Ice Missile Earns Two Year Sentence From Jury

Apparently throwing an object from one vehicle at another fits the legal definition of a missile launcher– and anyone caught attempting such will nab a minimum sentence of two years if the judge doesn’t throw it out!

Of course, I find it interesting that the ice maintains it’s forward velocity when its thrown.  It doesn’t just drop to the ground at the place where it went out the window.  It’s just like a motorcyclist who is thrown off and then skids to a stop a long way.  I actually observed something like this the other day when a barrel fell off a truck.  It rolled along in front of my car in the other lane for a several seconds as I slowly begain to gain on it and passed it.

Weird.  I never took physics, so I’m impressed by such things….

But it’s good to know that in some states, a cup of ice is considered to be a micro-missile launcher.  It just goes to show you how paranoid these EDSEL politicians are about giving the slightest inch on our constitutional right to bear vehicular arms.

And You Wonder Why They Don’t Print Author Photos Anymore…

Yeah, I went nuts when I saw the advertisement for the book Game Design Volume 1: Theory and Practice in the pocket-box sized 1984 Steve Jackson Games catalogue.  I showed it to an old dueling buddy and told him how cool I thought it was.  I’d never even seen it on ebay… but somehow, the book ended up in my mailbox a couple of months later.  (Thanks, old friend!)

Anyways, when SJG first started out, they included pictures with the author bios.  Nowadays you just get snarky paragraph or three after the introduction, but in the old days these things were printed right on the covers:

 

Yo Steve!  As much time as I’ve spent playing this guy’s games, it’s funny how few pictures I’ve seen of him.  Maybe that was a good thing if he was going to maintain his status in my subconscious as some sort of Gaming Demi-God.  It looks like he took off his glasses just before they took the photo!

But if you thing that’s scary, check out this Aaron Allston photo from Autoduel Champions:

 

Aiiiii!!!

Okay… maybe taking off your glasses just before a picture isn’t such a bad idea!  It even says next to the picture that Aaron Allston’s interests include “theoretical and applied hedonism.”  Yoiks.  And I always thought that SJG was a wholesome company providing high quality family entertainment….

(And you wondered why SJG never prints author photos….  Heh.  If only you knew… if only you knew….)

Allston has fortunately cleaned up a bit since those halcyon days.  You can see for yourself on his latest Star Wars novels.  He and Battletech author Michael Stackpole singlehandedly wrote the entire X-Wing series!

Police Detective Miles Darrow

I never did pick up a copy of GURPS Autoduel: Car Warriors in all these years.  I imagine the cardboard heroes were pretty cool….  (The single color cover was pretty lame looking next to the other GURPS books, though.)  At any rate, I don’t have a usable set of GURPS characters to use for my Autoduel role playing.  Even if I’m using Roll Two Dice and Pray, it would be nice to have such a resource in order to provide a good range of encounter ideas.

The character below uses several new 4e features that Car Warriors would have lacked.  After getting most of the way done, I realized I had pretty much followed the Investigator template (Characters, p 259) without even looking at it– so I can’t be too far off here.  Note that the Talent allows the character have fairly high gunnery skills without forcing him to raise his core attributes unnecessarily.  (I hated that with 2e GURPS.)  And with the new secondary attributes in 4e, we can craft exactly the kind of image we want for our character: in this case, a fairly tough, out-of-shape guy.   Finally, the character’s patron can provide him with weapons, armor, and even a squad car if necessary.  As I’ve noted previously, this character won’t have to deal with the bookkeeping headache of tracking every single repair and maintenance issue his vehicle entails.

The GURPS stats provide an interesting combination of reaction bonuses that affect his interactions with NPC’s… and his Patron, Duty, and Enemies can (with a few die rolls at the beginning of a game) provide fuel for the imagination.  While GURPS generally blows my mind with its more esoteric material, sticking close to the core “realistic” character driven functionality of its rules provides a lot of power and elegance.  And the character concept it helps you come up with can be ported to any game system.  That’s a nice feature.

