WOUNDED RONIN’S MORE INTELLIGENT CHARGEN AND GAMEPLAY RULES FOR JOE DEVER’S “FREEWAY WARRIOR� SERIES OF GAMEBOOKS


I am a huge fan of many aspects of Joe Dever’s “Freeway Warrior� series of gamebooks which were published back in 1988 and which are available currently as “abandonware� from http://www.the-underdogs.info/showbook.php?id=13. The writing is very atmospheric and the setting (Mad Max post-apocalyptic) was unusual for gamebooks of that era which were usually sword and sorcery genre. Even better, there is a lot of 80s flare what with all the post-apocalyptic punk types who attack you and the cover art which depicts the main character as dressed somewhat like Michael Jackson. However, there were certain aspects of the game which were maddening as well. The first maddening aspect was unrealistic world details, the second maddening aspect was poor statistical structure of the game itself, and the third maddening aspect was draconian and irrational rules seemingly in place only to undermine the player character in an already statistically difficult game. In my revision of these rules, I try to address these issues to make playing through the books more fun and fast-paced by adding small amounts of realism and giving a thinking player a better chance of completing the game successfully.

WEIRD AND INCORRECT DETAILS:

There are many bizarre and unrealistic world details in the “Freeway Warrior� series. Some of them are purely flavor; the player character may only carry 4 units of water with him and this amount is referred to by the rules as “two pints�. Perhaps two pints of water seems like plenty to an author writing in the humid and cool United Kingdom, but to people like me who actually have lived in the American deserts (my family has got a house in Las Vegas) that is a painfully small amount of water which wouldn’t suffice for even a single day. When you’re in an arid environment where temperatures can easily soar over 110 degrees in the summer your skin and your body lose moisture in a way that was impossible for me to imagine before I’d felt it myself.

Another weird detail is that machine pistols are incapable of firing in semi-automatic mode and instead must spew out at least six rounds with each use. The only reason this rule exists is to make an artificial distinction between the 9mm semiautomatic pistol and the 9mm machine pistol when in reality the only difference between the two would be the *option* of automatic fire from the latter. Now, if the author wanted to differentiate the weapons, it would have made more sense to have the semiautomatic pistol be a .45 cal weapon and differentiate it entirely from a separate 9mm submachinegun weapon.

CRAP STATISTICS:

The statistical structure of the game books drove me batty although to be fair a lot of 80s gamebooks have similar characteristics.

The key statistics which the player character starts with (endurance and close combat skill) are determined ENTIRELY at random which has the effectively damns certain attempts through the book to failure for no good reason. For some reason back in the 80s authors thought an adventure book was more fun if you had to play through it 10 times on the same damn path over and over until you got the right dice rolls to make it through. Also, for some reason, even though the player can choose to spend chargen points to beef up the other skills in the game (driving, shooting, field craft, stealth, and perception), it’s impossible to beef up the crucial close combat skill, which is patently illogical.

Compounding this problem the book has a fair amount of situations where if you fail to get the dice roll you need your character is instantly killed. While one or two such situations in an entire book might be appropriate I think that to have more than that many is pointless since it just increases the chance that a player will have to repeat the book multiple times even if he has made all the “correct� choices, which is frankly boring after the third time. Also, I get the feeling that many authors of the era didn’t realize that if I have an 85% chance of surviving four instant-kill situations I’ve only got a net 52.2% chance of actually surviving them all. I think it’s pretty weak when a player can do everything “right� in a game and still have half a chance of failure which forces you to simply repeat the exact same steps you took the previous time.

One thing which is acutely annoying to me is the random number generation system. Technically, there are no dice rolls. The player is expected to jab a numbered square in the book with a pencil. However, the numbers come up in weird patterns:

Out of 100 number boxes,

1 happens 5 times

2 happens 10 times

3 happens 7 times

4 happens 12 times

5 happens 10 times

6 happens 15 times

7 happens 8 times

8 happens 16 times

9 happens 8 times

0 happens 9 times

I’m not really sure what to make of that distribution.


RULES OF PAIN:

Of course, the main focus my revisions is against rules which I feel are draconian to the point of detracting from the fun of the game. There are many examples of these!

The player character has a backpack which may hold up to 10 items but he gets progressive encumbrance penalties for carrying a fourth, seventh, and tenth item, and more penalties on top of that for carrying more than one firearm. While I agree in principle with encumbrance penalties the rules as written make it impossible for the player character to put excess items in the trunk of his car (which he rides all the time throughout the books) and choose what to take in his backpack. The rules only allow you to “discard� an item in which case it vanishes in a puff of logic.

