Owing to scheduling conflicts, my Barrett's Raiders Twilight: 2000 campaign didn't meet this week. While we've striven to meet every week over the course of the three years and three months we've been playing, such hiccups aren't uncommon. Still, I can't deny I was a little bit disappointed, because this week would have been the first session in the campaign to take place on American shores. After three years of war on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the characters are finally home.
The reason I was disappointed is that playing Twilight: 2000 in post-war America is something I've wanted to do since the late 1980s. In a very real sense, bringing Barrett's Raiders to this point is the culmination of a nearly forty(!) year-old dream of mine. Back when I originally played T2K, I only owned the first four adventure modules – The Free City of Krakow, Pirates of the Vistula, The Ruins of Warsaw, and The Black Madonna. These are all set in Poland, so my campaigns stayed in Eastern Europe rather than venturing elsewhere.
Clearly, though, GDW had a great interest in seeing
Twilight: 2000 characters return to the USA. After 1986's
Going Home, the company produced nine modules set in America. With the exception of the first,
Red Star, Lone Star, which dealt with a Soviet-backed Mexican invasion of Texas – think
Red Dawn but
a little more grounded – the modules were all notable for their focus on
rebuilding the country after the nuclear strikes of 1997 and the chaos that followed.
Granted, the modules still offered plenty of opportunities for violent mayhem, but it was generally directed toward opportunistic warlords and authoritarian New America cells, forces that need to be swept away before any kind of rebuilding might be possible. And while MilGov and CivGov are most definitely at odds with one another, neither side is demonized or reduced to a caricature. It's a messy situation that creates lots of scope for interesting situations and scenarios.
And
that's what most excites me about Barrett's Raiders finally making the transition to the Not-So-United States of America. As American soldiers brought home from Europe by the
US Military Emergency Administration, the characters are put in a difficult situation: continue to obey the Joint Chiefs despite their
extra-constitutional assumption of authority or put themselves at odds with their former comrades in arms. It's a situation made all the more complicated by the
equally dodgy authority of President Broward and the reconstituted Congress – to say nothing of the threat of New America and others taking advantage of the breakdown in civil society.
Twilight: 2000 got a reputation
in some circles as an immoral power fantasy RPG that made light of the deaths of millions in nuclear war. I think only the most superficial reading of either the game or (especially) its adventure modules could support such a false conclusion. This is most definitely
not a game about reveling in the collapse of civilization but rather one where the characters can actively participate in helping to
reconstruct that civilization. As campaign frames go, that's a truly worthy one in my opinion, one I've wanted to explore with some friends for decades. Now that I'm finally getting the chance to do so, my enthusiasm is high. Expect increased posting about
Twilight: 2000 and the events of the Barrett's Raiders campaign.
Owing to scheduling conflicts, my Barrett's Raiders Twilight: 2000 campaign didn't meet this week. While we've striven to meet every week over the course of the three years and three months we've been playing, such hiccups aren't uncommon. Still, I can't deny I was a little bit disappointed, because this week would have been the first session in the campaign to take place on American shores. After three years of war on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the characters are finally home. 
Having read the linked article and accompanying comments, I think your portrayal of the review and sentiments as “an immoral power fantasy RPG that made light of the deaths of millions in nuclear war” is not entirely accurate. Especially in the comments, several readers pointed out that Twilight 2000 didn’t appeal to them because of their proximity in time (the 80’s) and location (within striking distance of the USSR) to a possible nuclear attack. The review pointed out that it was written with an American mindset, and Europeans would have a very different view of these events. And these are valid complaints. I’d compare it like this - there are a lot of tv shows and films about abusive relationships, but if I’d been in one or seen a loved one abused, I’d have a very different view of that show’s “entertainment value” than someone just getting a voyeuristic thrill from the outside.
ReplyDeleteWhy this game rather than ‘The Morrow Project’?
ReplyDeleteFamiliarity primarily. I never really played The Morrow Project as a kid, so it's not one that holds as much fascination for me.
DeleteIsn’t Gamma World “an immoral power fantasy RPG that made light of the deaths of millions in nuclear war”? Aftermath, too? Nearly every post-apocalyptic RPG?
ReplyDeleteIt’s a silly point of view. As for Europeans living under the threat of nuclear war more so than Americans? Yeah, right. Where do you think 90% of the USSR’s ICBM’s were aimed, Scotland? And for those who lived in the Cold War era of the 80’s? What, like every person who would have played the game, initially, anyway.
It’s all just rationalizations made by folks who don’t have a taste for military-style games, or games set in the modern era, or gritty games, or whatever. Which is fine: if it’s not your cup of tea, cool.
But to put down the game using any of those goofy reasons listed is just disingenuous.
All that being said, I’m certainly looking forward to the group getting back to the US. I messed around with Red Star/Lone Star and Armies of the Night, back in the day.
ReplyDeleteI’m a bit (a lot) older now, and hopefully more able to run things more solidly. The recent movie, Civil War, seems apprapo. The guys definitely need to run into Jesse Plemons character (New America?).
“Yeah, but what KIND of Smerican are you?”
Yikes!
If Rowland (the reviewer) had such strong feelings about the subject matter he or his editor should have punted it to another reviewer; as it is the review is like an extremely religious person being offended by the use of “cosmic horror” in a Call of Cthulhu game. That sort of moralizing is all too common now.
ReplyDeleteMy own interest in post-WWIII scenarios was much more “how would we cope at home in the US?” rather than “how would we survive in Eastern Europe?” So from an artistic as well as commercial view i imagine these latter adventures would have done well or better.
I would never run a Greyhawk campaign because of the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire.
ReplyDelete