Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Twilight: 2000 v2.2 PreGen "The Wheelman"

Monk, the rookie "Wheelman"
“Me, I’m a grease monkey. That’s why they call me “Monk” – I keep the Hum Vee purring and the LAV-25 limping along (so far). I guess I’ve always love engines, which is why I’m so good at them…” – T2k v1.0 Play Manual, page 7.

This is the first of my pregen characters - a basic rookie driver/mechanic archetype based on the iconic "Monk" character that can be varied to provide an enlisted armor or artillery character and built up from into a more experienced character if required.

Attributes

STR 7 CON 4 AGL 9 EDU 4 CHA 4 INT 6
Age: 23 Weight: 72 kg Load: 33 kg Rads: 30

Combat

Init: 5 Melee: x Throw: 28 m
Head: 8 Chest: 33 Abdo: 22
R Arm: 22 L Arm: 22 R Leg: 22 L Leg: 22

Skills


STR Armed Martial Arts 0 / 7
STR Autogun 0 / 7
STR Grenade Launcher 0 / 7
STR Mechanic 8 / 15 (Elite)
STR Small Arms: Rifle 2 / 9
STR Thrown Weapon 1 / 8
STR Unarmed Martial Arts 3 / 10

CON Swimming 2 / 6

AGL Ground Vehicle: Wheeled 4 / 13 (Veteran)
AGL Tac Missile 0 / 9

CHA English 10 / 14 (Veteran)

INT Scrounging 3 / 9
INT Survival 2 / 8

EDU Computer 3 / 7

Equipment


Allowance: $1700
Gold Pieces: $500

Basic Load (US): US army fatigues, pack, shelter half, gas mask, combat webbing (ALICE); sleeping bag, flashlight, personal medical kit, thermal US army fatigues. – 10.5kg

Armor: Kevlar Helmet & Kevlar (Ballistic Nylon) Vest – 4.5kg

Weapons: 

M177 carbine with bayonet (5.56N 5 3 1-Nil 3/4 20/30 3 7 40)
  • 6 x 5.56N 30-round magazines, 180 loose 5,56N rounds
  • 1 case 5.56N (840 rounds, 28 30-round magazines)
6 frag grenades
2 smoke grenades

Other:

Basic Tool Kit, Wheeled Vehicle Tools, Tracked Vehicle Tools
1/6km Manpack / Vehicular Radio – 5kg

Cache:


Small alcohol still – 70kg

Design Notes



Concept: a cheerful rookie that loves vehicles.

Role: Essentially as this is a very green / “Novice” level support character, the build is fairly one-dimensional – he’s a decent mechanic and capable driver but not very skilled at much else except standing watch while the grunts sleep. Lacking depth, he may be better used as a somewhat just more than generic background NPC to streamline play.

Background: “Monk” (no other name given) is based on the T2k v1.0 example character in the narrative of the original Play Manual, although few exact details are given except for his attribute TOT (72, so equivalent to 36 in v2.2) with a an INT of 11 and EDU of 8 (so 6 and 4 respectively), a remarkably low “Coolness Under Fire” (so assume an Init roll of 6), his relatively young age, and his limited combat experience (24 months). He’s technically capable of being an officer (as his INT + EDU is 7+) but is described as being a sergeant in TK2 v1.0, which is just possible in the later v2.2 rules, although this assumes the player rolled a 6 at the end of his first and only term.

Variants: these provide base characters for other base US army arms (Armor, Artillery):
  • Expert: add another Term and therefore 4 skills - add a level to each of the 1st Term skills (Mechanic and Ground Vehicle: Wheeled) and a level in Machinist and Scrounging. A so-called Veteran character gains an additional 3 skills as per the Term Skill Levels table on page 30, T2k v2.2 - I'd suggest these be all spent on Mechanic.
  • Armor: decrease Ground Vehicle: Wheeled 4 to 2 and add Ground Vehicle: Tracked 4. Drop to Mechanic 4 and lose Scrounging, add Autogun 2 and Heavy Gun 2. For a 3rd term, add 1 to Autogun and Heavy Gun, Mechanic 1 and Observation 1. The "Tankman" variant.
  • Artillery: decrease Ground Vehicle: Wheeled 4 to 2 and add Ground Vehicle: Tracked 3. Drop to Mechanic 2 and add Autogun 2 and Heavy Artillery 4. For a 3rd term, add 1 to each of the 1st term skills and Forward Observer 1. 

“B-Troop” Variant, Otto "Gobby" Wadock - basically the same character mechanically as one of the options above but switching his background to West German or Austrian. This necessitates only flipping his main language and dropping the US default skills of Armed Martial Arts and Tac Missile, and I'd suggest Computer and Swimming should be dropped to allow for English 2. His weapon then shifts to a G11 sub-machinegun.

Suggestion: adding at least another term in Support Services and/or a civilian term in Mechanic or Truck Driver given his high AGL (adding 4 years to his, making him 25) before he enlists is probably necessary to give this stock character enough distinction for a viable PC and specialise in Ground Vehicle: Wheeled and Mechanic (or the equivalent Armor and Artillery arm skills) - he’s otherwise not interesting enough to be a viable player character option. Leaving him as he is he becomes just a meta-game justification for either ignoring maintenance checks or explaining who is driving while everyone else is firing weapons from a moving vehicle.

Design Calculations


Method: 36 point roll (based on stated TOT 72 from T2k v1.0); Init rolled as 6 -1 for Support Services; Rads rolled 3.

Background: Computer, Ground Vehicle: Wheeled, Swimming, Unarmed Martial Arts
1 Term: Support Arm
Secondary Activities: Survival
War Term: Support Arm (regular x2 skills)
Promotions: Sergeant (1st term)

Contacts: 1 military

Equipment: just the basics really. Add an over-sized wrench as a club because he’s a mechanic right?The extra allowance is probably best contributed to fuel, extra tools and/or a cargo or tanker trailer, given his overall support role.

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