Twilight: 2000 Survival Guide - Shifts, Food, Water, Fuel, Shelter, Load, Radiation, and Stress

Introduction

Twilight: 2000 survival rules matter because one useful choice prevents another. A group that spends the day marching may reach the bridge before a rival force, but it has not foraged, repaired gear, gathered material for fuel, or rested. A campfire makes cooking and warmth possible, but its smoke can reveal the camp. A truck carries more than the group can carry on foot, but it burns fuel and can turn a bad road into a stranded night.

The group needs distance, food, water, fuel, security, warmth, sleep, information, and repairs, and the rules never let everyone solve all of those at once. Every shift answers one question: what is this group willing to postpone? This guide follows that loop in the order a travel day uses it: time and tasks first, then food and water, foraging, fuel, shelter, scavenging, carrying, radiation, and finally the stress and morale of the people doing the work.

Everything here describes the game's abstract procedures. None of it is real-world advice on food safety, water treatment, foraging, shelter, fuel production, cold exposure, or radiation.

Hot Take

The Shift, not the combat round, is the real unit of play in Twilight: 2000. Four shifts a day, one task each, and no character taking two: that constraint is the whole survival game compressed into a scheduling problem. March and you did not forage. Forage and the repair waits. Repair and nobody scouted the road you take tomorrow. The rules are really asking what the group is willing to postpone rather than what it can do.

So stop resolving shifts privately. Put the four shifts where everyone can see them, make each player declare a task before any dice come out, and let the group look at the gaps in its own day before it commits. The argument that happens in that moment, over whether the watch is worth the lost foraging, is the scene. Rolling first and announcing consequences afterward turns it back into bookkeeping.

The Shift System: Four Shifts, One Job Each

Put the four parts of the day where everyone can see them, ask for a task at the start of each one, and mark the choice before resolving it. That turns survival from background bookkeeping into visible decisions.

The Four Shifts of the Day

Each shift lasts roughly six hours, and a full shift is the same unit used for travel tasks, recovery, and many repairs. At the start of each shift, every group member chooses what they will do for most of it. A character cannot take more than one task in a shift, including marching. The one exception: one character can keep watch while the group marches.

That restriction creates good party conversations. If the mechanic repairs the vehicle, they are not driving it. If the scout forages, they are not watching the road. If everyone marches, nobody makes camp until later.

The Travel Task Menu

The right assignment depends on what is scarce. A group low on water may forage instead of traveling another hex. A vehicle group may let passengers rest while the driver makes progress. A party about to camp may give one character the camp task, another cooking, and another a watch schedule.

Before resolving anything, state the plan in plain language: "Two characters march, one keeps watch while marching, one drives the truck, and the passenger sleeps." A better plan also names the goal: "We take the road to reach the fuel rumor before dark; one person watches, one passenger rests, and we stop only if the truck has trouble." That prevents accidental double-tasking and gives the Referee hooks for encounters. The Twilight: 2000 Dice Mechanics Guide covers skill rolls, modifiers, help, and pushing; the question to ask first is what the roll will cost if the group is wrong.

Build a Day Around One Priority

A good daily plan starts with one answer to "What must change by nightfall?" It might be reaching a bridge, finding water, repairing a vehicle, creating shelter, or getting far enough from danger to rest. Then budget the shifts:

This is not a demand for rigid schedules. It exposes the cost of changing plans: if the party uses the day shift to search a ruin, it has chosen not to travel in that shift.

The evening and night shifts are where the next day is won or lost. Treating them as empty time after travel is the most common planning error. Camp, cooking, watch, and sleep all live there, and the shelter section covers each.

Interruptions: The Three-Quarters Rule

Encounters, weather, and discoveries interrupt travel, but they do not automatically erase a shift. The Player's Manual guidance is that a task counts when it occupied at least three quarters of the shift, with the Referee making the final call.

• A brief roadside conversation or a quick scouting stop may cost some distance but still count as a march.
• A prolonged firefight, extended negotiation, or repair that becomes a project can consume the shift.
• A dramatic event during rest or sleep means that shift no longer counts as rest or sleep.
• An encounter mid-drive can reduce progress while still consuming fuel for the distance already covered.

Ask "did this event leave enough time for what the group intended?" and not merely "did anything happen?" Then say what was lost. "You still made camp, but it is late and there is no time to cook" creates a clear new problem. Players can take a risk without assuming one surprise destroys the whole day, and the Referee can still make serious events cost something.

Forced Marches Buy Distance With Risk

Characters can march for two shifts a day without issue. A third marching shift is a forced march: every marcher makes a Stamina roll, in addition to any heavy-rain roll. Characters who fail cannot march that shift and must rest or sleep instead. The group then chooses between leaving stragglers and splitting up, or waiting and accepting less progress. Do not let a successful character silently drag a failed one along.

A fourth marching shift requires another Stamina roll at -2 and automatically makes the character sleep deprived, because it replaces the required daily sleep.

Save forced marches for a real deadline: fleeing a threat, reaching help, beating a storm, or getting to a rumor before someone else does. Used routinely, the cost stops meaning anything.

A Fast Shift Planning Routine

At the start of every shift:

1. State the condition. Terrain, light, weather, current stress, food, water, fuel, sleep needs, vehicle condition, and the immediate threat or opportunity.
2. Choose the objective. Reach a river, avoid a patrol, find food, make fuel, secure a dry camp, explore a ruin, or recover from the last scene.
3. Assign one task per character aloud, including who watches and when the sentry will sleep.
4. Name the lead character for any task that allows only one roller.
5. Confirm what is postponed. A group moving today is usually not scrounging today; a hidden camp may not include a warm fire.
6. Resolve rolls only where the result matters. If the situation is safe and the answer changes nothing, summarize the work.
7. Mark what was spent, gained, damaged, or deferred, and start the next shift from the changed situation instead of the old plan.