Name:   Miles Darrow
Race:   Human

Points: 100

Attributes [85]
ST   11  [10]
IQ   12  [40]
DX   12  [40]
HT   10      

HP   14   [6]
Will 10 [-10]
Per  14  [10]
FP    8  [-6]

Basic Lift  24 lbs.
Damage      1d-1/1d+1

Basic Speed 5.5
Basic Move  4 [-5]

Ground Move 4
Water Move  0

Social Background
TL: 8 [0]
Cultural Familiarities: Autoduel America
Languages: English (Native) [0]

Advantages [50]
Danger Sense [15]
Legal Enforcement Powers [5]
Patron (Police Force, 9 or less) [10]
Police Rank 2 [10]
Reputation: +3 from honest citizens, -4 from criminals [0]
Talent: Vehicular Weapons +2 [10]

Disadvantages [-67]
Alcoholic [-15]
Bad Temper [-10]
Duty (Police Force, 12 or less) [-10]
Enemy (”The Baker Boys”, 9 or less) [-10]
Fat [-3]
Honesty [-10]
Odious Personal Habits (Stinky Cigars) [-5]
Unattractive [-4]

Quirks [-5]
Male Chauvinist [-1]
Hits computer violently when it slows down [-1]
Refuses to discuss x-wife [-1]
Leaves junk-food wrappings on passenger side [-1]
Vehemently opposed to EDSEL [-1]

Skills [37]
Area Knowledge             IQ/E  – IQ+0  12  [1]
Boxing                     DX/A  – DX+0  12  [2]
Computer Operation         IQ/E  – IQ+0  12  [1]
Criminology                IQ/A  – IQ+0  12  [2]
Detect Lies                Per/H – Per-1 13  [2]
Driving                    DX/A  – DX+0  12  [2]
Fast Talk                  IQ/A  – IQ+2  14  [8]
Gunnery (Flamethrowers)    DX/E  – DX+2  14* [1]
Gunnery (Lasers)           DX/E  – DX+2  14* [1]
Gunnery (Machine Guns)     DX/E  – DX+3  15* [2]
Gunnery (Recoiless Rifles) DX/E  – DX+4  16* [4]
Gunnery (Rockets)          DX/E  – DX+3  15* [2]
Guns (Pistol)              DX/E  – DX+0  12  [1]
Guns (Submachinegun)       DX/E  – DX+0  12  [1]
Observation                Per/A – Per+0 14  [2]
Streetwise                 IQ/A  – IQ-1  11  [1]
Shadowing                  IQ/A  – IQ-1  11  [1]
Search                     Per/A – Per+0 14  [2]
Research                   IQ/A  – IQ-1  11  [1]

* Includes +2 bonus from talent

Stats [85] Ads [50] Disads [-67] Quirks [-5] Skills [37]

[This character was designed painstakingly by hand with a beat up second hand copy of GURPS 4e: Characters that has the pages falling out.  Jeffro has got to buy a new copy (along with the character creation software) if he's going to post too many more of these!]

J&D Motors’ Flashback Series

J&D Motors is proud to present the Flashback series.  We’ve looked over hundreds of vehicle designs from the 2040’s and resurrected the best for special limited production runs.  Each one comes with a gold plated vanity plate with the signature of the duellist that made it a classic.  Feel the power of a Best-of-Breed Duelling experience.  Drive a Flashback.

Falchion: Luxury; Extra Heavy chassis; Heavy suspension; Large PP w/SCs; 4 Solid tires.  Driver.  2 linked Anti-Tank Guns each with 10 shots APFSDS ammo; 2 linked Minedroppers each with extra magazines (one R, one L.)  Single-Weapon Computer.  152 pts. Plastic (F: 50 R: 30 L: 30 B: 30 T: 6 U: 6).  Cost: $19,540, Wgt: 6,600, HC: 3, Top Speed: 90, Accel: 5.

