Car wars character focus over cars
 

So I've been cruising through some old ADQ's and found where pedestrians were becoming more lethal towards cars, and so they were expanded a little in ADQ 4-2 and 7-1.
I don't want to go through the nightmare of GURPS rules to turn my games into more of an RPG feel (the math in GURPS alone is maddening) so does anyone know if they took car wars into more of an RPG direction with pedestrians by giving them hit points?
Not the 3 hits n dead idea, but actual hp in case there was PvP action instead of player v car action?
My group is interested in the game but they want more RPing where the focus is on the character over the car.
Thanks for any info!

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

Short answer, No.

There was a cross over with Champions that expanded the character part but it was more of a super hero game and there was some resistance.

The bolt on skill rules in chapter 5 were very inconsistent between skills making it a tough sell to players who are used to more structured games.

Personally I look to Traveller (or Cepheus engine or any of the variants - Zaibatsu by ZOZER is a good fit for a cyberpunk/apoc setting). It benefits of being fairly light, still 2d6 based so you keep the CW skill roll vibe and you can transport as much of it as you like into the game. The skill system is consistent and most of the skills that are useful in CW have a parallel in gritty SF.

3 DPs for characters is difficult to change as it fits with all the weapon damages. If you give greater range you also risk having characters that can reliably withstand ground zero hits from heavy weapons (which means you might as well play super heroes).

By default traveller assumes you have acquired all the skills you are going to before the game even starts and development doesn't really happen. In my experience whilst CW has an experience system few characters live long enough to benefit from it, so this isn't necessarily that big an difference.

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

as said above; short answer: No

but as well as Autoduel Champions (1983, autodueling in a world of supers!) therewas also GURPS Autoduel (1e 1986 & 2e 1987)

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

The Ob-Racing article in _ADQ_ (I want to say it's in 7/2, but I can't remember for sure) had a slightly-more involved pedestrian-damage system.

For my part: I have some rules of my own which I'd be willing to pass along which might work for you.

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

You also might reflect on exactly why you want a more granular HP system.

Most games that have HP also end up having some equivalent to wounded, incapacitated and dead states. Few of them have scales reflecting each individual HP. In essence CW evades all that by going straight to the effects rather than over complicate how you got to those effects.

If you are worried that a rifle always does 3 and only 3 DP just make it a d3 weapon instead.

If you go heavy pedestrian role play, the damage system is the least of your worries. The lack of any coherent skills system will kill it waaaay before then :)

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

Funny you say that -- this is what I did for my system. Each "point" of damage done by pistols, rifles, etc., became "1d3 Ped-level damage" (d3 to peds; minimum dmg. to anything else).

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

My first experience with CW was noting that solid tires had 4x the DP of a pedestrian. That says it all doesn't it?

Seriously though 2.5e added the 'bodybuilder' skill, and body armor plus a flak jacket is the best $400 you can spend.

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

I expanded the RPG portion of Car Wars quite a bit and have numerous articles about it on my blog.

https://boneheadzcommand.blogspot.com/

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

A campaign game and a roleplaying game can be different. They don't have to be the same.

Given that in high division games, most crew members have IBA and thus 9 DP, it probably doesn't break anything too badly to give characters that much on a regular basis.

Manycubes, I'm with you in preferring campaign / non+arena games to arenas.

Re: Car wars character focus over cars
 

You should have seen some of the NOPD NPCs I came up with -- the term "storm troopers" was used more than once. (Guy with as much armor as he could wear, and the biggest gun he could carry; properly equipped, he was worth about $3-4K.)