Track food, water, fuel, sleep, load, vehicle condition, injuries, stress, and radiation only when one of them can affect the next choice. A failed roll should leave the group colder, slower, hungrier, exposed, stranded, or delayed, rather than just subtracting a number.

Travel Rules: Weather, Marching, Driving, and Terrain

Travel maps use 10-kilometer hexes. The terrain in a hex affects navigation, pace, searches, driving, and encounter distance, so a travel day should include a route decision, and not stop at a distance total. Roads improve speed but make the group easier to find.

Weather and Light Are Inputs

The Referee sets the starting weather and regularly checks whether it shifts toward fair conditions or rain. Fair weather, cloud cover, and heavy rain or snow affect visibility. Heavy precipitation also requires Stamina rolls to march and applies a penalty to Driving rolls.

Light follows the shift and season. Morning and day are normally light, evening and night dark, with short dusk periods, though Nordic seasons and latitude break that pattern. Announce weather and light before players choose tasks. Darkness changes watch, movement, navigation, camp safety, and combat; the Twilight: 2000 Combat Rules guide covers how light, terrain, and rain matter once travel becomes a firefight.

Marching on Foot

On a road or in open terrain, a group on foot can normally march two hexes per shift. Off-road through other terrain, it normally marches one. Three complications make the route matter:

• Heavy rain or snow. Each marcher makes a Stamina roll. Failure reduces that person's base movement by one hex, forcing the group to wait or leave stragglers.
• Night navigation. Marching off-road in darkness requires a group Survival roll. Failure means no progress in the intended direction that shift.
• Forced pace. Covered in the forced march rules above.

Driving and Mishaps

Vehicles carry people and gear, cover distance quickly, and give passengers room to watch, rest, or sleep. The vehicle's listed on-road and off-road speeds set its potential travel; roads ignore terrain speed factors, while off-road terrain slows or blocks some vehicles.

Make a Driving roll modified by terrain at the start of every driving shift. Entering a new off-road terrain type can require another roll, and heavy rain makes it harder. Failure leads to a mishap: a mechanical fault, bad fuel, an obstacle, a wrong turn, a stuck vehicle, a crash, or another problem that stops or changes the journey. Off-road travel into a new hex also needs one group member to make a Survival navigation roll; failure sends the group into an adjacent hex instead.

A mishap is the cost of relying on a machine where no repair shop exists. It is not a punishment for owning one. Establish where it happens, what the vehicle needs, how much daylight remains, and what cover or danger is nearby. Then put the next decision in front of the group: repair, detour, scrounge, make camp, abandon cargo, or ask someone nearby for help.

Exploration, Cities, and Water Routes

Exploring a scenario site interrupts travel and can take one shift, several days, or longer. A group that explores for more than half a shift cannot count that time as rest or sleep. Say so before the group goes in: "If you enter, the evening camp plan is gone."

City travel uses one-kilometer hexes, but each counts like a travel hex for speed and fuel because wreckage, congestion, and detours slow everything. A group can be close to its goal and still unable to reach it, search, and leave in one day.

Boats and rafts cross rivers without a bridge or ford and travel along rivers, lakes, and seas. Water travel uses the driving procedures, and passengers can rest or sleep unless they are watching, fishing, or doing another task. A river is a barrier, a supply source, a route, and a place to be seen, all at once.

Food and Water: Rations, Conditions, and Supply

Food and water are the reasons a river, a farm, a fishing lake, an unopened pantry, a settlement, or a working kitchen can matter more than another kilometer of road. Track them closely only when they can change the plan. When supplies get tight, make the shortage visible: an empty bottle, the last ration, meat that must be cooked before it spoils.

The Minimum Daily Need

Every survivor must eat at least one food ration and drink one water ration each day.

Stress can still recover under either condition, but damage cannot heal until the survivor eats or drinks. That is why water is usually the first short-term emergency, and why an injured group must care about more than medical supplies. Tell the table the practical consequence: "We can reach the bridge, but we cannot recover from yesterday's fight until we find water."

Food Types and Shelf Life

• Field rations are compact, self-contained daily rations with a long shelf life.
• Domestic food is cooked meat or vegetables. It weighs more than a field ration and spoils after about a week unless stored better.
• Wild food comes from edible plants and roots. It also spoils after about a week, and its low energy density makes each daily ration bulky.
• Water is tracked by daily ration and water bottles, and a daily water ration has its own encumbrance cost.

A group on foot may prefer compact field rations over a heavy load of wild food. A party near a safe base might value domestic food. A vehicle can carry more but needs fuel and draws attention. A water source can end one pressure without helping the food count at all. The exact weights are in the encumbrance section.

Spoilage, Storage, and Home Base

Because domestic and wild food spoil after about a week, a successful hunt or a scavenged pantry becomes a choice: eat it now, share it, trade it, carry it toward a settlement, or leave some behind because weight and time make it too expensive.

Home base facilities change the math. A root cellar extends domestic food's storage life under the game's rules. A camp, kitchen, livestock, cropland, and other facilities turn survival from a travel problem into a community project, with new duties, defenses, and reasons for other people to care about the place. A farm with a working cellar, a fishery on a contested riverbank, or a settlement with a surplus can be a social and strategic location that the group must negotiate for, defend, repair, or share.

When Water Runs Low

The game resolves water through rations, bottles, foraging, and available sources. A successful water-foraging shift fills bottles; it does not solve the campaign's water problem for good. Do not invent purification procedures the rules do not list. Instead, make the next decision explicit:

• Push on to a known source, accepting the risk of arriving late or depleted.
• Stop and forage, giving up distance and perhaps a safer camp.
• Trade with people who may demand more than the group wants to give.
• Split tasks if the location and group size allow it, accepting weaker mutual protection.
• Use a vehicle or boat to reach water, spending fuel or exposing the group on a visible route.

Water also touches other systems. A river enables fishing and travel but can be watched. A flooded camp can ruin sleep and raise hypothermia pressure. A contaminated crater can turn an apparent water source into a radiation problem, and clean water is also the one-time decontamination option.

