31 Character Challenge Part 29: Twilight: 2000

 

Ah, Twilight:2000.  See, kids, when I was your age, we were sure there would be another World War, and it would be with the Soviets.  So sure, in fact, that when we were doing our schedules for sophomore year I decided to sign up for our pilot program by which we would take Russian via satellite.  I thought it would be a useful skill in a military career.

I had read and owned some books for the first edition of Twilight:2000, but we played the 2nd Edition throughout High School.  The original 2e came out in 1990, which was my sophomore year coincidentally, but the original had been around since 1984.  The Steve Venters artwork for the vehicles in the first edition vehicle guides alone was worth the price of admission. I can skill see the Cadillac Gage Stingray tank with "Pink Cadillac" painted on the side.  Also, the M1A3 "Giraffe" style tank, and the LAV-75 that never was.

Being in Marine Corps JROTC at the time, myself and most of my game group were keenly interested in games with military themes.  Robotech was a favorite, Battletech of course, and even our Star Trek games had a distinctly Nicholas Meyer feel to them, more Navy than most Trek films or episodes.  Twilight: 2000 was a shoe-in when the revised edition arrived at King's Hobby Shop.  We were all in.  At this point in time, GDW was developing their own house system, which eventually appeared in Traveller: The New Era, Dark Conspiracy, Cadillacs And Dinosaurs, and of course, Twilight:2000.

It's kinda fun that in the Version 2.2 explanation sheet, GDW refers to the revamp of their house system as the D20-system.  GRIN.  But this version we played quite a bit of that summer, and into the mid-90s.  So this is the version for which I'll make a character.

A neat thing about T2K is it uses a very Traveller-esque system of lifepath in 4-year terms, and skills that are picked up along the way.  Go too old, and age starts to take its toll.  Unlike Traveller, you can't die before the game starts, but you can accrue radiation and combat experience.  If you choose to create a civilian character, every tour there is a die roll to see if war breaks out, and when it does, you're drafted.  This occurs so all the characters can be in Kalisz for the start of the campaign.  So that's what we're going to do.  I'm going to make the character I was when I joined the State Guard, an academic working in higher education and then the balloon goes up.  Let's see how that works out.

Character Creation

First, we choose a background and native language.  American, and English.  Rolling a d10 to see if I speak any other languages, I end up being fluent in only English.  Now we roll for attributes.  There is a point-allocation option, but you guys know the drill.  If it can be random in this series, it will be.  The attributes are Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Education and Charisma- very Traveller-esque.  Rolling is 2D6-2 for each, re-rolling any snake-eyes results.

• Strength: 8
  
• Agility: 5
  
• Constitution: 1
  
• Intelligence: 10 (Wow.  I rolled a 3 and a 12 back-to-back)
  
• Education: 3
  
• Charisma: 4
  

 Now, we select four background skills.

• Spanish: 2
• Computer: 2
• Ground Vehicle (Wheeled): 2
• Unarmed Martial Arts: 2

Well.  We hit my first problem.  We can't go to undergrad college, because we rolled an Education of 3.  So... I guess we're enlisting.

In Basic we pick up the following skills:

• Armed Martial Arts: 0
• Autogun: 0
• Grenade Launcher: 0
• Ground Vehicle: Wheeled 1 (up to 3)
• Small Arms (Rifle): 2
• Swimming: 1
• Tac Missile: 0
• Thrown Weapon: 0
• Unarmed Martial Arts: 1 (up to 2)

We go to Armor AIT and pick up the following skills:

• Autogun: 1
• Ground Vehicle (Tracked): 2
• Heavy Gun: 2

Promotion: Yes!  With the INT bonus and 10 on the die,  we move up to Specialist-4.  Yeah, when this was written, it was still SP4 rather than SPC.  I used to get shit when I'd write my own rank as SP4 decades after it was changed.  Anyway, we get one contact, and I rolled to see if it was foreign, and it was not.  For secondary activity, we take CON+1.  The war does not break out this term.

Term 2: Sticking with the Army, and taking night classes. Term 2 gets 5 skills.

