Airwolf the RPG....what would you choose?

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I mean, there really isn't a perfect fit game for this.

Atomic Highway or Apocalypse World 2E both have solid vehicle rules...for ground vehicles.

I think GURPS Space had decent vehicle rules...for spaceships.

FFG Star Wars had cool vehicle customization rules...mostly for spaceships.

Cortex+ Firefly had cool vehicle rules...for spaceships.

James Bond 007 had fun helicopter stats in the Q manual...but I don't remember the vehicle combat / movement rules being anything great. Still, espionage + some near sci fi tech, could work.

Basically...

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I'm almost motivated enough to open my copy of Tac Air that is sitting on the bookshelf in my office.
 
Airwolf deserves it's own system tailored specifically to it. A bit of D6, a bit of Mekton, a bit of True Science Facts!


What was that Star Trek ship combat game where each player got like a cardboard cutout of a starship dashboard? I feel like it should have something like that for helicopters

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TristramEvans said:
Airwolf deserves it's own system tailored specifically to it. A bit of D6, a bit of Mekton, a bit of True Science Facts!
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Or just take Silhouette Deluxe and go to town...:shade:
 
Far from a perfect fit, but I'd take the original version of Dogs of W*A*R and just wing and handwave everything.
 
TristramEvans said:
Airwolf deserves it's own system tailored specifically to it. A bit of D6, a bit of Mekton, a bit of True Science Facts!


What was that Star Trek ship combat game where each player got like a cardboard cutout of a starship dashboard? I feel like it should have something like that for helicopters
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I believe that would be the 1st edition FASA Star Trek RPG/Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. It was fun!

There's an old Avalon Hill bookcase game called Flight Leader that leans in this direction, but obviously it's for jet aircraft and not helicopters. Every airplane on the hexmap board has a card representing the cockpit and flight controls. You manage your status, actions and movement by sliding things around the dashboard. It's also really fun; the basic rules are quick and easy, even more streamlined than FASA Star Trek, yet it still manages to feel like you're in the cockpit flipping switches and Top Gunning around the board. A setup like that could work pretty well for a game about 80s prototype aircraft cold wars and rogue mercenary heroics.

These days people often give it poor-mediocre reviews, but really only for two reasons: 1) it has no rules for anti-aircraft fire, 2) the only people who would ever play it really care about that sort of thing.


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TristramEvans said:
Airwolf deserves it's own system tailored specifically to it. A bit of D6, a bit of Mekton, a bit of True Science Facts!


What was that Star Trek ship combat game where each player got like a cardboard cutout of a starship dashboard? I feel like it should have something like that for helicopters
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You're probably referring to Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator (or it's earlier editions: Star Trek II: Starship Combat Simulator or Star Trek III: Starship Combat Role Playing Game). They had the thing where each station on the player starship was given a display mat where players could move counters around.

But at first I thought you might be referring to the FASA Starship Duel games. There were two of them: one where the Enterprise fought a Bird of Prey, and another where the Reliant fought a L-42 Frigate. Each ship had a display wheel to handle and show the results of maneuver. Each ship also had a card and tracking counters which served as a damage tracker and energy allocation sheet. There was also a similar game made under The Last Starfighter license called Duel in Space.

I could easily see the system used in the FASA Battlestar Galactica and The Last Starfighter: Combat Game being tweaked to be an Airwolf game. Change the maps to color battlefields instead of blank black starfields (something like the maps in Price of Freedom). Have some ground objectives and guns (kind of like the targets on the Battlestar and Basestar in the Galactica game). Use the Ko-Dan Swarm rules for the mook choppers. Yeah, it could work.

I think years and years ago I heard about someone creating Airwolf rules for FASA's Top Gun aircraft combat game.
 
Starbeard said:
I believe that would be the 1st edition FASA Star Trek RPG/Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. It was fun!

