(T2K) Fire & Blood 1

This is simultaneously my first entry in #FebGameWriMo and also the first part of a Twilight 2000 solo sandbox campaign let’s play roll-and-writeup. I’m going to solo a campaign based somewhere in Poland in the traditional spirit of T2K.

I’m going to roll up my first character for the campaign. While I am actively backing the rebooted T2Kv4, I’m going to use the good old v1 rules for now (especially as I want these #FebGameWriMo creations to be Dead Game content) and I might try some v2 and v2.2 in upcoming posts so that I can get a feel for what I prefer. And of course, I’m sure that in the future I’ll update any surviving characters to v4 when that eventually ships.

Sonia Esteban is a 23 year old Combat Medic, embedded at SPEC 4 in the 3-156 Infantry of the US 256th Brigade. She was born and raised in Houston, Texas. Sonia worked as a paramedic until she was drafted at the outbreak of hostilities.

After I used UNE (by Zach Best) and SOLO (by Paul Elliott) to create extra background juice in the Vasco Perez post that follows this one, I thought I would circle back around to this post and add in some retrospective details for Sonia Esteban.

So from UNE I roll up a series of descriptors and try to fashion them into something that makes sense for her character. I got “A shrewd expert, who attempts happiness, takes lies, and embraces freedom.”

“Shrewd expert” I’m going to interpret as Sonia being able to use her medical skills to both heal and interrogate. I’m getting a bit of an image of the Laurence Olivier character torturing Dustin Hoffman’s character in Marathon Man, so expert that he hits a nerve every time during the torture. I’m not sure why Sonia can switch off her empathy and torture when her life has been dedicated to healing, and I’m sure that I’ll be able to find something in these character background generation processes that hints at why. My fallback position can always be ‘War does funny things to people’.

“Attempts happiness” could be that Sonia tries different ways to raise her spirits, maybe to block out the horrors of the war and the apocalypse, or maybe that’s what she tells herself, that the horrors are external, and nothing to do with some of the dark things that she’s done since being thrown into it. So Sonia is always on the lookout for something to brighten her day, some flowers, some art, a beautiful landscape or sunset; something that she can lose herself in and forget everything.

“Takes lies” I’m going to interpret as Sonia being willing to lie to herself in order to feel better, and to accept lies from others if it means she can feel happier. A sort of ‘tell me the beautiful lie rather than the ugly truth.’ So if they come across an obviously dying child in some town, and afterwards Sonia asks the others what they think happened to the child, what she wants is for someone to lie and say that the child survived and that everything will be OK.

“Embraces freedom” I’m going to interpret in quite a narrow and specific way for Sonia. Focusing on ’embraces’ I’m going to say that this is her being a bit needy, and needing to have someone in her life whom she feels is helping to get her out of bad situations and towards being free of hardships. So she might base her current relationships more around practical necessity rather than any higher ideals like respect and love.

Then using SOLO I generated three Life Events for Sonia:

In the past Sonia fell in love, but her lover turned against her. At this point I have no idea who that might be, and it does explain some of the emerging details about Sonia’s behaviour and character.

Imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, and she would love to clear her name. I’m going to slightly reinterpret this and say that she is accused of a crime she didn’t commit, something that has happened before the war, but that war broke out and she was drafted before she could be prosecuted and so it is still hanging over her, making her simultaneously dread and long to go back home and clear her name.

In the past Sonia learned something that she shouldn’t have known, and she had to flee for her own safety. I’m not sure what this might be yet, and I’m sure that something will present itself either during the creation of the other characters, or during play.

So v1 T2K uses a 4D6-4 roll for attributes to create a value from 0-20 (rolls of 0 can be re-rolled – phew!)

So I roll my first character:

• Fitness 12
• Agility 13
• Constitution 11
• Stature 6
• Intelligence 14
• Education 11
• TOTAL: 67
• Strength = (Fitness + Stature) / 2 = 9

I decided not to favour or slight any of the attributes. I’ll take what the dice give me this time out. So from those base attributes we calculate the following other stats:

• Hit Capacity HEAD 11
• Hit Capacity CHEST 26
• Hit Capacity OTHER 17
• Weight 64kg (approx 141lbs)
• Load 26kg
• Throw Range 18m
• Military Experience 7
• Time In Combat 25 months
• Coolness Under Fire 4
• RADS 14
• Age 23
• Rank Specialist 4 US ARMY
• Nationality American
• Language English 100% Spanish 100%
• Skill Points: Military 280 Education 220 Background 300

At this point, I’m looking at this character and wondering who they are. I’m going to go with Sonia Esteban as her name, and she’s going to try to enlist in the Medical branch as a Combat Medic, given her INT of 14. She succeeds, and so will buy MED skill at half cost.

Sonia spends her skill points thusly. 300 Background points (30 BG pts to get EQ at 30. 30 BG pts to get MTN at 30. 40 BG pts to get RCN at 20. 25 BG pts to get FSH at 50. 30 BG pts to get SBH at 30. 30 BG pts to get SCR at 30. 30 BG pts to get 30 SWM. 25 BG pts to get 25 BC. 30 BG pts to get HB at 30. 30 BG pts to get ELC 30.) 220 EDU points (45 EDU pts to get MED at 70. 20 EDU pts to get BIO at 20. 60 EDU pts to get German, Russian and Polish at 20 each. 30 EDU pts to get INS at 30. 40 EDU pts to get CHM at 40. 15 EDU pts to get FRM at 15). 280 Military points (30 MIL pts to get CRM30. 50 MIL pts to get INT50. 25 MIL pts to get MEC25. 25 MIL pts to get FRG25. 30 MIL pts to get PST30. 25 MIL pts to get MC25. 40 MIL pts to get RCN20. 40 MIL pts to get FOR40. 15 MIL pts to get MCY15.)

• LNG (English)100
• LNG(Spanish)100
• LNG(German)20
• LNG(Polish)20
• LNG(Russian)20
• CRM50 Combat Rifleman
• MC45 Melee Combat
• BC45 Body Combat
• WVD40 Wheeled Vehicle Driver
• TW20 Thrown Weapon
• SWM50 Swimming
• MED70 Medical
• BIO20 Biology
• CHM40 Chemistry
• INS30 Instruction
• FRM15 Farming
• EQ30 Equestrian
• FSH50 Fishing
• MTN30 Mountaineering
• RCN40 Recon
• SBH30 Small Boat Handling
• SCR30 Scrounging
• HB30 Hunting Bow
• ELC30 Electronics
• INT50 Interrogation
• MEC25 Mechanic
• FRG25 Forgery
• PST30 Pistol
• FOR40 Forage
• MCY15 Motorcycle