Twilight 2000 RPG (Kickstarter Edition)

Some say it didn’t have to be this way. Some say history could have taken a different turn. If the Soviet Union had collapsed back in ‘91 when it was on the ropes. If the Gang of Eight military coup against Gorbachev had failed, the world would have looked very different today. Some say. I think it’s bullshit. This storm was always coming, sooner or later.

It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. Now, all that matters is to survive each day.

It’s all up to us now. Our squad. Jonesy. Diaz, manning the M113. That Polish girl Kasia. The men and women around me. No one else will come to our rescue. The final words from division HQ, before they signed off for good, left little doubt.

“You’re on your own now.”

Just like the original game, the new edition of Twilight: 2000 is set in Poland, but the game also offers an alternative Swedish setting, as well as advice on how to place the game anywhere in the world. In the game, players take roles of survivors in the aftermath of World War III – soldiers or civilians. Their goal, beyond surviving for another day, can be to find a way back home, to carve out their own fiefdom where they are, to find out more about the mysterious Operation Reset, and maybe, just maybe, make the world a little bit better again.

The core gameplay builds on the hexcrawling system established in Mutant: Year Zero and Forbidden Lands RPGs (both Silver ENnie winners for Best Rules, in 2015 and 2019), developing it further to fit the gritty world of Twilight: 2000. The characters explore the devastated lands using a large hexagon map of Poland or Sweden – or wherever in the world you wish to place your campaign.

Ronson carries the SAW. Diaz is like the Professor on Gilligan’s Island, he can build a new carburetor out of a pair of coconuts and some dental floss. Kasia, all of 17, is the closest thing we have to a medic since we lost Doc. Jonesy is a ginger who Diaz says looks like the cat in Aliens which is how a German intel officer got a name like Jonesy. Top’s been in the Marines long enough to have fought in the Tet Offensive… and me? I’m just a grunt. We’re all trying to get by. Top once called us “the last family.” He might be right. Kasia made a gagging gesture when he did. But none of us expect to see our actual families again.

The core rules of the game build on the Year Zero Engine (used in award-winning RPGs such as ALIEN, Tales From the Loop, Forbidden Lands and Mutant: Year Zero), but heavily adapted to fit Twilight: 2000 and its focus on gear and gritty realism.

Twilight: 2000 will be crunchier and have less random elements than other YZE games. Twilight: 2000 will get a solid ruleset that captures the gritty, realistic feel of the original, but in a more accessible way and that fully realizes the potential for sandbox gameplay. We aim for a system that retains depth and complexity, but that is less granular and easier to use.

Instead of a dice pool as in other YZE games, Twilight: 2000 uses a two-dice system. You'll roll one base die for your skill and one base die for the attribute connected to that skill. Base dice range from D6s to D12s. Skills and attributes are rated from A to D, with a better score giving you a better die to roll. Attributes and skills are fairly broad, with specialties used to fine-tune your character. Combat uses battlemaps with 10-meter hexes to regulate movement and ranged attacks. Extensive systems for critical injuries as well as component damage to vehicles give crunch to the system, while keeping it fast and playable.