So what the heck is Amateur Night anyway?

[swordtart]

It is difficult to square the dichotomy of the majority of people being in the slums (to provide ready competitors for the death sports) with the idea that you could bring in vast amounts of money from arena attendance or advertising at the same.

Every character is assumed to have medical insurance, that shows a reasonable level of welfare. Algae based food is cheap and plentiful. You can cover all your living expenses for $150 per week. You have to earn less than $4 per hour (assuming a 40 hour week) to have an acceptable standard of living (i.e. there are no adverse impediment to health or safety). It's probably a cube apartment rather than a house and your food probably isn't that exciting. If you had a hard life and a 60 hour a week job you could be paid under $3 an hour.

In my model amateur events happen in small towns (think the first gladiator arena in the film Gladiator). Run down and poorly equipped it caters to it's dirt poor punters. They have a crap life so they come to watch other people having a worse one (and the occasional aspirant who makes it big and gets out). Life expectancy for competitors is short. "Six men enter one man leaves" is an appropriate mentality. Occasional spectator injury and dead is not uncommon. The fees and associated costs in becoming AADA sanctioned are prohibitive.

Every night there is a floor show with tawdry washed out dancers (who can probably be hired by the hour after the show). They are still ten times more glamorous than the local girls and you don't have to marry them. There will be shows of trick shooting and stunt driving by touring "pro's" (these are likely to be fairly local talent). There may be animal acts, wrestlers, clowns etc. The death sport would be the culmination of the evenings activity (as there is only so many times you will pay to watch a man put his head in a sleepy lions mouth).

Your small arena will have seats for a few thousand max (people need to be close). You won't be able to charge more than $5 per seat. Even six days a week with every seat filled only gives a turn over of 60K. Many nights they'll be lucky to fill half the seats and $40K is more realistic. From that you have to take staff fees. To entertain 2000 people you are going to need 50 or so (mostly security). At $150 per head (we asume you are paying them base living expenses) thats $7500. Your acts may take more than that (and your pro's are going to take far more) $10,000 per week is probably reasonable. You have your building maintenance and services we'll assume they are covered by the profits from your concession stands. That leaves you with 30K per week. Six $5000 cars blows that entirely. We haven't even considered rents or mortgage payments or any profit you were hoping to make through this venture.

The likely revenue from advertising is limited to what people buy from the concession stalls. Most of the advertising is going to be on your Pro's and going into their pockets not yours. If you are lucky you may have a deal with the local garage to skim a bit on repairs and salvage, but it's hardly the big time. If you are sensible you will have a local cable TV franchise and they will pay a retainer to be allowed to film footage. They may be able to sell it up the chain to a sports cast channel, but it is liable to be on the tail end of a report in the "And in Wachula a new sensation may be heading for the big time" variety. TV viewers want to see the famous drivers, not some hick from Stinking Butte. Any money they make from it will be again going to them not you. Local businesses may pay a few hundred dollars a month to have a hoarding to attract locals that see them incidentally on local TV or in person.

[swordtart]

Bigger arenas have bigger overheads and need bigger crowds to support them. They rely heavily on sports cast coverage. They may have their own dedicated TV and thus any advertising goes direct to them. They are possibly in a position to run AM night events, but it's hard to see why they would bother. With a normal event approximately half the value of the competing vehciles is paid out in prizes and met by the arena any other costs are met by the competitors. With AM the whole value of competing vehciles is met by the Arena. Divisional events have regional importance to anyone who follows auto combat, the coverage can later be sold on to national franchises if the regional champion makes it to the big time. The AM event is only going to be of interest in the unlikely event the winner eventually makes it to the regionals. As such coverage will only have value in the future. Any advertising associated with that event will also only have future value and no-one is going to pay advertising for an event that only has a chance of being shown maybe 2-5 years later.

If a big arena (i.e. city) does an AM night, it won't be a single event, but many events. 36 preliminary bouts of 6 would be run in the day. Most fans wouldn't bother attending this but die hards and scouts might. Mostly it provides TV footage to be spliced in as filler to the evening events and for onward sale to networks for the occaisonal stand-out moment. Death in these events is liable to be anonymous. In the evening the 36 semi finalists conduct 6 bouts giving 6 finalist for a final bout. 7 bouts interspersed with ceremonies and filler footage could reasonably fill an evenings entertainment.

