Quote:
Originally Posted by Suncrush
Thanks. The philosophy behind the rules helps them make a lot of sense.
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[nod] One of the first steps I take in writing rules is to write down "what is this rule supposed to accomplish" -- if I can't explain to *myself* what I intend with a rule, how am I going to explain it to anyone else?
In the case of the NOVA rules, there was a problem with "racing" events: Inevitably someone would turn up with a duelling car, and try to "win the race" by evaporating the competition. This seemed to run counter to the point of racing, which is "speed and handling" (the original _Dueltrack_ manual talks a bit about this). So, one limited the number (and in some cases the damage potential) of weapons, which naturally pushed the players towards building cars oriented toward Speed and Handling (if for no other reason than: There wasn't anything else to spend money on :) ). Weapons were mainly used not for outright destroying foes, but for adding those couple hazard Ds which made the difference between cruising through a corner, and going through said corner sideways (in more than one event, a car was taken out by a weapons hit which resulted in a CT roll which caused a tire blowout at speed).
Same with the "no tire shots" rule for duels -- someone in a "Backfire" in _ADQ_ made reference to "the six-second duel of tires); ours were closer to four seconds, but still led to "no-score draw" endings where everyone was immobile and unable to fire upon anyone else. Banning tire shots had some unusual "knock-on effects" as well: It all-but-forced players to bring usable dropped weapons to duels; and it helped neutralize the "cosmic spitball" ram-cars which started taking over after the introduction of the confetti rule (hint: Ramcars *really* don't like flame clouds... :) ).
Oh, and one more point: The reference to "metal tires" was a joke -- I've been doing this since Haring was a corporal. (I'm old enough to remember when dropped weapons could only be mounted on the B facing, which is why they have the 1-2 activation zone as well as the 1-4.) :)