Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog

[Exerpted from Jeffro's ultra-brief interviews by email series.  Scott Haring was editor of ADQ, developed Deluxe Car Wars, and co-wrote GURPS Autoduel first edition.]

Jeffro:  I noticed the other day that you were listed as being a part of the first Car Wars playtest back before the first edition was released. How did you get involved with that?  What was it like?  Did “Kong” kill your car?

Scott Haring:  When Steve and Chad were playtesting Car Wars, I was just out of college, working at a newspaper in a little town about 50 miles south of Austin called New Braunfels. I knew Steve when we were both in college, and I got invited to Friday night playtests.

I don’t recall ever playing with “Kong”; his glory was earned at some local conventions I didn’t go to. The best thing that happened to me in playtest was when I was getting the hell blown out of me and was trying to make it to an arena exit. I had already lost my power plant, so I was at a fixed deceleration and could no longer steer, plus I was on fire. That, and I was going to miss the exit gate — until somebody trying for the kill took one last shot at me and caused me to fishtail into a new direction that took me straight throught the open gate and to sweet survival. I got voted bonus prestige for incredible luck for that move.

1) We need to work out a decent stock vehicle list.  The major technological levels would be Pocket Box, Deluxe Edition, Compendium 2e, and Uncle Albert’s Catalogue from Hell.  (The Chassis and Crossbow rules from “Mutant Zone” would be nice to support, too.)  At each level, we could have a group of vehicles for each AADA division.  If we could get PDF files to print out before play, that’d be even better.  The idea is to have a variety of approaches to design/rules/etc worked out so that you had everything you needed at your fingertips to run just about any flavor of game.

2) Adding notes to allow the vehicles to be used easily with 5th edition would be relatively easy.  These notes could be included on the PDF’s.    

3) Making GURPS Vehicles 2e versions of the above designs would be possible. 

4) A program that could handle all of the chores above would be nice.  An easy “Drag and Drop” design system that hides most of the complexity has been requested.

5) I’d like to see an adventure guide of some sort.  This would be a compilation of suggestions for making adventures in the style of “Convoy,” “Grand Theft Autoduel,” and “Midwest Passage.”

6) I’d like to see better rules for running corporations– maybe an economic game where bus lines, trucking companies, pizza delivery franchises, and courier groups all compete for the best profitability.  (Maybe this can be done in the style of the new “german game” phenomenon?)

7) I’d like to see rules for two player campaign games, where there’s a strategic map, production, and so forth.  I’d like to see cargo space and power units make a difference in this type of game.  I’d like to see units that don’t often get used in arena duels get used in this.  The campaign system could be used to generate Car Wars scenarios or battles could be resolved in a simplified system. I’d like to see a variety of “what might have been” type articles.  What if the equipment added  to the game in ADQ had been completely different?  Start with the Pocket Box edition and create new timelines and equipment lists for Car Wars.  The point would be to create new and interesting tactical situations.  For example, rules for making flying cars (like in The Last Starfighter and Back to the Future) with weird weapons and defense systems could be made. 

9) I’d like to see a play by email program– if SJG can allow such a thing.  The program would send coordinates and design data in XML format and show everything with pretty graphics.

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Which of the above sounds most interesting to you? 

Please drop me a note and let me know how your wish list differs from mine.  (Reply here or send email to autoduelist AT gmail DOT com.)

The Calamari: a versatile workhorse for the highways of the 2040’s. 

Station Wagon, extra heavy chassis, heavy suspension, large power plant with Superconductors, 4 Solid tires, Driver, Passenger, RL with AP rockets in universal turret, RL with AP rockets front, smartlink, SD (explosive spikes) left linked to SD (explosive spikes) right, link from spikes to turret, HD shocks, HRSWC.  Cargo Capacity: 7 spaces, 500 lbs.  Armor: F 38, R 27, L 27, B 35, T 30, U 20, 2 10 point wheel guards back, 2 10 point armored wheel hubs front.  Acceleration 5, Top Speed 95 (without cargo), Top Speed 90 (with cargo), HC 3, 6,600 lbs, $23,190.

Personal Equipment: 2 PFE’s, 2 BA’s, 1 Heavy AV rifle, 2 tear gas grenades, 2 explosive grenades.  Adds $1,810 to cost, totaling to $25,000.

[This design is built according to rules in the Compendium Second Edition.]

Pocket Box / Zip-loc Baggie Edition (1981)

(p 3) Your vehicle’s Handling Class is equal to its base design HC plus a bonus of up to 2 for your reflex roll at the start of the game.  Note that you can loose your reflex bonus if your driver is injured!

