Announcement from Free League Publishing

[Jason Weiser]

Well, we have a date, and some details!

From the official FLP Newsletter!

Twilight: 2000 Coming To Kickstarter on August 12
Official Newsletter for Twilight: 2000 Fourth Edition

Hello! This is the third official newsletter for the new edition of the Twilight: 2000 tabletop RPG by Free League Publishing and Game Designers' Workshop. I'm Tomas H$renstam, lead designer and co-founder of Free League.

Today we have an important announcement: The Kickstarter for Twilight: 2000 will be launched on August 12, at 3 pm Central European Time / 9 am US Eastern Time. If you want to be sure not to miss it, sign up to be notified on the pre-launch page on Kickstarter. And to get into the mood, check out the teaser trailer below:



RULES, LAYOUT & MORE
In the meantime, work is progressing well on the game itself. A group of external consultants, several with a military background, are now reviewing the draft game texts with a focus on rules and gear. The new edition will not be quite as rules-heavy as earlier versions, but it's paramount to us that the rules yield plausible results from a military perspective, while retaining playability and accessibility.

Twilight: 2000 will come in a boxed set, bringing back the feel of the first edition of the game with that iconic Poland map. At the very least, the game will include two books a Players' Manual and a Referee's Manual and character sheets, and a large, full color map of central Poland on one side and southern Sweden on the other. If the Kickstarter goes well, we will expand more items to the box, such as dice, combat maps, counters, and more. We're also looking into the possibility of creating a limited edition boxed set in metal.

On the layout front, we have found a style that we're very happy with. You can check out three sample spreads from the Players' Manual below. Note that the text is only placeholder (that includes headlines):

[Ewan]

Hopefully the rules will allow you to build other European PCs such as British and German characters.
Really like the picture of the unit moving in the rain.

[comped]

Hopefully the rules will allow you to build other European PCs such as British and German characters.
Really like the picture of the unit moving in the rain.

From the pages they've posted, it seems like that isn't going to be an option, or at least isn't detailed in the pages they've shown. If that is all the different branches we get... why do only the US get anything other than the army

[Ewan]

From the pages they've posted, it seems like that isn't going to be an option, or at least isn't detailed in the pages they've shown. If that is all the different branches we get... why do only the US get anything other than the army

Maybe its part of a Quickstarter ruleset to give backers a chance to create some characters.

[Raellus]

It's A Preview

Given that Sweden is going to among the official campaign settings, I'd imagine that there are going to be non-US military and civilian character build options.

[Targan]

I'm pretty used to the move over the decades towards rules becoming increasingly simplified, but in a gritty, realistic setting like T2K Those excerpts suggest it's going a bit too far towards rools-lite for my tastes. Here's hoping the setting materials make up for it.

[Olefin]

The vehicle choices are way too simplistic - and only the M113APC or the M1A1 - no Bradley's, no LAV-25, no military trucks at all It seems like it will be up to referees and players to have the wider choice of vehicles. I hope this doesnt mean that there will be only a very limited choice of vehicles when the time comes.

[Raellus]

Deep Breaths

The vehicle choices are way too simplistic - and only the M113APC or the M1A1 - no Bradley's, no LAV-25, no military trucks at all It seems like it will be up to referees and players to have the wider choice of vehicles. I hope this doesnt mean that there will be only a very limited choice of vehicles when the time comes.

It's a sample. Either there will be more in the finished base product or, in keeping with the tenets of capitalistic enterprise, they're setting up a supplemental product (like a vehicle guide, for example).

Think of it as a teaser trailer for a movie. It's designed to build curiosity, excitement, and buzz, not tell a complete story.

My point is, don't read too much into this sample, folks. It's just a tiny taste, not whole enchilada.

[Legbreaker]

My point is, don't read too much into this sample, folks. It's just a taste, not a representative sample.

Exactly. Even the current draft material some of us are looking at (but can't share much of) is still very much a work in progress with some very large gaps. The art and layout stuff they've presented so far is really just like a movie trailer - enough to give a tiny taste and nothing more. In movie terms they haven't even completed filming yet!

