[Torg] Car Wars (was: DV of moving vehicle?)

[Tommy Tanaka]

On 9/8/07, Stephen John Smoogen <smooge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/7/07, Kansas Jim <ksjim at sdc.org> wrote:
> > Winston writes:
> >
> > > Ah, the above paragraph takes me back to the days Steve Jackson's 'Car
> > > Wars'. Wow we used to play that game so much. Anyone else remember
> that
> > > golden oldie?
> >
> > Never played it myself, knew people who owned copies of it but when
> > we wanted some mindless mayhem they'd always reach for OGRE instead.
> >
>
> My only time of playing Car Wars was a very short game 20+ years ago..
> we started getting out cars and stuff and someone made the mistake of
> saying anything goes.. so the real savvy guy brought an OGRE to the
> match and that was that.



SJ Games did actually publish an article on using OGREs in Car Wars. The
basic rule went like this: Roll 1d6 to see which weapon system the OGRE uses
to level the entire arena. Did I mention that the article was as silly as
the basic concept?

As for playing CW, I've actually played it in the last year. I think it was
one of those "look what I found in the back of my closet!" moments, but a
group of friends got together to play once a week or so for a couple of
months, before interests drifted in other directions. Personally, I think a
car chase would be a lot more fun in Torg if we pulled out Car Wars instead
of just using Dramatic Skill Resolution. (Although, so far in our Torg game,
that's been along the lines of "okay, they've remotely taken control of your
car and started pumping sleeping gas into the passenger compartment. Use DSR
to regain control before you're knocked out." Not something Car Wars has
good rules for.)

This is drifting farther and farther afield from Torg, but the above is
something that's been used to good effect in several games I've been in over
the years: Use the RPG for the RP portions, but move to an entirely
different system for combat. Car Wars, OGRE, Silent Death, Battletech,
Warhammer (miniatures), whatever. Probably works best in games that see a
lot of combat. The interesting part is figuring out a good way to, for
example, convert Torg values into the other system. One thing I do like
about Torg in this regard is that the logarithmic scale is convenient for
games with a wide range of values. (Even if it does allow for occasional
oddities like a lucky shot with a 9mm doing as much damage as a howitzer, or
a Ravagon pushing its flight speed to Mach 1.) GURPS, as much as I like it,
doesn't scale well. (Vehicular scale weapons do multiples of thousands of d6
damage. Ugh.) Torg: x10 effect is +5 value. Simple. (Hero system being
somewhere between the two with geometric progression and lots of d6s.)

Hmm. Core Earth Template: Demolition Derby Driver. Tag skill: Land Vehicles.
Mount a machine gun on the hood and start hunting dinos. :)  (Yes, I know,
the Mist makes cars and machine guns next to useless in the LL, but one can
dream.)

-- 
> Appareo Decet Nihil Munditia?
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