Twilight: 2000 – A fate unspoken?

The fictional universe of the old Twilight: 2000 from GDW had an expiration date built right into it. In the game setting, the world went to hell in the year 2000, postulating World War III and a collapse of civilization.

Of course, real life didn’t turn out that way, and thank god it didn’t. GDW scrambled to try and incorporate the events of 1991 as regards the fall of the old Soviet Union, but history took a different path and we were spared the game’s particular doom. With that, T:2000 became an alternate history rather than a prediction (or at least an extrapolation).

Attempts have been made to advance the timeline, setting doomsday in 2013, but that date too will come and go and consign the latest re-write to the alternate history bin of ideas.

The point of this preamble though, is that T:2000 originally was released in the mid-80′s and at the time, the year 2000 seemed a long way off. Indeed, it was the height of the Cold War, and I think many people thought we would never live to see it. I can easily remember many times, thinking that World War III would break out. Sometimes it seemed a foregone conclusion.

And perhaps because of this fear, T:2000 worked on some level. The game was relevant until proven wrong (as it was in 1991), and if it had been proven right, well, who the hell would care about roleplaying games anymore after a nuclear holocaust?

You Gen-X gamers reading this can probably relate. We remember that evil vibe of the Cold War, and now it’s gone like the fading of a nasty guitar riff. The Gen-Y gamers and the Millenials probably have only a dim (or no) memory of the Cold War.

Twilight:2000 was the gamers’ expression of those fears. I can look at that game now, and play it with fond nostalgia and the sense of security that comes with knowing that the nightmare didn’t come true.

And that’s also why I have no need for any attempts to “update” the T:2000 timeline to account for current events and newly imagined nightmares. Let the world of Twilight:2000 exist as fiction, or call it an alternate history, and don’t put another expiration date on it.

Cry havoc! MERC, 1981

Back in the early ’80s, my gaming crew and I were big on the whole post-Vietnam action movie thing. We watched The A-Team every week, read Mack Bolan books, and watched movies like The Dogs of War, Uncommon Valor, and Commando over and over. Fantasy Games Unlimited’s MERC was the RPG that channeled our desire for some red meat roleplaying.

I ran the hell out of the game – at least a dozen adventures -  and now when I think back on it, I don’t think we ever had more than a tenuous grasp of the rules. I do know that we loved the clear gunsight overlay and used that a lot. We mowed down commies everywhere from Africa to Latin America and South East Asia.

FGU was a pretty prolific company back then, turning out all kinds of games that us Grognards still remember today – Villains & Vigilantes, Bushido, Aftermath (though I never met anyone who played it) and yes, Bunnies & Burrows. FGU was one of those companies that was always on the edge of my gaming radar, and I lost sight of them some time in the late 80′s when they seemed to have stopped publishing. They were never as big as TSR and SJG and other companies that prospered back in the Golden Age of RPGs but I think their products definitely provided some of the foundation stones for the hobby we have today.

And it seems FGU is still in business amazingly enough! Good for them!

Anyway, I just picked up a new, shrinkwrapped copy of MERC out of nostalgia (for just $10.95), and I am instantly reminded of those Saturday afternoons gaming out on the picnic table in the yard with the Old Crew, raiding commie airfields and blowing up Mi-24s all with the Rolling Stones Satisfaction going in the background.

Good times.

Old School Lurv

Today felt like summer (typical for the Bay Area in February – July will of course be colder than Siberia) and it reminded me of my wasted youth spent indoors on perfectly beautiful days like this playing D&D until the sun went down. As one member of my old Tokyo crew used to say “Ah, a perfect day for gaming!” (which he would say rain or shine).

So anyway, with no game on today (besides the Super Bowl) I sat around this morning and afternoon reading over my old AD&D books and getting all hot and bothered and wanting to play some of that again. Or perhaps some Warhammer FRP 1e. Either game would suit me just fine.

When I was 12, making complete sense of Gygax’s overwritten prose was beyond me, but I managed well enough. The old DM’s guide certainly had character. Given the way people moan and groan about the authors of RPGs having a”voice” it is comforting to know this went all the way back to the very beginning of the hobby. Reading these old books now with the eyes of an adult is pretty damned interesting. The old AD&D book is horribly organized and the density of the writing often obscures the rules, so you have to read carefully. Some of the advice in the old DMG is pretty crazy too by today’s standards (though it certainly was the norm at the time).

This led me to what is known as the OSRIC which stands for Old School Reference and Index Compilation, which is basically a restatement of the AD&D 1e rules (a retro clone). I’d heard of this but hadn’t been motivated to check it out until today. It’s a free PDF so you can grab it at that link too. It does a fine job of reorganizing, rewriting and combing out the original rules. But as a result, it lacks the character of the original, though I’m sure it is far easier to make sense of.

And I half suspect that character of the original books is part of the firm nostalgia I have for the old material. Reading that turgid, tortured game prose was (perhaps) meant to make my little 12 year old nerd self feel smart – I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word milieu used outside of the DMG, but I know that’s where I picked it up from. My family has always chided me for using big vocabulary and maybe that’s where I got it? I dunno (it’s their fault for not being more well-read anyway).

When I ran those insane free-wheeling AD&D games of my youth, I used the rules as I understood them, and I know I never used them as a whole. That may also have been why we had such a good time with it.

I’d still like to give AD&D 1e a go again. I doubt I could recapture the feeling of being 12 again, but it would be kinda cool if I could at least get a glimpse of the spirit that moved me 32 years ago.

Pop Quiz – Retro?

If I were to run some serious Old School AD&D 1e or some other retro-clone, and use it for the old Against the Giants series of modules, would you play?

Casualties would be high!