• Heavy Gun: +1=3
  
• Autogun: +1=2
  
• Ground Vehicle (Tracked): +1=3
  
• Mechanic: 1
  
• Observation: 1
  

Promoted to Sergeant!  Huzzah.  That means we pick up a level of Leadership, Instruction, and Persuasion from NCO school. Another military contact.  +1 EDU as Secondary Activity. War does not break out.

Term 3: One more Army term and we can go to college! 4 skills for Term 3.

• Autogun: +1=3
  
• Mechanic: +1=2
• Observation: +1=2
• Small Arms (Rifle): +1=3
  

Promoted to Staff Sergeant.  One more military contact.  +1 EDU as Secondary Activity.  Our soldier is now 29 years old, and wants to get out to go back to college- but a die roll of 2 means war breaks out.  So much for that.

Term 4: War breaks out.  Automatic promotion to Sergeant First Class (the book calls it Platoon Sergeant, but it hasn't been called that since the 50s.  Platoon sergeant is a billet now, rather than a rank and a billet.) 3 Skills.

• Observation: +1=3
  
• Navigation: 1
  
• Small Arms (Rifle): +1=4
  

 Roll for promotion: nope.  Contact: US military. Secondary Activity +1 CON.

Now we finish things up. 1D6 for Initiative yields a 5. 5D6 for Rads = 15.  The character is now 33 years old, so must roll to avoid losing a point of Agility.  Roll 1D10, if it's less than the current attribute, lose one point.  5 rolled, 5 Agility, it stays where it is.

We calculate the derived attributes, like throw range, load weight, personal weight, and how many hits we can take to the various parts of our body.  We get the US Military basic load- and would have a vehicle if we were making a group of characters.  But as a solo character, no vehicle for us.  So I guess we are a tanker without a tank.  We get $5,000 worth of scavenged equipment per term in the military, so that's $20,000 worth of stuff. It just so happens that the game values a HMMWV at $20,000 exactly, so we just stole one from somewhere.  Finding fuel?  That's a problem for the day after... erm... The Day After.

The Character

TC's Log.  Stardate- Today.

 

  This will be the final entry, since there's not a single chance we're getting the parts we need to get the turbine running again.  Not that there's fuel if we did.  We're taking everything we can salvage, and the engineers are going make sure the rest isn't useful to anybody.  The few tanks that are running will pick our track over for spares before that.  But it's a damn shame.

 

  I'm feeling all Charlton Heston when he saw the Statue of Liberty.  We saw some of the flashes, some of the mushroom clouds, way off in the distance.  Had our company been where they were supposed to be, we'd probably be glowing in the dark right now.  For one glorious moment, our lack of fuel worked in our favor.  The Green Weenie blew right by us this time like the Angel on Passover.  But yeah, they did it.  The sons of bitches pushed the button, and here we are.

 

  The front... is gone.  The Colonel has no idea what the hell we all do now.  He said he's not throwing good troops in after bad and rolling us into a radiation zone with no clear idea of the objective, now that the objective is a glassed-over crater you can use to make Hot Pockets. He's got less than half a battalion left, and of those we're mostly running on empty tanks.  In empty tanks.  With empty tanks.  It's that kinda situation.

 

  They're talking about taking those of us who are suddenly dismounted and folding us into the mech infantry, we've even been handed some scrounged rifles and carbines and one guy as a Kalashnikov he picked up somewhere along the way from an Ivan who won't be needing it anymore.  We've got food for about a week, two if we're careful.  Water's plentiful, but we gotta make sure it doesn't make the Geiger counter go clicketty clack.  We just need to-

 

  OK, just finished a quick and dirty talk with Top.  Our illustrious First Shirt wants me to take a Humvee and see if I can link up with 2nd Battalion, who were behind is about 20 miles last we checked.  So I guess it's me, my crew, and a Humvee.  Fuck it, we're totally snagging our Ma Deuce before someone else does and bolting it to this Humvee somehow.  Division said we're on our own.  So here we go.