I still contest that for this to be profitable the arena cannot be required to give all the cars away. I do not think that sponsors would be as easy to find in this niche market. Why would a car manufacturer provide a vehicle for this when the vast majority end up as smoking wrecks. Sponsoring a winner makes sense, sponsoring all the losers? What message does that send out to your customer base. "Buy a Fnord Crumbolino. You have a 1 in 6 chance of winning a fair fight!". If you believe that blood is the main attraction and high body count is desireable it gets even worse. "The Crumbolino, most drivers will never drive anything else... ever again."

I suppose I could concede that the preliminaries would involve arena owned cars that remain the property of the arena (and you maybe get a participation fee). The prize is the right to enter the more open semis in front of the crowd. The arena can now legitimately bill you as a contender. They may pay you a participation fee, and the winner can keep his car. The real prize is a chance of the big time. All the losers vehicles remain the property of the arena. In the final there could be full salvage.

In this way you could abstract the earlier stages by running an event with cheapo cars as a montage. At the end everyone gets to keep the cars they fought in (we assume the state it is in replicates the state it would have been in had everyone else been playing an NPC in a conventioannly run event). The next event everyone competes again this time in a decent car and the winner will get a valuable prize and everyone else would have something.

[juris]

Originally Posted by swordtart

It is difficult to square the dichotomy of the majority of people being in the slums (to provide ready competitors for the death sports) with the idea that you could bring in vast amounts of money from arena attendance or advertising at the same.

Think Brazil - the City of God - one of the worst slums in the world - but life for the 'other half' isn't so bad, and sporting events are big and well attended.

Now assume there is no central government - not anarchy but city-state fortress towns. Some are enlightened, others not. Corporations operate without government restriction, making huge profits and hiring private security. About half the population probably lives in slums, or are possibly slaves in some places, but the other half have jobs and have money to spend.

Amateur Night event can be broadcast to a worldwide audience - that's big advertising dollars. Throw in reality show hijinks and you've got some serious entertainment. The costs to put an AN event on would be well worth the price.

[Chris Goodwin]

I kinda wonder if it's not a bit like pro wrestling. Back in the 80's, there would be local events, and a "card" (list of all of the events for the evening). The first few would be local no-namers, basically there to warm up the crowd for the bigger names (and even little ole Portland had Rowdy Roddy Piper and Andre the Giant and Billy Jack Haynes and a few others). This could maybe be what amateur night is like as well.

Also, in Dark Wind, in an amateur night event only the winner gets to keep their car. It could be, in Autoduel America, the winner gets their choice of the cars used in the event. Which could be the one they drove, or it could be the one where a lucky shot took an unlucky driver's head right off, and the car rolled to a soft stop against the arena wall.

Arena duelling could take other aspects of pro wrestling as well: "kayfabe", heels and faces, turns, storylines, etc.

Amateur night might also suggest a campaign: every player has an ongoing character, a Driver-0, Gunner-0, plus one additional skill useful "behind the scenes" (Mechanic, Paramedic, Journalist, Demolitions, etc.). They work as a mechanic or paramedic, doing "body drag" between events -- clear out the wreckage (both mechanical and human) as quickly as possible, help to clean up for the next event (which may include pouring sand or kitty litter on oil patches; hosing blood, coolant, and other fluids off the arena floor; clearing debris, obstacles, spikes and unexploded mines; patch up a relatively undamaged amateur vehicle for the next event; etc.

Players play the no-namers in duels and their ongoing characters clean up the mess afterward. Pay for the ongoing ("alts") is $100 or more a week above living expenses, plus all the free arena food you can stomach (hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, beer, cotton candy, etc.), as well as all the free simulator time you can handle, salvage of whatever the arena doesn't deem worthy of their time and expense (maybe a few shots of cheap crap leftover ammo or an MG with 1 DP left), plus one point a week in the useful skill, but nothing in Driver or Gunner unless you actually fight in a duel (simulator time only helps maintain your skills, it doesn't let you increase them), plus free use of the arena's facilities -- medical, mechanical, press, and so forth. They're actually reasonably extensive -- for mechanics, it's the equivalent of a full shop including the lifts and drink machines and high tech diagnostic equipment, or the medical equivalent, or the journalistic equivalent, or whatever other useful skill you've got -- plus free assistance and care from the other shmucks doing the same thing you are, etc. Also, free use of the arena's kitchen facilities, so you don't have to eat their crappy food, but you buy your own and bring it in -- mark everything with your name and date, everything cleaned out on Friday night and don't even so much as open the lid on someone else's, under strictly enforced penalty of being thrown into next weekend's amateur night (and you know exactly how that sausage is made...) and clean up after yourself (same penalties apply).

