Long ago I posted a query on the Car Wars bulletin board
asking people, “Whether they played in campaigns or just arena battles.” Of the responses I received one actually
mentioned using Car Wars as a “lite” RPG.
I received that post after I had already written this article, and was
glad to see others had the same idea.
Other people indicated they had played campaigns but most
messages went like this: “Campaigns take
time to prepare. It takes very little
prep time to go driving around a arena not really caring if your driver bites
it or not.” and “When someone wants to role play Car Wars is far from their
first choice.”
I agree that very little prep time is needed to play in an
arena, but with just a little effort on the part of a game master a full
campaign is not that much more time consuming, and can be more rewarding. Car Wars is one of the few games in which
“cannon fodder” NPC’s can be created almost instantaneously. They always have three hit points. Just give 10 of them a heavy pistol and
Handgunner: 0 and you have a small gang.
Equip 20 with rifles and LAW’s and it’s an army! Add a few generic dueling vehicles and you’re
ready to rumble. Because it’s so easy to
create NPC’s the GM can focus his limited time on the stories and scenarios of
his campaign instead of the stats, hit points, and skill level of every person
the players take a shot at.
Of course the real role playing possibilities of Car Wars is
in it’s ability to simulate action on a large scale. Thus allowing players to run organizations or
even kingdoms in a post apocalyptic landscape.
However, I will be presenting rules on organizations in the future. This article will focus on campaigns for
individual characters.
First, base the campaign around your home town, and use the
time line as presented in the CWC as your background. This makes the setting familiar without
having to explain it in great depth. I
recommend acquiring a topographical map of the area surrounding for added detail.
Second, roll up characters using my quick character
generation table or assign everyone character points and cash (for the later I
recommend 50 character points and $25,000 per player, with no starting skill
higher than level 1). Assume all the
characters have known each other for some time and are part of the same group
and have the players decide what the group does. Are they a dueling team? Mercenaries?
A courier service? Salvage
gang? A combination of several of the
above?
Third, give the characters a free club house. Allow the players to design their groups
compound on a single sheet of graph paper.
This structure should be centered in the middle of the page with at
least a one inch border around the outside.
Allow them to create one or 2 buildings with a walled parking area. They can add things like turrets, work
stations and security systems, but these additions must be bought with the
groups money. This compound is where the
group lives, and works on their vehicles. They can expect to be reasonably safe
from attack here, but not too safe.
Fourth, create the bar/road house where the group goes to
party, find jobs and learn rumors. This
place can be taken right out of your classic fantasy RPG. It should be a friendly place with only a
hint of danger. The worst things to
happen here are the occasional unarmed bar brawl or pistol duel in the parking
lot. The bartender will be talkative
and full of rumors. A player with
connections can meet them here to discuss business. A bulletin board where jobs are posted can
provide the players with several employment opportunities. An NPC group that competes for the same type
of work as the player characters should also be included for a little friendly
rivalry. This NPC group should not be an
extreme, hostile threat to the PC’s, but more of an annoyance.
An often overlooked
bar crowd is groupies and wanna be’s.
These people will hang around the PC’s trying to talk to them or emulate
them. This will probably annoy your
players, which is what you want.
However, these people might have useful information, equipment or skills
and if the players take the time to get to know them they should prove valuable. Another fun thing to do is have the rival
NPC’s pull off a stunning caper that draws all the attention and groupies to
them. At first your players will be
happy to have these wanna be’s off their backs, but don’t be surprised if the
PC’s actually start to miss the lime light.
In fact I’ve seen my players become quite upset at the fact that the
obnoxious groupies they could never elude before are now talking up a storm
with the PC’s rivals and completely ignoring the player characters. Of course the players should be able to come
here to brag and steal everyone’s attention as well.
Other people to consider:
The old “retired” autoduelist (70 pt character with $30,000 in
equipment), the village drunk (10-30pt
character, no money), snake oil salesmen
(30 pt character with Fast Talk, and Merchant skills), desperate out of work duelists 30-50 pts may
or may not have more than $1000 in equipment/vehicles), the suave lone bounty hunter (40-80 pt
character with $20000-$50000 in equipment),
The huge bouncer (40 pts for Martial Arts, Body Building, and Handgunner,
has shotgun, baton and body armor. Use
any and all of these stereo types to liven the place up.
Fifth, determine how the PC’s make their living and design
some brief adventures for them. Duelist
need arenas and rival vehicles.
Mercenaries need people or places to protect. Couriers need items to haul, routes to ride,
and destinations to reach. Cycle gangs
need a stretch of highway to call their own, and people to rob, etc. … When creating these encounters here are
some tips.
