Savage Road Warriors: Part 2

Combat at High Speeds 

So, you are driving a car at full speed, but the guys behind you are catching up and the guy in the truck next to you is grinning like he's going to ram you. You want to waste those suckers and you want to know the odds, right? 

Combat during a chase works pretty much the same as on foot. The big difference is the speed and the fact that a speeding car is a pretty shakey affair. When attacking from a moving vehicle, you normally need to consider the speed and unstable platform modifiers (as per Vehicular Combat rules). Savage Road Warriors chase rules are less gritty than that, and more cinematic. All the vehicles are traveling roughly at the same pace, so any speed modifiers come into play only under special circumstances (GM's decision). As for the unstable platform modifier (-2), as long as you are trying to hit something like a car or bigger, the size of your target balances it out. After all, it's not that hard hitting a car. For the sake of gameplay, when you are shooting another vehicle during a chase, you only suffer the standard range modifiers (as dictated by the cars' position on the track). Of course, if you are the driver you would suffer the normal multi-action penalty for shooting and driving in the same turn. And, if you are trying to hit something smaller, like a tire or a driver, you take penalties from the unstable platform and possibly even from a Called Shot. All of those stack up, so if you don't have the edges to back it up, it is best to just aim for the car and hope for the best.

Boarding and Melee Combat:

If you think, the drivers have all the fun during a chase - think again. Sure, they get to drive those cool rigs, but sitting in the passenger's seat has it own set of perks. First of all, when not driving, you do not suffer the multi-action penalty when shooting others in the middle of a chase. And, while the driver is busy not crashing the ride, you are free to roam. There might be mounted weapons, or other gadgets in the car you can use, or you just can climb out of the car. Getting on the outside of the car is pretty simple (just requires an action). From there, you can make the fight much more personal. With a successful Dexterity check, you can jump onto and board any car that is on the same track space as you. You can start "on-foot" combat with anyone in/on the same car (narrative permitting). If you do, you get an initiative card and follow normal Combat rules until you get back to a friendly vehicle. Standing on top of a vehicle, gives you a better vantage point, you can target cars that you don't have advantage against. If you are staying on top of a car, the GM might occasionally call for Dexterity checks, especially if the car is hit, going through rough terrain or avoiding an obstacle. On a failure, you loose your footing and fall. Roll for dexterity again to grab onto something. You are now considered prone, unless you climb up with a successful Strength check. If you are not very agile, it might be a good idea to dispose of the enemy driver and take over the car instead.

New Edges:

To better emulate the the high octane action feeling, Savage Road Warriors has few extra Edges available to characters who want excel during the chases.

• Gas Monkey (Novice, Agility d8, Driving d8): You are experienced in boarding vehicles during a high speed chase, jumping from car to car like a monkey. Moving in and out of cars is a free action for you and you automatically pass any Boarding tests (it still requires an action).  
• One Handed Driver (Novice, Driving d8 or Ace): You can drive with one hand and fire a weapon with the other without invoking the standard –2 Multi-Action Penalty.
• Vehicle Focus (Seasoned, Driving d8 or Ace): You are an expert at driving a single class of vehicle (car, truck, bus, etc… ). All Driving rolls made when behind the wheel of your chosen vehicle are made at +1.
• Trademark Car ( Novice, Driving d10): Works as Trademark Weapon Edge, but for a car. You can choose any unmodified ride.

Savage Road Warriors: part 1

Fury Road style car battles in Savage Worlds

Since seeing Mad Max: Fury Road I am on a bit of post-apocalyptic spree. If you haven't seen the movie (and you should, it is one of the best action movies I have seen!), a big part of it are extended car chases/battles in the middle of the desert. One big "War-Rig" truck is fleeing while other factions are trying to take it over. Awesomeness ensues. Long story short, I want it in my Savage Worlds games!

