Chymy Subject: Re: SV: PC Motivation Scott David Orr wrote: > At 12:09 PM 8/5/99 -0000, Mathias Köppen wrote: > >> Has anyone else attempted bad player versus good player campaigns and > how did > >>it work for you. > > > >Haven't been GMing this but I've played the "evil" character in a > campaign. I played a chaos warrior whose primary interest was how to get > his chaos god of combat to enter this world and spread havoc on the masses. > In his last adventure, may God have mercy on his evil soul, he found the > way to do this as gigantic magical storms raged the lands. But as he got > very close to accomplishing this, the rest of the group ganged up on him > and killed him, but not without own losses (hehehe). > > > We seem to be talking about two different things: I think some of the > earlier posters were referring to having a player who took the role of > what's usually known as "the adversary"- Hello Scott, I do not believe we are talking about two different things here, in my original post I explained that I encountered an "adversary player", what I was attempting to do here was to give insight to an "alternative punishment if you will" that has worked for me, rather than booting the player out of the campaign, which is were the conversation in the thread was leading. If you decide to kick a person out of a campaign and your home, this will cause you to go on the the war path with him/her in the game playing world, it may not be practical to have this happen in the real world (for example: in this case my girlfriend was playing on my nerves in the game world, I would not want to kick her out of my house while I play Twilight 2000, because in the real world this may cause me not get any), therefore it made sense to go with the flow of different players and see were the campaign leads, rather then to try to lead the campaign. > -that is, he played evil characters > who would otherwise be NPC's played by the GM. I can't imagine why an > "evil" character would even be part of the PC party, except for the case of > the spy, of course. > > Scott Orr > ****** I have had a player play the role of spy and of traitor, but after playing for a few years with mostly people who came to know each other well, they became complacent and trust each other too much, however if you put colorful characters into the mix, it creates great atmosphere (paranoia), also some players truly want a campaign were they can seek revenge for grievances real or imagined against other people and their characters in the campaign and this gives them an outlet to do so. I have to admit there were times when a person would just f~ck up my character's life so bad, I just wanted to smack a beer bottle right over their head in real life at the table, I have shot player's characters for screwing over my character, the GM at the time was not a happy camper but he went with the flow ---Please keep in mind that some of our characters have been played for over 5 real years and I have not smacked anyone at the table and I never would, but there is always a first time, if any of my fellow players are reading this. I have also had a player play the alter ego to the group, yes a GM would normally play these characters, but if you let a person such as Mathias Köppen play the "Sadistic SOB" it gives the villain infinite depth and incredible realism if you can manage to communicate with the "evil player" without giving away his true intentions. (One example of this, is I have three net worked computers in my house, so I would let the opposing sides send messages to me or each other, at one point all one had to do was tap the keys and you could see the tension and dirty looks, etc., I loved it, as a GM I had a great time and I didn't have to argue with the adversarial players. All right Scott, What's going on in that mind of yours? If anyone else has comments I welcome them too. Steve *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 00:47:09 -0400 From: Scott David Orr Subject: Re: SV: PC Motivation At 11:23 PM 8/6/99 -0500, Steve Chymy wrote: > > >Scott David Orr wrote: > >> At 12:09 PM 8/5/99 -0000, Mathias Köppen wrote: >> >> Has anyone else attempted bad player versus good player campaigns and >> how did >> >>it work for you. >> > >> >Haven't been GMing this but I've played the "evil" character in a >> campaign. I played a chaos warrior whose primary interest was how to get >> his chaos god of combat to enter this world and spread havoc on the masses. >> In his last adventure, may God have mercy on his evil soul, he found the >> way to do this as gigantic magical storms raged the lands. But as he got >> very close to accomplishing this, the rest of the group ganged up on him >> and killed him, but not without own losses (hehehe). >> > >> We seem to be talking about two different things: I think some of the >> earlier posters were referring to having a player who took the role of >> what's usually known as "the adversary"- > > Hello Scott, I do not believe we are talking about two different things >here, >in my original post I explained that I encountered an "adversary player", what >I >was attempting to do here was to give insight to an "alternative punishment if >you will" that has worked for >me, rather than booting the player out of the campaign, which is were the >conversation in the thread was leading. > Yes, I understood what