Vehicle Systems in RPG

[DragonChild]

I've got a sci-fi fantasy RPG I'm working on that takes elements from Star Fox, Outlaw Star, Mass Effect, Star Wars, and similiar. In a lot of sci-fi games, people being spaceship pilots, or having crazy vehicle combat is a major element.

How the heck should this be handled in-game? Obviously, if space combat is going to be a major part, it should deserve its own minigame, with everyone able to contribute equally. But how do you carve out seperate niches for characters in this game, and what should the rules be?

I'm thinking that it's important that the game should work "Outlaw Star"/"Skies of Arcadia" style, where every player all has some control over a single ship, or Star Fox style, where every PC, regardless of background, is perfectly able to fly a spaceship - yes, even your loincloth wearing savage psychic girl. I haven't decided which of the two methods I'll use, or even if I'm going to nvolve it at all and not just throw away the idea of space combat. I know I don't want to go the Star Wars RPG route, though, where some players were badass at space combat and sucked in normal combat, and the majority of players have no space combat capability.

Most importantly - what RPG systems can I steal from that do these rules right? ESPECIALLY if no battlemaps are involved, as I wan this playable online.

[Maxus]

Probably one of the best ways I've seen is in Koumei's Dungeon Crusade.

So, vehicles are handled like this: they are essentially animated objects that you control. Their type is Construct, and if they do not move they are flat-footed. If they do move, they treat their Dex bonus as +1 per ten feet moved in that round - so if a vehicle speeds 250 feet up to you, it seriously has +25 AC.

And then you have a vehicle's statblock (which would be 3.x-style), along with any special abilities the vehicle has.

[hogarth]

As folks have noted before, if you have a game that is mostly played at vehicle level, then the vehicles are essentially the PCs, not the crew.

As you pointed out, DragonChild, one solution is to have each PC commanding a ship, or perhaps have each character make one "human level" PC and one "ship level" PC (e.g. when I'm on the planet's surface, I'm playing Ookla the Monk, and when we're in outerspace, I'm playing Indomitable the Star Destroyer). If you try to cram everyone into one ship, you end up with the pilot and the gunner engaged in combat every round while the engineer and ship's doctor sit around waiting for their turn to come up (if ever).

[angelfromanotherpin]

The GURPS Space Opera Combat System isn't a bad place to start ripping off stuff from.

Also, engineers can totally be handing out buffs to other player's actions every turn of space combat by optimizing power flows, pushing the reactor to 105%, and improvising new and incredibly unwise kludges.

Doctors are a little harder to work with off the top of my head, but...

I remember an article about racing cars which was about how much new technology is not allowed to be used in them. That if they were actually state-of-the-art speed machines, they could drive up walls, and the limit of their performance would be the physical tolerances of the driver, and there'd probably be telepresence medicine to keep the drivers monitored and dosed (and resuscitated if necessary).

If the ships actually exposed their crew to those sorts of stresses, having a really good medical team could let you squeeze out all kinds of performance that the other guys couldn't match.

[hogarth]

The GURPS Space Opera Combat System isn't a bad place to start ripping off stuff from.

Also, engineers can totally be handing out buffs to other player's actions every turn of space combat by optimizing power flows, pushing the reactor to 105%, and improvising new and incredibly unwise kludges.

Most of that stuff you listed doesn't involve any sort of tactics, though:
"Vent radioactive gas?" [types] Y E S.
"Sound alertness horn?" Y E S. [it sounds in the distance]
"Decalcify calcium ducts?" Well, give me a Y, give me a...Hey!
All I have to type is Y. Hey, Miss Doesn't-find-me-
attractive-sexually-anymore: I just tripled my productivity!

Maybe it's a matter of choosing between three different choices instead of "Yes/No". Whoop de do.

It boils down to the fact that with one ship, it's like sharing one PC where one player gets to be the legs (pilot), one person gets to be the arms (gunner), and the rest get to be the stomach (engineer) or white blood cells (doctor) or uvula (communications officer). Frankly, there's a reason that Mass Effect and Star Wars only deal with one or two "PCs" at a time -- if we had to spend just as much time watching C3P0 flail his arms around in the cargo bay as watching Han fly the Millenium Falcon, that'd suck.

[Josh_Kablack]

Unless you think you can scrape by with the kludge that is Robot Warriors HERO system vehicle combat, you're going to have to write it from scratch.

And that means starting with some design goals:

First

How many scales do you want.

Obviously you have a human-scale and a vehicle scale. But it's important to note if you have more than one vehicle scale.

