[Martial Arts, Vehicles] Cinematic Driving rules

[Prince Charon]

I put this under Martial Arts because the more extreme driving tricks in movies, TV, and particularly anime seem to fit best as the vehicular equivalents of Cinematic skills and techniques. The Dukes of Hazzard is actually a mild example, since in real life they did the stunts (largely jumps, sometimes shots of the same jump in multiple episodes), but often had to replace the cars afterwards, which the in-story Duke Boys would not have been able to afford (and it would not have fit the story). Some anime car stunts are insane, like (in an episode of City Hunter, though I'm not sure which one) two cars in a chase driving down a large spiral staircase around a fuel or water tank by hooking the wheels on one side over the rails and leaving the other two in the air.

What's the equivalent of Weapon Master for cars, though? I mean, it could just be 'Weapon Master (Automobile),' but that seems like the intellectually-lazy option.

What skills and techniques would these be (and how do we stat them out)?

Any interest in creating Martial Arts Driving styles (I have vague thoughts of Autodueling as one or more styles, some more cinematic than others)?

[whswhs]

No recommendations on rules, but take a look at the tank combat scenes in Girls und Panzer. The name of the tankery martial art, senshado (etymologically "the way of the chariot"), might be generalized to all sorts of land vehicles.

[David Johansen]

The Speed Racer movie had Car-Fu. But you need jump jacks.

Jump Jack Dodge
Jump Jack Acrobatic Dodge
Jump Jack Break Hard Dodge
Jump Jack Reversal
Hurricane Spinout
Tail Spin Ram
Dragged Flails
Spear Hook

[Pursuivant]

This is a great idea.

Vehicle Master = Weapon Master

Cinematic car tricks like Jumps (without damage when you stick the landing) and Bootlegger Reverses (which normally wipe out the car's tires) could be treated as Maneuvers.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

No recommendations on rules, but take a look at the tank combat scenes in Girls und Panzer. The name of the tankery martial art, senshado (etymologically "the way of the chariot"), might be generalized to all sorts of land vehicles.

I should have considered that, since I've seen some of the anime. Thank you.

Also, here's what little I have of the art of Autodueling:

Autodueling
# points

<description>

Skills: Armoury (various), Driving, Gunner, Guns, Mechanic (Auto)
Techniques:
Cinematic Skills:
Cinematic Techniques:
Perks: Improvised Weapons (Autodueling)

Optional Traits
Advantages:
Disadvantages: Delusion, Fanaticism, Obsession, On the Edge
Skills:
Techniques:

The disads are due mainly to it being developed for a character (incomplete, so not yet posted) who is part of a post-apacalyptic bandit gang turned autodueling cult on the Gormelite homeworld in Irar, the Jewel in the British Crown.

Relatedly, I wonder if anyone has come up with an Armoury variant for vehicular melee weapons (ramming prows, menacing spikes, buzz-saws that pop out like in a James Bond movie, et cetra), or if that would be better covered by a mix of Vehicular Armor with one or two others.

Originally Posted by David Johansen

The Speed Racer movie had Car-Fu. But you need jump jacks.

Jump Jack Dodge
Jump Jack Acrobatic Dodge
Jump Jack Break Hard Dodge
Jump Jack Reversal
Hurricane Spinout
Tail Spin Ram
Dragged Flails
Spear Hook

Fitting. That's another one I should have remembered. The anime doesn't name a vehicular martial art that I recall, but it does seem to have existed there, and Speed/Go is a master.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

This is a great idea.

Vehicle Master = Weapon Master

Vehicle Master works.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Cinematic car tricks like Jumps (without damage when you stick the landing) and Bootlegger Reverses (which normally wipe out the car's tires) could be treated as Maneuvers.

Yeah, some probably could, others might need to be Cinematic techniques.

[whswhs]

Here's something low-tech from my current fantasy campaign that's sort of analogous:

Boating Art
Per/Hard
Defaults: None
Prerequisite: Blessed, and Boating (Any) at 14+

You can perceive the safest course through any sort of rough water, avoiding dangerous currents and hidden obstacles. In any situation where a Boating roll is required to cope with hazards, a successful roll against Boating Art nullifies any skill penalties those hazards might impose. You still have to make the unmodified Boating roll as well as the Boating Art roll!

[Opellulo]

I did something similar but with a totally different approach:

In an old Mission Impossible adventure i GMed i gave every PC a "stunt" poll related to a specific ability for each PC: like guns, disguise, hacking or driving.
They could then use a point of the pool to perform some Hollywood style maneuver based on their skill and basically control the scene for the time being.

It worked fine because the PC could do whatever they thought was "cool for the moment" without being restricted to dices or rules and, since the ability was restricted to their specific field of expertise, each one got a chance for the spotlight without hindrance much the overall adventure.

[Prince Charon]

Thinking more about this: Should Defensive Driving and Aggressive Driving be specializations of the Driving skill, or a pair of techniques, or sets of several techniques, or something else?

[Michael Thayne]

I spent some time thinking about this awhile back and wound up concluding that the vehicle operation mostly aren't detailed enough to support this kind of thing. Even the chase rules in Action 2: Exploits doesn't have much in the way of, say, vehicle operation penalties that might reasonably be bought off via Technique. Maybe you could create a perk that gives you one Lucky Break per chase, encouraging players to "pre-pay" for lucky breaks? To be fair you might want to require specialization by maneuver.

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Thinking more about this: Should Defensive Driving and Aggressive Driving be specializations of the Driving skill, or a pair of techniques, or sets of several techniques, or something else?

"Ram" might be a reasonable vehicle operation technique. Maybe. Martial Arts seems to implicitly assume that "Slam" is too broad to be a technique, and that slam-based techniques, while allowed, need to be more specific (e.g. Drop Kick). But vehicle operation skills differ in a bunch of ways from unarmed combat skills, so maybe it's fine.

Defensive Driving... I'm not sure what that would do. If it improves vehicular Dodge, it should probably be Enhanced Dodge (Vehicular) (see Action 1).

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Thinking more about this: Should Defensive Driving and Aggressive Driving be specializations of the Driving skill, or a pair of techniques, or sets of several techniques, or something else?

To me defensive driving is floating Driving to Per.
There are a number of things a style could get you though. Enhanced Dodge (Vehicles) is already RAW.
In the chase rules I could see each maneuver being its own technique.
I have noted this subject down for a possible Pyramid 2023 article :)