Racing RPG?

[Belgian Problem]

I was considering trying to create a type of RPG Racing Roleplay in the same vein as D&D, however I'm concerned if such an idea can even work.

Races would be rolled for and calculated based off driver skills and the car's ability, with players being able to race eachother in a semi-realistic way.

Thoughts on such an idea? Working out the systems might be pain, and if anyone has any ideas i'm all ears.

[Saarath]

How much does this advisory role pay, do I at least get medical?

[Hayter]

Good idea... on paper

[=CrimsoN=]

Superfluous님이 먼저 게시:

Good idea... on paper

^This. In reality your audience would be too broad. People play racing games because they like racing games. People play D&D based games because they like D&D based games. I don’t see how those genres could cross because they are 2 very distinct genres. D&D type games with the d20 system are almost always turn-based. I don’t know any real time d20 games. Even stuff like kotor that uses the d20 system and appears real time only has the animations playing in real time but has a lot of behind the scenes stuff that occurs through turns.

I just don’t see how it could work for a racing game, which are never turn-based.

[628]

Not sure if race-rpg concept works great on "realistic" race game. I think that rather suits for so-called "kart racing" such as Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing.

[Belgian Problem]

K3-27님이 먼저 게시:

How much does this advisory role pay, do I at least get medical?

Only for the lower half of your body.

Just so everyone is aware, i'm not planning to make a game nor am I looking for help. This would be purely like D&D, and I will likely implement it on a discord server with some RP friends I have.

It's the same kinda idea of people simulating sports, like football and baseball. The simple foundation of it is that races are simulated via dice rolls to determine the outcome of actions, such as cornering and braking.

I plan to work on the system itself at a later date.

[HypersleepyNaputunia]

rocket league - cars soccer
could work

[DRUNK_CANADIAN]

It would be unique thats for sure..,...but successful.....I dunno somehow doubtful those genres would mesh......
....would prolly buy it if it was polished and reasonably priced tho

[=CrimsoN=]

Belgian Problem님이 먼저 게시:

K3-27님이 먼저 게시:

How much does this advisory role pay, do I at least get medical?

Only for the lower half of your body.

Just so everyone is aware, i'm not planning to make a game nor am I looking for help. This would be purely like D&D, and I will likely implement it on a discord server with some RP friends I have.

It's the same kinda idea of people simulating sports, like football and baseball. The simple foundation of it is that races are simulated via dice rolls to determine the outcome of actions, such as cornering and braking.

I plan to work on the system itself at a later date.

Oh, in that case, yeah it sounds workable. You may need an DM expert though to fine tune the game rules if you haven’t DM’d yourself.

[Thlormby]

That sounds like it takes all of the fun of racing away. Racing games are usually supposed to be about your skills navigating a track, staying ahead of your competition and avoiding hazards.
Unless you're doing some sort of alternate/future racing league where there's weapons involved and all kinds of modifiers, this sounds really boring. I've played a game that roughly has the same concept that you're describing. You don't actually race, but victory is determined by a number of factors (Upgrading driver skills, adding parts to your car, etc) and it wasn't really that fun.

[Meneluma]

I can see it going in the same way trading card anime plots go with tournaments, rivals, drama, that sort of thing, expect for racing instead of cards, yeah it's stupid what you expect from that kind of idea?

Also, D&D is not the end all for all tabletop content, you can't make anything work in D&D systems, it was made to work as its own thing, sure some derivatives exist from its mechanics, but way too often people try to go for ideas which would be far more easily handled by other game systems.
Like every time someone tries to make a full on realistic war in D&D making threads about it, generally someone just suggests running a more suitable for big wars game like Warhammer to do the job.
Like D&D is more geared towards battling, loot and that sort of stuff, not nearly as heavy leaning on the social elements and roleplay if one bad roll can screw everything up, other TTGs may actually feature less combat and incentivize not fighting.
So you're not really going to convert a battling system into a racing one so easily.
DMing is as hard as it is, do you really wanna put in dozen of hours prototyping and testing the systems only for the ground to get bored after the first session and not wanna play anymore?

[Snow]

Yeah, screw D&D. World of Darkness racing game with werewolf cars and vampire cars and whatnot - now that's something new for sure!

[Belgian Problem]

D&D is merely an example to explain how it'll be focused on dice rolls.

[🍋 Lemonfed 🍋]

that remind me and old Racing game on the turbo graphic 16 that was kind of a mashup between an arcade racer and a jrpg like Dragon quest ... I think it was Final Lap twin.

[////]

it's not impossible, it's just that both areas (cars and tabletop rpg's) are enormously large and it would be very hard to exclude elements which people value in them.

in other words, if you doubt your idea so much you don't have an idea.

[Crac]

The turn based nature, simply isn’t an issue because the game remains one of incomplete information, exploration, communication and role-playing. It makes zero difference if the vehicle-mechanic has to jury-rig a repair job in the next 10 seconds or over the next 10 hours, what matters is what happens when the next check is called for the dodgy or wounded or broken system and that the clock is already ticking so there is no time to fix everything!!!

