Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

TL;DR: Would you pay $450 for the whole Car Wars digital archive?

Hi Warriors!

First an introduction, then a question...

I started playing Car Wars when it was first released in 1980. I loved it! I still love it. It's the reason I've mounted weaponry on my daily driver. Wait. That part's not true. Freeway traffic was the reason I mounted the weapons. Wait! That's not right either. I just thought about mounting weapons... Anyway, I digress. Time passed, I got older, I lost all my CW pocket boxes, but I never(!) forgot about Car Wars.

The other day I found myself with my kid in a game store at a mall (I haven't been to a mall in over a decade). Gleaming amongst the noise was a Car Wars 6E Red & Yellow starter set. "Whoa! SJ Games still makes Car Wars!?" I proclaimed. "Weren't they shut down by the CIA in '90s because they knew too much? Oh. No? Yeah, they're still making and selling games. Cool."

Anyway, I looked online and found Warehouse23. I bought the Pocket Box bundles. Then I saw all the original Car Wars stuff there in digital format. The foggy dreamland of nostalgia set in quick! I added every digital Car Wars product to my cart (like 101 things). It came to almost $450! I emailed SJGames. "Hey man, any discounts?" I asked. "Nope," they said. "A sale once in a while though." "OK," I thought.

I didn't pull the trigger. I couldn't! I mean almost half-a-K for PDFs!? I can't afford it but, maybe, I could... I could sell some of my kid's toys. Maybe slip a few bills from my spouse. Auction off my oldest comics?

All those AutoDuel Quarterlies I had... The expansions... Uncle Albert's catalogs... I mean hell, I just plopped down some cold hard cash for all the Pocket Box bundles. But... All that CW goodness; the fantasies and fun times; my youth...

So, friendly driven drivers, is it worth it? $450 for all the digital OG Car Wars goodies SJGames has to offer? It would be so fun. My laser printer would hate me. Could I? Would I?

Would you?

I don't think I'd even be able to find someone to play with these days. Oh the suffering!

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

For me, no.
I got the needed items from a bundle deal... not that I needed another legit PDF of compendium 2rev... but other things were worthy.

What you need is Compendium 2e. That gives you rules for operating everything released except planes and tanks. It doesn't give you all the toys, tho'. Given your pocketboxes, C2 Revised (the current Compendium on e23) will probably give you the best play experience.

For the Toys, you want to add Uncle Al's Catalogue From Hell. It also includes the tanks and aircraft construction rules. Even if you don't get the Compendium, UACFH is mostly usable with the earlier rules.

The rules for operation of Aircraft are in Aeroduel, and for operation of tanks in Car Wars: Tanks.
The rules from Boat Wars are in C2, so not needed, but the counters are not.

Certain older products have certain elements that didn't get into C2, either...

Autoduel Champions adds superpowers and "attributes" - a handful of specific skills which function as modifiers to several other skills. (It also provides car wars cars for Hero System 3rd ed...) Most of the non-supers skills were also in DCW, and hence into C2.

Dueltrack has the Chassis & Crossbow setting... everything else made it into C1, and hence on to C2 and C2 Rev.

C2 design sequences: Cars, Cycles, Trikes, racing cars, 10-wheelers, Tractor-trailer rigs, busses/RVs, trailers, hovercraft, boats, aquabikes, helicopters.

UACFH design sequences: Cars, Cycles, Trikes, Racing Cars, car trailers, 10-wheelers, Tractor-Trailer Rigs, Busses/RV's, Boats, Aquabikes, Hovercraft, Fixed Wing planes, Helicopters, AIrships, Autogyros, Carplanes, Hoverplanes, Balloons, Gliders, Rocket Packs, Tanks.

UACFH also has the tacnukes.

So, unless you're really gonzo into CW as RPG, enjoy your pocket-boxes, maybe grab C2 and/or UACFH, and generate some new folks to have nostalgia for it.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I had a somewhat similar story. A few years ago I went to help clear out old stuff before my mom moved. I still had a few boxes tucked away from when I was in high school, including Car Wars items from the 80s.

I got nostalgic about it and ended up getting all the ADQ and Car Wars PDFs over a relatively short time frame. Fortunately I managed to hit a few of those sales which helped.

I enjoyed skimming through the old rule sets and the old magazines. I knew up front I was very unlikely to play the games again but enjoyed strolling through memory lane.

