Tired of the fact that too often players spend five minutes shuffling counters and turning keys to figure out a way to just barely miss those pesky spike counters? Or maybe they’re bringing play to a halt by trying choose the perfect amount of manuevers to keep their opponents in line of sight until just the last moment. Or maybe games are just lasting a little too long in real-time to account for a measly 8 second arena duel….
There is a way for you ref’s to take care of these things– and I’m surprised I never thought of this before. I had suggested earlier that the referee should track everything: Handling, Speed, and Damage– that way players don’t have to do any bookkeeping and everyone stays honest. After thumbing though a copy of Savage Worlds at the local game store, I’ve decided it might be good to take this a little further.
To speed things up, only allow maneuvers on the first, fourth, and seventh inch of movement in each phase. (On the other phases, cars move straight ahead one inch.) When a player comes up to his turn, don’t let him touch the counter at all. He may look at the board for a moment and then shout out his move. The referee then plays out the move.
For example, a player going 50 mph would shout, “Two D0 to the right!” on his turn. Really mean ref’s might count to 3 when he announces each phase for the players– if the players don’t respond with a valid instruction, they end up just going straight for the whole phase and miss their chance to fire!
Refs running a game this way may seem like drill sergeants, but playing this way will eliminate most of the unrealistic exactness that Car Wars players routinely pull.
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