“THREE trucks and EIGHTEEN soldiers?! Are you calling this game quits, Jay??”
“Well, not 18 soldiers, but for sure eighteen… uhh, fighters.”
30 some odd sessions come down to alcohol still. This still requires different parts to build. Twilight: 2000 generalizes components into easy spare part categories, electronic, mechanical, and general. A small still requires 20 general spare parts. The still was needed to provide “safe” fuel for the pickup truck the characters have. Last time they literally stopped for gas…there were injuries! Building this still required going out, scavenging, and bringing junk back to the base - this was the basis of several player-driven sessions where they would pick where they were going, and we’d play it out. Oh, then there is the number of shifts required to build the thing! All of that to point out that this still represented time invested by the players, which is why they took on three trucks full of armed Russians to get it back.
The planning talk was player owned and mostly about getting all four players on board about the goal. The actual plan was to set up an ambush to slow the convoy of trucks leaving with their stuff and the still. Mechanically this buys them the advantage of going first and picking the range of the engagement. They picked a curved section of a two-lane road running through a wooded area. On the table, this was great; they were able to suppress and contain three trucks of soldiers for a time. For a time…because when you shoot a lotta bullets, you’ll need to reload. We learned coordinating those reloads is vital to keeping that horde suppressed. The tide is slowly turning, and it is hard to call this fight. The Russian force is close to being broken and will scatter…but the players could face some scary decisions if the dice ever break the right way for me! uhh, the Russian force.
How We Got Here.
I didn’t expect this fight. A few sessions back, the characters rescued an American, probably an intelligence agent. He warned them a Soviet force was pursuing him, and they won’t be safe if he stayed long. Well, that’s where the three trucks of troops come from. They rolled into the little farming community the characters are living comfortably in. I, as GM, thought maybe they’ll hunker down and hide, maybe they’ll try to talk their way out. Will they protect the American? We’ll see. The characters bolted like rabbits. They abandoned the whole affair. Then while making mobility tests, they had to make a choice, help another player-character who failed their test or get the still. Later checking back on if the Russians had left the farm base, they found their stuff about to be loaded on the trucks with a lot of other stuff. And that is what broke the camel’s back, my friends.
How’s It Going
What’s nice is I am not holding anything back. I was terrified at first that this would go bad, fast. I still think it’ll go bad, but slow. Slow, IMHO, is good because the players can see the bad shit coming and make decisions about it, including when to cut bait. The Foundry VTT is a rockstar managing the combat and dice; I think this lets us have a conversation about what is unfolding and keep the tension tight. The rules allow NPCs to help each other in combat by providing an advantage and reducing the number of actions you might roll for —can you imagine rolling for 18 sets of actions?! Damage results can be applied across groups; also, suppression applies to the group. I’ve been super transparent about how I’m rolling. There are a couple of SpecOps spooks on the Russian team. Any troopers in the hex with the SpecOps troop suffer the same fate; if the SpecOps guy is suppressed, so is everyone else. When the SpecOps shoots, the regular troops mechanically help.
Do not be alarmed when I say this combat. Four characters ambushing three trucks of eighteen troops has taken 2.5 sessions so far to play through. It’s a mix of tangents, planning talk, situation talk, rules checking all the stuff in a regular session; only we’re still in a combat encounter. It doesn’t feel like a slog or a grind. Because it’s a character-ending situation, I’m going with the pace we have. I need the players to feel good about the decisions they are making. I also don’t want to cheapen anything by throwing the GMM fiat bone their way. They picked this fight, a fight over a still they spent real time and game resources building. I don’t need it to go any particular way; I do need them to be happy with how it fell out.
T2K Basic Training 🤷🏾♂️
If you’re gonna go shoot shit up - it better matter.
Location, location, location, then ambush. Picking where, the distance of engagement, and going first are critical to the fight’s momentum.
Solve your group’s reload timing. If you’re reloading, you’re creating an opportunity for the opposition.
Stay in comms, review, and change your initiative slots. It makes a difference.
Happy holidays
We’re taking a forced hiatus. The holidays have our schedule in chaos. We’ll play some other short stuff as we can through the holidays and pick up where we left off in the heat of battle. I do not believe we’ll lose the ‘magic fizz.’ We’ve got 30+ sessions in, and we’re leaving it on a cliffhanger - a fight the players picked for a thing they care about, an alcohol still. Whodathunkit!
If they're willing to fill a cemetery over a still, you'd better not get them a puppy.