The Car Wars Effect

philreed · 05-17-2014, 04:25 AM

http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/30...utlook-on-rpgs

" . . . our current lives, with smart phones and apps and tablets, have other ways of filling that time we spent making cars that would never see the table. More and more, we as a cultural are looking for games that don’t require hours of prep time."

kjamma4 · 05-17-2014, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by philreed

http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/30...utlook-on-rpgs

" . . . our current lives, with smart phones and apps and tablets, have other ways of filling that time we spent making cars that would never see the table. More and more, we as a cultural are looking for games that don’t require hours of prep time."

The answer is for SJG to be the ones making apps to fill our time. Hours spent designing a car are things of the past.

A program like the Combat Garage is where the game needs to head, not still stuck using pencil and paper.

Suboptimal00 · 05-17-2014, 08:53 AM

Are D&D and Pathfinder doing badly? I was under the impression they were thriving, but I don't see sales numbers, obviously. I can also think of 2 pairs of miniatures games with heavy non-play time requirements that seem from an outside perspective to be doing well for themselves.

I suspect I am younger than average for this board, so I ask this earnestly and very much non-rhetorically: was there a time with substantially more successful high-preparation games on the market? If so, when and which games? Most importantly, is the actual trend, if it exists, toward less of a market for such games or toward consolidation of that market into less game systems?

ColBosch · 05-17-2014, 08:55 AM

Hear, hear. The last time I designed units for a game - in this case BattleTech - was when I was getting paid to do so. Even if CW6 has a design system, I'm unlikely to use it.

Speaking of that old warhorse, it would perhaps be of some relevance to mention that the biggest sellers for BattleTech are the (ready-to-play) Introductory Boxed Set and the (pre-designed-unit-filled) Technical Readouts. By a big margin, too.

Buzzardo · 05-17-2014, 09:01 AM

The thing about designing things for a game is that it's a separate hobby from the game itself. That's true whether it's new worlds for role-playing games, cars for Car Wars, units for BattleTech, vehicles for GURPS, or even variant units for Ogre. If you don't enjoy the design activity on its own, you're not likely to do much of it. Consequently, if there's a separate design system, it better be fun in its own right.

(I've done all of those things except design units for BattleTech, which I have never played. My favorite, making worlds for RPGs, is a great hobby.)

brionl · 05-17-2014, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suboptimal00

Are D&D and Pathfinder doing badly? I was under the impression they were thriving, but I don't see sales numbers, obviously. I can also think of 2 pairs of miniatures games with heavy non-play time requirements that seem from an outside perspective to be doing well for themselves.

Well, the FLGS thinks Pathfinder is doing OK anyway. D&D has one shelf/section of books. Pathfinder has about 10 shelf/sections.

philreed · 05-17-2014, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suboptimal00

Are D&D and Pathfinder doing badly?

D&D is in a weird state right now. We will see what 5th edition does later this year.

Pathfinder's strong. Their sourcebooks, novels, and supplements are all fantastic works. The company is really knocking the entire line out of the park and producing fun stuff.

ElLoboGordo · 05-17-2014, 10:13 AM

A couple facets as they occur to me:

Regarding long prep times in old games, I don't think people sought that as a feature in their games. It's just how games *were* pretty much from the beginning. If everything requires long prep-up, nobody minds because nobody knows any different.

The advent of Battletech has been mentioned, and I think that's where the shift started to happen. The Tech Readout is an important touchstone in game supplement history, because it did two things: it sped up game prep, and it did so by providing designs that were both very playable (in the main), AND very flavorful. Battletech embraced the "stock" 'Mechs as the gameworld's mainstays. While a design system was provided for people who wanted it (and people totally wanted it), the game's fluff made it pretty clear that anything built using the design system was an experimental homebrew. All that was missing were reliability rules to further reinforce the "stock" designs.

Other games also used the concept from that point. I'm thinking about the advent of the Warhammer Army List/Codex supplements especially, and how they sped up the prep time from 40k's initial "build each figure's loadout individually" rules.

Car Wars' biggest failing from the beginning was in not embracing a similar concept. The AADA Vehicle Guides always felt like low-end wanna-bes compared to the Tech Readouts, and while some design *names* have stuck around simply by virtue of being there at the beginning, Car Wars never *really* worked to make those stock designs good, playable, interesting, or any combination thereof. Worse, the art never reflected a reoccurring selection of vehicles from major manufacturers. Every car illustration was unique to every other car illustration, so there was never a time you could say "Hey, that's a sweet picture of a Joseph Special". The Vehicle Guides became places you went for ideas, and then built your own designs that were better.