The game starts in Texas where the player has been living for many years in an underground bunker. Given that we’re talking about Texas the starting amounts of ammunition are absolutely bizarre. If the player character chooses to start with a 7.62 rifle he only gets 4 rounds of ammunition to go with it, or if he starts with a shotgun for some reason he only has 4 slugs. If the player starts with a semiautomatic pistol he only starts with 8 rounds but if he starts with a machine pistol he magically starts with 30. Now, I really can’t believe that someone who was lucky enough to hide away from the apocalypse in an underground bunker created by Texans would come to the surface with this nearly nonexistant supply of ammunition yet by the same token has enough gasoline to drive to the West Coast and enough food and water to feed a school bus full of colonists on the same route. Hell, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see some crazed Texan in a post apocalyptic setting with satchels full of tungsten carbide cored .50 cal rounds and dual-wielding Barretts. Finally, what the hell is a Texan doing chambering 9mm instead of the great American classic .45 ACP?

Oh, also, for some reason your ammo pouch can’t hold more than ten 12 ga. slugs. That has got to be a tiny ammo pouch considering you could probably stuff ten 12 ga. slugs into your pants if you used both your side pockets.

Another rule which makes my head hurt is the encumbrance rules for weapons. For some reason, carrying your maximum of 2 melee weapons doesn’t penalize you in any way, but if you carry more than one firearm (even if it’s a pistol and a machine pistol) you start taking penalties to your Stealth skill.

MY REVISED CHARGEN AND GAMEPLAY RULES:

With these flaws in mind waiting to be corrected, here are my revised chargen and gameplay rules. It is my hope that they shift the focus of the game to planning a successful character who can complete a book in one or two tries IF he makes the right choices and away from dumb luck and repetitive restarts.

In the first place, no more of this absurd pencil-jabbing random number generation. Instead, I’ve prepared a statistically equivalent table so that you can roll for your results using a percentile dice:

01-05 = 1
06-15 = 2
16-22 = 3
23-34 = 4
35-44 = 5
45-59 = 6
60-67 = 7
68-83 = 8
84-91 = 9
92-00 = 0

ATTRIBUTES AND SKILLS:

Endurance now starts at 29, which is the maximum possible under the old chargen system. Cal Phoenix is supposed to be a young and courageous survivor so I don’t think it really makes sense for him to get a crappy roll for his hitpoints.

Close Combat still needs to be in the double-digit format for game compatibility but it is no longer randomly determined. Instead, it starts at the lowest possible value, 10, and may be upgraded by spending skill points on it, at the rate of 2 close combat points per skill point spent. To avoid unbalancing the game it would probably be best not to raise the Close Combat skill higher than 20, since the maximum score would normally be 19 and I’m afraid that if you raised Close Combat far above 20 (over the course of multiple books you could potentially boost it over 30) all of the melee combat in the game would start to become trivial. Then again, if you want to play Mr. Miyagi, I suppose that nobody is stopping you...

The Survival Skills work in the same way that they did in the original rules, with two exceptions. You now start with 7 skill points instead of 4 so that you have enough points to boost your Close Combat score to an “average� of 16 (the average roll is 5.65) and still have 4 points left over as usual for the rest of your skills. The second exception is that you may choose to lower any of the Survival Skills from 3 to a lower value in order to spend those points somewhere else. My hope is that now the game is more about strategic min-maxing than before, because what is a role playing game without min-maxing?

EQUIPMENT:

THE CAR RULE:

No more of this asinine business of a backpack filled with a compass, a single grenade, some MRE baggies, and a pair of binoculars suddenly dooming you to incompetent clumsiness because that’s frankly pretty stupid. Equipment selection and the backpack still work the same way as they do in the normal rules but under the new rules Cal Phoenix may choose whether he wants to put an item in his backpack (in which case the encumbrance rules apply) or whether he wants to put it in the trunk of his car, in which case they do not encumber him.

The items in Cal’s backpack may be used by him at any time whereas he may only transfer items from the trunk of his car to his backpack if a combat is not taking place in the text and if Cal is physically able to access his car with trivial ease in the section of the game text which you, the player, are reading. Items may only be used if they are first transferred from the trunk of the car into Cal’s backpack. This rule requires some maturity and honesty but I think that it makes for more interesting gameplay since it means picking and choosing equipment for future situations during “safe� intervals of the game. It’s much better gameplay to have Cal choose specific equipment for when he goes to scout ahead than if he’s forced to never put down any of his earthly possessions.

In order to avoid a comical “bag of holding� effect, a maximum of 20 items may be placed in the trunk of the car with the understanding that the space taken by very large or very small items would average out for an abstract total of 20 items. A full ammo pouch counts as one item.

AMMUNITION:

In the first place, the maximum amount of ammunition which a single ammo pouch may hold is being revised for more realism. The maximum ammo capacity per pouch is doubled, so now the maximum amount of 9mm rounds is 80, the maximum amount of 7.62 rounds is 40, and the maximum amount of 12 ga. shells is 20. The old ammo space multipliers are the same; in terms of space four 9mm rounds equal two 7.62 rounds which in turn equal a single 12 ga. shell.