There's an old Avalon Hill bookcase game called Flight Leader that leans in this direction, but obviously it's for jet aircraft and not helicopters. Every airplane on the hexmap board has a card representing the cockpit and flight controls. You manage your status, actions and movement by sliding things around the dashboard. It's also really fun; the basic rules are quick and easy, even more streamlined than FASA Star Trek, yet it still manages to feel like you're in the cockpit flipping switches and Top Gunning around the board. A setup like that could work pretty well for a game about 80s prototype aircraft cold wars and rogue mercenary heroics.

These days people often give it poor-mediocre reviews, but really only for two reasons: 1) it has no rules for anti-aircraft fire, 2) the only people who would ever play it really care about that sort of thing.


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OK, we need to combine that flight simulator system with Phoenix Command
 
Gabriel said:
There was also a similar game made under The Last Starfighter license called Duel in Space.
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I have that one; it's not bad, though I tend to prefer Star Frontiers: Knighthawks
 
Starbeard said:
I believe that would be the 1st edition FASA Star Trek RPG/Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. It was fun!

There's an old Avalon Hill bookcase game called Flight Leader that leans in this direction, but obviously it's for jet aircraft and not helicopters. Every airplane on the hexmap board has a card representing the cockpit and flight controls. You manage your status, actions and movement by sliding things around the dashboard. It's also really fun; the basic rules are quick and easy, even more streamlined than FASA Star Trek, yet it still manages to feel like you're in the cockpit flipping switches and Top Gunning around the board. A setup like that could work pretty well for a game about 80s prototype aircraft cold wars and rogue mercenary heroics.

These days people often give it poor-mediocre reviews, but really only for two reasons: 1) it has no rules for anti-aircraft fire, 2) the only people who would ever play it really care about that sort of thing.


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Yep. I have signed copies of Flight Leader and Tac Air (which are by the same designer, someone I know and have worked with on a computer game project) on my shelf here. He was an F4 pilot.

Tac Air DOES have helicopters and anti-air and other ground units, but it expects you to be doing battalion- or brigade-level combat in Eastern Europe or something. So my semi-joking post above was about how you cold probably run Air Wolf with it, but it'd be hilarious (to me) how Air Wolf would be like a chit with some silly-high combat factors on it, so you'd probably just be rolling and going, "welp, looks like Air Wolf eliminated everything it shot at" and "oh, you try to attack Air Wolf? Ok, roll. Nope. LOL. You achieve nothing. Oh look, it's Air Wolf's turn . . ."

. . .

I imagine that the modern-style RPG rules approach may work most appropriately to recreate Air Wolf, something like:

* The Air Master (AM) invents a ludicrous plot situation, like in Air Wolf. If the AM can't think of anything, buy one of our 100+ planned Air Wolf Adventure modules, or if you're a cheap punk, watch an episode of Air Wolf, and rename the characters.

* When you get bored of roleplaying and narrating the railroad to the Air Wolf Air Combat scene, ask the Air Wolf pilot what they want to do. Roll their agency dice to determine just how much they succeed. Then describe how cool that was, and crank up the Air Wolf theme volume by the amount they made their roll. Then describe what the surviving bad guys are doing to try to destroy Air Wolf. Then ask the players what they do with Air Wolf to escape and own the baddies. Again, roll dice, describe how well they succeed, and pump up the Air Wolf theme music!

Repeat.
 
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Gabriel said:
Mekton obviously comes to mind. The Veteran character type along with the career paths combined with uneven allotments of different areas of training could help replicate the dynamic of the show.
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I agree that Mekton would work well for this.
 
3rik said:
Far from a perfect fit, but I'd take the original version of Dogs of W*A*R and just wing and handwave everything.
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I own that game and have been giving this some thought.
 
Starbeard said:
I believe that would be the 1st edition FASA Star Trek RPG/Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. It was fun!

There's an old Avalon Hill bookcase game called Flight Leader that leans in this direction, but obviously it's for jet aircraft and not helicopters. Every airplane on the hexmap board has a card representing the cockpit and flight controls. You manage your status, actions and movement by sliding things around the dashboard. It's also really fun; the basic rules are quick and easy, even more streamlined than FASA Star Trek, yet it still manages to feel like you're in the cockpit flipping switches and Top Gunning around the board. A setup like that could work pretty well for a game about 80s prototype aircraft cold wars and rogue mercenary heroics.