Foraging, Hunting, and Fishing

Foraging is the decision to stop moving and bet a shift on the land, rather than a background check made while the group travels. A wooded hex in autumn may be worth a day; a ruin may promise scrap but little food; a river offers water, fish, a travel lane, and a place where the group is easy to see. Ask what the group needs most and what it gives up to look for it.

Choose Food or Water Before Rolling

To forage, spend a shift on foot in the hex the group occupies, choose food or water, and roll Survival modified by terrain and season.

• A successful food search produces wild-food rations equal to the successes rolled.
• A successful water search produces enough drinkable water to fill the group's water bottles.
• Only one character makes the foraging roll for food or water in a hex during a shift; others can help.
• Each repeated foraging shift in the same hex applies a cumulative penalty that normally resets after a week, but not in winter.

A group low on both food and water cannot solve both with one roll. It needs another shift, another source, or a hard call about which condition will bite first.

Terrain and Season

Travel-map terrain modifies foraging, hunting, scrounging, movement, driving, and encounter distance. The exact modifiers are on the official table; the pattern is what matters at the table.

• Open land and woods can both be productive in different ways.
• Hills improve food foraging, while mountains impose a major penalty.
• Lakes and rivers are not normal plant-foraging hexes, but they create fishing and water opportunities.
• Swamps and ruins are poor for foraging.
• Roads use the terrain they run through for foraging and hunting, and make the group easier to meet.

Season works like a campaign calendar. Autumn gives the best foraging modifier, summer is neutral, spring is harder, and winter is hardest. A group that stores food or builds a base in autumn has made a different strategic choice from one that assumes winter searches will work the same way. Describe terrain before the roll: "woods" suggests cover, tracks, firewood, and short sightlines; "ruins" suggests scrap and exposed searches rather than a pantry.

Repeated Searches and Reset Timers

The cumulative repeat penalty makes a good hex a temporary resource. Foraging's penalty resets after a week except in winter, hunting follows a similar weekly reset, and fishing resets after a day, so a good bank or boat route supports repeated efforts more readily while still tying the group to one place.

Do not apply this as invisible arithmetic. Say what changed: picked-over roots, disturbed game, an overfished inlet. Players can act on that information.

Hunting

Hunting starts with a Survival roll to track prey in the current hex, modified by terrain. Each success can identify prey, and the hunter chooses which animal to pursue. The official hunting table sets each animal's capacity, trap availability, and food yield.

Getting into position takes a Recon roll. It is a straight roll, not an opposed one, modified by how close the hunter wants to get. A ranged attack then kills the prey only if it deals enough damage or scores a critical hit; otherwise the wounded animal escapes. The hunter normally gets one shot, so a hunting shift can end with spent ammunition and no food.

Some animals can be trapped instead. After tracking, another successful Survival roll with a simple snare catches the animal without a shot. That still costs time, a suitable target, and an extra roll, but it can be right when ammunition, noise, or attention is the bigger danger.

A successful hunt becomes domestic-food rations once the animal is cut and cooked. The Twilight: 2000 Ranged Combat Guide covers the shot itself when range, ammunition, or weapon condition matters.

Fishing and Grenade Fishing

Fishing needs fishing gear and a river, lake, or ocean, and it can be done from a moving boat. Roll Survival; successes become domestic-food rations once the fish is cleaned and cooked. One character fishes in the hex during a shift, and others can help. Fishing can be quiet compared with a gunshot, but it still costs a shift and ties the group to the water.

The rules also allow grenade fishing: a hand grenade yields food without a skill roll, once per hex per shift. It trades a valuable combat resource and a loud blast for immediate food, so use it when the fiction justifies that exchange and let the noise and the spent grenade matter.

Cooking Converts a Find Into a Meal

Raw meat and fish can be eaten, but the eater must roll Stamina to resist food poisoning, which has a one-shift incubation period and can cause damage and a recovery problem under the disease rules.

Cooking requires a campfire or kitchen and takes a shift. At a campfire, a survivor can process a limited batch of meat, fish, or wild food in that shift, including the preparation work, and rolls Survival. The food becomes domestic food whether the roll succeeds or fails, but on a failure everyone who eats it must roll Stamina against food poisoning. Cooking can happen in the same shift that another character makes camp. Coordinate it:

1. Decide whether the group most needs camp, food, concealment, rest, or movement.
2. Assign one survivor to make camp if a safe site matters; others can help.
3. Assign a cook if there is food to process and a fire or kitchen available.
4. Account for smoke, light, weather, and who stands watch.
5. Mark what has become domestic food and when it will spoil.

A Practical Foraging Plan

1. Check food and water separately and identify which of starvation, dehydration, or blocked recovery arrives first.
2. Read the hex: terrain, season, nearby water, likely game, ruins, roads, weather, and exposure.
3. Choose one main source: forage food, forage water, hunt, fish, scrounge, trade, or draw down stores.
4. Assign the full shift: the main roller, helpers, watch, vehicle duties, and what is not getting done.
5. Plan processing: where and when food is cooked, how it is carried, and whether a fire draws too much attention.
6. Reassess after the result, record repeat-search pressure, and decide whether the hex is worth another shift.

Fuel, Stills, and Vehicle Power

Fuel decides which promises the group can keep. A truck full of supplies can be a shelter, an ambulance, a cargo carrier, a fast escape, and a bargaining chip. It can also become a parked pile of equipment when the tank, route, spare parts, or driver fails. Track fuel when the group is deciding whether to take the road, detour, idle for power, carry someone injured, haul a heavy load, run a generator, or wait for a still. Otherwise, keep it off the table.

Vehicle Fuel Numbers

Each vehicle listing gives a fuel capacity and a consumption rate in liters per travel hex. Before a journey, note current fuel, capacity, the on-road route, off-road options, and any reason the vehicle may need to stay running.

Off-road consumption doubles before terrain, navigation, driving rolls, and mishaps even come into play, so a shortcut is never just a distance calculation.