you were talking about--I was pointing out that, as I understand it, some of the earlier posters were talking about something else. But that's all right, we all seem to understand now. :) > If you decide to kick a person out of a campaign and your home, this will >cause you to go on the the war path with him/her in the game playing world, it >may not be practical to have this happen in the real world (for example: in >this case my girlfriend was playing on my nerves in the game world, I would not >want to kick her out of my house while I play Twilight 2000, because in the >real world this may cause me not get any), therefore it made sense to go with >the flow of different players and see were the campaign leads, rather then to >try to lead the campaign. > Personally, I wouldn't want someone who behaves like a jerk in my home, or on my list of friends (including a girlfriend--and I emphasize here that I haven't had a girlfriend in a year and a half), even if he or she's only acdting a jerk toward someone else, not towards me (Dave Berry: "Someone who's nice to you and mean to the waiter isn't a nice person.") So for me, this problem wouldn't really come up (though I guess I could imagine someone who, as a player, is simply "disruptive" without really being a jerk--but that's usually from boredom or not really "getting" the game, and I'm not sure how good an "evil character" such a player would make). > I have had a player play the role of spy and of traitor, but after playing >for a few years with mostly people who came to know each other well, they >became complacent and trust each other too much... I'm not sure what you mean to convey by the above (since one would think that complacency would make the traitor more effective, so I'm not sure why you'd use the word "but"). >...however if you put colorful >characters into the mix, it creates great atmosphere (paranoia), also some >players truly want a campaign were they can seek revenge for grievances real or >imagined against other people and their characters in the campaign and this >gives them an outlet to do so. I have to admit there were times when a person >would just f~ck up my character's life so bad, I just wanted to smack a beer >bottle right over their head in real life at the table, I have shot player's >characters for screwing over my character, the GM at the time was not a happy >camper but he went with the flow ---Please keep in mind that some of our >characters have been played for over 5 real years and I have not smacked anyone >at the table and I never would, but there is always a first time, if any of my >fellow players are reading this. > Well, that's probably not a good idea. :) > I have also had a player play the alter ego to the group, yes a GM would >normally play these characters, but if you let >a person such as Mathias Köppen play the "Sadistic SOB" it gives the villain >infinite depth and incredible realism if you >can manage to communicate with the "evil player" without giving away his true >intentions. (One example of this, is I have three >net worked computers in my house, so I would let the opposing sides send >messages to me or each other, at one point all one had to do was tap the keys >and you could see the tension and dirty looks, etc., I loved it, as a GM I had >a great time and I didn't have to argue with the adversarial players. > I don't think you really need computers to have a good adversary--just someone who's happy to sit in the other room and play video games while the main party is doing their thing (since the adversary has no business knowing what the party's up to, obviously). ;) But I'm sure the computers come in handy. Scott Orr *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 02:54:55 -0700 From: Peter Vieth Subject: Re: SV: PC Motivation Scott David Orr wrote: > > (though I guess I could imagine > someone who, as a player, is simply "disruptive" without really being a > jerk--but that's usually from boredom or not really "getting" the game, and > I'm not sure how good an "evil character" such a player would make). Perhaps they wont, but a GM sure can turn them into a good character once they've been booted :) - -- ([-[Peter Vieth]-) (-[fitek@ix.netcom.com]-) (-[http://sanitarium.computers-radio.com]-) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 18:02:42 -0700 From: "Vanquer" Subject: Another Question (Long) Spoilers... Free City of Krakow. With all the discussion that has been going on between "Good" vs "Evil" players, having an adversary PC in the group, personality profiles, alignments, and PC killing other PC's, I began wondering how many of you have had a group where the group itself has gone to major internal conflicts? The reason that I ask this is because the first T2k game I ever played in ended with our unit eliminating itself. We all had a blast and there were no real-world tensions from the game, but now (years later) I've been kind of bugged about how it all went down and have been wondering how y'all would handle such circumstances in your campaigns. In order to really get a feel for what happened, and why things went the way they did, it is kind of necessary for me to go into the details of what was occurring within the group at the time that the battle took place- and a little about the characters involved... For those that have no interest in another person's