Supporting Car Wars: Foundations for Growth and Development Part II

The Car Wars background material is a result of the 70’s grognard influence hanging on into the eighties. I remember as a kid reading the timeline the Car Wars opened up with. I was only in elementary school at the time, so I couldn’t really pay attention to read it all the way through. (Of course, I read it now and am shocked to see that I’m living in the timeline. I really never expected to see this day– surely the Russians should have blown us up by now, right?)

The Car Wars background, like that of Ogre, was not designed to be compelling in and of itself. The Car Wars background was merely a form of “gaming glue” rigged together for the sole intent of rationalizing a series of death-prone anarchistic freeway and arena combats.

As the system grew, each new scenario required additions to the timeline in order to justify the new rules and adventures. This theme was followed religiously on everything from the history of terrorism and the Boy Scout Commandos all the way down to the introduction of Armored Boats. War Games are simulations– and science fiction games back then had to at least go through the motions of being concerned about ‘realism’ and plausible future histories.

(Today, we open up the new Starter Sets and… it’s just now there. There’s not even a preamble about how successful Car Wars was or how the new system will ultimately play out. Hobbits would be very displeased with this: any event of such importance should be accompanied by a “few appropriate words.”)

Anyway, the GURPS books for Car Wars are odd. Your typical worldbook covers a fully fleshed out book series– or at the very least a good hackneyed gaming premise. When you read a GURPS Autoduel book, you see a war game’s background material through a lens focused on grist for role-playing scenarios. The material is being treated the same way as Foster’s Humanx novels or Brin’s Uplift series.

Now, I do appreciate how the original GURPS Autoduel book brought Amateur Night to life. Even such an old standby can be energized by a referee that’s willing to stretch into the realm of GMing….

But somehow… I’m not sure that the background can grow indefinitely as a full-on role playing focused genre. At any rate, GM’s that are interested in that have a lot of work cut out for them. If you want to run a full on cutting edge GURPS campaign… you’ll be stuck adapting a lot of old material into the new system. GURPS Autoduel 2nd edition has not been well supported with magazine articles and new supplements.

No, I don’t think regurgitating and repackaging to old material is the way to go. You can’t go back. Long time ADQ readers will probably see any rehash as being inferior to “the good old days.”

And so we see that Steve Jackson Games is leaving the door open revising the background: not only did they omit the original timeline in the Starter Sets, but they’ve added a new gimmick to the sales blurb:

“After the grain blight . . .
“After the mutant plague . . .
“After the cities turned into fortresses . . .
“After the countryside turned into a war zone . . .
“After everything fell apart . . .

“The roads belonged to no one.
“And the right of way went to the biggest guns.”

Mutant Plague, huh? Where are they going to go with that? Reading through the Arena Book, it doesn’t seem as if things have changed all that much, though. Pedestrians show up in events more often, so that makes the arena combats sound much more gritty and violent. Also there’s talk of a cycle gang made up of Amazons…. Hmmm….

On the whole, we could be passing up an opportunity here. Before we release a new design system, before we hammer out a series of definitive scenarios and adventures, before we retool our spreadsheets… we need to look at how Car Wars stacks up against other table top war games and other post-apocalyptic role playing games. We need to set some goals for this whole project that will set us up to delve into new ground and richer deposits of gaming goodness. THEN we need to rethink our background material in light of these goals.

The background material for Ogre and Car Wars was rigged to produce a very specific outcome– an environment perfect for table top wargaming. If our goals for the system extend beyond the original boundaries, then we need to come up with a set of premises that can establish our new vision.