I had missed the first pocket box Kickstarter, but ended up getting a few of the core pocket boxes (I skipped the expansions, etc). Those have remained unopened but maybe I’ll play a few games years from now when my son gets older…

I didn’t add up how much I paid for the PDFs. It was not a wise financial move, but I enjoyed it and don’t regret it. I didn’t have to sell any valuables though.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I wouldn't buy $450 in PDFs in one shot just for nostalgia.

The drive to collect - completionism - is an entirely different drive than nostalgia. I think that's what you're really fighting here.

Nostalgia will be perfectly satisfied with reading one PDF at a time, and will likely satiate well before you reread the entire CWC library.

The PDFs aren't going anywhere, and it's not like you save on shipping by buying them all at once.

If you're planning to play, buy the Compendium, and Uncle Al's. That's all you /really/ need, particularly since those two contain and supercede almost all of the previous rules documents. [Studying how the rules evolved over time is an interesting academic exercise in and of itself, but is arguably distinct both from nostalgia and from playing.]

If you're not really planning to put it on the table, just buy and read one PDF at a time, as fancy presents itself. You'll probably end up spending significantly less than $450, and if you do end up spending that much, you'll have loved every second of it.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Thank you for the responses! The replies so far have been very thoughtful. You guys are great!

@ak_aramis thank you for the exceptionally comprehensive answer! You navigated decades of change for me in the course of a single reply. Whereas I would use a bludgeon (a lot like I played back in the day), you used a scalpel. I appreciate you and thank you for the time and effort you took to answer my question.

@penneyft thanks for your story. I agree. I think I would very much enjoy a lot of it too; especially the old mags. I missed the Kickstarter as well but I backed the current one for the 6e companion. I think I'll enjoy that too even though 6e is, from what I've read, quite different.

@HeatDeath you've got me dead to rights! What started out as nostalgia turned to completionism and, for some of my interests, is a common metamorphosis for me. I appreciate you and your suggestions and admonition to go piecemeal. In the end, I expect that'll likely be the most satisfying (and frugal) way to enjoy things again. I'll leave the study of rules evolution to the Car Wars intelligentsia!

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I've just started playing 6E and my interest in the original has waned like crazy. 6E is an absolute hoot, and you and three friends can finish a duel on a Tuesday night when you start at 6PM.

The original game is fun, but finding the 14 hours you need for a duel is TOUGH, let alone finding four or five other players willing to meet up, and aligning schedules is a Sisyphean ordeal.

My advice? Take $50, buy a box set, and get to dueling.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Thanks! I’ve backed the Kickstarter campaign for the Companion and chose a pledge tier with a starter set. I look forward to playing 6E. Nice to know the duels are shorter. I hope I can find people to play with.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

The nice thing with 6e is that even though it's a ground-up rewrite of the gameplay (not to mention a massive improvement), except for moving the timeline back a few decades the lore is essentially unchanged. So all the nostalgic books and ADQ articles are still broadly applicable, in lore if not in play mechanics.

Uncle Al's Catalogs, in particular, now feel like cool in-universe artifacts, even if the gameplay rules are no longer directly applicable.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

It's worth pointing out that, while the scenarios may probably be at least somewhat adaptable, the Companion book in general will not be directly applicable to 4e and earlier without a /lot/ of work.

As I mentioned above, CW6e is a ground-up rewrite. It's basically a different game - I think the only common play mechanics are the firing arcs and the "move your car one length forward then pivot it from a rear corner using a turn key" movement mechanic, the "one shot per turn per crew member" mechanic, and the fact that firing guns and maneuvering involves rolling dice of some sort.

As several of the SJG people have said during demos, "It's not Car Wars the way you played it, but it's Car Wars the way you /remember/ it."

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

"14 hours"? NOVA events rarely lasted more than four -- we'd start ~12PM, and it'd be all over by 4PM. Turns took maybe a minute to process, and that was with the usual tendency for players to bloviate.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

That is nifty. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

"Historical significance", more than anything -- NOVA was playing _CW_ every week (nearly) for years; not sure how this affected playing time.

I do know one of the complaints I keep hearing about OG _CW_ is "there was too much stuff; CW6 pares it down to 'stuff which makes the car move' and 'stuff which makes other cars blow up'". That was never a problem for NOVA; to quote Captain Kolos: "We do not burden our units with Non-Essentials." .:) Our duelcars were: The requisites required to operate it (body; engine/plant; driver; tires; chassis; suspension); a bunch of weapons (make other cars go BOOM); armor (prevent self going BOOM .:) ); anything else was left in the catalog, as it took money, weight, and space away from the previous three factors.