campaign, you can stop reading now and just answer the question- the rest of you, thanks... There may be some glaring inconsistencies when it comes to dealing with "Foreign" militaries and for that I apologize, however the real-world game took place on Adak, Alaska back in the mid-eighties while the cold-war was still on, we had no computers within the group, and it was an isolated duty station, so we had mainly personal knowledges and a third-rate library to pull information from. Fortunately, everyone in the group was either military or a dependant. The GM and the CO were both Electronics Technicians in the US Navy. We followed the games design from the Battle of Kalisz to the Free City of Krakow pretty much as it was in the books. Once we got into Krakow, we found a pretty good building to turn into a base of operations and went out on ambush raids from it. The house ended up becoming a pretty good fortification and a great place to store extra goods that we managed to procure. We'd managed to put a full operational vehicle shop in there as well as a medical office with all sorts of rare medical equipment, and a small still for personal consumption. We would sell the alcohol (from both stills) to other local units- US or otherwise, and generated a pretty good income from it. Our CO monitored the radio and my Character danced nights at a bar in Krakow- both to acquire information and movements of military units in the area. The overall length of the campaign ran about 10 mos. (Real time) and about 4 years (Game time). We had missed the withdrawal and so did a LOT of other units... The war was dwindling, but still going on. During those 4 years characters had come and gone a lot. At the point of the inner group combat, our unit consisted of the CO (American vehicle Mechanic from Georgia- US Army, O-5), XO (Soviet Armor Gunner from Rumania- 4th GTD, O-7), Schultz (German Forward Observer- German Marines, O-2), Cappy (American Special Forces Weapons Spec- US Army, O-4), Doc (American Medic- Civillian, CW-4 for our unit's references), Bonzai (Japanese Fighter Pilot- US Air Force, O3), Douglas Callahan- "Cally" (Irish Sniper- British SAS, O-1), Moran (American SEAL- US Navy, O-6, Most of the unit called him "Moron" instead of "Moran") The CO, XO, Shultz, and Doc had been in the unit from the start. Bonzai, Cally, and Moran were new members. While there was some dispute over whether Moran or the CO should be CO of the group, that never really got hashed out and the status-quo had so far remained. Our last "mission" had been an ambush on a supply unit carrying fuel to Soviet tank units. It had a 10Kl tanker in the convoy along with 4 BMP's and 2 main battle tanks (Although these were older mods 72's or 80's). There was also a troop-carrier truck and a couple of small vehicles UAZ's I believe. We ambushed them and won the battle, but they had trapped the tanker and it blew up losing the fuel onboard. Tensions had been building between the CO and Moran for almost 6 mos. as Moran wouldn't follow orders. He would only break one on occassion at first, but got worse as time went on. The exploding tanker occurred because he wasn't where he was supposed to have been, where he may have prevented it from happening. Our unit had sort of broken into three smaller "camps". the CO, Doc, and Cappy were Camp-A. They wanted to oust Moran from the unit. Moran, Cally, and Bonzai were Camp-B who felt that Moran should be "In Charge", and the XO, Schultz made Camp-C who didn't care how it went down as long as the unit was "taken care of" in the process. We had a long-standing unit regulation to having monthly physicals. Weapons did not get carried into the Doc's office when one went- and it was physicals day. Moran was getting his physical with Doc in the office. the CO was doing preventive maintenance on the vehicles, and Cappy was helping him in order to learn more Mec skill. The XO and Schultz were talking in the kitchen while the XO was doing some baking type stuffs- German Pastries (A Schultz request) for the unit. Bonzai and Cally were doing "jumps" off of the 2nd story roof with a home-made ultra-light that sort of almost flew until you weighted yourself down with gear. Nobody carried the large weaponry around the house, the largest standardly carried was Kyria (XO) with her SMG- An AK. Everyone else used pistols or Shotguns. Essentially, the CO and Cappy had agreed to execute Moran while he was getting his physical. Moran must have known something was coming soon, because he'd taken C4 satchel charges and hid them all over the house. When the CO found one of them, he managed to identify the handiwork of Moran and that was what basically made the decision. Note that the CO and Cappy were the only one's privvy to the intended assassination. There were no real points to "snipe" the house from. Now, the Doc noticed that Moran was holding a remote detonator in his hand and asked him about it. Moran explained to the Doc that if anything happened to him, he was going to blow the whole flippin' mess of them. At that point Jerry-Lee (CO) and Cappy came busting into the room. In the ensuing fight, the Doc wrestled Moran for the detonator and got it away from him, but got caught within the crossfire of Cappy and Jerry. Moran had ducked out the window. Moran, the CO, and Cappy were basically doing a run and hide combat through the