I contrast this to the lovely Interstate '76 video game, which DID embrace a line of stock semi-fictionalized auto types, and that move made the game that much more awesome. Phil has already posted up an assortment of links to a variety of fresh new illustrators, and while I dig their work, I really hope that there's a conversation somewhere being had about getting this new potential stable of artists to start concocting some stock vehicles for 100 years from now.

None of this is to say that 6e doesn't need a design system. It does. But it needs to use that design system to provide players with solid stock designs, and then just be present for the kitbashers and the ubernerds who adore such susbsystems.

Bourgeois Stalker · 05-17-2014, 01:20 PM

I see both the Vehicle Guides and Technical Readouts as designs made without the min/maxing that you see in a custom design. Custom vehicles/mechs are going to be better, usually because they're built very exactingly. I'm treating vehicles from the Vehicle Guides as more common in my roleplaying campaign, and as such can be found used or on sale - the by-the-book price is just the MSRP. In Battletech, that's definitely how they're treated, at least in the Level 1 rules, since there's very few new mechs coming off the line, so you have to work with what you've got. Also, having a weak point in a design can be fun! How much fun would a Rifleman be if you had good back armor? I say less.

For the prep question - yes, I love prep, but I understand that I'm a weirdo. In the 35 years of my life, 10 were before Car Wars, 4 or 5 years or so had somewhat regular Car Wars play, and the other 20 were spent thinking about how I'd like to play Car Wars, but didn't have anyone to play with. I have two points for saying that: 1) a simple app that allows vehicle design and turn-based play on my phone/computer would be amazing and my days of wanting to play but not would be over, and 2) I spent a lot of those 20 years making designs that never once got played, and I enjoyed the game that way, too.

Final point - I agree that the success of Btech's iconic designs was not mirrored by CW. Convoy and Mean Streets had great depictions of Vehicle Guide 1 designs on the streets, and I loved that. Then, new artists came along and made some dang ugly cars instead of keeping with the earlier aesthetic. After that, we never saw pics of VG designs in real-life situations and that was a very real missed opportunity. Oh, and god did the art in Tanks suck so hard. Sorry Lawrence Allen Williams, your style is weird and didn't work very well.

Fred Skin · 05-17-2014, 04:20 PM

I like the way Outrider works. There are fixed cars with fixed weapons, but there is some quick customization that is done for each game.

I want to dump out a box and start playing nowadays. Keep it short & simple, with advanced options. The metagame has to be on par with M:tG if I'm going to need a lot of prep time.

05-17-2014, 04:25 AM	#1
philreed I do stuff and things. Join Date: Aug 2004	The Car Wars Effect http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/30...utlook-on-rpgs " . . . our current lives, with smart phones and apps and tablets, have other ways of filling that time we spent making cars that would never see the table. More and more, we as a cultural are looking for games that don’t require hours of prep time." __________________ Battlegrip.com, my blog about toys.

05-17-2014, 08:53 AM	#3
Suboptimal00 Join Date: May 2012 Location: Kansas	Re: The Car Wars Effect Are D&D and Pathfinder doing badly? I was under the impression they were thriving, but I don't see sales numbers, obviously. I can also think of 2 pairs of miniatures games with heavy non-play time requirements that seem from an outside perspective to be doing well for themselves. I suspect I am younger than average for this board, so I ask this earnestly and very much non-rhetorically: was there a time with substantially more successful high-preparation games on the market? If so, when and which games? Most importantly, is the actual trend, if it exists, toward less of a market for such games or toward consolidation of that market into less game systems?

05-17-2014, 08:55 AM	#4
ColBosch Join Date: May 2007	Re: The Car Wars Effect Hear, hear. The last time I designed units for a game - in this case BattleTech - was when I was getting paid to do so. Even if CW6 has a design system, I'm unlikely to use it. Speaking of that old warhorse, it would perhaps be of some relevance to mention that the biggest sellers for BattleTech are the (ready-to-play) Introductory Boxed Set and the (pre-designed-unit-filled) Technical Readouts. By a big margin, too.

05-17-2014, 09:01 AM	#5
Buzzardo Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Austin, TX	Re: The Car Wars Effect The thing about designing things for a game is that it's a separate hobby from the game itself. That's true whether it's new worlds for role-playing games, cars for Car Wars, units for BattleTech, vehicles for GURPS, or even variant units for Ogre. If you don't enjoy the design activity on its own, you're not likely to do much of it. Consequently, if there's a separate design system, it better be fun in its own right. (I've done all of those things except design units for BattleTech, which I have never played. My favorite, making worlds for RPGs, is a great hobby.) __________________ Play *Ogre*? Want an interactive record sheet? Want a random dungeon? How about some tables for that? How about a random encounter?

