Twilight 2000

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{{Infobox RPG |title= Twilight 2000 |image = Image:1Twilight2000A.jpg |caption= |designer= Frank Chadwick, Dave Nilsen, Loren K. Wiseman, Lester W. Smith |publisher= Game Designers' Workshop |date= 1984 (1.0)
1990 (2.0)
1993 (2.2)
|genre= Alternate history |system= Custom |footnotes= }}

Twilight 2000 is a role-playing game set in the aftermath of World War III. The premise is that the United States and the Soviet Union have gone to (limited) nuclear war with all its consequences. The game was first published in 1984 during the Cold War and was intended to be an accurate depiction of a possible future, but events in the world have rendered the premise of the game an alternate history. The second edition, published in 1990, featured a reworked background intended to be an alternate history closer to real-world history. Version 2.2, the game's final edition, was published in 1993 and featured a background in which the KGB's Alpha Group obeyed the coup leaders in the August 1991 Soviet coup attempt and stormed the Russian White House, killing Boris Yeltsin and effectively preserving communist control.

The scenarios in Twilight 2000 typically involve a military unit which was stranded in Central Europe after the nuclear war and places emphasis on attempting to realistically depict military and social systems after a nuclear war.

The manufacturer of the game, Game Designers' Workshop, which is now owned by Tantalus, has combined the timelines of Twilight 2000 and the science fiction game 2300 AD's; by doing so the rather depressing post-nuclear environment of Twilight 2000 is mitigated by the outcome in which the Earth rebuilds itself and begins to colonize space.

The first edition of Twilight 2000 is being reprinted by Far Future Enterprises, while versions 2.0 and 2.2, both using the system that became standard for GDW's games, are still out of print.

Twilight 2000's success as a game can be attributed in part to its manner of presenting a military background and setting, without hemming the players into a military's command structure. The civilian governments of most countries in the game have been shattered (the only countries still mostly intact in Europe are France and Belgium, which refused to enter into the war, leaving NATO) with the US government splitting into the civilian and military governments, as has the military chain of command, the supply lines, etc. The various military forces are presented as being much weaker than their stated sizes, occupying civilian territories and relying on civilians for food and small-scale manufacturing, and recruiting from civilian populations to some extent. This all means that the players can feel they are part of a military of some sort, without their characters being forced to submit to higher military authority. Players generally can choose whether they want their players to try and continue the war, get back home (wherever that may be), be a part of one of the new power groups wherever they are, simply survive as mercenaries or marauders, or some combination.

In 1990, realizing that the game's background was in danger of become obsolete, GDW published Merc 2000, an alternative campaign set which revolved around mercenaries fighting brushfire wars in a time in which the Twilight War never occurred. After Merc: 2000 was released, many supplements and articles printed in GDW's Challenge Magazine featured Twilight 2000 with equipment and background conversions to Merc 2000 or were Merc 2000-only.

In 1991 GDW licensees Paragon developed a computer game adaptation (complete with expansion, "the Colonel") of Twilight 2000 depicting a squad of 20 soldiers stranded behind enemy lines in Poland, struggling against the despot Baron Czarny.

Alternative Settings

Merc: 2000 is an alternative setting for the Twilight: 2000 role playing game by Game Designers' Workshop. Whereas Twilight: 2000 was set in the immediate post-World War III era, with characters representing soldiers trying to survive, characters in Merc: 2000 are mercenaries working for or against government forces in the 1990s, mainly in Third World countries all over the world.

Rules-wise, Merc: 2000 must be used with Twilight: 2000 versions 2.0 through 2.2; the earlier first-edition Twilight: 2000 rules differ too much to be easily usable without extensive adaptation. The Merc: 2000 rulebook details the game world, gives additional rules and equipment that will be more useful in mercenary campaigns than in normal Twilight: 2000 ones, and also supplies some basic adventures to play. Game Designers' Workshop also published a number of separate adventures for use with Merc: 2000.

See also

• Threads (BBC, 1984)

• Testament, a 1983 PBS American Playhouse film showing life in a small California town after a nuclear war; the town is undamaged by the attack, and the film has almost no special effects, and very little information about the military situation is revealed. Instead, the emphasis is on the attempts by the characters to survive after the war.
• The War Game (BBC, 1965), a pseudo-documentary of effects after a nuclear war.
• Red Dawn (John Milius, 1984), about a small group of teenage guerrillas fighting Soviet occupiers in the Rocky Mountains

• Nuclear weapons in popular culture

• Warday by Whitley Streiber and James Kuselka is a novel that takes a pseudo-documentary look at the United States, five years after a limited nuclear war is fought between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Although only a few cities are hit in the exchange, America has been turned into a Third World country because of the effect that EMP had on its technology.

• Amerika, a mammoth mini-series about life in the United States ten years after it has been occupied (peacefully) by the Soviet Union.

• Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois, an alternate history novel about the United States in 1973, ten years after a nuclear war was fought between it and the Soviets over missiles in Cuba. (For the record, the United States won the war.)

• Arc Light by Eric Harry is a novel that sets forth an accidental limited nuclear exchange between the U.S., China, and the Russian Republic, followed by a conventional U.S. - European invasion of Russia.

• By Dawn's Early Light is an HBO film about an accidental nuclear war between the U.S. and Russian Republic.

• The Price of Freedom is a role-playing game created by Greg Costikyan about life in the United States after occupation by Soviet/Communist forces. The first adventure involves Soviet troops arriving in the player-characters' hometown.