Ideas for new campaign ... Vehicle based Options

[Paco]

I am looking for opinions and some ideas for game I am starting soon. So far its going to start off low-levelish. Characters are going to be limited to recources no higher than b maybe even c. The concept is that they are going to start in an illegal combat racing league. Every race is going to be different as is the locale. Kinda random actually, draw from a hat or roll some dice and see what turns up. Race ideas I plan on rangeing from bikes only to larger vehicles with other members of the racing team enganging other in melee combat and attempting to either damage the other vehicles or get to the driver and take him out. Other variations will have the drivers prohibited from using their VCR, or no melee weapons only ranged thrown weapons, or the ugly anything goes races. The variations are limitless. Starting with low recources will make it really hard to get any decent equipment or vehicles. I really want the players to rely on their skills at first. Eventually I plan on moveing them up the ladder from the racing league to vehicle based runs and smuggling.

[Fonitrus]

Great concept. Good Plan. Now all you need is some vehicle rules.

Seriously..

I tried running a go-ganger campaign once and after the 2nd combat turn I decided to shout the guys lunch and ended the campaign.

You will not belive the amount of maths that goes into maneuver scores in vehicle heavy campaigns. i had 4 PCs and another 5 NPCs and it took ages to resolve 1 combat turn...

At the time i couldn't be bothered finding a faster rule-set and never ran a go-ganger campaign again...

Anyone with bright ideas?

[Arethusa]

Honestly, vehicular combat league sounds pretty damn silly. If B movie camp's your intent, then go for it, but be very careful of taking the material too seriously.

[edit]

Also, that's a good point. Watch out for those vehicle rules and be prepared to houserule away from the glacial nightmare that they can be.

[further edit]

Also consider houseruling towards a game that's fleshes out vehicle combat more. Abstraction can all too often be horribly bland, and as Kagetenshi points out, if you're relying on mechanics for the narrative and immersion, SR's unlikely to cut it here. Spycraft's system might be a bit more what yuo're looking for.

This post has been edited by Arethusa: Aug 18 2004, 05:48 PM

[Kagetenshi]

Keep in mind that Shadowrun, like any role-playing game, isn't really designed well to handle a race-style situation. Unless you're a really good narrator, focus on the combat aspects, because it's quite difficult to give a feeling of excitement and anticipation when an entire race comes down to one to five skill rolls.

~J

[Backgammon]

The upcoming Mr. Johnsons Little Black Book while have altrnative faster Vehicule rules, so you can wait and see how that goes. Also, R3 has some very simple alternative rules, but you may find them too simple if you're running a vehicule intensive campaign. You could work on them a bit to suit your needs.

[Fonitrus]

[Kagetenshi]

Sure, you can come up with skill rolls for cornering, etc., but unless the players and GM are familiar enough with the actual choices made in racing to create meaningful decisions (how aggressively to take a turn, where the best place to try to pass is, etc.), it still ends up being a lot of skill rolls and nothing else.

Incidentally, it's not vehicle-based, but if anyone reads the Battle Angel (Gunnm) series, the Motorball parts (Killing Angel, IIRC) are IMO excellent examples of this sort of thing done right. Still not particularly translatable into a word-based RPG, though.

~J

[Paco]

Since its a combat leauge the last car standing rule could cut a lot of races short and probably will :), I intend to come up with some House Rules for this but havn't had a chance to play around with them yet.
Any suggestions for rules would be most welcome. :spin:

[Req]

Yeah, play Car Wars. :)

Shadowrun is great, but I've always seen the vehicle rules as an add-on, and I don't tend to work them into games because of that. They're slow and they're not particularly fun. Maybe it's just my group, but I doubt it.

[Thistledown]

[Faster_Pussycat]

Once there was a near future style board game by the name "Dark Future" i have used some of the plots and settings in SR, they works fine except everybody has to play rigger :D (scary) but Africa, australia and germany makes fine settings for car gangs. And the gangland setting are fine for roleplaying.

[Edward]

Riggers are not the only useful archetype. A shaman will be a great assistance. Summon up something with the movent power accident, confusion, binding, concealment are al very useful in a race.

There are also useful spells. Aside from attacking the driver with magic or varies direct damage spells at the vehicle cayos, confusion, chaff, improved invisibility (self and bike) stealth (self and bike), physical camouflage, vehicle mask. Control manipulations on the driver can be fun. Levitate is great on vehicles up to about 300kg, more of you get extra dice from a focus, ice sheet only needs to be force 1to get full effect against vehicles, physical barrier and reinforce will protect your vehicle.

Of cause not every race would allow any or all magical effects but when they are allowed they can decide a race.

Edward