Idling

When a vehicle is left running to power electrical devices, use its listed consumption per shift rather than per hex. An idling truck can become a generator, radio platform, workshop, or temporary refuge. It is worth it when it serves a concrete goal: running or recharging equipment when the vehicle is the only power source, keeping a vital system available during a repair, treatment, or night watch, or supporting a site where the group has decided fuel is worth more than silence. State the purpose, the expected duration, and what those liters are not being used for.

Alcohol Fuel Conversion

Gasoline and diesel are scarce. The rules allow an engine to be converted to run on alcohol fuel such as ethanol or methanol, which takes a shift of work and a Tech roll. Once converted, the vehicle consumes twice as much fuel. That doubling is the balancing rule: alcohol fuel gives a stranded group a sustainable plan rather than prewar mobility.

In the fiction, make conversion a project with stakes: a garage door that will not close, a farmer who wants something in return, a camp that cannot be left, a route that gets more dangerous with every delayed shift.

Stills and Raw Material

A still turns organic raw material such as wood, plants, grain, or paper into alcohol fuel at one encumbrance unit of material per liter. The still must stay stationary, and at least one person must monitor it during each production shift.

The core equipment list offers small, large, and industrial stills with very different output. A small still is portable enough for a party project but produces a modest amount per shift. Large and industrial stills can change a settlement's mobility and power economy but demand far more material, space, protection, and coordination, and the industrial version cannot be moved.

For planning, a person gathering raw material in the field collects about 30 encumbrance units per shift, halved in winter. Compare that with the still's output and the vehicle's consumption before deciding the work pays off. A still needs a safe location, material, time, a monitor, containers, and a vehicle worth fueling, and it is a valuable, stationary target that can support a community or provoke one.

Generators and Batteries

Electricity is scarce. Vehicles, generators, and batteries power small devices; generators burn alcohol fuel per shift, and batteries recharge from a running vehicle or generator. Fuel therefore competes with radio contact, lighting, workshop tools, and medical needs. A radio call might be worth the drain. A generator can also turn a safe base into a visible prize. The Twilight: 2000 Character Creation Guide covers how starting vehicles, group gear, encumbrance, and permanent radiation tie a survivor to this pressure from the first session.

A Fuel Plan Checklist

1. Record current fuel, capacity, listed consumption, and the planned on-road and off-road hexes.
2. Include known detours, idling, likely mishaps, and a reserve for an escape, medical run, or return trip.
3. Decide whether the vehicle is transport, cargo, cover, shelter, power, or all of them; that role sets what fuel is worth spending.
4. Identify the replacement plan: stored fuel, trade, scavenging, a still, gathering, or walking.
5. Assign the shifts: a Tech shift for conversion, stationary production and a monitor for a still, people on foot for gathering.
6. Reassess after every route change, fight, breakdown, or new destination.

A reserve is wise, but fuel is often an escape route, cargo space, heat, or medical transport. Spending the last liters on convenience should be a group decision, and hoarding every liter until the vehicle no longer matters is its own mistake.

Shelter and Camp: Fire, Watch, Sleep, and Cold

Camp is where the group decides about warmth, food, recovery, and concealment, and whether anyone sees dawn fit to move. A warm, easy camp may be visible. A hidden site may mean no fire. A quick stop on bare ground saves a shift but creates sleep debt. A watch protects everyone, but the sentry still needs sleep.

Making Camp

Making camp usually takes a full shift, often the evening. One survivor rolls Survival to find a sheltered place, make a fire, and prepare somewhere to sleep; others can help. Success gives a sheltered site with cover from incoming fire.

Failure does not cancel the night. The group camps anyway, but the Referee makes a hidden mishap roll and can introduce that consequence while the survivors remain there. The group gets its shelter without knowing what the bad luck cost.

State the goal before rolling. "We need a hidden camp within reach of the road" tells the Referee what success protects and what a mishap can threaten.

Fire Is a Resource and a Signal

Making camp includes a campfire. The fire enables cooking and protects against cold, but its smoke can be spotted by anyone within visual range. The group can skip the fire, but sleeping without a fire or another heat source requires Stamina rolls against hypothermia, except on warm summer nights.

Decide about the fire as part of the camp plan, before the roll rather than after it. A hunted group may accept cold for concealment; a group with wounded may decide warmth and a hot meal are worth the risk.

Hiding the Camp

After the camp's Survival roll, the group can make a Recon roll to hide the camp. Record the result: if an enemy passes nearby, it becomes the opposed value, resolved like an ambush. Without that effort, any enemy within visual range spots the camp automatically. It gives the group a chance rather than a guarantee.

Make the hiding specific. Are the tents below the ridgeline? Is the vehicle covered or moved away? Who keeps the fire low, where does the sentry watch, and which way does the group leave if someone approaches? These details add no modifiers beyond the rules, but they give an encounter somewhere to happen. Do not let concealment quietly grant free movement, cooking, rest, and security all at once.

Watch Has a Sleep Cost

The rules recommend choosing someone to stand guard at night and then giving that person a chance to sleep in another shift, usually the evening. The Referee uses the sentry's passive Recon when an encounter approaches, so who watches matters. At camp, keeping watch is its own task; only while marching can it be combined with another.

1. Name the camp shift and the threat that makes watch necessary.
2. Name the sentry or rotation, with their tools and position.
3. Schedule the sentry's later sleep shift before resolving the night.
4. If something interrupts sleep or rest, decide whether enough of the shift remained for it to count.
5. Carry the result into the next shift instead of resetting everyone at dawn.

Sleep, Rest, and Recovery

Every survivor needs at least one shift of sleep each day. After a day without it, the survivor becomes sleep deprived: stress recovery stops, and the condition inflicts stress each day. A survivor incapacitated by stress while sleep deprived collapses into an unavoidable sleep shift. Sleeping one full shift removes the condition. Passengers can rest or sleep in a moving vehicle, but not while driving, keeping watch, fishing, or doing another task, and dramatic interruption can stop rest or sleep from counting.