While Savage Worlds has mechanics for vehicle combat, I am not looking for wargame-like arena car mchanics. Fury Road takes place on a long, straight road, it was more of an action packed chase, than a skirmish. Next logical thing, was to look at th chase rules, but both old and new seemed to be missing something. They are great for a simple chase or dogfight, but not detailed enough to be the main event of the session. So, I looked into various RPGs, wargames, board games and even some video games to find the best system to emulate those Fury Road scenes. There are some good ideas in there, but usually on the more crunchy side. Nothing I found suited me better, than the Savage Worlds Deluxe chase rules, but even those were somehow lackluster. Not all is lost though, I found some good bits on my travels through post apocalyptic car games. I think, that with some extra rules, the deluxe chase rules can be as nail-biting, as a good combat encounter. 

I have a feeling, that this topic will span few posts. I want to make the expanded rules first and then add more info about customizing cars within this sub-system and maybe even adding few Edges. It would also be nice if I could compile it all into a nice pdf, fingers crossed for life not getting in the way of that. Ok, enough pondering, now to the rules.

Before we start: 

Read the Savage Worlds Deluxe chase rules and the Vehicles section from the core book (there aren't many changes between Explorer's and Deluxe editions, any of them is fine), especially the stuff about collisions and vehicle damage. There will be some changes to those systems, so make sure you are familiar with them. The aim of this ruleset is not to be a replacement for the generic system found in the corebook, but to emulate a specific type of chase. One where you mostly shoot and ram your way out of the problem. Think more Mad Max and Death Race, than James Bond. Going at full speed, throwing molotovs at the guy behind you so he won't board your war rig. Ready? Then let's check out the track you will be chasing on.

Track:

Photo by David O Miller

There is one big addition to the chase system - the track. It is a simple 6x1 grid (I will make some half-decent graphic in the near future). It is an abstracted representation of where the cars are, relative to one another, not an actual road. Use some counters to represent where the cars are. The car in front is always in the first space on the grid (so if it gains more ground against the opponents, they are just pushed back on the track, in a similar manner how the original chase rules worked) and other cars are placed accordingly. Where you are on the track dictates in what range you are to the other cars. So if you are on the same spot, you are bumper-to-bumper with the other cars on this spot (melee range). One spot away, you are in close range, Two - medium and three - long.

Any more than that, and you can only see the guy, but not do anything about it, unless you get closer. If a car ever goes beyond sixth spot and won't manage to come back to the track on their next turn, they are out of the chase. The track is a small step away from the standard Savage Worlds formula, but I think it is a good addition. I will spend another post talking about it. If, however, you don't want to use a physical track and counters, you can just give each player (and group of NPCs) a d6 to track their current position.

Turn by Turn:

Narrative will dictate how the beginning of the chase looks like. Is everybody starting from the same position (like a race)? Did one side had a head start (and the others are chasing them)? It will also dictate the win conditions: reaching the finish line, stopping a certain car, surviving X amount of turns to reach safety, etc. Setup the placement on the Track according to the narrative and roll your driving dice.

Initiative works the same way as in the deluxe rules. You get a card for each success and raise on your Driving (or other applicable) skill. Just like in the original rules, cards give the driver the advantage (so the driver can only attack the cars with equal or lower Initiative) and an obstacle on drawing Clubs. Unlike the original rules, the card does not decide on your range/position in the chase (this is handled by the track). Card's value dictates how many spaces on the track you can move. Number cards allow you to move up to one, face cards up to two, ace and joker up to three. You don't need to move all the spaces you were given, sometimes, it might be more beneficial to stay where you are, so you have a better access to the enemy. If you don't move any spaces, you are still driving at high speed - everyone is, you are just keeping up. 

After you "moved", you can...

Attack!

Any person in the vehicle can make an attack on any target that they have advantage (the driver had maneuvered) against. The driver (any anyone who aided him in the driving roll ) suffers a standard multi-action penalty (-2) if he wants to attack with a weapon. Additionally, when on the same spot on the track, the driver can attempt to ram his opponent (as per Vehicle rules) without the multi-action penalty (in the narrative, it would be a continuation of his driving). Any passengers, act on the driver's card. Shooting is done with the range modifier based on your position on the Track (I don't use the unstable platform penalty, in my opinion cars are big enough to give you a bonus that would negate that. I would still give the penalty if they want to shoot something human sized). While on the same track spot, melee attacks can be performed (given the characters have suitable weapon) or the enemy car can be boarded (with a successful Dexterity check). Damage works in the same way as in the Savage Worlds Vehicle rules (custom "Out of Control" and "Critical Hit" tables coming soon). 