This is how NOVA flat-out annihilated a group from Des Moines calling itself "SAS/Zebra". They showed up with a bunch of designs with fancy tech, and much-lower firepower and armor than what we had; in three events, they utterly failed to so much as breach the armor on any of our vehicles, while we destroyed every one of theirs. (I suppose this is what some folks mean by "losing in the design phase", but this is more a lack of grasp of what an arena duel is.)

Anywho: That's today's Duelling History Lesson. .:)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Having everyone show up with a car already designed and the vehicle sheet ready to go cuts down on quite a bit of time.

We would play in spurts of four to five weeks in a row and everyone knew what the division we would be playing, what arena/scenario, etc. and after pleasantries, we'd jump right in (as I sure NOVA did - possibly without pleasantries!!!)

This cuts down on non-playing time and is not unique to CW.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Yep. If you're paying build dollars for anything other than damage resiliency/damage evasion or damage throw weight, you aren't gonna have a good time where the victory condition is "last-man-standing".

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

My silly little question was answered long ago but the continuing discussion on this thread has been entertaining and enlightening to read!! :)

I remember our CW games taking many hours back in the day but we were pretty attention challenged and it was more about hanging out and goofing off than seriously playing. My friends and I were, after all, mid-teens in the mid-eighties.

I’m sure looking forward to refined gameplay in 6E but my heart will always be with “classic” Car Wars; my first true autoduel love.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

That was part of it -- everyone had his "standard designs" (I suppose one could call them "factions" .>:) ) statted-out (cost, weight, space, etc. all on the sheet where anyone could make sure the math was correct). In addition: We wrote down to-hits, damage, and such -- "I wrote it down in my diary so I *wouldn't have to remember*." .:) Speeds matters up a bunch when one isn't having to go manual-diving.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

This.

I like to declare my attack and then roll dice - both the to-hit and damage. The two large dice are to-hit and the smaller die/dice are damage. Of course you have sets in different colors for linked weapons.

Google Battletech Box-of-Death and adapt for Car Wars if you really want to go nuts!!!!

If you have a good idea you need a 7 to hit, you know rolls of 2 (miss anyway) and 3 are going to miss and 11 and 12 are going to hit.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

We did a variant of this -- 6-siders in different colors. For ex.: Three RRs linked F, one had three pairs of d6s in three different colors (say, "red", "white", and "blue"); each color pair was a TH roll. TH dice which scored hits were re-rolled (with d6s added or subtracted as required); misses were set aside. One could whip through TH and damage in about 5 seconds. .:)

I see the BoD most weekends these days; it's more useful for dealing with the "Macross Missile Massacre" (TVTropes -- look it up .>:) ) the players seem to be fond of. Most THs I ever saw at once in _CW_ was when someone brought a _Grand Slam_ to a scenario (10x HR linked F). 2-3 THs was more common; that can be dealt with by hand.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

At least you only have to roll it all once :)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Indeed.

At least he didn't bring the MNR variant....

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

It's worth noting that, as evidenced by Convoy and Autoduel Champions, there were several different playstyles of various groups.

There were some for whom it was all about the duels. This was one of the convention modes.

There were some for whom it was about racing - and they played out entire races. This was another convention mode.

Then, there were those of us for whom Classic was a Role Playing Game. We as a clade drove a lot of the less combat focused things. I've seen players buy an Armored Beer Fridge for blood transport missions. "Just to be sure." Tow Trucks are definitely for the RPers. And the cheese sandwich. The last quarter of ADC.

And, of course, those in between those. Classic CW is not any one thing, and part of its problem was the competing pull of the several camps.

6th cannot provide that third experience, and I've not heard of race focus, either, but that it could do.

Note that, from Car Wars Deluxe on, the core rules had enough to use them as an RPG if you already knew RPGs.

(If i'm going to play a pure dueling game, I find Osprey's Gaslands more to my liking than CW 6th. For me, duels were not the fun part. For racing, I'll stick with Formula D/Formula De, unless doing combat racing, in which case, I've got TurboFire... and CW Compendium, and deluxe, and pocketbox...)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I thought the environment was super well supported back in the days of Road Atlases, ADQ's, etc. I really enjoyed the world building, even if I wasn't a huge RP player. I far preffered dueltrack style events.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I'd disagree with that, at least in-part; one of the *best* features of OG _CW_ was the "Time-Life Books" aspect of it: "Keep only the parts one wants." Not interested in Boats -- ignore the Boat Stuff. Want to do RPG -- it's there for those who want it.

