Twilight 2000 has a peculiar place in the hearts of Polish gamers. The first iteration of this game was written in the deep eighties, when the Cold War was still going strong, constantly threatening to go hot, and potentially escalate into the Last War. The premise of the game was simple, The West and the East finally came to blows and everything fell apart. The players were supposed to be the NATO soldiers stranded in the lands ravaged by years of war after both sides exhausted their capabilities and collapsed into barely organized groups vying for survival.
The main area covered by the base game was Poland, to the delight and amusement of Polish players when the game arrived to our country many-many years later—being placed between German and Russia made it an obvious (and historically accurate) field of battle between the West and the Eastern Block. The original game was written by American creators using quite accurate maps, though names of Polish NPCs in the campaigns and other inaccuracies were rather hilarious to Polish readers (imagine being an American player reading a foreign game with the authors naming modern American NPCs along the lines of Franklin Delano Eisenhower and Abraham Washington). The first edition had such expansions as The Free City Of Krakow (probably referencing and mirroring the fact that Kraków avoided devastation in both World Wars) and The Pirates Of The Vistula River. There was even a computer game in 1991.
In just a few years, the original story of Twilight 2000 was invalidated by the history, however, when the massive social protests spearheaded by Polish trade unions led communist governments across the Eastern Block to resign and pushed the democratic reforms forwards. Poland soon afterward began cooperating with NATO and America, aiding them during the Gulf War...
The third edition was made in 2000s by another publisher, with redesigned storyline as Twilight 2013, and now it was picked up and released as a completely redesigned fourth edition by Swedish publisher Fria Ligan (internationally known as Free League Publishing), back under the Twilight 2000 name.
The Fourth Edition
In its fourth incarnation, the game turned from being a dark prediction of future to being an alternate history game. In its timeline, the Warsaw Pact fell apart, as it did in our history, both German states reunited and Poland became an ally to the NATO. Unlike in our history, the constitutional crisis in Russia in 1993, however, brought back hardcore communists to power leading first to renewal of the Cold War, followed by continuous escalation of hostilities. When the reinvigorated Soviet Russia reconquered Baltic states, and invaded Poland, the third World War exploded before the end of the second millennium.
Now, after three years of intense, devastating war, America, Europe, and Russia are in shambles. The primary theaters covered by the base game are southern Poland (again) and (newly added) southern Sweden (because Swedish publisher, duh). However, this time the publisher is aided by a Polish game company in developing additional materials covering situation in Poland.
The basic game supports playing Polish soldiers, NATO soldiers, or civilians (or combination thereof) struggling for survival in the harsh world devastated by warfare. It is not burned wasteland of Fallout or deserts of Mad Max, though (unless you really want to). While there are zones of radiation where the tactical nukes fell, the land still lives, full of forests, fields, and even some settlements—small towns and many villages avoided destruction, as did a few medium towns and a city or two. Some were rebuild by survivors and refuges. Groups of military and paramilitary forces roam around, however, as do bandits. Russian occupy some regions, while others are held by Poles, either nominally aligned with the central government that no longer exists, while others consider themselves independent communes, new states, and seeds of rebuilding the civilization from scratch. NATO forces are scattered by some try to reorganize themselves, though without the possibility of coming home they might give up or try to fit in among the locals. It is up to players what their group will want to do? Create a new settlement and defend it? Go back home, wherever it might be, if it is even still around? Fight for survival or take vengeance on encountered Russian stragglers? Look for a new home, take over one of the existing settlements? It is all up to the characters to decide, according to their capabilities...
The Year Zero Engine, Modified
The game uses a new system, based on heavily redesigned Year Zero Engine. Each character has four attributes: Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Empathy (with the later representing Charisma and overall social capabilities of the character) plus a special characteristic of maintaining Coolness Under Fire.
The four attributes are combined with twelve skills, three for each attribute. Close Combat, Endurance, and Heavy weapons fall under Strength. Driving, Mobility, and Ranged Combat are governed by Agility. Recon (which combines perception with stealth), Survival, and Tech go with Intelligence, and Empathy is linked with Command, Persuasion, and Medical Aid.
Each attribute and skill has a letter code, from D (worst, representing d6) to A (d12) for attributes. D is subpar, C is average, B is good, and A is top human capability. Skills can have even a worse "level", represented by lack of code altogether.
Tests are rolled by combining one die based on the attribute code with another die based on skill code (or a lone attribute die when having a skill of "—"). Before rolling, all the modifiers are added together. Each net +1 improves the lower of the two dice by one step, to a maximum of d12, each net –1 diminishes the better of the two dice by one step to a minimum of d6. If you don't have a skill at all, the first +1 improves "none" to d6.
For example, George Goshenitz has Agility of B (d10) and Ranged Combat of C (d8), gets two +1 bonuses to his attack roll, and a single –1 penalty. The net modifier is +1, improving worse die to d10 and the player rolls two d10. If he was facing two –1 penalties and a single +1 bonus, he would roll two d8 instead.
Each die that scored 6–9 gives one success. Each die that rolled 10—12 (obviously only possible when final die size is d10 or d12) gives two successes. The successes rolled on both dice are added together for a final result. If the result is unsatisfactory, the players may declare they are pushing their roll (though not all rolls can be pushed)—and reroll dice that scored no successes. There is a catch however. Any ones on the original roll have to be kept, and all ones on the final roll inflict either damage (Strength or Agility rolls) or stress (Intelligence or Empathy rolls), or degrade condition of equipment used. Character can suffer between three and six points of damage and stress each before getting incapacitated, so one or two points of either can represent a significant threat when facing other dangers.