(p 6) Your Handling Track is reset at the end of each turn.

(Control Table)  If you fail a control roll, you simply roll 2d6 1d6, add a speed modifier, and check the appropriate Crash Table.

Deluxe Edition (1986)

(p 10)  Handling Class is determined as above, but a vehicle can have a maximum HC of 5 and a minimum HC of -3.

(p 9)  The Handling Track is not reset at the end of each turn, but is rather bumped up an amount equal to the vehicle’s base HC (not including reflex roll bonuses!) plus the driver skill.  It is adjusted upward by at least 1 if this total is negative.

(p 9)  Crash table rolls are determined as above.

GURPS Autoduel first edition (1986)

(p 48)  There is no Handling Track!  The first maneuver of the turn is made by rolling against the Driver skill.  The second is at -2.  The third is at -4.

(p 51)  Note that there are not two crash tables (one for maneuvers and one for hazards) as in classic Car Wars.

(p 50)  If you fail your driver skill roll, you roll one die and add the amount by which you missed your roll.  If you had made a critical failure by rolling a 17 or 18, then you roll two dice instead.  This determines the crash table entry you use.

(p 46)  Also note that phased movement is not used in this edition.  A sidebar suggests adopting the 10 phase movement chart from classic Car Wars.  Also note that the sequence of play is determined by each character’s move score– vehicle speed is no longer the key factor in determining movement order!

The Car Wars Compendium (1989)

(p 7)  HC was determined as in the Deluxe edition, but the maximum HC was increased to 7.  [I presume this killed the HC 9's that were advertised for Dueltrack??]

(p 5)  The Handling Track is adjusted at the end of the turn just like the Deluxe edition.

(p 9)  Crash table rolls are determined as in the Deluxe edition with a 2d6 roll, but you also get to subtract your driver skill.

The Car Wars Compendium Second Edition (1990)

(p 5)  HC is determined as in the first Compendium.

(p 5)  The Handling Track is adjusted as in the first Compendium.

(p 10)  Crash table rolls are determined as in the first Compendium, but you also add the difficulty of the maneuver or hazard!  Note that this rule more or less cancels out the bonus for driver’s skill that was given in the first Compendium.

(p 6)  A new rule is added that says that weapons that are fired on the same phase as a maneuver subtract the “D” from the roll.

Fifth Edition (2002)

(p 3)  In a bold gesture, HC is now determined by adding the vehicle’s base HC to the driver skill.  No more reflex rolls!!

(p 3)  The vehicles Handling Status is simply reset at the end of each turn– just like the pocket box edition.

(inside front cover)  A streamlined flow chart replaces the two seperate Crash Tables of classic Car Wars.  Driver skill has no bearing on the rolls here– you just add your speed modifier, plus 4 if you are on ice, and plus 2 if you are on oil.

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Also, please note my previous post on the development of the Sequence of Play.

 [Updated to fix errors and links. 1/30/07]

Here’s a cycle to pull the CTS I put together a few days ago.  I’ve downgraded the armor on the sidecar to standard and added a 4 point wheelguard instead.

Light cycle, Heavy suspension, Large Cycle Plant, 2 PR tires, Cyclist.  Armor: F 18, B 15, 2 10 point Cycle Wheelguards.  Acceleration 15, HC 2, 797 lbs, $3,030.

2 space CTS, Light suspension, 1 PR tire, Light Laser in turret, Light Rocket in turret, Light Rocket front, Laser Guidance Link with tuning for both rockets.  Standard Armor: F 1, R 0, L 1, B 1, T 1, U 1.  10 points CA on light laser, 10 points CA on front rocket, 1 4 point cycle wheelguard.  HC 0, 798 lbs, $6,720.

With the sidecar, Acceleration drops to 10, weight goes up to 1595 lbs, and cost goes up to $9,750. 

At division 10, that leaves just enough money left over for some body armor!  You get unlimited ammo, solid accuracy, and good acceleration with this entry– not to mention a fairly heavy one shot punch.

[This design is built according to rules in the Compendium Second Edition.]

I’ve got one of those nifty new gmail accounts.  If you’d like to reply to something on the blog, but don’t want to get an account here, just send your comments to:

autoduelist AT gmail DOT com

(You of course know how to fix that to turn it into an address!!)

Gmail rocks.  It’s ten times as good as the second best free webmail program.  It groups related emails together and hides copied text so that it is a cinch to sift through conversations.  You get 1000 megabytes of storage and you don’t have to click through as much garbage as Hotmail.

