The world presented in TW2K is ravaged by a war that has – directly or else – touched every corner of the planet. The players travel a ruined landscape where surviving is a difficult to achieve imperative, all encounters are potentially deadly and radioactive spots abound.
Years of war have poisoned both the ground and the people, and stranded hundreds of thousands in a land far from home, nominally still fighting a conflict that has lost whatever motive it had to exist. Hundreds of thousands more have broken their previous allegiance and now survive in any way they can, unrestrained by uniforms, morals, or concerns of loyalty.
The game’s background moves from real events of recent history and turns to fiction by escalating the situation to a point where war breaks out, grinds to a stalemate, and then crosses the non-return point of nuclear exchanges.
It is both a compelling scenario for an RPG campaign, and a strong warning for real life. After the release of Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, the world has seen an increase in armed conflicts. Some had been simmering for years, or decades, and some were relatively unexpected.
I am using the world depicted in TW2K and the game’s mechanics to tell a story. That is: a fictional story.
The more vividly I can depict the environment in which my characters (i.e. my players) live and act, the starker the contrast between what we have, and what they have lost, and the stronger the parallel between their fictional world and the real-life conditions people are experiencing in worn-torn parts of our world.
I started this blog to tell a story, and that’s all. I hope it will be engaging, entertaining, that it will bring a laugh at times and deep thoughts at other times. Yet if you keep up with the events of this world we inhabit, you might find here and there a warning, or a call for justice and responsibility. In such a story, one cannot avoid it.
Frankly, I think it’s best not to avoid it.
Aaron C. Loop