[GrauGeist]

Dirt track oval racing does fine in the south - that's my mental model for amateur night. It's a race, with machine guns to attempt a mobility kill.

[Earlburt]

Let me throw in my and Jeff's experience regarding salvage in a team amateur night format. We ran many 4 vs. 4 team events. Survivors got to keep the salvage of any vehicle they killed. Survivors on the winning team got to keep their own car, providing they themsevles were not killed and salvaged.

On average, out of the 8 autos in each match, 5 were cleaimed as salvage. 3 had no claimant, and were forfeited back to the arena. Those 3 could have been due to a driver wrecking himself, for example. Or if a driver killed another, and then got killed himself, his kill was not claimed.

We play that the house buys back salvage at half price. Probably two thirds of our characters cashed out in that way, because a body with tires, but no gun or plant isn't really good for much. Our characters also sold back a lot of components at half price too. Typically crappy stuff like vehicular shotguns or spike droppers.

Anyway, I don't have a detailed economic breakdown of it all. But providing 8 cars to a bunch of amateurs was much less expensive that it might seem at face value. Out of, say, $30K worth of cars, the house usually got back a third or more of it.

Anf figure, arenas would be able to coble together duelling vehicles on site, with house mechanics. And they'd have TONS of spare parts everywhere.

Someone else long ago suggested that arenas could cut costs by using damaged components-- especially tires and plants. That move alone would cut up fornt costs tremendously.

So, I think a case can be made for the viability of the house providing vehicles. Where it breaks a bit is that this is a very slow way to build up a viable character, because the salvage rights system we used is so stingy.

I like it though. I haven't minded the tedious investment of playing many duels to get at a few viable characters.

[Jeffr0]

Someone stated that there was not much point in "merely" reprinting the old rules... but this topic is something that bears additional attention and development before the next release.

• Care should be made to update and improve the default campaign.
• There are of course many ways to set up an amateur campaign... but one should be singled out.
• There should be a dials that people can change to adapt it to their preferences (ie, slow development... less death for the more "modern" minded, etc.)
• The setting info, stock designs, and scenarios should be adapted to to allow for mileau, region, and year differences.
• The implied campaign of 5th edition is embarrassingly broken and indicates that SJG doesn't "get" this. I would just quietly play something else... but 6th cannot make a comparable mistake... it'd be a terrible waste. (Hint: if you omit the Autoduel America map from an edition... you lose.)
• The implied setting and campaign of a rule set matters greatly even if most gamers are going to do their own thing.

We argue over whether CAR WARS is a role playing game... but the fact that out of the box you have can have a campaign system like this really sets it apart. (Dawn Patrol is the only other comparable game that I can think of.) You can literally play out a duelist's career! BattleTech and Star Fleet Battles are comparable tactical games, but they are more difficult to adapt to a role playing style of play due to their military orientation and the scope of their setting/history. The States, England, and Australia are all immediately recognizable to players and as others have pointed out... Google Earth and Wikipedia end up being a better resource than anything that has been done for those other games. Car Wars is also unique in that it gets more fun when you have a continuing campaign for 30 to 50 sessions or more. Most Euros I just never want to see again after ten or twenty plays.... Finally... this campaign does not require a referee-- a huge advantage over, say, D&D.

I really think that Amateur Night is a real touchstone of the game....

[RogerBW]

Post-2029, once duelling gets safer, Amateur Night is where the crowd still goes to see blood - if they're not sat at home watching Today's Road Duel Highlights.

I very much agree with Swordtart on the warmup shows, though I think it depends a lot on what style of current sport you're modelling - I was thinking of rodeos more than anything else, where as I understand it there's basically one thing people are there to see, and while other things are welcome they're basically sideshows.

On Jeffr0's blog, I was considering the layout of a possible full night's programme at the arena - if you can clear the ground in say 5-10 minutes between fights while the clowns do their thing (and the workers haul bodies off to the medical bay, tow away some of the wrecks, and shoot at some of the undetonated mines), you've got time for 18-36 distinct matches in a three-hour evening session. Some of those slots will be Divisionals, some will be divisional team games, and I think quite a few will be gimmick fights - one-on-one, ladies only, no weapons, or whatever.