[I drove this one back in the day.  She creates more than her fair share of debris for the arena floor and she considers metal armor to be a delicacy.  I never really got much use out of the MD's, though.  The one time I really thought I'd nailed somebody with it I got a real good T-stop demonstration.]

[This vehicle was designed with Compendium 2e rules.  I just noticed something about SPARK's nifty design tool.  If you increase the quantity of a weapon and leave the number of shots the same... then you'll be in deep trouble later.  For instance, in the above design... if slect 2 ATG's with 10 shots, you'll get only 5 shots each for your ATG's....  No, you've gotta increase the shots every time you mess with the weapon quantity.  Grrr.  Now I've got to fix some designs....]

The Vixen: Ready to Rock

Amex proudly presents a new era in Division 10.

Only the Vixen sports this much firepower: dual heavy machine guns with high density rounds.  But we didn’t cut any corners on protection to bring it to you.  With patented Armoplast composite armor, full component armor protection for you and your power plant, and even wheel-guards– you’ll be able to take the heat while you chew them to pieces.

Test drive one today at your local Amex dealer.

The Vixen: Compact; extra heavy chassis; heavy suspension; medium power plant with platinum catalysts; 4 Hvy Duty tires.  Driver.  2 Heavy Machine Guns each with 9 shots HD ammo front.  30 pts. Sloped Metal and 50 pts. Sloped Plastic: F 14/14,  R 8/10, L 8/10, B 0/16, T 0/0, U 0/0. 2 3 pt. Plastic Hubs Front; 2 3 pt. Plastic Guards Back;  10 pts CA on driver, 10 pts CA on plant.  Cost: $9,845, Weight 4,358, HC 3, Top Speed: 90, Accel: 5.

[I've always liked division 10.  A range of tactics are available and the most irritating equipment in the game won't fit the budget.  Here's an experiment to see if the HMG upsets the balance.  To cram the two guns into division 10 I had to sacrifice on tires and armor.  A subcompact might be a better frame for this concept.  The Vixen is vulnerable to flame weapons, but the driver can afford to take a PFE in with him.  It definitely looks like the HMG w/ HD ammo is the spiritual heir to the ATG with APFSDS ammo.  These two weapons are easily more of a threat to game balance than X-ray lasers.  This design was built according to the rules in the Compendium 2e and uses the HMG from Tanks/UACFH.  Special thanks to SPARK for the nifty design tool.]

Purchasing Autodueling Equipment in GURPS 4e

Figuring out how to purchase a car in GURPS 4e can be a little confusing.  There more than one way to do it!  What the best way to do it?  It depends….

First off, you need to set an average starting wealth for the campaign.  Jeffro suggests you go with about $5,000.  It’s a rough setting… and though the citizens have the right to bear vehicular arms, they’re still recovering from civil war and the food riots.

If your character is poor, he gets $1,000 to buy stuff.  That’s plenty of cash for a M.O.N.D.O.!  A struggling character can afford to pick up a cycle or a really cheap car with $2,500.  A comfortable duelist can spend $10,000 on low end car while a wealthy one can easily try his luck in division 20 events with $25,000.  Keep in mind that this money goes not just for his car, but it has to buy the rest of his equipment and pay for repairs and expenses, too!

If you’d like some additional spending money to start your character off with, you can spend points for cash: 1 point gets you $500.  Even though a punk player can take “Poor” with $7,500 at no cost in character points, it will generally be better for you to just spend your points on actual levels of wealth.  On the other hand, that punk player may have a valid character concept if he’s modeling a rough cylclist with a bad reputation and few job prospects.

I think signature gear should only be used in extraordinary cases.  The only example of it that I can think of from ten years of ADQ would be the Foxbat’s super-duper car.  The vehicle is central to his character concept and background… and cinematically speaking it should always be with him; if it’s stolen or anything the character should get a chance to get it back somehow.  Each point here gets $2,500 worth of gear, but I would avoid this as the Signature Gear concept doesn’t generally fit with the Autoduel setting: people generally change cars, upgrade & modify them too much for any of them to ever become “signature.”  Also, the cinematic nature of Signature Gear is rarely implemented given the “roll playing” nature of Autoduel rpg’s.