Rest is a task with its own requirements, distinct from idle downtime you can skim past. A full shift of resting or sleeping heals 1 remaining stress and supports damage recovery. Damage recovery requires that the survivor not be starving, dehydrated, or hypothermic; stress recovery requires that they not be sleep deprived or hypothermic. A wounded group that skips camp may be giving up recovery entirely. The Twilight: 2000 Healing and Injuries Guide covers Medical Aid, critical injuries, and stabilization; camp supplies the safe time and warmth those procedures need.

Hypothermia

When conditions are cold and a survivor lacks adequate clothing or shelter, the Referee calls for Stamina rolls at an interval set by the cold. A chilly fall day might call for a daily roll; winter and extreme cold can demand a roll each shift or even each stretch. Blankets and other protection improve the roll.

On a failure, the survivor becomes hypothermic. The condition immediately causes damage and stress, can cause irrational behavior, prevents healing of both damage and stress, and keeps forcing rolls and harm until the survivor warms up. A survivor incapacitated while hypothermic dies at the next required roll. A wet sleeping bag, a failed fire, heavy rain, a flooded camp, or a breakdown in the cold is therefore a serious event. Establish the exposure, roll at the right interval, apply the result, and let the group choose how to get warm.

Bare Ground and Vehicle Sleep

Survivors can sleep in the wilderness without making camp. Everyone rolls Survival to find a suitable spot; failure means no sleep and the risk of sleep deprivation. With no fire, cold effects apply too. It saves a shift, which matters in a pursuit, but it is not a normal substitute for camp.

A vehicle offers a different option: passengers can recover while the group keeps moving. It does not solve fuel, reliability, exposure outside the cabin, or the driver's own fatigue. A vehicle is shelter only while the group can keep it working.

Camp Mishaps

The official camp-mishap table includes spoiled food, flooding, a dead fire, an uncontrolled fire, pests, illness, animals, lost gear, and broken gear. Do not recite it in advance. Let the hidden result create a decision tied to the place, weather, and stakes the group already chose. Flooding soaks everyone, threatens sleep, and triggers cold rolls. Lost gear forces a choice about searching, leaving, or redistributing. A savage animal can be a threat, a meal, or both. A spreading fire turns a comfortable camp into a visible disaster.

Scavenging and Scrounging: Turning Ruins Into Options

The Player's Manual calls the search action scrounging. Scavenging here means the wider decision: finding scrap, judging whether it matters, spending time to recover it, and carrying it without letting a find become dead weight. A ruin might hold food, tools, weapon-related gear, a radio component, camp equipment, valuables, or the part that keeps a vehicle running. It can also eat the daylight that would have carried the group toward water or shelter.

Search when three things are true: the hex plausibly holds useful material, the party has a need a find could solve, and the schedule can absorb the delay plus any follow-up salvage. A ruined garage suits a vehicle crew short on parts; an empty stretch of open ground is the wrong place to spend the last daylight.

Scrounging Versus Salvaging

A character spends a full shift scrounging in the current hex and rolls Survival, modified by terrain. Each success produces a roll on the scrap table. That result is an opportunity, not always a pocketable item: recovering one or more useful items from a scrap find takes another full shift, separate from the scrounging.

Describe the source, not just the item: a wrecked delivery van, a flooded hardware store, a radio repair bench, a shed of abandoned camp gear. Then the players decide whether to commit the time.

Resolving a Search

One character rolls for a scrounging attempt in a hex during a shift. Others can help, but they do not make separate attempts in the same place and time, so everyone else should have a job: security, vehicle maintenance, a meal, water, or the next leg of the route.

1. Choose a character to lead the search and spend one shift.
2. Apply the terrain modifier to that character's Survival roll.
3. Roll on the scrap table once for each success, at the moment of discovery.
4. Decide whether any result is worth a separate salvage shift.
5. Update the schedule, the load, and the next objective.

Where Scrap Is Likely

Roads and ruins are the best places to find discarded or abandoned material. Woods, hills, mountains, and swamps are progressively worse. Open ground and water hexes offer no ordinary scrounging opportunity. Tie good results to a believable former use: apartments, a service station, a warehouse, a clinic, a rail yard.

• Need fuel or vehicle parts? Search traffic chokepoints, garages, depots, and service sites, and pair the search with the fuel plan.
• Need food, tools, or camp equipment? Try homes, shops, farms, and storage buildings.
• Need electronics? Prioritize communications sites, offices, repair shops, and vehicles.
• Need a defensible rest stop? Do not let a promising search erase the time needed to make camp.

Quick Search

A quick search is a Referee tool for a place where useful scrap is especially likely, such as a settlement. It needs no roll and gives a free scrap-table result. It does not count as a scrounging attempt, so the group can still spend its main task elsewhere and scrounge the hex later. Use it to reward attention to the fiction, such as a bike behind a ruined shop or tools visible through a garage door, instead of handing it out as an automatic bonus in every inhabited area. The free result may solve the problem or point to the building that deserves a full shift.

Reading a Scrap Result

The most valuable result is often the one that removes a future risk: a tool that repairs the heater, a part that prevents a breakdown, a container that secures water.

Repeated Scrounging Penalty

Each later scrounging attempt in the same hex takes a cumulative -1. Track it openly ("Ruined service station: searched once") and, before another shift there, ask what changed. Did the group learn of a new building? Does a specific repair need parts? Are weather or enemies forcing the group to stay? Would a more promising hex be better? A stranded party with a strong lead may still be right to search again.

Put the Whole Group to Work

One roll does not mean one character has all the agency. A lookout watches streets, doors, and approaches. A driver or mechanic judges whether a wreck is worth stripping. A technically skilled character identifies which parts are recoverable. A guard sets a withdrawal plan before the party disappears into a building. Someone keeps the packs organized so the useful item is not buried under junk. After a find, salvage becomes a work scene with a limited window and a job for everyone.

