4th ed T2K

[Heffe]

It's weird because all the attempted updates are trying to update the setting and keep the rules generally the same. So I'm thrilled that this one seems to want to maintain the setting but update the rules. I don't want as much crunch personally, or at least update and try to streamline the crunch so it isn't clunky.

I hear that. I remember the first time reading through the big yellow book, and seeing the demolitions rules. My teenage brain at the time thought "Square roots Are you kidding me".

While I wouldn't doubt that those rules give fairly true to life results, it just seems like there always has to have been an easier way.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I agree. My only concern is the the "Cold War Never Ended" alternate history won't appeal to a new audience large enough to make the new version profitable. I hope that I am wrong.

Regardless of my feeling towards the rules they might use, I believe this is the real issue.
Military themed RPGs are a niche product already so obviously the audience will be smaller than that for fantasy RPGs and more importantly any new one has to fight against the well established foothold that fantasy RPGs have. That and I think T2k was released at the right time in history for it to resonant with the audience - ancient history (and ancient alternate histories as well) seem to do well enough but modern history doesn't seem to generate enough interest among the audience (unless it's horror).

[Adm.Lee]

I'm feeling ambivalent today about this. I'd certainly like to hear more about the system, I'm seeing several references to "hexcrawling", and I'd like to know what that means, in terms of this game.

"Cold War goes Hot" is pretty popular among the board-wargamers, so maybe that trend can feed a new T2k. I can say that a significant chunk of the players at my table at Origins each year are not grognards who played it in the 80s.

I remember the first time reading through the big yellow book, and seeing the demolitions rules. My teenage brain at the time thought "Square roots Are you kidding me".

Funny, my teenage brain was already neck-deep in physics and pre-calculus classes when v1 came out, so seeing it in a game was water under the bridge. YMMV.

[CDAT]

I am hoping that they will make some of the MOS's stand out better. In the old version so many were just the same thing, then they lumped so many into support. So maybe not so much the MOS's but the skills. I am kind of in a weird place as I want more detail on skills and such but less number crunching for some others. For example, I do not think that tracked vehicles should not let you drive anything with tracks, I spent ten years as a tanker, was an expert tank driver, was one of the go to in my battalion to teach others tricks of driving, but I do not even know if I could start a Soviet tank, let alone drive one (if I could even fit into it, but that is a different issue).

[Southernap]

I'm feeling ambivalent today about this. I'd certainly like to hear more about the system, I'm seeing several references to "hexcrawling", and I'd like to know what that means, in terms of this game.

Hexcrawling is old school RPG terms back when Chainmail and OD&D were new things in the world. Think of the old hex maps used for wargames and chits on those maps. That is what a hex crawler is in a nut shell. The maps would represent a region and each space would be a hex. See here for an example of Roman era Europa done in hex. Here is some random fantasy map done in hexcrawl format with some simple but easy to understand graphical icons. .

There are some advantages to a hexcrawl map.

• You can assign numbers to your hexes and keep easy notes if a session has to end before combat is resolved.
• If done right you can say each hex is X measurement wide making movement plotting easy verse grid
• With 8 sides facing and weapon usage is easy to figure as well as line of sight
• Hex grid paper is fairly cheap from most office/school supply centers to make your own maps of things like towns or buildings
• It can be easy to scale down with only some minor hassles

However, at the same time there are disadvantages.

• Trying to put a square building into a Hex is a PITA. You will have endless arguements at times with players about whether a corner is in a hex or not.
• Facing issues and movement is always a pain to figure at times. Some rules make you spend movement points/time just to move the 120 degrees to change facing while in the same hex
• movement left->right across a maps is hard to figure since the hexes are off set from each other.
• Hexes are really old school. Going back to the earliest days of wargames from folks like SPI, Avalon Hill, or even GDW.
• it is hard to fit things into hexes at times. See the map of Roman era Europe linked to earlier, see what England/Scotland looks like. Can for some suspend the moment for gaming.

Hope this helps to understand what hexcrawl is.

