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With all of the discussion around the background story, where everybody who wishes to express an opinion has done so, it is all too easy to forget that we are fortunate that Free League is taking a well-liked classic game and bringing it back in an updated form. We should be thankful for their efforts and initiative.

Everyone has opinions. All of them are valid, but it stands to reason that 8,000+ people are not going to agree on everything (or anything, for that matter). However, Free League are the ones making this game, which happens to be set in a fictional world of their creation. It’s their sandbox. Of course, once we have the game in our eager hands, we can change as much or as little as we want. Those who wish to change the backstory can do so to their hearts desire. That’s what RPGs are all about.

I’m enjoying what I see of the new T2K so far, and it sounds like many others are as well. I am content to sit back while the good folks at Free League work their creative magic and do the heavy lifting of putting together this new edition of a game that has been sitting on my shelf since the very first edition. Thanks, Free League! Please just keep doing what you’re doing (or to borrow from the popular expression, keep calm and carry on).

Thank you!

I agree. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, but not everyone should display them in public.

The actual rules are far more important than the world building. Twilight at its core is a military combat and survival game. If it fails to do that part well then that will sink the game. Homebrew world building is easy, homebrew combat rules are hard.

I have every hope that the final rule set will be everything we could hope for or I wouldn't have forked out the money.

True as far as it goes — but is there any specific reason why only those who're happy with the current backstory should be allowed to flash theirs?

Or why the game under no circumstances can be allowed to have a backstory that satisfies both those who just want some story to set the scene for a bit of post-apocalyptic hex crawling and those who want a plausible backstory, but still want to be able to use the game out of the box without cringing?

I do not see that as an entirely unreasonable thing to hope for; nor do I see these two as in any way being mutually exclusive.

I did say we can't discuss the worldbuilding - I have been showing off mine just as much as the next person - but a few people are slipping into making demands rather than suggestions.

What is important will also differ between all the people who bought into this game.

For me the worldbuilding isn't going to stop me playing it. The rules covering combat and survival if inadequate would.

But each to their own.

I did say we can't discuss the worldbuilding - I have been showing off mine just as much as the next person - but a few people are slipping into making demands rather than suggestions.

What is important will also differ between all the people who bought into this game.

For me the worldbuilding isn't going to stop me playing it. The rules covering combat and survival if inadequate would.

But each to their own.

Fair enough.

"... so as you can see, the situation makes no sense. The coup could never have succeeded."

I just looked at him for a minute. He had a look of triumph, as if he had actually won something. I wished I had a cigarette so I could disdainfully flick the butt into the campfire, but I hadn't seen a cigarette in two years. If there's one thing to be said for a nuclear exchange, it's a king-hell quit-smoking program. But you lose out on dramatic gestures.

"That's nice," I said. "But the LT is still dead, the truck is still banjaxed, and we still need to walk to Krakow."

I have to remark that to me, esoteric questions as to how the war came about are much less important than the game-world fact that it did come about. There are legitimate questions as to whether the situation as described in any given country is socially realistic for that country, which can be frustrating, but the game is at base about surviving. And before anyone talks about verisimilitude, I have to ask how the nuclear war was survivable, what happened to nuclear winter, and how your character has not already starved to death.

The bottom line in the success of an RPG comes following the session and lies in one simple question: did you have fun? I'm not sure that questions over something that happened three years ago in game-time, of which the PCs have at best a fuzzy understanding, and which have no influence on the events of the session, really have much to do with that.

Opinion duly noted, and thank you for sharing it!

But from my viewpoint, it still boils down to this question:

What, exactly, would be the insurmountable problem with the game having a backstory that satisfies both those who just want some story to set the scene for a bit of post-apocalyptic hex crawling and those who want a plausible backstory but still want to be able to use the game out of the box without cringing, if — if — such a backstory could be introduced?

Is it an end unto itself that player groups that do look for a certain degree of verisimilitude should be excluded from enjoying the game as published?

The problem is that it seems like every time you want to Persuade someone of your point, they have to acquiesce or immediately attack you...

Thank you!

You are most welcome. Thank you for carrying the proverbial torch.

True as far as it goes — but is there any specific reason why only those who're happy with the current backstory should be allowed to flash theirs?

No reason at all. Sharing one's own alternate version of the backstory is fine. Once. But I do think that "sharing" it over and over again, as some people have been doing, is... less fine. And actively pushing for it to be the official version is not really fine at all.

Or why the game under no circumstances can be allowed to have a backstory that satisfies both those who just want some story to set the scene for a bit of post-apocalyptic hex crawling and those who want a plausible backstory, but still want to be able to use the game out of the box without cringing?

I think the problem here is that no backstory will satisfy everyone, as we have already seen. If they ignore the other 8,000+ backers and tailor the backstory to fit one particular person's wishes, there will undoubtedly be others who will cringe at that. No solution will make everyone equally happy since there are literally 8,000+ different opinions. Your opinion (or mine) is no less valuable than others, but neither is it more valuable.

Anyway, I have no interest in fanning any flames here, so I will simply say that I happily paid to get my greedy little hands on this new take on a classic RPG, and that's really all that I can hope to expect in return. It looks great, so far. If there are things that I want to tweak, then once the game is finished and in my hands tweak them I shall. Until then, I will stay out of the way and let the good folks at Free League do their thing.