Referee Guidance for Finds

The Referee can choose an appropriate scrap result or ask for a reroll. Use that to fit the location, not to remove uncertainty whenever the party needs help. Good finds create decisions: a battered battery might power a radio project but adds weight and needs testing; a box of tools makes later repairs easier but takes time to sort and carry; a personal item may be worth trading or may reveal who lived here; a vehicle part only excites if it fits a problem the party has.

Before the party commits a shift, ask five questions: What need could this search answer? Why is this hex better than the next? Who leads the roll and who helps? Can the group afford a second shift to salvage a find? What gets left behind if the party takes it?

Encumbrance: Carrying Capacity and Accessible Gear

Encumbrance decides what is ready now, what rides in a pack, what belongs in a vehicle, and what stays behind. The pressure is access, mobility, and travel time as much as weight. A rifle, medkit, water, food, radio, tools, ammunition, spare parts, and a sleeping bag may all be reasonable, but they do not all belong in the same place.

Encumbrance Units and Sheet Locations

One encumbrance unit is roughly a 3 kg item that can be carried in one hand, such as an assault rifle. Smaller items can weigh one-half or one-quarter of a unit.

The sheet records where an item is when the character needs it, more than just who owns it. Do not keep one undifferentiated list and decide access after danger starts.

Combat Gear Is the Ready Load

Combat gear is anything in webbing, holsters, slings, belts, pockets, or hand, and it can be drawn with a fast action. It answers one question: what must this character reach without taking off a pack? Usually that is a primary weapon, essential ammunition, a personal medkit, a knife or tool with an immediate job, and small items expected under pressure.

• A driver may keep a sidearm, navigation materials, and vehicle tools ready.
• A medic may carry immediate medical supplies instead of another reload.
• A scout may need binoculars, map material, and light gear.
• A heavy-weapon carrier must fit that weapon's ammunition and support gear into the same decision.

Ready does not mean valuable. A precious spare battery can still live in the pack if nobody needs it in the next few seconds.

Backpacks Double Capacity but Cost Mobility

A backpack adds capacity equal to the character's STR die size, and the pack itself does not count against encumbrance. While carried, it gives a -2 modifier to all Mobility rolls. In combat, taking an item out of the pack is a slow action for the wearer or another character in the same hex and requires a Mobility roll. Dropping the pack is a fast action, which helps before a fight or hard movement, as long as the group knows where the pack is and whether it can get it back.

Supply Weights and Load Priorities

The daily supplies add up quickly:

• A daily food ration weighs from one-quarter to one full unit, depending on the food.
• A daily water ration weighs one-half unit.
• An extra magazine weighs one-quarter unit.
• A machinegun ammo belt typically weighs one full unit.
• Twenty-five loose small-arms rounds weigh one-quarter unit.

Loaded ammunition is included in the weapon's weight; extra magazines and belts are separate. When the party cannot take water, ammunition, and tools all at once, let the next route segment break the tie:

Do not build one permanent loadout. Repack when the objective changes, and update the sheet as food, water, and ammunition are used up.

Group Loads, Vehicles, and Stockpiles

Gear does not need to be spread evenly. One person carries the shared tool kit, another extra medical supplies, another food and water, while a vehicle holds the bulk. Do not put every critical capability on one character, who then becomes the party's single point of failure.

When the group owns more than it can carry, the rules allow a shared stockpile, tracked by one player acting as quartermaster. A vehicle is the obvious stockpile when the group has one; vehicle tables list cargo capacity separately from passengers. A packed vehicle opens options but can become inaccessible, damaged, or immobile. Record each stockpile's location, contents, and keeper, because a stockpile nobody can find again is no longer a resource.

Load Carrier Specialty

The Load Carrier specialty adds four units to combat gear and four more to the backpack. It does not remove the need to place gear deliberately or the backpack's Mobility penalty. Give that character a role, such as carrying a crew-served weapon's support gear, moving food and water on a resupply push, taking the repair kit and exact parts for a vehicle job, or shuttling material from a stockpile to camp. Do not turn them into a mule for every spare object in the pile.

Repack Before a Crisis

A short gear check before moving prevents an argument when combat begins:

1. What must each character reach with a fast action?
2. What can safely stay in a backpack?
3. Is anyone carrying a pack into a situation where -2 Mobility is unacceptable?
4. What stays in the vehicle or stockpile?
5. If a pack is dropped, who retrieves it and when?

Run it again after scavenging, a trade, a repair, or a route change. Every item should answer one question: is it needed in the first response, during today's plan, or later? Put it in combat gear, the backpack, or the stockpile to match.

Radiation: Hotspots, Rads, and Decontamination

Radiation is a route problem with a delayed cost. A crater, contaminated water, or a dangerous object can offer a shortcut, a needed supply, or a tempting objective, and the exposure keeps affecting characters after they leave.

Rad Points and Rad Attacks

Radiation gives a character rad points, marked on the sheet. Rads build up and affect later radiation-sickness rolls. They come from ongoing exposure in a hotspot or from a direct rad attack: a specific event such as consuming contaminated food or drink, wading through contaminated water, or handling a contaminated item. Record each rad immediately and resolve its effect.

Before entering, ask: How often will each character gain a rad here? How long must the group stay? Is there another route, source, or objective? What does the party gain? Can it leave before things get worse?

Hotspot Levels

A weak area can be a route choice. Strong radiation turns a repair, search, or fight into an urgent clock. Extreme radiation is a combat-scale hazard. The Referee sets the level and the cues that reveal it: a crater, abandoned warning markers, scorched or altered ground, an instrument reading, a frightened local, a note on the map.

Radiation Sickness Rolls

Each time a character gains a rad, they immediately roll Stamina to resist radiation poisoning. The virulence is +4 minus the character's total rad count, so the roll worsens as the total climbs. Radiation sickness runs through the disease rules, with a one-shift incubation period and the listed effects.

1. The character gains a rad.
2. Update the total rad count.
3. Work out the virulence from that total.
4. Make the Stamina infection roll.
5. Record the result and continue the scene under the new pressure.