The Big Failure (in *every* sense) was _UACFH_ -- I actually saw people walk up to a game, take one look at CFH, and walk away; when asked, the answer almost invariably was "that's too much to deal with". (_CW Tanks_ was a close second -- First Law Of Gaming: *NEVER* allow Players access to Nuclear Weapons. .:) )

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Car Wars is a crunchy game where you basically needed a spreadsheet to design a car. That said, I'd start new players, with Pocket Box Car Wars.
Car Wars was also interesting in that it added new rules Quarterly, much like CCGs add cards quarterly. CFH was needed to compile all those Autoduel Quarterly magazines, just a the Car Wars Compendium had all the rules in one place instead of requiring a player to haul all the expansions around.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

We didn't have easy access to spreadsheets back-when, yet we managed to design cars easily enough (mainly, as I've said before, by cutting out everything which didn't involve making the unit go, stop, handle, cause an enemy to blow up, or prevent one's self from blowing up .:) ). PB _CW_ is nice, but a bit limited.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Spreadsheet! Spreadsheet? We had to make do with a Casio calculator with an 8 digit LCD display...

LCD? I dreamed of LCD, all I had was a Sinclair Oxford 100 with 8 digit red LED display...

Sinclair Oxford 100 eh, spoiled you were, I had a HP-35 with reverse polish notation...

Calculators, bloody luxury, I just had a pencil and scrap paper and a blunt one at that...

But you tell that to kids of today and they won't believe you!

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Oh, we used to dream of paper!

And blunt pencils? LUXURY!

We had scratch marks on rocks, we did. And if we did the calculations wrong Steve Jackson himself would come over to check our work!

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Rocks? We had to carve designs on our own skin. Getting dice was like pulling teeth -- literally.

(This is getting Silly. .:) )

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

As a accounting major in college back in the 80s, a spreadsheet IS paper and pencil. Yes, now we have computer spreadsheet programs, with their fancy forumulas. Back then I too used a TI-30 business calculator.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Ha - remember when pen and paper rpgs would have blank character sheets at the end of the book for you to copy - CW did the same!

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Yes -- but one had to crack the spine of the book in order to get the sheet into the copier.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Not all of them... the WFRP softcover had a pre-creased cover and the sheet started outward enough to copy well.

Plus, many games in the first half of the 80's were saddlebound... which, again, meant not needing to crease the spine. RuneQuest 1E, Pendragon 1E, BRP, Worlds of Wonder, TFT-OE, Car Wars through Deluxe Rulebook, the multi-book versions of DragonQuest, Traveller, Champions until 3rd. Hell, GURPS 1E was saddlebound with no covers! (Same with RuneQuest 3rd AH version) I could go on, but I shan't.

Also, the big names sold sheet packs, including Avalon Hill, TSR, and several others. Mayfair produced nice sheets for D&D, too. Dozens of 3PP's too.
Many boxed sets included a saddle bound cheat sheets folio with various sheets, well into the 1990s.

Now, most assume a printer at home, and thus sheets available in a sheet-only PDF are on most company websites, or as free downloads on DTRPG. And if one bought the PDF...

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

You might not have, but I did... from 1981 on... PerfectCalc. On CP/M

I lacked the skill for automated lookups, but it did save me a lot of recalculations.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

CP/M

Oh that brings back memories. 16 users with flat file storage - oooh the organisational possibilities :)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

And no security for individual users...
Every one of those users able to access every one of those accounts. 254 files per drive letter per user, one drive letter per partition.

Bill Beaux of Nome ran a BBS off of a Kaypro IV (Old 4)...

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

What are some good pickups for the RPG side of things?

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Blue-cover _Car Wars Compendium_. Has most of the non-combat skills, as well as the combat skills.

There was never a "proper" RPG system; what's in _CWC_ is workable, but not exactly brilliant.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Or as it is a 2d6 based system you can use one of the free Traveller clones and get a "proper" rpg that is compatible. Just ignore the skills in CW as they all use different mechanics and often make no sense at all.

I use CW for the vehicle movement and something like Cepheus for all the skill stuff. Very little modification is required and you have a bonus that you can then use all the scenarios and equipment written for dirtside Cepheus games in CW. The only major exception would be the HP of pedestrians and weapon damage. For simplicity 1 hit damage in CW = 1d6 damage in Cepheus.

Unnecessary but also possible...
You could even spring it on players as the "end of season" surprise ending that the world "gone to hell in a handbasket" isn't the only world in the universe. It also provides a good explanation of the juxtaposition of dirt-poor people who can barely manage the resources to feed themselves but still have access to consumer laser weaponry and cloning.

