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Old 10-19-2020, 12:54 PM   #11
Magesmiley
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Snohomish, WA
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Scrolling back looking since the COVID hit and I found this thread. We've been playing D&D and Gamma World remotely for the past few months. Some players are in the mid-west, some are on the west coast. It's my turn to GM, and the group is excited about giving Car Wars a go.

I've created an excel spreadsheet, because well quite frankly excel can do anything, to be the game board. We're going to share screens via the video conference technology and I'm going to GM the game remotely. I grabbed little car icons of 8 different colors and have grabbed a large circle with an X in the middle to show the different angles the cars can shoot from.

Week 1 I'm going to give everyone a Killer Kart and run an arena battle. I figure, no gernades, no trikes, no extra rules, just get them started on the basics of driving and shooting a machine gun. Then if they like it each week we will add a few items to make it more and more true Car Wars.

Should be fun!
Killer Karts are... not ideal for intro games.
I use this design (or a slight variation):

Rainbow Bay Raider -- Compact, Heavy chassis, Heavy suspension, Large power plant, 4 Steelbelted Puncture-Resistant Radial tires, Driver w/TC and BA and PFE, Light Laser in Turret, Recoilless Rifle Front w/10 shots HEAT, Plastic Armor: F22, L17, R17, B17, T16, U4, Gear Allocation: [72 lbs. @ Accel 5/Top Speed 117.5], Acceleration 10, Top Speed 120, HC 4, 3998 lbs., $14834

This has been refined at games at conventions over the last decade. (About eight separate eight-player games with different players each year).

It gives the players a few options without being overwhelming (LL vs RR. Acceleration 10 simplifies speed, HC is decent enough to play around with. Chances of fire aren't huge (engine damage) and PFE for an extra decision. Armor is in the Goldilocks zone for enough to take a hit or two, but can be breached in a reasonable time. Weight keeps them in 2/3 damage for collisions, making them less effective, but still moderately so. Tires have a decent chance of surviving a hit. No hand weapons. Not a lot of wonky gear.

And it works pretty well - I can usually run an 8-player game in a few hours.
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Old 10-19-2020, 04:10 PM   #12
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Killer Karts are... not ideal for intro games.
True --tho' for my part, I use the _Sargasso_.
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Old 10-20-2020, 11:17 AM   #13
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Can't argue with experience. Seems very forgiving for new players... and there's some good loot! Does it look like a shark with friggin' laser beams attached to its head? ;)

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Rainbow Bay Raider -- Compact, Heavy chassis, Heavy suspension, Large power plant, 4 Steelbelted Puncture-Resistant Radial tires, Driver w/TC and BA and PFE, Light Laser in Turret, Recoilless Rifle Front w/10 shots HEAT, Plastic Armor: F22, L17, R17, B17, T16, U4, Gear Allocation: [72 lbs. @ Accel 5/Top Speed 117.5], Acceleration 10, Top Speed 120, HC 4, 3998 lbs., $14834

.
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Old 11-07-2020, 10:45 AM   #14
PeteC
 
Join Date: May 2019
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After doing a few intro games for people at this point, I have decided that I prefer to do a little scenario rather than an arena fight. Something with a bit of a narrative.

Last time I ran a game, I started the scenario as a standard Division 5 battle, but I, the referee ran a car that was cheating (a compact with a concealed, IR targeting laser, cyberlink and an ejection seat/rocket pack combo) that the other players had to team up to defeat. When they finally got him, he ejected and flew away, firing his machine pistol. This kept the game down to less than an hour and a half and everyone had fun.

The time before that I had an "OGRE" like scenario where one player was a van hired by Gold Cross to storm into a biker gang hideout to rescue the corpse of a would-be vigilante. The other two players played the biker gang.

I am going to propose my "Ruins of Cleveland" Car Wars RPG campaign once the other guys want to take a break from Shadowrun. I'm statting out a Mk I OGRE in Car Wars just for the occasion :)

Last edited by PeteC; 11-07-2020 at 10:50 AM. Reason: Haven't actually finished statting out OGRE
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Old 11-07-2020, 10:56 AM   #15
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I'm statting out a Mk I OGRE in Car Wars just for the occasion :)
Interesting - I've long planned to convert a few G.E.V.s to Car Wars using the hovercraft rules (as a segue from Car Wars to the Ogreverse), but as with everything else, never got around to it.
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Old 11-07-2020, 11:22 AM   #16
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Interesting - I've long planned to convert a few G.E.V.s to Car Wars using the hovercraft rules (as a segue from Car Wars to the Ogreverse), but as with everything else, never got around to it.
For the Mark I, I went with a 105mm artillery as the main gun, as this is the smallest that can still fire tac-nukes :) For the Anti-Personel weapons I am using 24 gauss guns in 12 univeral pop-up turrets.

At 300 spaces and 300000 lbs it won't be driving over too many bridges, but can crawl along the ocean floor powered by 3 nuclear truck power plants from UACFH :)
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Old 11-07-2020, 11:57 AM   #17
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At 300 spaces and 300000 lbs it won't be driving over too many bridges, but can crawl along the ocean floor powered by 3 nuclear truck power plants from UACFH :)
How many Rule Benders does each plant require? ;)
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Old 11-07-2020, 02:12 PM   #18
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I'm statting out a Mk I OGRE in Car Wars just for the occasion :)
Please don't -- I had to deal with one of those in NOVA; it wasn't fun. In fact, I had to nuke the player's entire organization in order to prevent it. (It's part of what got me thrown out of NOVA in the end -- I had to explain to them: "Right now, the only threat to New Omaha is *all of you*!")
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Old 11-09-2020, 12:22 PM   #19
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A brilliant engineer friend tried to design the most expensive tank possible - as I recall it had at least two Magnetic Cannons. He called it the 'Congress' and stated that there was a part from each Congressional district lol

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Please don't -- I had to deal with one of those in NOVA; it wasn't fun. In fact, I had to nuke the player's entire organization in order to prevent it. (It's part of what got me thrown out of NOVA in the end -- I had to explain to them: "Right now, the only threat to New Omaha is *all of you*!")
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Old 11-09-2020, 02:00 PM   #20
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A brilliant engineer friend tried to design the most expensive tank possible - as I recall it had at least two Magnetic Cannons. He called it the 'Congress' and stated that there was a part from each Congressional district lol
Yeah -- I went there, myself. Then I designed the _Donnerschlag_ bomber: 30,000 lbs. airplane, 12,000 lbs. bombload.

Anti-Armor Hardened Penetration Bombs do *NOT* do nice things to Tanks. >:)
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