In a strong or extreme hotspot, this sequence keeps the table from losing track of how fast things are escalating.

Detection and the NBC Specialty

A radiacmeter reads an area's radiation level as a slow action. It does not solve the hazard; it turns uncertainty into a decision. Use it to test a site before spending a shift scrounging, check a route before committing a vehicle or a vulnerable character, and find out whether a shortcut is still faster once exposure time counts.

The NBC specialty lets a character identify nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon effects on personnel and equipment, and grants its listed bonus to Stamina infection rolls caused by radiation or chemical agents.

Protection: Suits and Vehicles

A full hazmat/MOPP suit protects against contamination: whenever the wearer would gain a rad, they roll Tech, and on a success the suit prevents that rad. On a failure the rad lands normally. The suit buys a chance per rad rather than a pass into any hotspot.

Inside a vehicle, rads arrive at half the normal frequency: a rad that would come every time unit comes every other one instead. That is mitigation, and a vehicle that breaks down inside a hotspot becomes a trap, so pair the choice with fuel, reliability, and an exit plan.

Planning Exposure

Before entering, decide what the party needs from the location, who must go in and who can stay out, the shortest time unit the job needs, who tracks rads, Tech rolls, and totals, and what condition triggers an immediate exit. Inside, keep time visible: a group that spends a stretch arguing in a strong hotspot has made a choice. Say when the next rad arrives before asking whether the group continues.

Decontamination and Permanent Rads

After a character leaves a hotspot, 1 rad leaves the body each day. Once, washing the body in clean water immediately removes half of current rads, rounding fractions up. It does not repeat, and clean water for washing competes with drinking water.

Each time a rad would leave the body, roll the game's D6 check. On the specified result, that rad stays and becomes permanent for life. Track permanent and current rads separately.

Referee Guidance for Radiation

Radiation should frighten players because they understand the decision, and never because the consequences are hidden from them. Give a cautious group enough evidence to see the risk, and leave the uncertainty in the exact level, the time available, the suit roll, or the value of the objective. Good radiation scenes contain a choice: a bridge over a crater is the only route before a hostile force closes in; a ruined supply site may hold the part the vehicle needs; a rescue now will run up the rad clock; clean water can decontaminate or be drunk. After leaving, carry the exposure into the next rest, route, and stress decision.

Stress and Morale: CUF, Rallying, and Recovery

A group can have enough supplies and still be one frightening encounter away from freezing, breaking formation, or losing the ability to decide well. Stress belongs to an individual. Coolness Under Fire (CUF) decides whether that individual keeps functioning under fire. Unit morale belongs to the group and supports CUF when comrades are visible.

Stress, CUF, and Unit Morale

Stress capacity is the INT and EMP die sizes added together, divided by four, rounded up. Record current stress separately; a character can be calm after rest while the unit's morale is still damaged by a lost friend.

Sources of Stress

Pushing an INT- or EMP-based skill roll causes stress for base-die failures on the pushed roll. The Referee can also assign potential stress from a stressful situation, normally one to three points. The manual's examples include being targeted or hit by ranged fire, being near an explosion, seeing a buddy harmed, and witnessing a lethal injury. Combat is common but not the only source: a failed rescue, a dangerous night that decides who can still stand watch, or a hard choice about water or a stranded companion can all qualify. Describe the moment first, then apply the rule: "The wall collapses beside you, the radio goes silent, and the exit is gone. This is 2 potential stress."

Resolving Potential Stress

Against potential stress, make a CUF roll: one base die for the character's CUF, plus a base die for the group's current unit morale if the character has line of sight to any non-incapacitated friendly fighter. Each success removes one point of potential stress. If any remain, the character suffers them and freezes, losing both actions next turn. CUF rolls cannot be pushed, and one attack or event triggers only one CUF roll per person. Isolated characters do not get the morale die.

Suppression

Firearms, heavy weapons, and explosions can force a CUF roll when a character is hit by enemy fire, when a qualifying missed attack threatens them, or when they are in a blast area. Close combat, bows, and thrown weapons do not trigger suppression the same way. On a failure, the character goes prone, suffers 1 stress, and loses both actions next turn, and friendly fighters in the same hex must make their own CUF rolls. A fully deflected ranged hit can still require the roll, so armor does not prevent fear. Position, cover, and sight lines protect the group mentally as well as physically; the Combat Rules Guide has the full procedure.

Stress Incapacitation

When current stress equals or exceeds capacity, the character is incapacitated by stress: paralyzed by fear or indecision, or broken down in despair. They can run for cover but take no other actions and make no skill rolls. The group should get the character to safety, put a capable ally in the same hex, decide whether someone spends a slow action to rally them, protect the group while the plan changes, and remember that rest, sleep, and a possible trauma check still follow. Incapacity can cost a search, delay travel, or force gear to be redistributed.

Rallying With Command

Another PC or NPC in the same hex can rally an incapacitated character with a COMMAND roll as a slow action. On success, the target heals stress equal to the successes rolled. Further Command rolls do not help with the same incident, and the same person cannot try again until the target is next incapacitated by stress. If nobody rallies the character within a stretch, they recover anyway and heal 1 stress. The Frontline Leader specialty gives +1 to Command rolls made to help someone incapacitated by stress, but it does not change unit morale. Make a rally concrete: a direct order, a buddy naming the next safe action, a companion physically steadying someone.

Stress Recovery Through Rest

A character heals 1 remaining stress for each full shift spent resting or sleeping, as long as they are not sleep deprived or hypothermic, and damage can heal in the same time. A party that skips rest to cover distance can arrive with its equipment and without characters it can rely on. At the end of a shift, ask who has current stress, who can rest safely, whether sleep deprivation or hypothermia blocks recovery, and what task the party gives up to recover.

Mental Trauma

Each time a character is incapacitated by stress, they risk long-term trauma. At the next shift spent resting or sleeping, they roll EMP alone; failure produces a result from the game's trauma table. Set the tone with the group, describe the effect respectfully, and let the player help shape how it shows up. Do not use it to take control of a player character.

