The Day 25 entry in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and I’m using another GDW game from the 90’s, Twilight: 2000 2nd Edition (2.2 specifically). This is around the same time frame that GDW released Traveller: The New Era, so the character creation also includes a character generation worksheet. In the early 90’s had played the first edition of Twilight: 2000. I don’t remember much about the system, but I do remember enjoying the campaign the GM was running.
I’m going to be using the steps listed on the worksheet as the book recommends it. On page 16 is the start of the Character Generation process in the book. I’ll be returning to the book when the worksheet fails to provide the proper amount of information. Like the Traveller: TNE worksheet, I wish that page numbers were present.
First item on the sheet is selecting a name. I pulled up a random name generator and selected Blaine Dawson. The second item is the gender and I wrote down male and I selected American for the third step of Nationality. Native Languages and it says “See Army/Nationality/Native Language Table). I wish the PDF had bookmarks but eventually I was able to find it on page 47. Um… wow, it’s broken down by Family, Group and then Language. I’m not certain why. But being an American boy I wrote down Germanic/Anglic/English.
Moving on. Basic attributes. They are Strength, Agility, Constitution, Charisma, Intelligence and Education. Roll 2d6-2 and re-roll any zeroes. I believe that I do this down the line. If the total added together totals less than 30, I can bump it up. Luckily I rolled high enough and I wrote down the numbers in the “roll” column of the worksheet.
Step six on the worksheet just says “Background Skills” with four blank spots with +2 next to it. There is a list under it so I’m assuming that I pick four of these. I picked the four for this character.
And our next step is Careers. There is spots for six different terms and moved back to the book to see if more details were provided. While I’m assuming that this is like Traveler: TNE, I’m double checking. I finally found it on page 30. The first term has a set listing of skills that is provided to the character. After looking them over, I decided that Blaine Dawson was going to be a medic in the US Army. I think I roll a D10 to see if he earns a promotion, which he did not in the first term. I’m not certain how many terms he has to have, but I rolled a 1 to see if war started on his first term so World War III has started. All sequential terms have some additional items since they take place in wartime. This includes an automatic promotion (still in the enlisted ranks). And I found that there is only one more term since war has started. Works for me.
Now there are several rapid fire steps. The Initiative, Rads, Age, Hit Capacity (per body part), Weight, Load, Throw Range and Unarmed Combat Damage. Basically determined by several mathematical formulas later and I had the worksheet filled in.
Equipment. Each character was provided with some basic equipment from their military unit. There is a chance for a vehicle for every three characters in the group (whoops). Then there is some starting money that I can use to finish equipping Sgt. Dawson. I couldn’t find any standard list. So I just started writing down stuff I thought an Army Medic from the US would have. Here’s the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
As I mentioned above, I had played the 1st edition game. I’m not certain how this game compares to that one. I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to try. I did play a one-shot of the latest Twilight 2000 game at a SaltCON in 2023. But I don’t recall much from that event as it seems like just a blur now. I don’t know if I’d ever get a chance to play this game right now.
Additional Notes:
Phil Hatfield on MeWe responded to my GI Joe entry for the Character Creation Challenge with the following.
“I picked this up, as did a good friend of mine. We played it once. I generated a character, he ran it. The game plays “fine”, but it seems like it it just approaching something that could be really cool, but doesn’t quite get there. The biggest issue we experienced was the fact that not a single known Joe was statted. Cobra was, but not the Joes. Oh, eventually they released stats for a dozen or so Joes, but that was many months before that showed up. It was an unfortunate game system. It flirted with “cool”, but just never got there. My buddy picked up every much everything for it, I only got one or two other things for it. Like you, I don’t know and never heard of any other person playing this. You are honestly the first other person I have seen even talk about this.”
Roger B on MeWe responded to Phil.
“I have this at home, this and the Transformers RPG. I’m just intimidated to run it because my friend, who would be a player, is such a bigger Joe fan than me. And I haven’t finished my first pass through the rule book.”
Coming Up Next:
The Strange
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