These days people often give it poor-mediocre reviews, but really only for two reasons: 1) it has no rules for anti-aircraft fire, 2) the only people who would ever play it really care about that sort of thing.


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I have this game, as well as GDW's Air Superiority and Air Strike. It blows my mind to see what these can go for on ebay these days, $80-100 seems pretty typical.

Flight Leader looks complicated with that chart, but it actually was a quite good game, and fairly easy to play. That chart simply served as a chit track for each player. One of the best air combat games I ever played as far as energy management (speed and altitude), which is critical in air combat. Too fast, and fuel consumption is crazy and your turns become huge, if you get low and slow it turns into a gunfight which usually favors the lower tech fighter. Not an easy game because air combat is hard, but not super complicated to play.



As far as Airwolf or Blue Thunder the RPG, I think it would be a mistake to make air combat a major part of the game system. The combat efficiency of the helicopters are really not all that special compared even to then current combat helicopters. Airwolf in particular literally broke laws of physics related to rotor wing aircraft, mainly the max speed, and elevation. Combat in the show was simply plot point driven, so a light handwavy system is very appropriate. A crunchy reality based system would only highlight the many liberties taken in the show.

Firepower-wise Airwolf has similar capabilities to a mid 1980s AH-64 Apache which carried a 30mm cannon, and could be armed with rockets, Hellfire anti-tank missiles, and Sidewinder air to air missiles. Of course Airwolf could carry all of its weapons concealed and handily have access to a semi-truck load of whatever ammo the plot called for but...

Blue Thunder was basically a lightly armed Vietnam era AH-1 Cobra. The real standouts for both aircraft were more RPG oriented, with stealth and eavesdropping systems which furthered the investigation aspects of the show.

Anyway, my take on it would be to run the RPG system for the non-air combat related stuff that floats your boat, and treat the helicopter as a magic item that does what is needed as was the standard for many 1980s tech reliant thrillers.
 
That's why I think D6 Star Wars would be a good fit, at least in 1st edition mode. Once you get into a vehicle all that really matters is who can outrun whom and how hard it is to hit them. The rest of it is all handwaved and narrative driven.
 
Toadmaster said:
. . . Combat in the show was simply plot point driven, so a light handwavy system is very appropriate. A crunchy reality based system would only highlight the many liberties taken in the show. . . .
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You're right, from a certain point of view . . .

My point of view is that I can't stand narrative games, even worse than I can't stand fiction such as Air Wolf. So the only way I would enjoy playing a game about such a situation, would be if it were a crunchy reality-based system, so that I could enjoy the highlighting and debunking of the many liberties taken, and also to watch the spectacle of what the reality of such a situation would be like, including the collateral damage, eventual gritty demise of the heroes, etc.
 
Skarg said:
You're right, from a certain point of view . . .

My point of view is that I can't stand narrative games, even worse than I can't stand fiction such as Air Wolf. So the only way I would enjoy playing a game about such a situation, would be if it were a crunchy reality-based system, so that I could enjoy the highlighting and debunking of the many liberties taken, and also to watch the spectacle of what the reality of such a situation would be like, including the collateral damage, eventual gritty demise of the heroes, etc.
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Admittedly I'm of a similar mind, but trying not to throw too much cold water on things. :grin:

Per the show Airwolf could fly at 100,000 feet.

The extra long wing version of the U-2 spy plane had a ceiling of 70,000 feet, and the SR-71 Blackbird 84,000 feet.

The world record for a helicopter was set by a modified Aerospatiale Lama at a height of just over 40,000 feet, this record was followed by the world record for the longest auto-rotation as the engine flamed out after reaching that height, and could not be restarted. Aerospatiale also holds the distinction of building the only helicopters capable of landing (and later taking off) from the peak of Mt Everest, first done with a Lama, and later by an AS350B3 Equreuil (squirrel) aka A-star in the USA.

The speed limit on a rotorcraft (helicopters) is theoretically about 250 mph, which has to do with physics of the spinning rotor. The tips of the retreating rotors will stall when surpassing that speed which would be like losing one of your wings on a conventional fixed wing aircraft.