Multiple successes are often a good thing, either allowing you to heal more damage to wounded companions (Medical Aid), repair more damage to battered equipment (Tech), inflict more damage on opponents (Close Combat, Ranged Combat), or find more food, water, and parts (Survival).
In addition to skills and attributes, the characters also have specializations—which are mainly giving +1 bonus to a specific skill in narrow circumstances, for example you can have Rifleman specialization which gives +1 to Ranged Combat when firing a rifle. A few specialization gave more complex benefits, like Historian allowing you to roll Recon check when you visit a new location to recall a historical facts regarding that location.
The characters can be created by picking an archetype and assigning a number of codes to attributes and skills. Or you can use a lifepath method, and pick a series of careers you followed, with each making a roll to determine if you learned a specialization and got promotion, one roll to see if your attributes deteriorated due to age, and on last roll to check if you follow with another term in the same or a new career or had the war caught up with you. Lifepath creation system gives a more varied and interesting characters, though the characters are less predictable when it comes to skills and specializations.
Each character also picks a moral code, representing some sort of deeply held belief or code of honor that, when challenged can grant bonus to rolls and extra xp if followed in the face of adversity at the risk of having to scratch it and replace it if you don't follow it, a big dream you wish to fulfill, granting you extra xp when you take actions that lead to its fulfillment, and a buddy in the party.
Food, Fuel, and Firearms
The party starts with some gear determined by their last career, makes a single roll to determine what (if any) vehicle they have, and pick a number of extra pieces of gear equal to the number of party members (hint: machine gun ammo belts are the better choice when it comes to ammo efficiency compared to regular magazines). With those meager resources the party starts the game and has to cope with realities of a war zone. Finding food and water is crucial for continued playing, because starvation, thirst, disease, lack of sleep, and cold will quickly incapacitate and kill party, and without parts to repair weapons and tools, you won't get food or water. Without fuel, any vehicles the party might have (with the exception of ordinary bikes) are useless, though with parts and proper skills the characters might build a still which will let the party convert any organic matter into alcohol, widely used as (less efficient but available) fuel in the setting. Ammo is used up by firearms for hunting and defense, but it also works as the universal currency. God have mercy upon you if you picked up a weapon that uses rare caliber ammo. Lets hope you'll manage to barter it for something more common soon.
Like in some other Year Zero Engine games, the game days are divided into four shifts of six hours each that are used to handle time keeping and abstracting exploration and survival activities into a series of tasks, such as foraging for food or water, establishing camps, resting, repairing gear, guarding, providing long term medical care, etc. There are also shorter stretches of time (10-15 minutes) when exploring specific locations, and traditional rounds used in combat time.
Similar to Mutant Year Zero and Forbidden Lands, there are rules for building a long term settlement and expanding it with a series of facilities that can produce additional resources or help processes those harvested elsewhere.
Food can be a problem that is only partly solved by foraging and hunting—the local supplies are exhausted quickly giving accumulating penalties to assorted rolls forcing the party to move, unless they settle and start farming the land themselves.
The game uses a deck of cards to draw random encounters each shift - each card is marked with icons representing conditions in which the encounter occur. For example, if the party is traveling on the road and the GM draws a card marked with a forest, there is no encounter. If the drawn card had a road and a day icon, the encounter presented on the card is triggered.
Enemy patrols are tempting prey, carrying food, ammo (you replaced your fancy American weapon with a cheap but ubiquitous Soviet gun, right? right?!) , and even possibly some fuel... But they can think the same about the party and combat is deadly and ammo-expensive. Two or three hits will usually incapacitate a character, be it the PC or the NPC, often inflicting crippling or lethal critical injuries as well. One in ten critical injuries to head or torso kills immediately. Half the time critical injury to head or torso, and four out of ten limb critical injuries will kill in minutes or hours (which led to incessant wave of complains about ridiculousness of the elbow injury being marked as lethal in hours from a real-world MD playing in the party with me, even long after my combat medic character managed to save her with a series of good Medical Aid rolls, she also kept complaining about Medical Aid being linked to Empathy attribute).
The combat system uses 10 meter hexes (not to be confused with 10 km hexes used by overland map) and relies on positioning, cover, and being careful. Being shot at can easily paralyze player characters and foes alike on a failed Coolness Under Fire test (which uses the party's current morale level or the highest Command skill in the group for the second die). And if you are civilian your Coolness Under Fire will be a mere D (d6), though it can increase without the need for spending experience points after a session or two... At the cost of your Empathy. Armor tends to be weak but still plays an invaluable role in protecting against stray hits.
A single fight can easily teach the players to be very wary of engaging any enemies in the future... If they survive their first combat.
Besides the physical injuries that can be suffered from enemy attacks, deprivation and badly failed rolls, the characters also suffer stress that can lead to mental breakdown and long term psychological issues.
After The End
The game is a sort of hardcore when it comes to survival and the usual gung-ho attitude will get you crippled or killed. And if you get crippled, the difficulty ramps up quickly and kill you later. And that's the charm of the game. It can be played as survival sandbox out of the boxed set, with the party traveling from one end of the map to the other, meeting random encounters, and gathering supplies to barter after you finally reach one of the remaining towns.
Alternatively, the GM could write a more mission-oriented session, taking place in specific region with specific goal in mind. Maybe the PCs are a unit still in contact with operational HQ, maybe they are local militia with a specific task handed them by a local warlord...
With adequate map it can be easily adapted for playing in different regions and reliving other modern conflicts, fictional or real.
However, it is worth noting it is not a game for everyone, combining hard personal choices with very demanding resource management and unforgiving combat, with the character lives being at stake most of the time.