[StainlessSteelCynic]

A closer read of what's stated in those pages, it seems to me that what's there is meant as a guide and not the "final word".
For example, the vehicle section comes across to me as quite clear that there are no hard-&-fast rules in place stating what vehicle the PC group "must" have, the Players discuss with the Ref if they can have a vehicle and what type of vehicle it will be is heavily reliant on what type of group their PCs are. If the group is from the US, the table provides a representative sample of some classes of vehicle they could get (civvy utility vehicle, military utility vehicle, APC, MBT)
There's a hell of a lot of implied leeway throughout the entire passage.

[Rainbow Six]

A closer read of what's stated in those pages, it seems to me that what's there is meant as a guide and not the "final word".
For example, the vehicle section comes across to me as quite clear that there are no hard-&-fast rules in place stating what vehicle the PC group "must" have, the Players discuss with the Ref if they can have a vehicle and what type of vehicle it will be is heavily reliant on what type of group their PCs are. If the group is from the US, the table provides a representative sample of some classes of vehicle they could get (civvy utility vehicle, military utility vehicle, APC, MBT)
There's a hell of a lot of implied leeway throughout the entire passage.

That sounds reasonable to me. Of the half dozen or so games that I've been involved in over the last few years vehicle allocation was only done by random roll in one of them, and even then it was from a list of choices discussed and agreed with the GM that were appropriate to those particular PC's.

Every other time we've discussed options with the ref and then selected vehicles that were mutually acceptable.

[Spartan-117]

There's a lot to unpack from their preview and I hope something things survive (i.e. encumbrance system seems to be a shift toward less tracking/inventory management, which I think could be good) and others get refined (i.e. either more branches applicable to more nations, or just go with generic 'Marines/Naval Infantry, Army, Navy, maybe the Air Force, and let it apply to all relevant nations).

I don't think it serves the game to be so U.S. centric, especially given the the world has gotten smaller over the decades since v1.0 was published; development is being done in Sweden and not Illinois for heavens sake. 2013 did a great job with this in that their career paths are not country specific.

[comped]

There's a lot to unpack from their preview and I hope something things survive (i.e. encumbrance system seems to be a shift toward less tracking/inventory management, which I think could be good) and others get refined (i.e. either more branches applicable to more nations, or just go with generic 'Marines/Naval Infantry, Army, Navy, maybe the Air Force, and let it apply to all relevant nations).

I don't think it serves the game to be so U.S. centric, especially given the the world has gotten smaller over the decades since v1.0 was published; development is being done in Sweden and not Illinois for heavens sake. 2013 did a great job with this in that their career paths are not country specific.

2013 had an amazing character generation system, particularly in the variety of careers, and it was probably my favorite thing about that version.

[swaghauler]

I'm pretty used to the move over the decades towards rules becoming increasingly simplified, but in a gritty, realistic setting like T2K Those excerpts suggest it's going a bit too far towards rools-lite for my tastes. Here's hoping the setting materials make up for it.

LOL! You run the RoleMaster system, better known as "RulesMaster." There is NO modern RPG that can carry enough "crunch" to match what you use now! I KNOW this. There are copies of Character Law, Arms Law, Claws Law, and Spells Law on my own shelf as I type this. I have this image of you sitting behind a 5-foot tall GM's Screen just to have enough space to post all the crits charts you'd need to run a decent game. From a "complexity standpoint," the RoleMaster system is NO JOKE.

[Targan]

LOL! You run the RoleMaster system, better known as "RulesMaster." There is NO modern RPG that can carry enough "crunch" to match what you use now! I KNOW this. There are copies of Character Law, Arms Law, Claws Law, and Spells Law on my own shelf as I type this. I have this image of you sitting behind a 5-foot tall GM's Screen just to have enough space to post all the crits charts you'd need to run a decent game. From a "complexity standpoint," the RoleMaster system is NO JOKE.

An entirely fair observation . But even the very slim v1 T2K rules were FAR better suited to a modern combat RPG than the teaser rules we've seen for the new edition. I'm pretty good at honest self-reflection, I know full well that my penchant for complex, maybe even 'simulationist' rules isn't practical for most gaming groups. And certainly wouldn't appeal to the widest possible audience. But IMHO there's a balance to be struck, and while very light-on rules might well be the thing for today's new crop of TTRPGers, I suspect for those of us who were playing the v1, v2 and v2.2 rules when they were first published, the new rules system will seem cartoony.

As always, my comments on the new edition are in no way intended to put anyone off buying them and playing them. If a group enjoys them, play the hell out of them I say. More power to 'em.