Car Wars as a Convention Game and Newbies

[MattV]

I'm torn as of to run Car Wars as a convention game or how to show new people to Car Wars.

The scenario where a person signs up for a Car Wars game and has never played before and ends up either rolling in the first 10 minutes or doing some long looping turn that keeps them out of the action for most of the game makes me wince.

I've run a few games at cons and there is always at least one person that just isn't in the action.

Anyone know how to avoid this??

[ammulder]

Can you have a co-GM whose entire purpose is to give newbies appropriate guidance?

Or maybe a cheat sheet of the top 5 mistakes to avoid?

[juris]

Get rid of phased movement. Acceleration and braking at start of turn, firing at end. As an option, you can use phased movement if it actually matters, like someone trying to avoid a ramcar. Your combats will be 5x faster and just as fun. The new players won't object like the grognards here :).

[Jeffr0]

Originally Posted by juris

Get rid of phased movement.

I object...!

[philreed]

Originally Posted by juris

Get rid of phased movement. Acceleration and braking at start of turn, firing at end. As an option, you can use phased movement if it actually matters, like someone trying to avoid a ramcar. Your combats will be 5x faster and just as fun. The new players won't object like the grognards here :).

Yeah, I suspect a lot of people completely new to the game would be happy without phased movement. But without any number of phases things would have to get a lot more abstract.

[Jeffr0]

Originally Posted by MattV

I'm torn as of to run Car Wars as a convention game or how to show new people to Car Wars.

The scenario where a person signs up for a Car Wars game and has never played before and ends up either rolling in the first 10 minutes or doing some long looping turn that keeps them out of the action for most of the game makes me wince.

I've run a few games at cons and there is always at least one person that just isn't in the action.

Anyone know how to avoid this??

Other than keeping the number of vehicles high and the relative size of the arena on the small end... there's not much else.

The donut shape of Armadillo forces people to make a quick decision (left or right?) and can keep people from ganging up, say, on the fat nerdy kid that looks like easy pickings. (That last is the best argument against having a totally wide open start position where everyone can shoot at every one else.) On the other hand... donut means that you are much more likely to have an odd man out.

To prevent the quick newbie wipe out... run cars with Accel. 5 and starting speeds of 30 mph. Gripping hand is... fast speeds mean less time for any potential odd man to spend in isolation! (Also... better chance of a player altering any bad position they might have started with... but not without the risk of a wipe out....)

So... my net net suggestions are:

• Single map sheet sized arena like Double Drum or Rubberway...
• 8+ vehicles on the map...
• Acceleration 10 all around!