[Rainbow Six]

I agree. My only concern is the the "Cold War Never Ended" alternate history won't appeal to a new audience large enough to make the new version profitable. I hope that I am wrong.

I concur. While I'll wait to see what the actual kickstarter entails the likelihood is that I'll almost certainly support it in some way however I personally would have preferred something that took the real World timeline and advanced it forward to around 2030 / 2035.

[Adm.Lee]

Hope this helps to understand what hexcrawl is.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I know what hexcrawls are, what I should have asked was: I hear this company's games are really good at hexcrawls. Why is that

[Raellus]

Hexcrawls sound more like a style of play (like dungeon-crawling) than a system of play.

On the other hand, certain games use hexes as units of measurement for range movement and whatnot during combat (like D&D 4e and BattleTech).

I'm still not clear on this company's emphasis on hexes.

[pmulcahy11b]

I agree. My only concern is the the "Cold War Never Ended" alternate history won't appeal to a new audience large enough to make the new version profitable. I hope that I am wrong.

Advance the timeline. There's a three-way Cold War going on now.

[puška]

About 2016-17, we played Mutant Year Zero the first time and, that evening, I thought: this'd make a great system for T2k.

About a year later, our group adapted the Year Zero engine to do just that. It was fun for a while, until it wasn't. The d6 gimmick dice-nuke symbol on 6s, biohazard sign on 1s) worked well to quickly discover exposure to radiation and/or biologicals (we still use this method in our 1e-homebrewed campaign).

I own most of Free League's games. And I can say they all look fantastic. The settings are mostly well-drawn and feel alive within their own world. On the other tentacle, there's Alien. I eagerly grabbed it when announced, being a Giger fan and loving the original film, but within a couple hours of playing it, well... as said somewhere above in this thread, the rules are a terrible hot mess some creature left on the sidewalk.

Free League does hexcrawls well (Forbidden Lands & Mutant) because of their random tables and intentionally quick-paced game. But there is a LOT of handwaving. And limited skills that sometimes have to be sussed through because they really don't cover much in the way of skills the way skills-based games do (most of their games have only 12 skills listed). There's a lot of attribute (only 4 attributes) checks in place of a particular skill (is that a Wits skill or an Empathy skill). Many character/game situations that arise frequently are ignored by the rules, and especially with FL's initial printings, that forego actual proofreading at the expense of initial buyers. The inside cover of Alien has a typo in the name of Weyland-Yutani (the first of at least several dozen) and they character cards feature a Pilot who doesn't have Piloting skill. Fixable errors, for sure, but ones that should have been caught long before the ms. was sent to print. Their proprietary dice-gimmicky and uh, cool-were initially manufactured by Q-Workshop, but for Alien and after, mass produced sticky plastic chunks from Chinese labor. Which would be quite ironical given that the game is going to be published in Poland (Q-Workshop is a Polish company, for those who didn't know).

The other downside (from this perspective) to them as a company, is they tend to cater to the loudest fans (let's make Symbaroum with D&D ruleset, because ... MONEY!), who for T2k, are already shouting for crossovers with Alien or Tales from the Loop. Y'know, cuz aliens and mechanized armor robots are cool in "gritty, realistic" WWIII. (Please, Mr Miller, don't have signed a license deal that allows for crossovers.)

It will have great art. It will probably have great atmosphere.

It probably will not have detailed accurate military orders, despite their PR assurance that military folks have advised them on it. It will probably not have rules that are friendly to detail-oriented/realism-favoring players.

On the fence about it's value with fluff. Highly doubtful the crunch will offer satisfying bites.

[Legbreaker]

Advance the timeline. There's a three-way Cold War going on now.

I see China and much of the west currently in a tussle, surely you don't mean Russia as the third They're very much in decline and now little more than a regional power.


You've pretty much confirmed my fears there pu!ka. I am currently talking with them though regarding the ANZAC book and HOPE they can give some reassurances that these fears are unfounded.
Olefin, Raellus, they'd like a chat with you two as well and you should receive an email from them I've forwarded shortly. If you're interested, I can loop you in as well Paul Pretty sure the mechanics side of your site is incompatible, but the descriptions are pure gold for even non-gamers!