A Death Race type game pretty much has 2 action scales - human and car.

A game like Mosepeda / Voltron / Power Rangers / Star Trek has multiple vehicle scales, probably about 3-4 different ones You have human and then powered armor (mosepeda's cyclones) and then shuttlecraft/small mecha (voltron's lions) then large/combined mecha then scenery (which includes starships and spacestations and the like)

A game based on Star Wars or BSG - where large scale fleet are battles meaningful and players are in charge of not just fighters, but the decisions of a carrier or a large chunk of a fleet - probably scales that up with even more meaningful distinctions. You have human then landspeeder/supply cart then x-wing/viper/raider then millennium falcon/raptor/heavy raider then capital ship/battlestar then star destroyer/ressurection ship then death star/colony

Second:

Do those scales interact, and if so how?

In a Death Race game, people in cars have a major advantage, but people at the human scale can still shoot cars up with tommyguns and leap dramatically from car to car in the middle of a high-speed chase firefights

In a BSG-like game, the scales have severely limited interactions and scale differences are very meaningful. A human by themselves cannot meaningfully effect any vehicle within a combat time frame. A human can sabotage a viper-scaled ship if it is parked and unattended. A bunch of human-scale antagonists can spend hours to set up a missile battery which has a chance to shoot down viper or raptor scaled ships - but these take prep time beyond combat.
Generally, within the context of ship to ship combat - a ship can only do notable damage to ships the same size or one category larger. If you attack something more than one scale larger than you, it takes a crazy stunt and you are also limited to taking out subsystems one at a time, rather than the whole ship at once. Thus fighter pilots get tasked with blowing up jump drives or launch tubes or scanners on the enemy carrier / starbase.

In a Star Wars-type game, the scales have massive interaction, but scale differences are of only seeming importance, as Yoda says "size does not matter". With the Force humans can juggle fighters. Snow-speeders trip up and destroy the larger-scale AT-ATs, teddy bears with spears and tripwires destroy a bunch of mecha and a fighter-scale ship blows up the Death Star. There should be minimal penalties for parrying the bombardment of a Star Destroyer with just a couple lightsabers here.

In Voltron / Power Rangers the larger scale always has an insurmountable, but not rapid advantage. Both sides are expected to jump scales multiple times mid-fight. The rule seems to be that you cannot jump to the larger scale until you are losing or your opponent has already done so. You cannot get into your Zords/Lions until you are losing the kung-fu fight. You cannot form the Megazord/Voltron until your zords are hurtin'. and you cannot draw the blazing sword until exactly 6 minutes before the hour.

Conversely, Mosepeda has a similar number of scales, but it's generally impractical to shift scales mid-fight, and it is expected that there will be many asymmetric encounters between mecha and humans with only small arms. In this case it's about guerrilla warfare, so while larger scales have a notable advantage in a standup fight, they have troubles with stealth, and maneuverability which give the smaller scales notable advantages in recon and escape. Also, larger scales tend to have exploitable weakspots, so while they have the advantage, it's not insurmountable. Human scale snipers can pose a potential threat to much larger scale mecha - thereby making recon very important in genre.

[angelfromanotherpin]

engineers can totally be handing out buffs to other player's actions every turn of space combat by optimizing power flows, pushing the reactor to 105%, and improvising new and incredibly unwise kludges.

Most of that stuff you listed doesn't involve any sort of tactics, though:

What the hell, man? It's not a checklist, it's an actual choice every turn. Deciding which function of the ship gets a buff each round, and how much of a risk to take for even bigger buffs, can be just as dramatic and engaging as being the damage-dealer. I mean, the gunner's participation each round can be a lot more engaging than SHOOT ENEMY WITH WEAPONS? Y/N.

[DragonChild]

Ok, so I've given this some thought and heavy research (read: playing Star Fox Assault) and this is what I've come up with.

First - vehicles intended to primarily interact with infantry are not my concern. Motorcycles, armored cars, and tanks will be treated separately. They can easily be statted up as "monsters" or mounts.

Instead, I'm going to focus on the primary cause for my concern - starships, along the lines of Star Fox's Arwings or Star War's X-Wings. These are mainly intended to interact with each other (space dogfights), against large battlestations (either large ships or buildings), immobile defenses (anti-air guns, and tanks count here too), and large "monsters" - think Skies of Arcadia or Shadows of the Colossus style monstrosities that PCs need to jump into spaceships for. While infantry can take down these spaceships, it's going to be in a way very similar to most FPSes - basically, find the heavy rocket launchers or anti-aircraft battery conveniently placed nearby and take your shot.