The last way to pick up equipment is via a Patron.  In this case, the player does not necessarily get to design his stuff; he’s stuck with the “standard issue” of his organization.  He can’t always use the stuff for his personal side adventuring jobs, either.  He might be required to useonly for special missions and assignments for the patron.  On the plus side, the player might get to use totally different gear in each game session and he won’t have to bother with doing bookkeeping on his maintenance costs. 

GM’s can use rank to put a cap on the overall value of the equipment an organization will provide to a character if they feel the Patron’s point cost does not cover the value of the equipment.  For instance, a Rank 0 policement might just get Body Armor and an SMG while riding in the back of the riot van.  At Rank 1, a cop might get use a patrol bike.  At Rank 2 he will get a decent squad car… and at higher ranks he’ll be assigned a hot-rod interceptor or souped-up helicopter. 

Note that in other GURPS genres, equipment and vehicles are sometimes modeled as allies.  This is an unnecessary exercise in an Autoduel campaign: the various costs relating to vehicles are well known and have been worked out since 1981.  There’s no need to introduce a complicated variant for accounting for vehicles in a more character oriented manner.  Now if you were going do something like design all your space ships and battle ‘mechs as characters for your campaign, that’d be a different story.  Otherwise, Jeffro suggests you avoid it unless you’ve got a weird situation where the car, like Knight Rider’s “Kitt”, really is an ally.

Hopefully this will help you choose the right way to get gear for your character.  It’s somewhat complex, but there’s definitely an option there no matter what kind of character you want to play.  And it all works more or less out of the box….  Wealth levels, extra cash, patrons, and rank give you all the flexibility you need to capture the essence of your character’s vehicle assets.  And with the case of the patron approach, you can even a eliminate a lot of the accounting associated with managing vehicles in a campaign. 

Early Changes in the Movement Rules

After taking a close look, there are quite a few key rules that changed in Car Wars between the version 3.0 pocketbox rules and the Scott Haring Deluxe Edition revision.  Most of the big changes that came later had to do with making advanced versions of the sections of rules that were originaly just glossed over: the collision rules, the incendiary rules, the grenade rules, the encumbrance rules.  All of these subsystems would later get supersized into advanced editions, but its often the little things that have the bigger impact on the flavor of a game.

Debris was a much bigger deal in the early version of the game: it caused a D2 hazard instead of the D1 of the later editions.  And almost any collision could cause a whopping D4 hazard to both parties.  These two rules can make it a lot harder to keep all four wheels on the road!

Perhaps the biggest change is in the Crash Tables.  I didn’t notice this back when I reviewed the development of the key  maneuver rules, but the Crash Table was originally a 1d6 affair even up to the Deluxe Edition.  (It wasn’t until the first compendium that they switched to a 2D6 table.)  This can obviously have a huge effect on the outcome of your crashes; it makes the soul-numbing “Roll and Burn” a much more likely event!  On the other hand, if you are using the Deluxe rule of subtracting your Driver skill from your Crash Table rolls, then skill can go a long way toward ameliorating the problem. 

I’ve played by the Compendium 2e rules religiously for the past while, but this discovery makes me think that the original relex roll system and the “1d6″ crash tables with subtracting driver skill are a satisfactory approach to running the a game.  There was still room for improvement… but I don’t think that Compendium 2e had the best solution anymore: they clearly dropped the ball when they moved Driver Skill back to being practically meaningless in a crash.

