Frequently-Asked Questions

With this page, I’ll try to answer some questions that pop up a lot about my site, particularly in the email I receive. I’ll grant you that these are short answers, and everything that should be here is probably not, but I’ll do the best I can, and add to the page as time goes by.

Q: What is Twilight 2000?

A: Twilight 2000 is a role-playing game which takes place in the aftermath of a fictional World War 3 which begins in 1995. It began in 1984, the creation of Frank Chadwick at the company of Games Designers’ Workshop (now defunct). It has been revived and kept alive, largely on the internet, all this time, until now it is owned by Far Future, which is slowly reprinting the game. It is perhaps the best military role-playing game (especially in its version 2.2 guise) ever devised.

 

Q: What do all those terms and abbreviations on your site, like Com Mov, ROF, Brst, etc., mean?

A: This would really require a discussion of the game mechanics for a full answer; however, the abbreviations and acronyms are something which may be in a Glossary page I plan for the future.

 

Q: What version are the stats for the stuff on your site based?

A: Version 2.2, with some changes (see House Rules and Character Generation).

 

Q: Why are there prices listed for the items on your site?

A: Twilight 2000 uses dollars to indicate the value of items in the game. I sometimes think this was an unfortunate choice, given some of the email I receive on a regular basis (see below), but no one had any inkling in 1984 about the World Wide Web, search engines, and how such things might be mistaken.

 

Q: How close to reality are the descriptions of items on your site?

A: Well...they are as close as I can make them.  I strive to be as accurate as possible.  I do not claim to be infallible, however.  (As a matter of fact, if you spot an error, please email me.)  There are, of course, two major exceptions: the descriptions with "Twilight 2000 Notes" and "Merc 2000 Notes" beside them; these descriptions are wholly made up in most cases.  The other major exception are the prices; see the next question. 

 

Q: The prices you list don't make any sense.  How close to reality are they?

A: They bear no resemblance to reality whatsoever (except possibly by coincidence).  They are more a reflection of the items' relative worth in game terms.

 

Q: Are you some kind of arms dealer?

A: Ha ha ha! No, the prices are for the game. I don’t sell anything from my site, period, and have no intention of doing so. And I have no idea whatsoever how to get virtually all of the items on my site. Did you really think I could have a B-2 Spirit bomber for sale?

 

Q: I don’t believe you, and I think you are just selling things under the table.

A: Too bad for you. But believe me, I do understand delusions…

 

Q: Where did all the military pictures you once had on your site go?

A: That’s a tough one, and I’m not sure what I can say here without bringing down the wrath of certain parties. Let’s just say that certain parties, who will not be mentioned here and from whence I got most of the pictures, objected to their use on my site. STRENUOUSLY. Enough that I’m not going to take that chance, ever again, with any other such pictures.

 

Q: Why do some items on your site say "This weapon does not exist," or something like that, when I am quite sure that they do exist?

A: If you look carefully, you will notice that those items have in front of them "Twilight 2000 Notes," or sometimes, "Merc 2000 Notes."  This means that in that in those alternate timelines (which are not real life), those items would not exist.

 

Q: Just how crazy are you?

A: We who are mentally ill, as well as our doctors, don’t use the word "crazy" to describe our condition. "Crazy" is more a colloquial term for people who act weird, and is really not very descriptive. I do have a mental illness, a severe one, which is partially managed by medication, but most of the time, I am reasonably well. I am not a danger to other people. The medication, however, gives me memory problems as well as making me tired most of the time, and I tend to sleep because of it 12+ hours a day. (By the way, "nuts" is another such term.)

 

Q: Why haven’t you answered my email?

A: This depends on many things, but generally falls into five categories:

1) My Outlook inbox is a mess, what with all the legitimate emails I do get, newsletters, tech support answers from companies I have requested support from, registration numbers or files I get from companies I’ve bought software from, etc. And, as mentioned above, I do tend to have memory problems. But every so often, I clean out my Inbox, and find some email I never answered, and then I answer it. (I especially like the email which corrects bad information on my site or gives me new information; keep sending it, even if I don’t answer right away!) Your email may also be very long or a proper answer would take a long time to compose, so I’m thinking about what to say.

2) I didn’t like your tone, or your email was a flame or other wise-ass comment, and I decided not to answer you. You know who you are.

3) You asked me to sell you some item from my site; I threw that email out with the spam, and added you to my spam filter.

4) You asked me to do some general research for you.  If you want to know some stats or other information in a game context, I'll generally do that for you; I've even been known to whip up some game stats on some vehicle, weapon, or piece of equipment especially for someone.  But I'm not going to answer the emails of every Tom, Dick, or Harry who wants to know something about whatever they are interested in; I don't have the time for it.  To those people, I recommend Google.

There is an exception to this rule.  A certain author or her author friends (the author in question shall remain nameless so she doesn't get spam) may email me at any time and ask me any question she likes. 

5) You basically asked me to explain the game rules to you whether directly or by asking me what the different stats mean.  To answer such questions would basically require me to write a book.  (Wait -- there is such a book!  It's called Twilight 2000 version 2.2...).  If you really want to know the meaning of all those stats, I recommend going to drivethrurpg.com, Ebay, a used bookstore, or suchlike, and buying the game rules.  In other words, this is another thing I don't have time to answer countless emails about.

 

Q: Why haven’t you put the changes I suggested in your site yet?

A: Generally one of four things have happened:

1) My bad memory struck again, and I just forgot about it. I’ll get to it eventually.

2) I haven’t forgotten about it, but haven’t gotten around to changing the page yet, due to more pressing concerns, or because I intend to make other changes to the page as well as soon as I get more information.

3) I researched what you suggested, and found out you weren’t right about the suggested change.

4) Your idea for changes was unwieldy, or possibly even silly (at least in one case), and I ignored you.

 

Q: 5.56mm NATO is not the same as .223 Remington!  7.62mm NATO is not the same as .308 Winchester!  6.5-08 A-Square is not the same as .260 Remington...

A: Yes, you're absolutely right.  However, in several cases, there are ammunition types of which there are military and civilian forms; while they are not identical in real world terms, the differences are so slight that they cannot be accounted for in the Twilight 2000 v2.2 system.  Therefore, one has been chosen to represent the military and civilian forms, and this is usually the military one.

In the case of ammunition such as the 6.5-08 A-Square/.260 Remington argument...well, in many cases, ammunition is reproduced with little modification from other rounds already existing.  I generally use the first one I hear about to represent the different ammunition.