Imagine...
Cape Canaveral is actually a Class E starport. "Earth" (because we just assumed that) is a Red Zone, off-world contact is prohibited (but smugglers...) and knowing the truth is a death sentence for dirtsiders. Uncle Al sources from off-world (you always knew he was dodgy didn't you?). Covert "government" agents are actually agents of the empire making sure the secret stays that way, trying to close down the imports, the plundering of a naïve society and preventing the psychotic locals from finding out there is an alternative out there and infecting the galaxy. To get off planet onto something better (whatever that is) the players will need to convert those $ to Cr at an eyewatering exchange rate and deal with very shady off-worlders... Or maybe they can do favours for the Empire to make sure men in black don't come and shut them up permanently with the eventual promise they can work their way up to citizenship and be permitted to leave.

Even if the players never leave the CW world something like that under the bonnet (as it were) can keep the referees creative juices flowing. The players may never realise (because, players...) but it can provide a harness for some logical but seemingly random occurrences that are a staple of CW existence.

There is a Cepheus scenario called Death Race that would work well with CW. It goes both ways :)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

The roleplaying rules in Car Wars Classic are awesome! And since it's 2d6+adds it means it's compatible with Fate (aspects&invokes slot just in with no change in math), Apocalypse World, Other Dust, the aforementioned Traveller and many others. Feng Shui even.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

So I'm def not starved for rules, it was more that I was curious about setting stuff. I have GURPS Autoduel (both versions) and Car Warriors already.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

The map of Autoduel America is the same one in GURPS Autoduel (but larger) as far as I can tell.

People often say Autoduel Champions has good skills rules, but I think it was just the precursor to them in the main rules so not sure if they are any different.

Obviously ADQ as that often features several setting related articles and many scenarios.

The Road Atlas and Survival Guides have lots of flavour (but you will find much of it was duplicated in GURPS Autoduel).

Almost every supplement has something, but other than the GURPS Autoduels (which pretty comprehensively covered everything) much of it is spread thinly throughout. If you don't buy everything you will miss something, but if you buy nothing more you won't have missed much.

There is also the perennial problem with CW moving goalposts between editions. It is also of its time where you are thrown into a one-off scenario win or lose and then start from scratch next time you play. Most scenarios were no-where near each other and you moved from state to state. Given the game is about road combat, you would expect to have more combat getting between scenarios than in them.

I think the only supplement that seemed geared towards a campaign was L'Outrance.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Essential
Compendium

Highly Useful
UACFH
City Blocks (any)
AADA Road Atlas & Survival Guide (any)
A road atlas. As in, Rand-McNalley or equivalent.
AADA Vehicle Guides 1 &/or 2.

If you're aiming merchantile, a copy of Classic Traveller or Mongoose Traveller

Not essential but still useful at times
Autoduel Champions - adds attributes and superpowers, but Compendium includes a number of the then new non-supers skills.
ADQ 5-4 - covers road encounters, advice on road duels.

Aeroduel: it's a great set of rules... but isn't always appropriate for duels. But it can be quite useful in RPG mode... Agressors, or even as a means of getting the duel rigs from place to place

Silly, but sometimes fun
Issues 51, 55 and 60 of The Space Gamer have a magic system
ADQ 6-1 Dragons in Car Wars

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Hi Aramis thanks for that list and thanks for the help over on BGG also (I am @snth there).

I have a couple of different versions of Traveller and I have "Sons of Gold" for SWN (although that's more built on The Minrothad Guilds). Using mercantile and other campaign structures from Traveller and Elite is a great idea, thank you for that! Cars & roads & towns have a lot in common with space ships & space & planets.

Also thanks for clarifying what a road atlas is. I'll try to find one.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Um -- not to get too far off-topic, but: What game is this?

(Been trying to adapt _The Fantasy Trip_ to _CW_ for a while, myself.)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

SWN - Stars Without Number. SF using a D20 system.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I have also a settlement generator for Fallout (that was free from somewhere -maybe unofficial GURPS Fallout or even the fallout RPG that came on Fallout 2).

I have used Cyberpunk for the more upscale Arcologies / Fortress Cities.

I have used Deadland Road Warrior for that part of America not covered by the published RASG's (what would have been RASG 8).

I have also plundered from Atomic Highway, Battle Cars, Dark Future (good for campaign rules), Darkwind War on Wheels, Gaslands, Inferno500, Joe Dever Freeway Warrior CYOA books, Outride, Wreckage and Roadkill, Motocaust, Thunder Road, Road Rage and dozens of others.

