Vehicle-combat RPG system for dummies?

[Shipyard Locked]

Thought to myself today, "You know what might be cool and I've never tried? A game focused heavily on vehicular combat!"

But then I thought, "Darn, I know almost nothing about cars and tanks and such in real life. They look cool, especially in action movies / video games, but I don't drive any (NYC resident who hasn't touched a steering wheel since 2000). My eyes glaze over when someone starts discussing the technical details, which I suspect are heavily foregrounded in most games that deal with vehicles as a primary theme. What I would need is a game that abstracts the topic enough to be approachable for dummies, the way D&D doesn't get too concerned with the granular realism of western martial arts."

So, what's out there for tech dummies who can't tell the difference between the engines of an M1 Abrams and a Ford Pinto?

 

[Simlasa]

So not GURPS Autoduel?

A while back I was looking for something similar... though it was for a game focused on street racing & monsters. There would be combat but what I wanted was something that would make the racing element exciting... beyond a series of dice rolls... with interesting decisions and risks to take.
The main recommendation I got was to use the basic Car Wars game... tacked onto whatever RPG (my intent was to use Superworld). Sadly, I got distracted from that plan by some other shiny object... Oh! Look! Cows!!!

 

[David Johansen]

West End Games Star Wars or perhaps GDW's Twilight 2000?

 

[Picaroon Jack]

I like Warbirds for planes. The base game world is diesel punk, but they have several supplements for WWII, modern, and Sci-fi.

 

[BrakBrak]

Atomic Highway has a fairly rules light vehicular combat system, and was a free download last I checked.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

The whole game is pretty good, in my opinion.

 

[clash bowley]

I have written several vehicle-centric games. Mostly planes and pilots. Just for the record.

 

[Toadmaster]

It may not meet some of your demands about glossing over technical details, but Car Wars is the best vehicular combat system ever devised by the mind of man.

Pretty fine grained (1/10 second phases) but definitely allowed for strategy, not just a bunch of skill rolls to determine the winner. Vehicular combat was the primary purpose, but it could be used for a straight chase or racing game.

Might be hard to get your hands on these days, and I suspect more detail than you were looking for. A number of games have had more abstract chase rules. The HERO system's Danger International had some pretty good chase and dogfight rules, and I understand Call of Cthulhu 7th ed has some chase rules which sound similar.


Are you looking for cops and robbers type vehicular combat in the style of Bullit, The French Connection, Ronin etc or armed and armored cars in more of a Post Apocalypse Mad Max kind of thing?

I have written several vehicle-centric games. Mostly planes and pilots.

I was just going to check your website to see if you had ventured into something more ground based like auto racing.

 

[clash bowley]

I was just going to check your website to see if you had ventured into something more ground based like auto racing.

No, not road racing. I've done WWII submarines and SF vehicles, though.

 

[Nobby-W]

Thought to myself today, "You know what might be cool and I've never tried? A game focused heavily on vehicular combat!"
[ . . . ]
So, what's out there for tech dummies who can't tell the difference between the engines of an M1 Abrams and a Ford Pinto?

Edit: It looks like there might be some sort of re-release of Car Wars 4th ed, which (according to the Wikipedia article) has some role playing material as well. You might try that.

Original: Sadly, I think it's out of print now, but Car Wars does exactly that, and it's quite fun as long as you don't mind the requirement for maps. It's really designed for Mad Max style car duels. It's not a role playing system as such, although it's not hard to tack a basic personal combat and skills system onto it (which I did once):

• Characters have about 3 HP each, and can wear one or two points of armour.
• Do some sort of basic stats/skills - Strength, Agility, Smarts, Toughness or something like that. Allocate a few points, with 0 points defaulting to +0.
• Skills - Drive (obviously), shoot, street smarts, crap artistry, survivial, mechanic, medic, fighting - whatever other skills you want to make explicit. Give characters some points (maybe 6) to spread amongst skills. Don't allow anything above +2 or so.
• Stat and skill rolls are + modifiers to roll. I just did a straight 1D6+Mods over some difficulty level IIRC.

Small arms damage:

• Pistol 1-2
• Magnum 1-3
• Rifle 1-3
• SMG 1-4
• Assault Rifle 1-6
• Shotgun 2-5 (but double armour effects)

Melee (mostly against characters)

• Unarmed 0-1
• Brass Knuckles 1-2
• Knife 1-2
• Sword 1-3
• Club 1-3
• Chain 1-3

etc.

Add an experience system if you want to do a longer campaign, although the dice mechanics will be pretty low resolution so experience will be slow.

 

[Gabriel]

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is Hot Rods and Gun Bunnies. It was a sourcebook for Big Eyes Small Mouth 1e intended to cover guys and gals with cars and guns genre of anime. It has some fairly light rules for vehicular combat, as well as stock templates for common road vehicles. I'm not sure how well it really works in play, but it would also readily be compatible with BESM 2e as this is the book that more or less transforms 1e into 2e before the official 2e book.

Mekton II combined with Roadstriker II is another one. The focus of Mekton is on giant fighting robots, of course, but Roadstriker points the camera at various styles of smaller transforming pilotable vehicles. There's a fair emphasis on road vehicles. Also, Roadstriker is not even anywhere near as gearheaded as default Mekton II, with extremely simplified construction for the titular Roadstrikers. There are some general guidelines on using Roadstrikers on a hexgrid, control rolls and such.

Another one that comes to mind, although not really recommended, is the Road Hogs supplement for Palladium Books's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. It has some basic car and road combat rules as well as a system of buying improvements for your vehicles. It's an old book from the 80s, and it's going to have all the standard Palladium baggage you'd expect. It's probably the most technical of these three.

 

[David Johansen]

Car Wars is really neat. SJG did a Car Wars classic reprint a couple years ago. They're doing pocket boxes from a recent kickstarter. They're also doing a new edition that will be more modern and thus less awesome. Carwars really spoiled me for vehicle combat.

 

[spittingimage]

You need Crash Pandas. You're involved in the underground LA racing scene. And you're also raccoons.

 

[FeralToaster]

okay just did an google search to see if ships are vehicles (yes, they are) just too be sure. so I'm going to add "Spell Jammer" to the list.
You can pit Fantasy Egyptian river barges against hamster powered riverboats. Try and squeeze every last ballistae onto a golden age of sail pirate hunter. Elven swan boats anyone? If you want to get the nitty gritty on boat combat "Spell Jammer" is where it is at.

 

[clash bowley]

You need Crash Pandas. You're involved in the underground LA racing scene. And you're also raccoons.

Crash Pandas is f*cking brilliant! Pure love from me! Each raccoon can only turn the car 30 degrees, so you need three raccoons to turn the car 30 degrees. They can't communicate their moves, and reveal their moves all at once. You might have one turn right, one brake, one turn left, one blast an air horn, and one hit the gas. It's EXACTLY what you should expect from a gang of trash pandas driving a street racer!