There'll be a gradual escalation through the evening - most obviously in the division budget, but also in the general level of carnage. Some bike duels might well come after car duels just because the consequences of a crash are worse.

Where does Amateur Night fit into this? High carnage, low skill. I see this coming just before an interval (it may take longer to clear up than many), maybe "end of the first half" or something of that sort.

[juris]

Amateur Night is an introduction to your campaign. Agree with JeffrO that you can't have CW without it. Here is my take on AN - something I wrote a long time ago:

You live in Slag Town, you are a Slag. Slag Town is the ruins of a large city destroyed during the Bad Years. There is no central power grid, no central water, no central services of any kind. You probably live in a ruined house or apartment with a bunch of other people – some might be family. You likely belong to some kind of local street gang for protection. Outside Slag Town are some farms, and further out the Wasteland – which is even worse.

Not far from Slag Town is Central City – a walled fortress-town of bright lights and brand new skyscrapers. Only citizens are allowed in Central City permanently – you can get there with a work permit for a day or two but that's all because you are a Slag. The Slags outnumber Citizens about 2:1 – but any efforts to break into Central City are met with lethal force.

You and your comrades survive mostly by scavenging. There is little work to be had. All the good stuff is already taken, so you mostly cannibalize other gangs. Life is hard, and short. Most people are under 30.

You do have access to the internet and media. The only way out of Slag Town is crime – and the arena. Central City has a number of bloodsports – the most popular is the Autoduel arena. Duellists are like rock stars. But you don't have a car. In fact you only have about $300 in Central City dollars. But that's OK, Central City provides you the opportunity to break into Autoduelling every Thursday night – by hosting an event called Amateur Night. Win and keep your car and salvage the other vehicles. Sounds easy, till you realize that AN kills about 80% of the people who enter. But hey, its the only way out of the Slags.

When you approach the gates of CC you are met by a turret and a PA system that demands your reason for entering. You state you wish to enter AN. The speaker laughs and tells you to follow the yellow line. A yellow line leads you to a group of bedraggled Slags. Most of the people in the group look even worse than you. You join the line. Eventually a woman in a designer suit and skirt with an electronic pad flanked by a dozen tough-looking mercenaries makes an appearance. She dismisses all but a handful of people, asking a series of questions like “have you ever driven a car” or “do you know how to fire a vehicular weapon.” She is very good at picking out liars. Fortunately you don't have to lie, you've been a street-fighter all your life, and driven Chassis and Crossbow specials in numerous turf wars in the Slags. You are chosen.

“Rules are simple. You keep your car and can salvage the wrecks of the others if you win. No surrenders but there will be a safe zone – if you make it there you are safe and can walk away. Anyone who thinks to rig the fight and form alliances can, just so long as you kill each other in the end. Refusing to kill is punishable by death. The arena guns will open up on you and you will die. First aid will be administered after the fight, and free hospitalization to anyone who lives. Oh, and one more thing,” she pauses, taking off her shades to stare at you, “win the crowd”.

[swordtart]

Whether the arena keeps the car or the winner it makes sense for the vehicle to be as salvage friendly as possible.

The vehicle below is designed so even when dead the chassis is quite valuable. With good acceleration (thanks to the HTMs), handling, solid fire power and sturdy armour this is no "Killer Kart", it's performance is closer to the formiddable Mini Sherman. The different coloured tracers for each competitor ensure kills can be accurately registered.

Tiny Tot: Subcompact; CA Frame; Standard chassis; Improved suspension; Small PP w/HTMs; 4 PR tires. Driver w/BA+ABV. 2 x Linked Machine Gun w/40xTracer Front. 105 pts. Plastic (F: 30 R: 20 L: 20 B: 20 T: 5 U: 10). Cost: $8,780, Wgt: 2,290, HC: 3, Top Speed: 92.5 (67.5), Accel: 5 (10).

Total destruction of the vehicle (by other then fire) only removes the plant, tires, MGs and armour. This is still leaves just under $3000 in residual value. It is likely that a disabled vehicle would retain somewhat more than this value. By comparison the stripped Mini-Sherman yeilds only $800 in residual value.