house. Bonzai, Cally, and Schultz had all run for the armoury to grab heavier weapons- Schultz was going to grab Kyria's sniper rifle as well. Kyria threw the "black-out switch" to the house. This had been put in to kill all power generation so that they could go to night-ops in a heartbeat. The firefight was taking place in the dark. There was a hallway leading to the garage. Moran was at one end of it and Jerry at the other. They were in a rather intense firefight with their assault rifles. Cappy was moving around to flank Moran. The other three (Bonzai, Cally, and Schultz) were at the armoury. Kyria had grabbed a flashlight, taped it to her sub, and headed towards the firefight. She came across Moran and thought that the garage had been breeched by some sort of enemy, so she started shooting the sub into the garage. She killed the CO with a shot to the head, just as Cappy came into firefight view. Moran was reloading and Cappy saw the flash off the sub thinking that it was Moran he "winged" Kyria. Moran shot Cappy as the other three PC's came into the room. Cappy shouted intruders and fired in Moran's direction, the three PC's joined him in spraying the area with gunfire and Moran went down. Kyria managed to get out of the overall lethality, but took some pretty good wounds. The day after the fight, Cappy, Bonzai, and Cally were not in a position where they could agree on a new CO. Schultz brought up the fact that Kyria was the ranking officer and everyone agreed that she would be the new CO. Cappy went about gathering up and disarming the satchel-charges (that only he knew existed), when he set one off. He had been smart enough to do this in the kill zone around the house so that he was the only one that got killed in the explosion. We realized that Jerry-Lee (Being an Electronics specialist) may well have rigged everything in the house, and all of the vehicles. Thus, we hired a local specialist to go through all of our electronics for us. Bonzai was guarding the ET. Kyria had opened up the LAV ostensibly to give the ET open access to the vehicle. The LAV was sitting in front of the open garage door to the house. She had stationed Schultz about 3 blocks away in a building with a .50 cal sniper rifle in case we were attacked or the ET did something stupid. Then Kyria got in the gunner's seat of the LAV, again to spot for any attacks while the work was being accomplished. About 4 hours later, the ET is working away when he goes "Uh-oh" and starts scrambling around like a chicken with his head cut off. The LAV's loudspeaker begins playing the last 5 notes of the "Final Countdown" and before there's time for anything to really happen, the LAV blows up. Its entire weapons compliment (and we had a lot of it stored in there) went off blowing out the back door into the garage where the rest of our ammo stashes and the two stills were at, along with a wide selection of howitzer and mortar rounds. The resulting concussion was (apparently) enough to give Schultz (3 blocks away) some rather severe wounds and concussive damage. When all was said and done, Schultz was screwed with only a .50 cal rifle, and severe wounds in an area rife with Urban poor who'd do anything for a meal. He had just lost all of his friends and everything that he'd spent the last 4 years trying to accomplish. He stuck a .45 to his head... Well, the bullet was deflected by the Ballistic Nylon helm that he had on (Concussion- didn't think about the fact that he was wearing one), so his next shot was in the mouth. Anyway, there were no hard feelings from the game, we all had a lot of fun, and the unit completely eliminated itself when we had proven completely able to survive everything else in the war. I was just kind of wondering if any of you had gone through (as players or GM's) anything similar? Oh, one added note, during the campaign the CO and XO had been developing a rather strong relationship with each other, and it ended up that the XO was the one who had shot the CO- an 01 critical hit to the head. Considering the dark, neither realized who was shooting at who, and such it is IMO the most ironic part of that session. Later. Jesse. vanquer@email.msn.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 23:53:06 -0400 From: "Dwight Looney" Subject: Re: Another Question (Long) Subject: Another Question (Long) > Spoilers... Free City of Krakow. > > With all the discussion that has been going on between "Good" vs "Evil" > players, having an adversary PC in the group, personality profiles, > alignments, and PC killing other PC's, I began wondering how many of you > have had a group where the group itself has gone to major internal > conflicts? > The reason that I ask this is because the first T2k game I ever played > in ended with our unit eliminating itself. We all had a blast and there were > no real-world tensions from the game, but now (years later) I've been kind > of bugged about how it all went down and have been wondering how y'all would > handle such circumstances in your campaigns. > In order to really get a feel for what happened, and why things went the > way they did, it is kind of necessary for me to go into the details of what > was occurring within the group at the time that the battle took place- and a > little about the characters involved... For those that have no interest in > another person's campaign, you