The amount of starting ammunition that Cal starts with is also being adjusted to not be an absurdly small amount. If Cal starts with a pistol or a machine pistol he will also start with 40 9mm cartridges. If he starts with a rifle he will start with 20 7.62 cartridges. If he chooses a shotgun he will start with 20 shotgun shells. I feel that these amounts are scarce enough by real-world standards to be suitable for a post-apocalyptic setting while at the same time not being as extreme as the default amounts.

MEDICAL SUPPLIES:

Since medical supplies are a crucial in-game resource the amount Cal begins the game with is no longer randomized. It’s no fun to have to start over just because you rolled a 1 at this stage in the game. Instead, Cal starts with the fully-stocked maximum of 12 units of medical supplies. Besides for this the medical supplies work the same way in the new rules as in the old rules.

Just as an aside, any good medical kit should contain salt tablets or oral re-hydration salts even though Cal’s apparently doesn’t. This isn’t something that can really be fixed in the rules, though, since the “salt tub� is essentially a quest item from the storyline of book 1.

WATER CANTEEN:

Two pints of water really isn’t enough for a trip across the American west. Cal Pheonix now carries two GALLONS of water with him in multiple containers. His drinks have increased in size from half a pint to half a gallon spread out between the times when the text says he must take a drink. Besides for that the water canteen works is the same as in the old rules. The change is purely cosmetic but is required for suspension of disbelief for anyone who has ever really lived in a desert.


WEAPONS:

The way in which weapons are categorized are different in the new rules. Weapons are no longer classified either as “melee weapons� or “missile weapons� for the purpose of determining whether or not they encumber Cal. Instead, weapons, regardless of whether or not they are firearms, are classified as “longarms� and “sidearms�. In terms of encumbrance, “sidearms� take the place of “melee weapons� and “longarms� take the place of “missile weapons�.

In other words, Cal is now allowed to carry up to two “sidearms� at no penalty. He may carry up to three “longarms�, but is penalized for each “longarm� beyond the first by a cumulative 1 point reduction from his Stealth score. The difference between “sidearms� and “longarms� is size.

The rifle and the shotgun are considered “longarms� because, well, that’s what they are. The pistol and machine pistol are considered “sidearms� since that’s what they are as well. The hunting knife Cal begins the game with is considered a “sidearm� because it’s closer in size to a pistol than to a rifle. A large melee weapon, such as a battle axe, sword, or heavy crowbar, would be considered a “longarm� because of size and bulk.

This system or determining encumbrance penalties from weapons makes more sense than the old one which treated a pistol the same as a rifle.

The machine pistol may now be fired either in full auto mode (in which case one use burns through 6 rounds of ammunition) or in semi-automatic mode (in which case it uses only one round like the semiautomatic pistol.) This is implemented in the following way: if the text offers you the choice to use a firearm and Cal is equipped with a machine pistol simply flip to the page designated for using a machine pistol if you want Cal to use automatic fire or flip to the page designated for using a semiautomatic pistol if you want Cal to use semiautomatic fire. If the text doesn’t differentiate between the type of weapon used then assume that Cal is intelligently saving ammunition and has fired in semiautomatic mode. This ability actually makes the semiautomatic pistol superfluous at character generation.

Firearm selection at chargen is unchanged; Cal may still elect to take a rifle, shotgun, pistol, or machine pistol in addition to his hunting knife. The player will have to decide whether weapons which Cal picks up over the course of his adventure classify as “longarms� or “sidearms�. As a rule of thumb anything much larger than a pistol should be a “longarm�. Weapons may be stored in the trunk of Cal’s car as items.



...and that’s all! Hopefully, with my new chargen rules, Freeway Warrior will be a more fun and balanced game to play. Let me know if you have any comments after playing the game on these rules.

You have successfully summoned up and made restless my nostalgic spirit. Looks too good not to try.

Damn you, WR! You have made me go dig up all my Freeway Warrior books, buried under more than a dozen expansions of MTG, another dozen expansions of L5R and a few boxes of Battletech cards.

I will not play non-canon Freeway Warrior (but what the hell) ...

I recalled Freeway Fighter when I saw this thread.

Never heard of Freeway Warrior.

So I recently found out that in November 2016 Joe Dever passed away due to complications of bile duct surgery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Dever#Biography

This makes me very sad because I enjoyed his game books and he was one of the better known and well loved classic figures in RPG design.

Over the years, as I enjoyed his books, I always thought that maybe someday I would run into him, and then I could tell him all about how much I enjoyed Freeway Warrior, but how a Texan who survived the apocalypse in an underground bunker probably literally has hundreds of thousands of rounds stockpiled plus the ability to manufacture more, or even resort to using blackpowder muzzle loaders rather than go without a ranged weapon.

Of course, that can't happen now. It's only now that I think I fully realized how much I did want to meet him and congratulate him on his work.

I only found out about this because of a comment made on the Steam forums, as I had recently got the Lone Wolf video game on a Steam sale. Otherwise I don't suppose I would have found out.

So what can I say? Life is brief. Don't put things off, because to do so is to take them for granted.