For my maps, I just use a google map of the real area. Scale it using Inkscape and use vector vehicle counters. I also virtually drive the road where the encounter is to take place to find all the interesting spots that might cause problems but that are too fiddling to work out manually for every 15 ft of road, e.g. Culverts where ambushers could hide, side roads and of course those drainage ditches that run alongside roads that can make going off-road to avoid your enemy a BAAAAAD decision.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Wish I still had my copy of _RASG8_; lost it sometime after NOVA threw me out.

(Oddly: One can assemble a good chunk of _RASG8_ from _ADQ_ adventures -- "Telethon" is set in Las Vegas, NV; "Badlands Run" covers northern NV; I think there's a _C&C_ adventure set in New Mexico.)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

And I was like "Don't misspell Suns of Gold as 'Sons of Gold'" a hundred times in my head but I still did

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

It uses 2d6 for skills just like CW, it only uses d20 for fighting. So the end result is that on the skills end you can import from Traveller, Car Wars, Apocalypse World etc and on the fighting end you can use D&D monsters.

Other Dust which I also mentioned uses the same system as SWN and is by the same guy. Probably more relevant since it's a post-apocalyptic game. A good fit for Car Wars, I'm thinking.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

That sounds like an unnecessarily complicated way of doing it :)

I have got it (from a humble bundle I think) but I have not actually played it, just skimmed through the rules. I saw the D20 bit for combat and promptly lost interest.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

The old "Contest of Skills" system from OG CW is workable for RPG stuff; the main problem is the lack of set attributes.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

For some 2d6 based games the characters attributes are of lesser importance than any attributes. It has always concerned me that that a really dextrous character but unskilled character would be better at a dexterity based skill than a competent but less dextrous character.

I think in many RPGs the characters physical and mental attributes are given too much importance. This made more sense in a sword and sorcery game where like D&D where originally there were no skills to learn (with secondary skills and then proficiencies coming much later).

At least in CW (and traveller) they do have the -3 on any skill that you have not specifically trained that negates the highest credible Stat bonus. But the fact that someone who has never even seen a car but has high dex could still drive it as competently as an average character who is fully competent seems off.

The problem is that in CW there are not enough skills either (and too many in some respects) and they have widely different game mechanics. It also becomes troublesome identifying which skills should exist and be discrete from others. If handgunner covers everything from a pistol to a portable rocket launcher why doesn't it cover tripod weapons. If Gunner covers weapons controlled remotely using vehicle targeting systems, why does it cover tripods. There are many overlaps between Theft, Espionage, Security and Stealth, these could probably be combined into a single skill that people might actually take.

Then we have Acrobatics, Running, Climbing and Swimming, that all cover of athleticism (and maybe should be replaced by some sort of Athletics skill) Having 4 separate skills that only help in their single niche area makes them expensive for their cost compared to more widely useful skills.

Where is the Perception skill that seems to form the single most used skill in my games (we ended up using the Spotting rules from tanks, but it is not ideal).

You not only need these rules but also the time spent with many gamers and games over years to iron out the inconsistency and refine them. Traveller has gone through many iterations and every one has tweaked the skill rules.

How do you determine which skills the character gets. We have spoken previously that skills like Driver and Gunner are so critical to the game that people seldom spend skill points on anything else. If you are going RPG you can probably add Handgunner to that, but how would you encourage someone to take Law without changing the skill point economy.

Difficult things to fix without potentially breaking the game.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I'd disagree with you on this, but only slightly: A high-jumper is a world of difference from a marathoner, who is a world of difference from a power-lifter, etc. Triathletes exist, this is true; but they tend to be worse in each individual category than a specialist in one specific category. So I'd argue to have those kept separated.

As to determining what skills a character gets: For my purposes, I gave starting characters three levels in "combat skills" ("anything one might use in an arena fight"), and six in "non-combat" ("everything else"). So a starting character might look like this:

Combat:
-- Driver 0
-- Gunner 0
-- Handgunner 0

Non-combat:
-- Mechanic 0
-- Area Knowledge [hometown] 1
-- Politics 0
-- Law 0
-- Survival 0

This character is a duellist; but he also knows his way around sponsors and fans, and knows what to do (and not do) in certain areas. .:)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I would agree that the only essential is the Compendium (or the Deluxe Box if you don’t have any maps, counters, and road). UACFH is good if you want (almost) all the toys (and I think everything post it is in the free Pyramid extracts linked in the stickies). Then you can scratch itches as and when.