Recommended!

Here’s a one-of-a-kind sidecar that never made it into mass production.  This design (and others like it) occasionally turned up in Division 15 cycle duels and also on cycle gang leaders’ bikes. 

2 space CTS, Light suspension, 1 PR tire, Light Laser in turret, Light Rocket in turret, Light Rocket front, Laser Guidance Link with tuning for both rockets.  LR Armor: F 1, R 0, L 1, B 1, T 1, U 1.  10 points CA on light laser, 10 points CA on front rocket.  HC 0, 798 lbs, $6,713.[This design is built according to rules in the Compendium Second Edition.]

Federation Commander: Klingon Border will not be released this Christmas, but has been postponed until spring.  The game will be a streamlined version of Star Fleet Battles that promises to allow for fast playing fleet actions.  As it is the only game to be released anytime soon that is comparable to Car Wars, I really look forward to it.

In related news, the Amarillo Design Bureau is going to be printing GURPS 4th edition versions of their Prime Directive role playing game.  GURPS Klingons should be rereleased by January as well with GURPS Romulans following in February. 

So this is what was I missing for all those years:

** Two (yeah!) zip loc baggies.  (You never can get enough of those!)

** The same counter sheets that appeared in the “pocket box” version

** An extra large counter sheet that contains a second of the aforementioned counter sheets with an extra sheet melded onto the top featuring lots of sharks and scuba divers.  (It was disappointing to get dupes in the set.  If only they had gotten Denis Loubet to do a full sized page!  The countersheets did include one double sided turning key and two single sided turning keys– you can never have enough of those.)

** A yellow ADQ subscription flyer featurning art from the highway duelling issue.

** A 1991 SJG Catalogue featuring remarks from Steve on how they were recovering from the Secret Service attack.  (Man, that guy obviously played waaay too much Illuminati.)  GURPS Supers, Psionics, and Martial Arts were the flagship products of the day.

** A somewhat skimpy rules manual that is more or less a draft of what ended up in the Compendium.

** FOUR mamba jamba geomorphic color water maps with topo lines for islands.

For completists, there was one little surprise.  Just like the trucker slang from Truck Stop and the superhero rules from Autoduel Champions never made it into Deluxe Car Wars, Boat Wars includes one page of rules for the shark and duck counters that  were included with the set. 

Which reminds me, one thing I’d like to see is a REAL Car Wars Compendium that really includes everything that was ever done for the game and that points out the differences between each of the different editions.  IIRC, the Compendium omitted such important items as the flak jacket and the tool kit.  Who do they think they’re fooling, really?! 

The most surprising thing about this supplement was the fact that there was no background material and no scenarios.  That just doesn’t make sense to me.  Chopper Challenge was half the size of this thing and it had about a half dozen scenarios.  There really ought to have been a scenario featuring the gigantic shark counter that was included.  If anyone has any ideas for scenarios using Boat Wars, please let me know.  As far as I know, the only scenarios I have from ADQ are Hoverball and Black Gold Blues– but they don’t use the Boat Wars animals or maps of course.

I went to the gaming store of my youth this past weekend.  Nosing around I found a slightly dented Boat Wars boxed set with the plastic half ripped off.  They did have a few historical war games– less than either of Gary’s Games and The Compleat Strategist– and maybe about a foot of older looking BattleTech stuff.  Over by the miniatures section there was a small crate of marked down stuff.  Inside were a baker’s dozen of SFB modules at more than half off.

The store was pretty busy.  It took a while to get the manager’s attention.  I’ve been buying games from his store for twenty years.  A few of the games that I got into were because of his suggestion– and that includes the Star Fleet Battles “doomsday” Basic Set.  But gone are the days when Car Wars, SFB, and Battletech had places of honor on their own racks.  [Wistful sigh.]

I explained to the manager that Boat Wars had been on his shelf for 15 years and that it was beat up to boot.  I’d picked out several SFB products, too: The Tactics Manual, The Campaign Designer’s Handbook, Module T 2000, J2, and Y1.  He offered to let me have them all for 35 dollars and also to let me take the rest of the SFB stuff for another even 35.  (The second stack included Omega 1, Omega 2, R1, R2, C3, and several Captain’s Logs including the really cool “Return of the Hood” issue.)

There’ve been few store managers as nice and as knowledgeable as this guy.  He still has a brand new copy of R10 over in with the BattleTech stuff, and also some Prime Directive and Traveller stuff over in the GURPS section.  I was glad for the deal, but sorry that there’d probably be no more Car Wars and SFB stuff to buy there in the future.