"Vehicles as characters" Topic

Have you ever considered playing a game where the vehicle is the character?

Meaning focus of improvements is mostly focused on the vehicle, not so much on the driver/pilot?

Not that the drivers are just components, they make all the decisions, and can change out entire vehicles and continue as the Character.

But the focus of the game is vehicular combat A'la, Car Wars, Battletech and games such as that.

I've played games like that, but they aren't considered RPGs by my group. Real character development happens outside the vehicle, between the things that the vehicle does.

Not to say they aren't fun, but a different group of players tends to be interested in them.

Savage Worlds builds starships using character stats so it isn't difficult to take it one step further.

A 'Cars' version of car wars would be interesting.

I've had players whose vehicles had more personality than their characters.

It is probably a matter Focus, I have been reading Car Wars, Dark Future and related where the majority of the rules are based on vehicle actions rather than people.

There is also the happy little package I received from Angel Barracks today. So I am pondering game with 6mm figures, 6mm really focuses on the vehicles… Which is also a extension of my 6mm skirmish ponderings. Games that are played directly on the ubiquitous quadrille graph paper that so many RPG adventures maps start on…

The vehicle rules in our Toy Battle System game Atomic Super Humans allows you to create a vehicle as its own character or as an accessory to a regular character. Players can choose to use either rule or both for the same game.

I wanted players to have the option of choosing which rule they prefered instead of limiting them to one of the two.

-Ken
Radioactive Press

A 'Cars' version of car wars would be interesting.

My money's on Finn McMissile.

But jokes aside, that could be an interesting campaign if your players could get into the idea.

One of the guys in town was working on a World of Tanks inspired tabletop game. Each player had a tank and they could upgrade it or buy a new tank. Not sure how far he got. He is more modeler then gamer most days.

I had a similar idea involving big motherships in a space game. You start out with a basic loadout and a few escort ships. Each campaign round you can rebuild your escorts, research tech, and install upgrades.

Pictors did you mean the PC vehicles had more personality than the player charecters them selves, or the players had less personality than the cars they drove to the game?

I have met a number of people that had less personality than some of the charecters they played. Sad in a way.

Owen

You could scenarios from knightrider to include the auto-character with a sci-fi flavour .nice idea.

Transformers the RPG?

Could add an interesting twist to games of OGRE perhaps.

Problem was always that as soon as the players strapped on their vehicles, it turned into a big tactical game, with no real roleplaying.

The second question is a rules set.

Any ideas of a good rules set?

Aiming for something not as crunchy as Car Wars or Battle tech. But they will do in a pinch.

Actually, Heavy Gear pre-Blitz or Jovian Chronicles would work, especially if you apply the 'Lemon dice' from the vehicle construction rules.

It gives any vehicle 'character', and can range from minor annoyances like a stale smell in the A/C system to serious problems.

The design rules are a bit crunchy, you need to handle cube roots, but once you're IN COMBAT the system is fast and deadly.

"Could add an interesting twist to games of OGRE perhaps."

There was an article on roleplaying as OGRE AIs in, IIRC, Different Worlds Magazine many years ago.

Besides those mentioned, Star Fleet Battles and the Renegade Legion trilogy offer very detailed vehicles, as complex as any PC in an RPG.

Detailed, yes, but SFB and RL don't really have a good sense of 'character' or 'personality' like the Lemon dice give vehicles in Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles (or Gear Krieg).

Nothing to make any given Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser different from any other, even though no two ships are identical.

This isn't so far out of line with the expenditure of XP to create magical items or consumables with notable in-game effects.

Golems, Magical Swords and Armor, Staves and Wands that hold spells all require XP to be spent by the creator.

Rearrange the theme, and you could easily turn this into armored vehicles with antipersonnel defenses and ranged artillery.

Even though the system is focused on the adventures and advancement of a single character, you could easily put that characters advancement at a standstill and keep upgrading and manufacturing materiel that improves their chances of success.

No it's not, thanks for brining that up. I was pondering costs beyond time and money.

Someone mentioned Heavy Gear as I recall they had a nice mechanic/fluff in that along side the pilot of each Gear there was a non-sentant AI that could gain experience. I always kinda liked that idea.

The only one I can think of is the Tank in the Tank Girl RPG….

I once ran an RPG where one of the players had the role of the ship's A.I. Her body was the ship, but she would project a hologram of herself( EMH style ). She developed a relationship with the pilot ,he linked with her via cybernetic datalinks. Much later things got interesting when the crew bought her a custom bio-android body(that she could download into) from the "Vilibe Brothers"(a Grey version of "The Pep Boys")during the ship upgrades.

@Artraccoon

Was that before the Andromeda TV series? lol

Didn't the old West End Games Star Wars RPG allow you to play as a droid? I had an idea to create a droid brain onboard a PCs ship to give the ship a 'personality' that was another NPC, or even a PC if you were willing to wait out in the landing bay while the rest of the PC's shot their way out of their latest bar fight!