The fastest helicopters ever built have used advanced counter rotating blades (two rotors spinning in opposite directions) designed specifically to address the retreating blade issue. Oh yeah, they also had either a pusher prop, or jet engines for thrust. These still fall short of 300 miles per hour and have been strictly experimental aircraft. The design of helicopters simply creates a ton of drag limiting their practical speed.

Prop planes have a similar issue where getting them much beyond 500mph the power required to overcome the increasing drag of the prop becomes unsustainable. Jets with their far superior aerodynamics are the way to go if you need to go faster than 500 mph.
There is actually a cross over point around 350 mph, below which props are much more efficient with greater performance than jet engines and above that speed the advantage goes to jet engines. This is what kept prop fighters in the game during the early jet era, when prop fighters were able to reach that 500mph speed limit, but jets had not yet been able to practically exceed 600 mph. By the late 40s when jet fighters were hitting 650-700mph the prop fighter was done.

The improved aerodynamics between prop planes and helicopters is well demonstrated by the tilt rotor V-22 Osprey which has a top speed of 316 mph in "prop-plane" configuration, significantly faster than any existing helicopter design including the highly experimental designs.

Airwolf had a claimed speed of Mach 1 (around 750mph but altitude and air temperature cause variation in actual speed). At least they explain this ability with the use of jet engines, so they were part way there, the rest is just pesky aerodynamics. I guess the show wouldn't have had legs if the rotors sheared off when they triggered the jets and Airwolf made a nice crater. :tongue:
 
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I just think a flight-simulator-like helicopter game would be fun, even if the supercopter can casually break the laws of Aerodynamics. That sorta stuff can't get in the way of True Science Facts!
 
Thinking too much about the real-world capabilities of helicopters is missing the point of Airwolf, IMO. It's a superhero in helicopter form.
 
A supervehicle, like Knightrider's KITT. Is this still a subgenre or did it die out after the 1990s?
 
3rik said:
A supervehicle, like Knightrider's KITT. Is this still a subgenre or did it die out after the 1990s?
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The genre had a good run. Knightrider, Airwolf, Blue Thunder, StreetHawk, Cobra, Viper, Thunder in Paradise. What am I missing?
 
For the record they've had several different Knight Rider based shows (Team Knight Rider, one with the Viper, the more recent descendant) none of them stuck around.

You're also missing Highwayman (Truck that turns into Helicopter), and maybe the movie Wraith if you stretch it into Ghost Rider-esque supernatural territory, wasn't there another show with a Viper as the lead supervehicle?


I love M.A.S.K by the way.
(I hate them tying it to Transformers though in comics because if you want cool supervehicles in M.A.S.K. ist's kind of basic when you CAN in some of the Transformers just rider around them making a more powerful transforming vehicle!
 
Skarg said:
Yeah, I would use GURPS for everything but the helicopter dogfighting, for which I would research a good wargame, if there is one that covers that subject.

The thing is, there might not be, because helicopters, I think, don't really dogfight the way I assume they do on Airwolf. I might have to homebrew my own rules.
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Wasn't Airwolf some kind of hybrid helicopter. I remember it looking really unique and moving in ways helicopters normally didn't. But it has been ages since I saw the show
 
BedrockBrendan said:
Wasn't Airwolf some kind of hybrid helicopter. I remember it looking really unique and moving in ways helicopters normally didn't. But it has been ages since I saw the show
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The actual helicopter used for the show was a Bell 222, a very sleek looking civil helicopter.

Some of the concepts seen in Airwolf have some basis in reality. There have been a number of compound helicopters (combining rotors for lift and jet or props for thrust), Some of these also had small wings for added lift.

Tilt rotor and helicopter / gyrocopter (gyrodyne) designs trying to combine the vertical take off / landing of helicopters with the higher speeds possible with fixed wing aircraft. Many of these designs go back to the early 1960s.

The Sikorsky S-69 is probably the closest real aircraft to what Airwolf portrayed in the show. Coaxial rotors with jet engines for forward thrust gave it a claimed max speed of 303 mph. Not too impressive for a fixed wing but awesomely fast for a helicopter. It was a pretty cool looking helo too.