As to the thread drift, it always struck me as weird after things like Handgunner were introduced that 30 skill points remained the default. (And yes, in any game of mine tripod and pintle weapons are going to use handgunner…).

30 points might be reasonable for your average NPC bystander, but for people into it enough to risk their life duelling it seems weird. At 21 I could drive cars, motorcycles, and boats (and sail), hit a target with a rifle on a range, had a blue belt in a martial art and had worked as a bouncer, and was probably about bodybuilder +4. I don’t think I’m particularly unusual - the rifle part would be the rarest here in the UK, but it was a different time and I grew up rural.

If I were running an RPG campaign I think I’d want to start everybody with driver, cyclist, gunner, handgunner, and one more thing in combat skills (a +1 or trucker or whatever), plus maybe six levels of non-combat skills. I feel like anybody with a serious enough interest to get in the arena would have got that far unless they’d been heavily disadvantaged. It’s not like simulators wouldn’t be readily available. (That’s not far off of the hundred points in “corporate car wars”, though forcing a wider spread.)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

I would consider you "unusual" in that regard -- in my case: At 21, I was severely lacking in the combat skills; but I had Driver at an impressive level (scored 100% on both ends on my driver's test .:) ), and a bucketload of non-combat skills. (My eyesight was so poor, in any other time and place, I would be considered Blind; so I spent a lot of time in libraries....) Think "The Egghead" from _MegaForce_.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

If we were talking very high levels of skill then I'd agree, but generally "sporty" people outperform "non-sporty" people. Cricket, soccer and Rugby all use very different skills but in my experience most people who were good at one were good at all of them (since they all require stamina, and coordination). Most of them required the ability to run as an pre-requisite. We all took part in school sports day and the same kids were in the podium for virtually every event (but they shifted position on the podium), and there was a different group of kids consistently finishing in the last 3. A lot of it is attitude rather than technique.

At skill level 0-2 we are not talking Olympic level athletes. Traveller had skills that were subdivided as you got into the higher levels so you could have something like Level 0 in sport would be good for all field sports, you would need to specialise to get level 1 and above. That allows a reasonable spread of non-combat skills. There are techniques for runners that enable you to shave tenths of seconds off 100m runs, but a fit amateur can manage 150% world record times and even world record holders might only be 110% of the world record most other times they did it. It is also odd that everyone starts with base skill in running and climbing so there is no default -3 penalty (but then the skills work differently anyway)

But we have drifted from CW standard at that point. No player is going to take a level in Running to get an extra 1/4" movement on foot when he could take Handgunner at 0, lose the -3 and let the bullet do the running for him.

Since skills in CW got bolted on after the fact, and combat runs pretty well without them (and it's mostly about the combat), it isn't any real hardship to substitute in a rule set that was designed with RPG in mind from the get go. You can try and make it fit, but for the effort expended you might as well port in another system.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Best bet? backwater used book stores.

For game purposes, that it's the 1990 version isn't a big deal...
But I spaced that one can get much of the functionality out of Google Earth. Yeah, the beard is getting gray. (rest of the hair isn't... yet.)

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

30 points as the combat skill limit is pretty standard. I always used a base of 60 - only 30 of which could be used on gunnery, vehicle operation, and mechanic.

I allowed champions disads and advantages (but not powers - an important distinction). Points from disads could be used to buy additional combat or non-combat skills; having a watched or hunted made life particularly interesting for the players.

The one point where I felt most strongly it needed help was damage... I has players have 10 HP, but 1 DP to the character does = 1d6 HP. Extra DP added 3 HP each. But I ran in RP mode both with and without this mod in place, and it does very little damage to play either way. (pun very intentional.)

I'll also note: for Traveller 1DP = 2d6 damage to attributes is a very literalist approach. I have merged them in the past; Traveller's skills actually tend to be a bit low... the average Basic Gen PC in Classic is 4 terms, with 5-9 skill levels total, some of which go to attributes, and the median is about 6 skill rolls, with 2-3 into atts, the rest in actual skills, plus 0-2 for rank and service.
Going the other way, an FGMP-15 with its 16d damage would only be 8 DP of area effect damage... Melts the tires off, but not much else.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

That is a good point about porting from Cepheus, the skills descriptions and mechanics are good and easy to port. You could leave it there (and maybe take advantage of some of the equipment as well).

If you want to have a basic stat system and more variety of HP for characters you can add that in without any difficulty but it will change the game as Stat bonuses will often swamp skill level bonuses at lower levels.