Evil Stevie’s State of the Union Afterbirth

The big news from Steve Jackson’s latest address to the masses is that Munchkin will continue to dominate the efforts of the company for the foreseeable future.  The tongue-in-cheek card game accounted for over 55% of sales in 2006… and Steve reported in a recent message board post that he is hard at work on Munchkin 5.  He also remarked that in this new year, the company will drop everything at the first sign of a shortage in Munchkin product.  Letting Munchkin go out of print is like “leaving money on the table,” he noted.

Many GURPS fans got their panties in a wad at the news of what was to come for their favorite role playing game this year, but the fine print bears looking into.  Two new hardbacks are on the plate for 2007… including a third that was slated for 2006.  It would appear that the company has officially given the “240-page hardback every other month goal” the royal flush.  [Note to Editor: please cut and paste 'Cut and Run' joke #47 here.]  But don’t forget that the company plans on producing about as many online pdf pages for GURPS products ranging in a variety of sizes.  This e23 component can potentially double the amount of new GURPS material released in 2007– unless of course Munchkin sales rage out of control.

That said, what are the upcoming GURPS releases?  Marketing Director Paul Chapman recently stated that GURPS Ultra-Tech should ship in February and that GURPS Martial Arts likely to be released in the second quarter.  He also pointed out that e23 PDF releases in 2007 are likely to include “projects by David Pulver, Phil Masters, William Stoddard, and Sean Punch, covering everything from Infinite Worlds to supers to dungeons.”  GURPS Line editor Sean Punch has stated that he’d be editing High-Tech while Steve is editing Thaumatology– which will probably lead to High-Tech coming out first what with Steve having to do all of the boring run-the-company sort of stuff all the time.  Thaumatology might squeeze into 2007, Munchkin sales permitting. 

Should the GURPS fantasy gamer contingent be upset about such a perceived slight?  Not at, all, says Punch:  “Since 2004, fantasy fans have received Banestorm, Fantasy, and Magic… Fans of realistic historical gaming haven’t even received a crummy T-shirt, so it’s only fair that we give them High-Tech.”   If that doesn’t satisfy the fantasy crowd, then there are reports of a memo leaked from the Austin offices that Steve Jackson will begin confiscating power stones if he hears any more complaints.

And speaking of complaints, where is Ogre and Car Wars in all of this?  Yes indeedy, a couple of whiners have been heard on this point… nay, I say unto you, lo some have even gone on to write long winded heart-felt pleas.  Is Munchkin-mania a scourge and a plague upon our favorite gaming company stifling work on the fans’ favorite games?  Perhaps not, says Paul Chapman.  “The current situation is no different than the period when the entire SJGames staff focused on nothing but INWO, or the ‘all Car Wars, all the time’ era before that….  We’d all love to see Ogre (and Car Wars) returned to print, and succeed in a major way. However, the numbers (our income vs. our staffing levels) simply aren’t in support of such a move at the moment.”

This Gwak’s Me More Than It Gwak’s You

Cruising the Division 20 field and putting the “death” back into death sports, the Warthog has been seen more and more as the vehicle of choice of the most sadistic and brutal duelists in the Atlantic Coast Conference.  Drivers of the car are racking up an impressive amount of kills… yet a startling number of them are literally going out in flames of glory.  It remains to be seen whether the “Greho’gwak” special has staying power or if it is just a passing fad.  For the present, the car is certainly contributing to a minor cleansing of the gene pool.

Gothmog’s Refried Honey Glazed “Warthog” Killomatic Special: Sedan; Extra-Heavy chassis; Improved suspension; Large PP w/PlatCats; 4 PR tires.  Driver.  5 linked Heavy Machine Guns each with 7 shots HD ammo front.  Sloped Plastic Armor: F 56, R 25, L 25, B 30, T 5, U 5; 2 6 pt Armored Wheel Hubs front, 2 6 pt Wheel Guards back, 10 pts CA around driver; 10 pts CA around plant.  Cost: $19,831, Wgt: 6,100, HC: 3, Top Speed: 90, Accel: 5.         