Don’t be afraid to use all the classic adventure plots: Small town that needs saving. Person or object that needs escorting. Challenges to races and/or duels. Bounty hunting. Treasure seeking. Try to make the adventure short enough to
finish in one night. Don’t go into a lot
of detail. Direct confrontation with a
minimum amount of work is the goal.
NPC Pedestrians. If
you don’t want to keep records of them, put them in the field with no body
armor, all the same weapon type, Handgun 0, and don’t count ammo use. This
way they’re out of the action when hit by anything doing 2 or more pts of
damage, all have the same chance to hit and damage the PC’s, and if you’re
worried about their ammo use then they’re not dying fast enough.
I recommend arming people on foot with rifles, and a few
LAW’s. Don’t get too fancy with them,
they’ll be dead soon. In order to
simplify record keeping and give my players a fighting chance I make the skill
level of the majority of my NPC’s zero.
Higher skill levels are reserved for outstanding NPC’s and major
villains. If you want to make the cannon
fodder more challenging it’s easier to throw another couple of counters on the
map then remember which half of them are +0 to hit, which ¼ are +1 to hit and
which ¼ are +2 to hit.
NPC Vehicles. For arena type fighting use any Car Wars
supplement. For vehicles that exist in
the real world there are several options:
1) Add cargo space to a dueling
vehicle by removing a weapon or 2 from it.
(Not a satisfying option, but will work in a pinch.) 2)
Create your own vehicle with cargo space, LDR, extra ammo, and other
practical options. (This gives you more
control over the vehicle types, but takes more work.) 3) Go
to the Car Wars Index at
http://arsweb.uwaterloo.cal/~dccarles/cw/index.html Here you’ll find an entire list of vehicles
ready for the road! (I recommend this
option if you don’t have time to make your own.
These guys have the right idea and a lot of useful designs!)
Sixth, keep a journal of your players exploits. It should contain a brief description of any
interesting encounters the group had and the out come. Only write the highlights and ignore the
rest. If your group is like mine we only
meet once every week or two. With all
the non gaming activities that take place in our lives it’s easy to forget what
our characters did 3 weeks ago. Reading
their last adventure and it’s results back to them from the journal will
refresh their memories and yours as well.
Seventh, develop a sense of continuity. This can be done by presenting your players
with a major organization that needs to be eliminated. This opposing group should show up from time
to time with schemes against the PC’s and their community. At first these antagonists should be weak
and easily defeated. These underlings
should tip the players off that there is a big threat out there without
actually revealing where it is. As time
goes on your adventurers will face increasingly difficult challenges from this
group while learning who they are and where they are. After many sessions a run in with the group
leaders should be planned. This will be
a grand assault on their compound worthy of any bad action flick. Lots of cannon fodder, things to blow up, and
a world to save.
One of my favorite opposition groups is the mad cult. These wacko’s kidnap cows, sacrifice gold
fish, and try to convert people to their strange beliefs. The sillier this group is the more fun they’ll
be to portray, but don’t forget these psychos have guns and aren’t afraid to
use them.
Finally, stay with the basics. Keep it simple and fun and give the PC’s a
break. In a game as deadly as Car Wars
don’t be afraid to let them cheat death.
When my players perform poorly either through bad tactics or dice rolls,
I find it better to hit them in the pocket book or prestige than in the
gut. If a courier gets his vehicle shot
out from under him by a cycle gang have the gang ransom him and his cargo back
to the person who shipped the cargo instead of killing him. If a mercenary group is defending a town and
they make a tactical blunder let the bad guys burn the place to the ground and
attack the towns people instead of the duelists. The characters won’t get paid and will lose a
lot of reputation but at least they’re still alive. On the other hand if the characters come up
with a great plan don’t be afraid to have the bad guys surrender without much
of a fight. If a cycle gang pulls off
the perfect ambush, let the victims surrender without firing a shot. This rewards good planning by leaving the
vehicle and their contents in tact and also provides for a good ethics
dilemma. What to do with prisoners? Free them to the badlands and hope they don’t
lead anyone back to the group? Ransom
them back and risk getting captured?
Kill them in cold blood and bring down the wrath of bounty hunters and
the law?
In conclusion these tips may seem a bit simplistic, derived
from the early fantasy games we all played as kids. They are, but you may be surprised at how
much your group enjoys these adventures when sitting in an armed and armored
vehicle instead of on horse back with a sword.
Especially when they can go back to the bar after a hard days dueling
and brag about it to their groupies and rivals.
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