Winning the Chase:

The terms of winning depend mostly on the narrative, but there is a one sure way that can make you win any chase - disabling or loosing all of your enemies. The former is self-explanatory: deal enough damage to the enemy cars that they can no longer drive. The later, requires the use of Track. If any car starts their turn behind the track (beyond the sixth spot, mostly because other cars got the lead and pushed the remaining participants back on the track), he needs to get card high enough to come back to the sixth spot (which sometimes means moving more than one spot forward). If he fails to do so, he is out of the chase. They are either lost, or left so behind, that they can't catch up any time soon.  

What's Next?

Special tables for car damage that will reference this system. A more in-depth look on the track, and the areas you chase through. Different types of chases (especially goals and winning conditions) and finally extra rules for customizing your car. All of those will spice up this system even more, so stay tuned!

Breaking rules is fun.

Here's an idea. Breaking the rules of a game makes for a better game experience.

Games have rules. Some have few, others have dozens. It doesn't matter if it is a rule that tells you to roll this dice at this time in RPG, or a one that tells you how to move your piece in a board game, or even a equation that limits how high can you jump in a video game. Without those rules there would be no real game to speak of. It would be more of an experience than game. On the other hand, what would it be, if you had rules that everyone has to follow, but each person is allowed to "cheat" in some way? I would call it an awesome game experience.

Let me tell you about two games that you probably never heard about: Monastyr and Neuroshima.

Both Neuroshima and Monastyr are Polish RPG games from Portal Publishing. Before Portal moved to producing board games, they were THE Polish RPG company. Now, while the games differ on many different levels (for one Neuroshima is post-apocalyptic, while Monastyr is XVII-XVIII century inspired dark fantasy), they have very similar mechanics. I won't go into too much detail into the system powering those games. The only thing you should know, that it is a somehow cumbersome mechanic, with quite a few stats and skills and by extent, quite a few rules.

The interesting thing about those systems is that during character creation you are basically choosing two ways of how to "cheat". You choose your birthplace (i.e what country/settlement you are from) and what have you been doing throughout your life (basically a professional background - a soldier or a monk). With each choice you gain a special ability that basically breaks the rules of the game in some way.

You might be allowed to re-roll a die 3 times per session, or you might always succeed in a particular test. You basically change the rules of the game in some way. Because there are so many choices (each background has at least two of those "cheats", you choose one) and you can't get more of those special abilities, it makes each player feel unique and powerful. What I have noticed with those games, that even as I hated the mechanics (I am more of a rules-lite kinda guy), I kept coming back to them because of those special abilities. This got me thinking...

Plenty of other games have special abilities that you can get. D&D has feats, Savage Worlds has Edges, heck, even fate has...what-you-call-them... stunts. But for whatever reason they do not feel the same. Edges, Feats and Stunts don't feel unique and as fun as the "cheats" from Monastyr and Neuroshima. They feel mundane, as a player you expect to have them, they are part of your character build, not something special.

To make those abilities feel special, they have to be almost game breaking and not fit into the existing mechanics. Look at games like Cosmic Encounter or Apocalypse World on the RPG side of gaming. Both those games are popular because of their game altering abilities. Each player can do something that changes the flow of the game. That's not all, both of those games reinforce exclusivity of those "cheats". If you have one alien, or playbook, no one else can have the same (not as true in AW, but it would be like that with a limited number of players). You, as a player, are the only owner of this particular game breaking cheat. You can do something unique that no one else can and that makes it cool.

When I released my 24h game HEIST_ACES one piece of feedback that I got over and over again is to include unique abilities. Now I know why and will work on implementing that in the future. Saying that, I feel that many games can benefit from "cheats" like that. Give each player a special ability or two that can break the standard set of rules in one way or the other and see how much more they will enjoy their character. It will make the games more memorable for the player when they get to use their one of a kind ability. You will vividly remember when you saved the day, because you were the only person who was immune to toxic fumes. Being able to occasional break the rules like that, changes the game into more of an experience. And it's only a good thing.