[This design is made with Compendiun 2e rules and the ever popular HMG from Car Wars Tanks.  With HD ammo it became the only one-space/two-die weapon in the game... giving this sedan a frightening potential of 10 dice damage per second.  The car is ineffective against large amounts of metal armor... and incendiary weapons could provide the key taking this car out. Note that even if its front armor is breached a few times it is likely to retain a respectable amount of weaponry.  Special thanks to SPARK for the nifty design tool.]  

[Update: This vehicle had been revised due to a misunderstanding of the SPARK design tool: I inadvertantly gave just it 10 rounds for all 5 weapons-- enough for two salvoes.  Loading it up with 7 shots per gun forced me to cut back the wheel guards and switch to PR tires, so squeaking into Division 20 with this thing may not be the best idea.  It might work better as a division 25 concept....]

Mitsui Yamani: A Superior Driving Experience

I drive a Yamani.

I know, I know… it’s been really unpopular to by these Japanese makes for quite some time, but I’m telling you, they’ve nailed this one.  The Shuriken is ancient history, buddy.

You wouldn’t believe the ‘charge mileage this thing gets.  She’s not as sporty as some, but she’s got it where it counts.  She can really haul it if you need to get out of a sticky situation.  The trusty HMG gives me the power of a Vulcan without the bulk.  There’s plenty of ammo there to take care of those annoying romantic yahoos that think that they can pull off the whole cycle gang thing anymore these days.

But what I like best about the Yamani is the rockets.  3 of ‘em, man!  See, that’s what I can’t stand is the dweebs that are pulling onto the freeway.  There’s like nobody for a mile in front of you… and nobody for a mile behind me.  (And I’m in the slow lane because I know better than to get in the way of the hot rod set.)  But there it is… some dude in a pick up matches speeds with me and starts pulling into my lane almost right on top of me.  I can’t stand that!  I’m not the most trigger happy guy around, but I’m sorry… that’s an immediate point-blank shot with 3 armor piercing heavy rockets into the guy’s left armor right there, man.

Funny though… ever since I started driving a Yamani, I really haven’t had to do that….  (Must be our reputation….)  I’m tempted to replace the rockets with fakes and trade them out for extra cargo space, but you know… I just might need to make and example out of somebody. 

Not that the Yamani doesn’t have plenty of space.  What’s the deal with all those cars on the market that have, like, no passenger space whatsoever?  Do they think we’re all teenagers or something?  The Yamani has all of this offensive capability, all of this acceleration… and I’ve still got room for my wife and the two kids. 

But you know, it’s not so practical that I can’t take it into the arena every now and then.  Shoot… just upgrade the computer to a Hi-Res and maybe throw in a little Flame Cloud Discharger and I’m ready to burn it up at division 25.

You just can’t beat it, my brother.

You know… I’d almost go so far as to say that my Yamani is one of the best things that ever happened to me.  My commute is so much more care free now….  I love this car.  (Aw shucks… I’m, tearing up.)  Excuse me, guys… I think I’m going to go take a spin in my new Mitsui Yamani.

(Disclosure: Mitsui provided Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog with a complimentary Yamani in December, 2006.)

Mitsui Yamani: Sedan; Extra Heavy chassis; Heavy suspension; Sport PP; 4 Solid Steelbelted tires.  Driver, passenger,  Heavy Machine Gun with 15 shots HD ammo in Universal Turret; 3 AP Heavy Rockets linked Right,  Targeting Computer.  Plastic Armor: F 40, R 25, L 25, B 35, T 25, U 10; 2 10 pt. Plastic Armored Wheel Hubs Front; 2 10 pt. Plastic Wheel Guards Back; 10 points CA around driver and cargo area.  Cargo: 2 spaces, 140 lbs.  Cost: $21,830, Weight: 5,980, HC: 3, Top Speed: 120, Accel: 10 (with up to 20 lbs of cargo.) 

 [This design was built with material from Car Wars Compendium 2e and the HMG from Tanks.  Special thanks to SPARK for the nifty design tool.]