05-17-2014, 10:13 AM	#8
ElLoboGordo Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: Central Oklahoma	Re: The Car Wars Effect A couple facets as they occur to me: Regarding long prep times in old games, I don't think people sought that as a feature in their games. It's just how games were pretty much from the beginning. If everything requires long prep-up, nobody minds because nobody knows any different. The advent of Battletech has been mentioned, and I think that's where the shift started to happen. The Tech Readout is an important touchstone in game supplement history, because it did two things: it sped up game prep, and it did so by providing designs that were both very playable (in the main), AND very flavorful. Battletech embraced the "stock" 'Mechs as the gameworld's mainstays. While a design system was provided for people who wanted it (and people totally wanted it), the game's fluff made it pretty clear that anything built using the design system was an experimental homebrew. All that was missing were reliability rules to further reinforce the "stock" designs. Other games also used the concept from that point. I'm thinking about the advent of the Warhammer Army List/Codex supplements especially, and how they sped up the prep time from 40k's initial "build each figure's loadout individually" rules. Car Wars' biggest failing from the beginning was in not embracing a similar concept. The AADA Vehicle Guides always felt like low-end wanna-bes compared to the Tech Readouts, and while some design names have stuck around simply by virtue of being there at the beginning, Car Wars never really worked to make those stock designs good, playable, interesting, or any combination thereof. Worse, the art never reflected a reoccurring selection of vehicles from major manufacturers. Every car illustration was unique to every other car illustration, so there was never a time you could say "Hey, that's a sweet picture of a Joseph Special". The Vehicle Guides became places you went for ideas, and then built your own designs that were better. I contrast this to the lovely Interstate '76 video game, which DID embrace a line of stock semi-fictionalized auto types, and that move made the game that much more awesome. Phil has already posted up an assortment of links to a variety of fresh new illustrators, and while I dig their work, I really hope that there's a conversation somewhere being had about getting this new potential stable of artists to start concocting some stock vehicles for 100 years from now. None of this is to say that 6e doesn't need a design system. It does. But it needs to use that design system to provide players with solid stock designs, and then just be present for the kitbashers and the ubernerds who adore such susbsystems. __________________ Check out the Car Wars community on Google+! And if you're in flyover country, consider linking into Tornado Alley Game Guild!

05-17-2014, 01:20 PM	#9
Bourgeois Stalker Join Date: May 2014 Location: Sacramento, CA	Re: The Car Wars Effect I see both the Vehicle Guides and Technical Readouts as designs made without the min/maxing that you see in a custom design. Custom vehicles/mechs are going to be better, usually because they're built very exactingly. I'm treating vehicles from the Vehicle Guides as more common in my roleplaying campaign, and as such can be found used or on sale - the by-the-book price is just the MSRP. In Battletech, that's definitely how they're treated, at least in the Level 1 rules, since there's very few new mechs coming off the line, so you have to work with what you've got. Also, having a weak point in a design can be fun! How much fun would a Rifleman be if you had good back armor? I say less. For the prep question - yes, I love prep, but I understand that I'm a weirdo. In the 35 years of my life, 10 were before Car Wars, 4 or 5 years or so had somewhat regular Car Wars play, and the other 20 were spent thinking about how I'd like to play Car Wars, but didn't have anyone to play with. I have two points for saying that: 1) a simple app that allows vehicle design and turn-based play on my phone/computer would be amazing and my days of wanting to play but not would be over, and 2) I spent a lot of those 20 years making designs that never once got played, and I enjoyed the game that way, too. Final point - I agree that the success of Btech's iconic designs was not mirrored by CW. Convoy and Mean Streets had great depictions of Vehicle Guide 1 designs on the streets, and I loved that. Then, new artists came along and made some dang ugly cars instead of keeping with the earlier aesthetic. After that, we never saw pics of VG designs in real-life situations and that was a very real missed opportunity. Oh, and god did the art in Tanks suck so hard. Sorry Lawrence Allen Williams, your style is weird and didn't work very well.

05-17-2014, 04:20 PM	#10
Fred Skin Join Date: Jun 2005	Re: The Car Wars Effect I like the way Outrider works. There are fixed cars with fixed weapons, but there is some quick customization that is done for each game. I want to dump out a box and start playing nowadays. Keep it short & simple, with advanced options. The metagame has to be on par with M:tG if I'm going to need a lot of prep time.