[Raellus]

Olefin, Raellus, they'd like a chat with you two as well and you should receive an email from them I've forwarded shortly.

Thanks, Leg! I reached out to them about the possibility of converting my two e-published books the day of the big reveal and haven't heard a thing back. I was starting to lose hope. I appreciate the assist.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Thanks pu!ka, for the information about the way the game rules play out. Two of my gaming friends (I already mentioned the one who's the Alien fan) have had some experience with the Year Zero rules and they were not particularly impressed by them and from your description here I think now I understand why.
And now I'm inclined to agree with them, even without seeing the rules myself.

About 2016-17, we played Mutant Year Zero the first time and, that evening, I thought: this'd make a great system for T2k.

About a year later, our group adapted the Year Zero engine to do just that. It was fun for a while, until it wasn't. The d6 gimmick dice"nuke symbol on 6s, biohazard sign on 1s) worked well to quickly discover exposure to radiation and/or biologicals (we still use this method in our 1e-homebrewed campaign).

I own most of Free League's games. And I can say they all look fantastic. The settings are mostly well-drawn and feel alive within their own world. On the other tentacle, there's Alien. I eagerly grabbed it when announced, being a Giger fan and loving the original film, but within a couple hours of playing it, well... as said somewhere above in this thread, the rules are a terrible hot mess some creature left on the sidewalk.

Free League does hexcrawls well (Forbidden Lands & Mutant) because of their random tables and intentionally quick-paced game. But there is a LOT of handwaving. And limited skills that sometimes have to be sussed through because they really don't cover much in the way of skills the way skills-based games do (most of their games have only 12 skills listed). There's a lot of attribute (only 4 attributes) checks in place of a particular skill (is that a Wits skill or an Empathy skill). Many character/game situations that arise frequently are ignored by the rules, and especially with FL's initial printings, that forego actual proofreading at the expense of initial buyers. The inside cover of Alien has a typo in the name of Weyland-Yutani (the first of at least several dozen) and they character cards feature a Pilot who doesn't have Piloting skill. Fixable errors, for sure, but ones that should have been caught long before the ms. was sent to print. Their proprietary dice"gimmicky and uh, cool"were initially manufactured by Q-Workshop, but for Alien and after, mass produced sticky plastic chunks from Chinese labor. Which would be quite ironical given that the game is going to be published in Poland (Q-Workshop is a Polish company, for those who didn't know).

The other downside (from this perspective) to them as a company, is they tend to cater to the loudest fans (let's make Symbaroum with D&D ruleset, because ... MONEY!), who for T2k, are already shouting for crossovers with Alien or Tales from the Loop. Y'know, cuz aliens and mechanized armor robots are cool in "gritty, realistic" WWIII. (Please, Mr Miller, don't have signed a license deal that allows for crossovers.)

It will have great art. It will probably have great atmosphere.

It probably will not have detailed accurate military orders, despite their PR assurance that military folks have advised them on it. It will probably not have rules that are friendly to detail-oriented/realism-favoring players.

On the fence about it's value with fluff. Highly doubtful the crunch will offer satisfying bites.

[Southernap]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I know what hexcrawls are, what I should have asked was: I hear this company's games are really good at hexcrawls. Why is that

My bad in misunderstanding the question then.

[HoracePeabody]

Longtime lurker, just registered to comment on this.

As to the system, I was willing to keep an open mind, but as for tone and content I'm unmoved.

Unlike the others I was rather disappointed by the art samples. Admittedly, I tend to put a lot of emphasis on art, but it seems far more generic post-apocalypse than military...fine for a reprint of FGU's Aftermath, but the military vibe is kinda lost to me. Secondly, as much as I understand the pandering, the modern "angry grrl" stuff seems equally out of place.

I say all of this as a 1st Edition Twilight 2000 player since 1986, so one can chalk it up to my being a politically incorrect geezer (basically true), but I know I'm not alone...nor is my money.