As to the actual rules. I'd rather PCs each be given an individual fighter, and possibly have a main mothership to protect (again, like Star Fox or Cowboy Bebop). When a PC's fighter is heavily injured, they're able to head back into the mothership and contribute (albiet less effectively) there. This also allows space combat to not be entirely a "If you lose, your character dies and is gone for good."

During combat, there is first a maneuver phase, where each combatant, in reverse initiative order, chooses one target and goes against them. Mobile things such as spaceships roll a "Piloting" check, while immobile things like turrets roll a "Targeting" check. An unopposed piloting or targeting check (you choose someone who is not choosing you) determines how well you can get behind/aim at your foe, and which abilities you can thus use. An opposed one (you choose someone who HAS chosen you) is an actual opposed roll. A "tie" check is basically a pass-through, each person gets a single bad shot. As the roll is further in favor for one person, they get a better position, are able to use more maneuvers, and different abilities.

Obviously, some special abilities and trade-offs will be required. Some of the more important special abilities I have in mind include "Evasive Maneuver", where you give up your attack action, but can roll defensively against everyone targeting you this round - this way, people aren't totally screwed if every enemy gangs up on them (and instead, the enemies will be able to be picked off).

[angelfromanotherpin]

Obviously, some special abilities and trade-offs will be required. Some of the more important special abilities I have in mind include "Evasive Maneuver", where you give up your attack action, but can roll defensively against everyone targeting you this round - this way, people aren't totally screwed if every enemy gangs up on them (and instead, the enemies will be able to be picked off).

Babylon 5 Wars uses a 'Jinking' mechanic, where you use some of your thrust to give you and everyone targeting you an attack penalty. Quality pilots can ignore a certain amount of their own jinking penalty. In this system the amount would be determined when you declare your action, so the people who beat you initiative could see that you were making yourself a bad target and go after someone else if they wanted.

[Josh_Kablack]

Hrm.

Off the top of my head, some potential maneuvers for that sort of system

Piloting tie

• Visual confirmation - gain one new piece of information about your target.
• Arm weapons - gain a small bonus to attack your target on the following round.
• "Don't tell me the odds." - Make a single attack with massive penalties against your target.

Narrow piloting advantage

• Close in - you get closer to your target.
• Widen the gap - you get further away from your target
• Basic barrage - you make either a single attack with moderate penalties or a cluster attack with large penalties.

moderate piloting advantage

• Missile Lock - you gain a small to moderate bonus to all attacks made against your current target for the rest of the encounter
• Shake 'em off - your enemy takes a small to moderate penalty to all attack rolls they make against you for the rest of the encounter
• "Bang" - you may make a single attack with small penalties or cluster attack with moderate penalties
• Wingman - you may safely ignore your primary target. (that is to say the opposed difficulty of targeting you does not change) Choose one ally to use the better of their piloting roll or your piloting roll to determine their available maneuvers and opposed difficulty for this round.

major piloting advantage

• "Dead to rights" - you force your target to take evasive action immediately. (in the case of emplaced targets, think of it as a repair/reload action)
• "There it goes" - restore one disabled subsystem to operational (ie heal your craft)
• "Bullseye" - single attack with no penalties or cluster attack with small penalties

overwhelming piloting advantage

• "Flying rings around 'em" - you may use any two lower advantage options on your target this round
• "I'll take you all on" - apply your piloting roll as a penalty to multiple enemy craft.
• "Gotcha!" Auto-hit with single attack or no penalty cluster attack

and by cluster attack I mean whatever you want to do for multi-round autofire or volleys of multiple missles

[Orca]

If you want everyone involved, making fighters the standard unit in space battles and larger fighting ships just carriers of fighters might work. Perhaps the larger vessels can't dodge and so die easily, and it's what your psychically bonded fighter craft does that matters.

cf. Catherine Asaro's Skolian empire books, or to some extent Star Wars (the movies, not the games).

[angelfromanotherpin]

There's at least one issue of Gold Digger which is all about fighter-on-fighter combat, and includes a lot of mineable material. A system which could do all these things would be awesome.

Graphics behind spoiler tags.

Making people shoot their buddies. Also, certain vehicles have inherent limits, and skilled people can exceed those limits.

More making people shoot their buddies, plus cool/nerve tests to avoid screwing up.

Putting people out of position and confusing them (the proposed initiative system already does a certain amount of this).

And a twofer


Entertaining damage, use of surroundings and improvised solutions.