Trauma can be treated. Another person spends at least one shift counseling and rolls Medical Aid. On a success, the affected character rolls EMP again, and a success heals the trauma. Only one counseling attempt is allowed per week, and the Counselor specialty gives +1 to the Medical Aid roll.

Unit Morale Review

Unit morale is one shared rating from F to A, usually tracked by the group member with the highest COMMAND skill. At character creation it equals the highest Command level in the group, and it cannot move beyond either end.

At the end of every session, assess it together. It rises one step if the group achieved at least one qualifying positive outcome, such as defeating enemies in combat, materially helping people, traveling at least one travel-map hex toward its goal, or improving the highest Command skill. It falls one step if the session leaves the group with a dead or fatally wounded member, or with a member starving, dehydrated, sleep deprived, or hypothermic.

This is where the survival loop closes: an unresolved water shortage or a skipped sleep shift shows up next session as a weaker morale die on every CUF roll.

If your table tracks only one supply closely, make it water, not food. Dehydration deals damage every day and starvation only every week, so the empty canteen is the real clock in Twilight: 2000. Count water every shift it is in doubt, check food weekly, and the survival game gets sharper with less bookkeeping.

Common Survival Mistakes

Time and Task Mistakes

• Resolving travel without assigning tasks. The group quietly gets marching, watching, searching, resting, and camp all at once. Require the declaration.
• Doing two full tasks in one shift. One main task per character per shift, however well the player describes three.
• Giving everyone the same task. Four people searching the same hex waste the structure; check which tasks allow help and which allow only one roll.
• Erasing every task after a brief interruption. Apply the three-quarters rule and say whether the task still counted.
• Forced marching by default. Third and fourth marching shifts exist for urgency.
• Planning only the distance. A route with no sleep, water, fuel, or camp plan is incomplete. Plan the night while choosing the morning task.
• Turning every shift into a random encounter roll. Encounters work best when they grow from route, noise, fire, an earlier enemy, or a failed action.
• Ignoring weather and light until combat. Announce them at the start of the shift so they shape the plan.

Supply Mistakes

• Treating supplies as a tax. If the group has enough for the next decision, skip the arithmetic; when something runs short, put it in the scene.
• Tracking rations but not conditions. Mark starving and dehydrated when they begin and clear them when the survivor eats or drinks.
• Foraging for food and water with one roll. The task requires a choice.
• Forgetting repeat-search penalties for foraging, hunting, fishing, and scrounging. Record each attempt.
• Treating a hunt as a single roll or a guaranteed cache. Tracking, positioning, the shot or trap, carrying, and cooking all cost something.
• Forgetting that cooking is a task that needs a shift and a fire or kitchen.
• Tracking only the tank, not the route, or forgetting that idling costs fuel per shift.
• Treating alcohol fuel as free gasoline, or leaving a still unguarded.

Camp and Recovery Mistakes

• Treating a failed camp roll as no camp, or camp as an automatic overnight reset.
• Giving the group fire, concealment, cooking, and warmth for free. Those benefits pull against each other.
• Forgetting the sentry's sleep. Schedule it or apply sleep deprivation.
• Making hypothermia only a description. Cold has a roll procedure and blocks recovery.
• Turning camp mishaps into arbitrary punishment. The group should understand what changed and have options.
• Treating rest as doing nothing. It keeps injured, stressed, or exhausted survivors usable.

Load, Scavenging, and Radiation Mistakes

• Rolling scrounging once per character. One roll per hex per shift.
• Carrying every interesting object. Ask what job it does and what the party gives up to take it.
• Counting only total weight. Combat gear and backpack follow different rules.
• Treating the backpack's -2 Mobility as background noise.
• Making stockpiles invisible. Record location, contents, and keeper.
• Treating a hotspot as all-or-nothing, forgetting the Stamina roll after each rad, or treating a hazmat suit as immunity.

Stress and Morale Mistakes

• Combining stress, CUF, and morale into one track. Each has its own trigger and recovery.
• Forgetting that allies must be visible for the morale die.
• Treating a rally as unlimited healing. It handles a crisis; rest still matters.
• Skipping the morale review at session end.

Where to Go Next

The Twilight: 2000 Combat Guide shows why avoiding or ending a firefight is only part of survival: ammunition, injuries, stress, and damaged equipment still shape the next shift. For the people carrying out the plan, see the Skills Guide and the Coolness Under Fire Guide. Survival supports the outdoor work, Recon finds danger and hides a camp, Stamina handles exposure and strain, Tech keeps equipment alive, Medical Aid responds when the plan fails, and Driving keeps the vehicle useful.

Every resource is a promise about what the group can do later. Spend those promises deliberately, and let the map tell the survivors what they must choose next.

Where To Go From Here

Once a vehicle enters the picture, the Shift math changes shape, and the Vehicles Guide handles routes, fuel planning, cargo, and driver tasks on those terms. The travel day also needs a map to spend itself on: the Maps and Hex Crawl Guide covers hex travel, terrain, and route briefings. For the equipment behind foraging, cooking, shelter, and repair work, see the Gear and Equipment Guide. New to the setting entirely? The Twilight: 2000 hub lays out the campaign loop these survival procedures plug into.

Source Scope

This guide summarizes Player's Manual Chapter 6, "Travel" (shifts, travel tasks, weather, marching, driving, foraging, hunting, fishing, scrounging, fuel, stills, camp, cooking, rest, and sleep), the Chapter 5 equipment, vehicle, encumbrance, food, and field-gear context, and the Chapter 4 conditions covering starvation, dehydration, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, disease, stress, CUF, unit morale, trauma, and radiation, plus the home-base storage context. It does not reproduce the complete terrain, season, weather, mishap, hunting, scrap, ration, vehicle, still, equipment, disease, trauma, or condition tables. Use the official rules for exact values and adjudication.