Guest Post. Twilight 2000

The next few days I’ll be posting a guest piece from Brad Smith, the author, curator, and owner of the popular Hexsides and Hand Grenades blog. Brad’s piece is a about a game, Twilight 2000, and how its fiction attracted him to the wargaming hobby. I think we all have a story like this, and I’m glad to be able to share Brad’s. A couple of words (I’ll write an entire post about this someday) about war gaming to the uninitiated . Phrases through “roll through the devastation of Eastern Europe,” might sound all warlike and violent, but the game isn’t. The game is cardboard, and cardboard never hurt anyone. The people playing it are everyday guys, and sometimes, gals—some ex-military, but other who are pastors, lawyers, detectives, college professors, ex-IT guys, actors and comedians (Vin Diesel and Robin Williams), and major league baseball pitchers (Curt Schilling owns a war game company). In other words, just people. People who would rather engage their minds and imaginations than have the TV do it for them. On to Brad…

Blackfriar lay prone in the field a few meters to the north of where Boomer knelt in the darkness with the Carl Gustav trained on the T-55. He had sighted the Barrett Light 50, which was resting on its bi-pod, on the nearest member of Flank Security Element 1. Suddenly, a burst of machinegun fire ripped from one of the SAWs on the other side of the river.

Ask me about why I play war games and I would say two words to you. Twilight: 2000. In 1984, the good folks at Games Designer’s Workshop unleashed one of the most unique role playing games that had ever been designed. While other RPGs tended to follow the grain of Dungeons & Dragons, setting their characters in a fantasy world setting filled with elves and magic, Frank Chadwick and his fellow designers took role playing and ran in the opposite direction. They created a game that was set in the European theater of World War III at the end of the 20^th century. There were no elves to be found here. Your players controlled characters that were

Despite the apocalypse, the women kept their hair nicely.

military people solving military problems, caught behind enemy lines and running for their lives after their NATO division was overrun by a Soviet tank division.

‘Damn it’, he thought to himself, ‘one of those a**holes jumped the gun! The bridge hasn’t been laid yet!’ With the whole operation about to go down the drain, there was only one thing to do. He screamed into his radio headset. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Chadwick, a Vietnam veteran, designed a set of extensive rules to model how individuals react under fire and then took it a step further. He wrote a timeline that dealt with how the war started and developed, eventually leading to the release of nuclear missiles then outlined the grim reality of staying alive in a post-apocalypse world where electricity was unheard of and disease ran rampant. To that effect, he included rules about how the players would need to forage for food, make their own gasoline from biodiesel for their vehicles, and maintain their equipment and health in a hostile world. This was in 1984, remember, a time when this seemed like a reality.

With his first shot, Blackfriar sent a carefully aimed .50 caliber, saboted, light armor piercing round toward the machine gunner. A six-foot flame leapt from the muzzle as the 360-grain projectile rocketed forward at over 1,200 meters per second. The high-strength, aluminum-reinforced plastic sabot broke away allowing the tungsten penetrator round to continue on to its target.

I bought Twilight: 2000 in the late 1980s, around the time when relations between the Americans and the Soviets were thawing but still tense. I have to admit the contents were intimidating, but the idea of playing a game where my friends’ characters would roll through the devastation of Eastern Europe in a tank seemed pretty damn cool to me. We made characters for the game, which was a complex and fun process. You begin with your character as a 17-year-old high school kid and you pick skills and careers, which allows you to follow him through the rest of his life path. You could join up with the military right after school and end up in the war as an NCO or have a lawyer who is unlucky enough to get drafted into the army when the war in Europe starts up. 

Demián was carefully aiming the M21 that he had used exactly once before – about 30 minutes ago when Blackfriar showed him how to use it. That was before Crank jumped the gun and opened up before the signal was given. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” he hears Blackfriar call over the radio. Startled, it throws him off. He forgets Blackfriar’s instructions. His breathing quickens, inhaling in rapid, shallow breaths. Sweat beads on his forehead. His hands grip the handle and stock, slick with perspiration. Rumbling becomes roars, shots become bright crackles. The men start to blur, soldiers move and shift in inky spatters; the tank and Urals seemingly more menacing and beast-like in appearance. Is this panic, he thinks? Is this what happens when you freeze under fire? Or am I just going crazy?

At the end of the character creation process, the Gamemaster (as the owner of the game, this had to be me) would give the players a rundown of how their unit was part of NATO’s last great offensive of the war, attempting to push deep into Poland in order to force a favorable armistice with the Soviets. Unfortunately, the Warsaw Pact ruined NATO’s plans and a masterful counterattack smashed into the NATO, stranding the characters near Kalisz. As any Twilight: 2000 player can recite from heart, the last communication from their brigade HQ is, “Good luck. You’re on your own.” With that, your characters were stuck behind the lines and left to figure out what to do next. They were deep in hostile territory and had to make their own decisions, whether it was to conduct guerilla operations, find a safe place to hole up, or even attempt the seemingly impossible task of somehow going back home… whatever was left of it.

Suddenly, a figure coalesces on the far side the river. A Soviet uniform snaps into crisp, electric lines. The target’s rifle shimmers in the sunlight. Demián places the M21’s crosshairs pinpointing his chest. A shot rips away.

Part 1 of 3. To be continued tomorrow.