4th edition got me back into RPGing. I had taken a hiatus from gaming for a number of years, but a random feed advertisement for a YT vid for 4th edition review peaked my interest. It inspired me to pick up a copy for myself and I am not back into RPG games (specifically Free League games :) ).

At first I wasn't sure if I liked the way 4th edition was far less "crunchy" than the previous editions, but it certainly won me over for speeding up gameplay.

Free League has done a great job with honoring the spirit of the older editions and updating it into new mechanics.

Hopefully we will get a bunch more official modules. I hear Black Madonna is out for Kickstarters so hope to see that available soon for the general public. Also Hostile Waters is finishing up as well.

Can't wait for more!

I was 13 when I purchased the original game, and I have nothing but praise for this new edition!

The production values in the physical starter box are excellent. The art is well done and evocative of the original game. The maps are beautiful and on high-quality stock. The encounter cards are detailed and useful.

I'm still making my way through them, but so far the books are very well written and logically presented. I remember the original game having a lot of math during character generation, and that's been replaced with a choice of pre-built character templates (Archetypes in the rules) or a longer "Lifepath" method. Nice and flexible for groups with different needs.

I like the way the game provides suggestions for campaign priorities: will you try to escape Poland and find your way back home? Will you try and establish a safe home somewhere? Or will you keep fighting, linking up with other friendly forces?

Overall I'm very pleased and happy Free League published the new edition!

Surviving after World War 3 - a Mephisto review

An alternate history: While in the early 1990s the end of the Cold War and a new era of peace seem within reach, history suddenly takes an unexpected course, and on the threshold of the 21st century the world is in ruins. In 1992, a coup in the disintegrating Soviet Union changes the familiar course of history. When hardliners in Moscow come to power and decide to reabsorb the Baltic states, things escalate under U.S. President West. NATO and the Warsaw Pact clash in Europe, and the conflict escalates to the use of nuclear weapons - even though neither side launches its entire arsenal to completely destroy Earth. With the start of the new millennium, a NATO offensive is supposed to turn the tide finally. But the advance stalls, and the troops are stranded on their own in Poland....

While the first edition of Twilight: 2000 from 1984 projected a futuristic scenario, in the current fourth edition this dark future lies already long in the past from the player's perspective.

The basic setting assumes that the player characters are a squad of NATO soldiers and affiliated persons stranded on their own in ruined Poland. Alternatively, there is a setting taking place in Sweden but similar in terms of the initial situation. The central goal of the game depends on the players: Whether the player characters want to somehow get back home, for example, or simply build a safe haven in the chaos is up to the group.

Unlike other games of the genre, Twilight: 2000 presents a more realistic end-time scenario: there are no mutants and robots like in computer games like Fallout and Wasteland, and no other special powers. The player characters are confronted with much simpler, but thus no less haunting threats: the search for food and fuel, the confrontation with animals and scavengers, and also threats like cold, fire or radiation. Civilization has largely collapsed. Major cities have been razed to the ground, starvation and disease have killed large portions of the population that survived the fighting. Even though vehicles can run on alcohol instead of gasoline, food and fuel are scarce. This situation does not necessarily bring out the best in the survivors, especially when it comes to fighting over remaining resources. In areas such as Sweden and Poland, where the two sides of the conflict have clashed, the situation is particularly dire, and the remnants of troops are in some cases still carrying on the lost war. It is a depressingly dark and dangerous world that will challenge the player characters.

Character creation in Twilight: 2000 offers two options. The faster way offers nine archetypes ranging from Child and Civilian to Officer and Spook. Alternatively, there is the possibility to give the characters a background story by rolling dice with the Life Path System and thus develop the characters step by step. Characters are defined by attributes and skills, which are measured on a scale of A to D. There are specializations to the skills. Still, for the characters, the Big Dream and the moral code are also essential aspects - even if they are more relevant for background and motivation than for game statistics.

The dice system is based on rolling one attribute and one skill together for each test. The values from A to D indicate the dice type: A is a d12, while D is a d6. The dice are checked individually, and a result of 6+ is a success. Results of 10+ even count as two successes. Rolled 1s have no effect at first, but a roll can be forced, and then each 1 means damage or stress.

A large part of the rules revolves around combat, which should ideally be fought on tactical battle maps, which are included in the set. Therefore, the combat rules include effects of terrain, cover, barriers, blast radii, chemical weapons, etc. Characters cannot take much damage before they are incapacitated, however. In addition, if injuries are severe enough, critical wounds are the result, which can mean nasty side effects up to instant death.

As expected for a game with a military background, Twilight: 2000 offers a comprehensive arsenal of weapons from knives to battle tanks for all of the primary armies relevant in the setting (USA, Sweden, Poland and Soviet Union), and it is not at all unlikely that a group of player characters will have an armored vehicle or even tank. While this may make survival easier, obtaining fuel and ammunition and maintenance pose unique problems. And, of course, such a vehicle can become a target for other groups.

Another aspect highlighted by the rules is traveling and exploring the environment, as well as building a base. Here, you can find elements from other Fria Ligan games. Exploring the hex map at the initiative of the players is based on Forbidden Lands and deals with practical aspects such as terrain, weather, loot, and procuring food. If players prefer to built a base rather than being constantly on the move, this base can be upgraded - similar to Vaesen - with various features that provide advantages in the game (but may also attract opponents).

While rules and character creation make up the Player's Manual, the Referee's Manual provides the history and background for World War 3. The focus is on the main scenarios of Poland and Sweden and only roughly touches on the rest of the world. The setting focuses on military operations, troops and unit strengths, and the strategic situation. After a chapter on game-playing, the book presents an arsenal of encounters that can also be randomly drawn with appropriate playing cards. This approach also allows solo play, which is already explained as an option in the manual. These random encounters offer small hooks and are easy to use.