can stop reading now and just answer the > question- the rest of you, thanks... Wow... Well since I have a mando rule of having a stand-by PC ready to go this wouldn't have dented by gaming time very much. So I don't think I would have interceded. If the SEAL Moran was ruining it for everyone else and they were justified, then it may not have gotten that far, but if they were willing to put up with it, and he did have followers, I wouldn't have bothered... I would have started the stand-by characters 2 blocks down in their hovel they set up in an old firehouse when they here a big explosion, Murphy the cannon cocker straggler (NPC) they picked up a month ago says lets go look. Then your newbies atleast get early dibs on the debris field. Cheers Loonz *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 22:44:48 -0700 From: Corey Michael Wells Subject: Re: PC Unit Size & NPC's I kinda brought the dual characters up in my reply to your other question. I've allowed dual characters before, especially if I only have two or three players. Off hand, I can't think of disadvantages, though I'm sure there are some. One would be long turns per player, but one way around that is to divide up the characters' turns. That way player 1 does one character's actions, then player 2 goes... Around the table back to player 1 where he does the 2nd character actions. One of the advantages is that the GM doesn't have to run the characters himself. Also, as I've said in the other posting, it provides a backup in case a character dies. I don't advocate charactercide just for the sake of killing. Nor do I advocate it as a form of punishment, except in very extreme cases. But, outside of some very strong hints to save them, I'm not against letting a character die. Nor, if it helps to advance the plot (it can happen.) Having two characters may help keep the player from becoming too attached to either one of them. But you also need to watch for the player treating the characters as cannon fodder. I would normally only allow dual characters with 3 or less players. At four or five, if you feel there needs to be say 6 characters in the unit, I would either just allow one of the players to have dual characters, or I'd make 1 or 2 major NPCs. I've actually often had a major NPC in most games that I've ran. Usually he's lower ranking, doesn't talk much, and carries a big gun. This makes him perfect for backing up the players, but allows the characters to choose their own paths, as he doesn't lead. Occasionally, he may provide "suggestions" when the players seem lost as to what to do next, or if they are about to head down a completely wrong way from the basic plot. Of course, it's still up to them. Also, as to your other post, he can help punish players that act out of character. You can make sure the NPC keeps to the moral code, and if a player goes outside that, the NPC can turn on him. Usually just the threat of putting a gaping hole in a player-character's torso is enough to make them stop and think about what they are doing. Another advantage of having just one player, the lead player, with dual characters is for small party sorties. As with your mentioning of a platoon, most of it should be filled out by basic NPCs, with the player's maybe being squad leaders. I would never, in Twilight, start the players with such a large unit, but rather have build along the way, or later on in the campaign. This is where the lead player with two characters comes in. One character should be the commander, and as such, should stay with the main unit when a recon sortie is sent out. Kinda like the away-team in Star Trek. Usually this sortie is made up of the players since it is often where the action is going to take place. By allowing the lead player two characters, his second character can go along so that the player isn't sitting out of the game. Anyhow, you may find that an ideal group is 4 to 6 players, and that that may also be the ideal amount of major characters. So I would only supplement if it's less that 4 players. With 4, I would add in either/both 1 major NPC or have one player with two characters (again, have it be the lead if you're planning having a large unit later on.) At 5 players, I would probably leave it, or just make a major NPC. Those are my ideas. - --Cor Snake Eyes wrote: > Say you've only got 3-4 players in your group. How do you guys handle > initial PC unit size? Do those PC's represent the total extent of their > unit? Do you flesh out a couple major NPC's to supplement the PC's, or > give them enough manpower to round out a squad or platoon? > > What's worked best for you? > > What about starting gear & vehicles? > > Have you ever allowed players to run more than one PC at a time? > > If so, what were the advantages & pitfalls you encountered? > > Thanks for the feedback. > > ~ Snake Eyes > > *************************************************************************** > To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com > with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe twilight2000' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of twilight2000-digest V1999 #63 ************************************ To subscribe to Twilight2000-Digest, send the command: subscribe twilight2000-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com". 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