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Airwolf of the TV show is a magical or superhero vehicle, which is why I'd suggest looking for a system that doesn't care too much about the real world at least for the flight aspect.

However if somebody wanted to do a more realistic take on the show, there are some very cool aircraft that could be used to provide specs for a less capable but more realistic (and still pretty nifty) version.
 
Which gamelines feature Silhouette deluxe? I only currently have Tribe 8, but was very fond of the system and ignored the switch to 2nd edition. I guess I'm asking, how did Silhouette Deluxe handle vehicles and vehicle combat? Tech at that level was kinda handwavey in Tribe 8 from what I recall, but that's appropriate to the setting. I may have the core books for Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear in storage, but it's been over a decade since I last read them I think.
 
TristramEvans said:
Which gamelines feature Silhouette deluxe? I only currently have Tribe 8, but was very fond of the system and ignored the switch to 2nd edition. I guess I'm asking, how did Silhouette Deluxe handle vehicles and vehicle combat? Tech at that level was kinda handwavey in Tribe 8 from what I recall, but that's appropriate to the setting. I think I have core books for Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear in storage, but it's been over a decade since I last read them I think.
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I'm not sure, since I hadn't read it in detail recently, but I remember it had a quite detailed system for vehucular combat (including flying vehicles, but again, IIRC).
 
TristramEvans said:
Which gamelines feature Silhouette deluxe? I only currently have Tribe 8, but was very fond of the system and ignored the switch to 2nd edition. I guess I'm asking, how did Silhouette Deluxe handle vehicles and vehicle combat? Tech at that level was kinda handwavey in Tribe 8 from what I recall, but that's appropriate to the setting. I think I have core books for Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear in storage, but it's been over a decade since I last read them I think.
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Jovian Chronicles is the big one that I've read a lot of that uses Silhouette, and despite being a space mecha game, would probably be the version of the rules I'd adjust for Airwolf. I just think the combination of the vehicle combat in the sense of how it does damage/armor is great for it, plus the movement mechanics are A+ for aircraft.
 


The Lady is definitely a superhero vehicle, but she isn't exactly pre-Crisis Superman or anything.

She's immune to machinegun fire. .50 cal might as well be rain to her. I don't think we ever see anything armed with a 20mm or heavier against her.

It may be possible for .50cal to damage her rotors, but I think even then it took a near hit from a missile or a rocket to do that. There's one episode where the main rotor gets damaged by some attack. But obviously it takes a pretty damn close near miss, because there's that one episode where String pilots Airwolf through a heavy bombardment range.

Sidewinders and AIM-9s are obviously considered deadly. Those Sunbursts fly freely once that stuff comes into play. She's just as fragile as those endless seas of Hughes 369s with machineguns duct taped to the sides once real weaponry gets introduced.

The overwhelming majority of The Lady's power comes from String, who is just a ridiculously badass pilot who was also one of the few people on Earth to be even partially professionally trained in how to operate Airwolf. In the hands of Caitlin or Dom, Airwolf wouldn't be even a fraction as dangerous.
 
TristramEvans said:
Which gamelines feature Silhouette deluxe? I only currently have Tribe 8, but was very fond of the system and ignored the switch to 2nd edition. I guess I'm asking, how did Silhouette Deluxe handle vehicles and vehicle combat? Tech at that level was kinda handwavey in Tribe 8 from what I recall, but that's appropriate to the setting. I may have the core books for Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear in storage, but it's been over a decade since I last read them I think.
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When it comes to Jovian Chronicles it depends which edition you have. The very first JC book was a setting book for Mekton ll.

1700859015307.jpeg

The first edition that used Silhouette and was a standalone game was this:

6126IsVcxBL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg


The second edition used Silhouette Deluxe and required the Silhoutte core book to run.

617UjDBamzL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg
 
1e Silhouette version of Jovian Chronicles + the Companion is the best version IMO.

For some reason in the 2e version they removed the actually quite amazing trick for keeping track of vectors for space combat.
 
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