Twilight: 2000 (4th Edition)

My RPG group got back together and, by common consent, we put our Dune campaign on hold. It was not only that its system was failing to keep us alert; there was also little material beyond a rehash of the books. Maybe we will return when it has matured further. For now, after plenty of loose, narrative play, we wanted something more down to earth. I considered Fallout 2d20 — with all the miniatures I own, I could easily turn it into a mini-war game — and Mindjammer, but circumstances helped me settle on the new Twilight: 2000. I already had it on the shelf, had wanted it for a while, and it simply ticked every box we were looking for.

The setup is easy to grasp: the Third World War has ended in the mutual destruction of the two great alliances, NATO sends one last optimistic message about a counteroffensive, and then you explain to the players just how spectacularly everything went wrong. “Good luck, you are on your own” remains exactly the right closing line. You do not need to bury the group under a mountain of reading to get them into the setting; the premise immediately gives everyone the context and the tone.

At the table, the fourth edition brings the Forbidden Lands system into Twilight: 2000’s dystopian world, and does so with care. Conflict carries enough tactical weight to make you think as a team without losing the RPG side of things. The combat system in particular strikes me as a very good introduction to squad-level tactics with a hex-and-counter feel: the group’s decisions matter, and the military theme is finally supported by the game rather than merely used as scenery.

Our first outing lasted seven hours and was great fun. Gradually, the theme won out even over ES’s jokes, which usually destroy any suspension of disbelief in military RPGs — and that says something on its own. I recommend it without hesitation for that first helping. Just know that, once you exhaust the core box material in roughly four or five sessions, the GM will need either to put in serious effort or to adapt older scenarios.