Finally, after introducing the various power groups and their goals, several elaborate scenario locations present a location and its inhabitants more comprehensively with relevant conflicts and events to draw the player characters into the plot. There is a former prison where a new religious community has come together; there is an occupied city where a colonel has built the illusion of the American homeland; and there is a cadet school from which children continue to fight the war. These scenarios perfectly set the stage for the game's moral conflicts and gray areas - and will likely soon confront players with tough decisions.

In addition to the rulebooks, the Core Set includes handouts of military documents, overview maps, battle maps, markers, cards for initiative and encounters. In the digital version, however, this means that you have to print them out yourself, so for fans of such game material, the printed edition is undoubtedly the better option.

In the end, it feels difficult to rate Twilight: 2000. The prejudice that I was dealing with an outdated and militaristic setting was invalidated by the way the game world is presented. Of course, the player characters are skilled in combat and ideally have access to an arsenal of cutting-edge weapons - but this hardware and skills can only solve the game's problems and conflicts to a limited extent. And the military terminologies and lists of troop units are sometimes exhausting to read. The war is lost for all sides, and even when it comes to fighting battles against marauders and other enemies, the human aspects of the war are in the foreground, especially in the scenario locations: the struggle for survival, the search for meaning and perspective, and the spark of hope. Also, the freedom for player characters to choose to explore the environment and pursue the leads that interest them, or alternatively trying to build and hold a base, gives players, in particular, an extreme amount of freedom in an open world. This approach, where the players drive the game, is quite successful. Here, the player characters can build something - but how much that will ultimately bring in the destroyed world remains questionable. And that's the downside: the post-WW3 world is a depressing place, and the chance that things will get better later or somewhere else is missing. This point can also definitely demotivate players.

In terms of mechanics, the system of four levels of values linked to different dice is personally not my cup of tea, even if the need to force rolls more often adds a coherent and challenging element to the game. After all, even if a failure only damages equipment, that may be a hard blow in the world of Twilight: 2000.

For those who aren't scared off by the depressing post doomsday setting and are looking for a challenge in a truly open world in form of the dangers of the post-World War 3 world, Twilight: 2000 offers an immersive setting whose strength is shown in the scenario locations that confront the player characters with moral questions. In this respect, the game provides excellent potential for impressive stories.

It is further noteworthy that Fria Ligan has opened Twilight: 2000 to the Free League Workshop, which allows fans to publish their own products on DriveThruRPG, leading to a growing number of various unofficial expansions.

(Björn Lippold)

The return of a classic is always good.

The return of a classic in a new and improved form is even better.

A beautiful looking book (as you´d expect from the Tales from the Loop team) that gives the chance to play through the brutal aftermath of the WWIII that never was. Fully detailed background for the beloved Poland setting; maps, orders of battle, weapons and vechiles etc.

Plus the same level of detail and disconerting plausibility to running Twilight across the shattered remains of southern Sweden. Both are so full of possibility for GMs it would be a coin toss to pick which to start with. The four included scenario sites (fleshed out location and situation brieffings, more than an expanded account but less than a prewritten module) are fully reskinned for Polish/Swedish NPCs where needed ... slight inconsisstency in name reskinning is the biggest issue I have encountered with the whole product so far. Also included of course travel and battlemaps.

Oh yeah ... there is also a 5 page Appendix worth of Solo play rules, that look like they will be taking up a lot of my time in 2022. There is choice of template characters to start play tonight, or more detailed term based career path for those who want either a tailored or random character.

Core mechanics like Free League´s Alien, simple fast and playable, with clear solid mechanics for combat, travel and survival. Exactly what you want for the Twilight setting ... and if you have not thought of at least one movie cross over already please hand in your screen.

Heartily recommeded and hungrily waiting for more suppliments - not because this doesn´t contain everything you want and more for years of gaming - there is such a rich world to explore.

And a timely reminder that many of us grew up in the shadow of an even worse possibility than the last few years. Thanks to all involved in making this happen.

We have been playing once a week now for close to six months and the group is enjoying the game. Is the game light on crunch, a little, but we spend the extra time we weren’t doing math on role playing. We have had plenty of combat with and without the hexes and used 15mm and 28mm miniatures to resolve combat. We have also used the hex crawl mechanic and random encounter cards on our way to Krakow. The travel and survival aspect of the game really adds a new dimension for the players. It puts a lot of pressure on characters. Do you eat, sleep or take from someone else. The highlight of the game so far was the group deciding if they stay and help a town or keep moving.
Production values are top notch and the map is awesome. Several of the characters have top skills like D12s but once I add in a few modifiers it becomes harder for them to do things.
If you are new to the T2K world don’t hesitate to dig into some of the old material for adventure ideas and world building. Does 4th have everything, no, but it has more than enough to create a unique gaming experience without trying to figure out how much body combat damage Bobbi Lee will do.

The theme is great. The artwork is amazing. I really like the encounter deck. Which is really smart because they can release new encounter decks over time to expand the game. Same with the map, I love that idea. BUT I despise there only being 4 levels of expertise/competency and I really don't like it being tied to a die type (d6/d8/d10/d12). If feels like an arbitrary design decision that works for a "one off" game. But if you want the option for a long term campaign with actual character development... 4 levels doesnt get you very far. Unfortunately, I don't see how that decision can even be fixed with a supplemental book either. Using percentile dice for skills would have been better design decision for long term play. Or even a d6 mechanic that increases the number of dice rolled based on how skilled the person is (2d6, 3d6, 4d6....10d6, etc). So the game works fine for one off games... or really short campaigns. But if your crew is travelling from Poland to the US? Forget about it. They will be rolling all d12's for everything before you even cross the Atlantic. Bummer.