If you use the full character generation system you will be playing a very different game. Cepheus and Traveller on which it is based assume post service (retiree) adventuring. CW assumes fresh out of school (if there is such a thing). The early versions at least did not really have any experience system, the skills you started with we all you would ever have. Given you maybe got a few skills every 4 years in careers that were supposed to be active, giving extra skills after a few game sessions seems inconsistent.

Different versions of Traveller had widely different character generation models, some more generous with skills than others. If you use the free Cepheus SRD version, you got background skills before you started the career process which gave on average 3 skills at level 0 (just like standard CW).

If you enlisted in a career you got all the Service skills for that career at level 0 also which still isn't game breaking but you then have a character who is 22 and you also have to rejig the careers to fit with CW or possibly reinvent them (though some variants are less "spacey" and more cyberpunk and need less tweaking and Cepheus Modern can be used straight out of the tin).

You can then spend 4 more years in a career and get the career progression described above. You could also die (or as an alternate rule suffer stat reduction) by pushing your luck. This would mean characters with higher stats, but it also gives them more background story. If you spent too long in pre-game careers then you would suffer aging effects further reducing stats.

It is a different model to CW, but it has value. Most stories I enjoyed had protagonists who had some skills and knowledge of the world. Teen fiction is probably the exception, but James Bond or Jack Reacher as a teenager probably wouldn't have been as interesting.

Rags to riches was only one suggested way of playing. If you are going for an adventure style game then having a few broken down ex-whatevers can add roleplaying context and spice.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

They're in ADC... kind of,,,

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Wrong. There is an improvement system, in book 3.

That number is, in CT basic gen, 1 to (T+T1+C+P+S+R) 6 per term, with an average around 1.8 across all careers and terms to 12th.

[quote\Different versions of Traveller had widely different character generation models, some more generous with skills than others. [/quote]
None give less than CT basic gen.
Also, T20 and TNE both use 1d20 for tasks... and T4/T5 use Nd6 <= (Att+Skill).

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

Not in my book 3 (1977) as far as I can tell, the only mention of experience is with respect to Psions. What page reference?

Do you mean the Self Improvement section (P40-41 in Book 2)? This is not really an "experience" system like D&D (or any other game where your character "learns by doing"). It refers to dedicated training.

As I read the rules on page 40-41, you take 4 years out of play to dedicate to training and if you are successful in the dedication roll you gain a new skill at level 2. You can do this once only in your lifetime which also implies that if you fail the dedication roll you blew your one and only chance - but I'd interpret this as if you continue to stay on the course for extra years until you succeed on a dedication roll then you will get the skill. If you drop out of the course for any reason before you succeed in a dedication roll you don't get another chance (this is like getting a Viva at University and pleading to be allowed to stay on to retake a year). I think this isn't unreasonable as going from unskilled to level 2 is a significant career change and you'd need to put the hours in and not be distracted by this months mortgage payment.

I think the longest traveller campaign I ever played spanned a year at most including all those weeks spent in jump. I doubt that I could have persuaded the rest of the players and GM to effectively put the campaign on hold for 4 years or more just so I could get another skill.

The other sections refer to improving skills rather than gaining new ones. They are however even more time consuming - to the point you stand a good chance that a drop in DEX (for example) due to ageing cancels out any gun skill bonus you might gain. It seems however that in some cases you can continue adventuring at least part time).

None give less than CT basic gen.
[/QUOTE]
So some versions WERE more generous with skills than others? What are you disagreeing about here?

I was really referring to Cepheus though as the rules system (which is based on, but not identical to Traveller and certainly not to Classic Traveller which has many of the sorts of rules inconsistencies that annoy me in CW). Since Marc Miller kept revising the Traveller rules I can only assume he was equally unsatisfied with them at each iteration to some degree or other.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

What I mean is: OG CW uses a "roll 7 or better to succeed"; one rolls 2d6, and adds the relevant skill to try to push it over 7. In essence, it's a glorified "roll 2d6 and pray". .:)

One could work off that, and have stats at 7; altho' this would lead to weirdness like "the higher one's stat number, the *less* competent the character is"....

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

ADC, they're triple the cost of skills, and apply in addition to a skill on a relevant roll; everyone has them at +0 for free.

Re: Worth it for nostalgia...?
 

You have been talking about other systems and reading a very extended campaign that some posted about on the facebook group.

The new twilight 4th system is pretty good for a crossover to use and has me thinking about it now.