The point of tabletop games is to include as many people in the madness as possible. You don’t get to watch a fight in my games, equally there would be no spectators in my racing games!



A racing mini game within a pen and paper RPG can be done, there are two examples.

1. Acquisition Incorporated raced dinosaurs in Chult during “PAX West 2017”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EjmO4cN3-U
Starts around 53 mins, runs to 1h:24, but watch the whole thing.

2. I also remember “Star Wars Living Force - Among The Stars - LFA105 - The Price of Business”
A Star wars D20 stand alone adventure. An ~18 page ‘book’. If anything I would say it’s a better example of fantastic story telling.

3. A number of games also have some kind of predator-prey chase mechanic. Star wars D20 has this: In original concept, the prey starts with one or two points of lead. If the prey earns 5 points of lead they escape. If the lead becomes 0 the prey is caught. Points of lead are won or lost via contested rolls or rolls vs a static DC which represents obstacles. This idea could also be used for a light sabre duel by using a start of 3 points and requiring a lead of 6 to win. Or used as a mass combat rule while the heroes are running a covert operation against both that distraction and the ticking clock which might erode the advantage of this distraction.


Asking a player to roll a D20, sticking a modifier on it and calling the positions of the pack isn’t going to make a great game and I doubt it’s going to be that exciting after about 6 or 8 times, so it’s not a turn by turn play. Rather is it a story or action sequence with a number of discrete scenes. It might be possible to make a mobile game by simply automating 6 rounds in rapid succession, through enough lights and sounds about and calling a winning 30 seconds later. ( I am available for consultancy and as a race engineer. )


But for tabletop, the preparation, organisation, exploration and communication are what makes the above adventures work! And why watching the full video of PAX West 2017 should be strongly encouraged.

The science fiction setting involving a spaceship with half a dozen quirks plus half dozen life threatening hazards is a masterpiece of writing and creates an exciting and memorable game.

Having A LOT of other crazy and nefarious deeds going requiring the whole team to chat, think, cheat and tinker behind the scenes also provides much excitement. So again full circle watch the full video of PAX West 2017. The anticipation of well laid plans is amazing.




Trying to go down the simulation route with role play seems like a really really bad idea... But too interesting a challenge to completely ignore.

Here is my concept: Rate each car out of “100 points” based on subsystems. If you like, you can think of this as the average speed the car goes through a section. We can play with the detail later, depending on the setting.

I would propose a typical car would be around 40 points out of 100. While a good starting car for the players would be 40 + 3d10 ( 56 points ). A minimum for the system would be around 30 points, and there is no limit for what the maximum could be.


Optional: “Inception Rule” We could roll for the components using the same 40 + 3d10 idea, then divide by ERM ERM “6” now then round if needed and sum all the parts?

Engine: 55 ( 55/6 = 9 )
Aerodynamics: 57 ( 57/6 = 10 )
Weight savings: 61 ( 61/6 = 10 )
Handling: 52 ( 52/6 = 9 )
Tyres: 64 ( 64/6 = 11 )
Staff: 66 ( 66/6 = 11 )

Total: 60 ( 60 = 9+10+10+9+11+11)

So above average, since: 40 + 3d10 has an average of 56.5.


Inception… Part 2: Some detail.

Aerodynamics affects acceleration, centre of pressure, cooling, lift, top speed

Let’s defines these in game terms.
Acceleration: Engine +1, Tyres +1
Centre of pressure: Handling +1, Tyres +1
Cooling for engine, transmission, brakes and dampers: Engine +1, Handling +1
Lift: Handling +1, Tyres +1
Top Speed: Engine +1

And tally the totals:
Engine: III
Handling: III
Tyres: III

^ hehehe, too good to be true. Moving on.


Weight Saving/Engineering: Is the car competitive or too heavy. Weight affects EVERYTHING and it REALLY significant… It wouldn’t be a stretch just to copy the perks above.

Engine: III
Handling: III
Tyres: III

*cough* “it’s like magic I tell you.”


Staff: There are just as many parts in a production, lowest tiered and highest tier motor sports machines. Having the right engine builder, the right mechanics and the right race engineer is crucial to success.

Engine: III
Handling: III
Tyres: III

( I don’t really want a third layer of inception that interacts with the second layer… )



Revision 2:

Engine: 9+10+10+11 => 40 => (40/2 = 20)
Handling: 9+10+10+11 => 40 => (40/2 = 20)
Tyres: 11+10+10+11 = 42 => (42/2 = 21)

Total: 61 ( 61 = 20 + 20 +21 )


Based on the revision 2, and revision 3… I would keep tweaking things and changing the rules like the 40 + 3d10… Because I might just use the above stats for Strength (engine), Dexterity (handling), Mind (tyres)… So 12 + 1d10 for each??



I started with: Car + D20 + player’s modifier. ( I don’t know what you want for that last part. )

-Crucially: I don’t want Han Solo outrunning an imperial star destroyer on a broomstick!

The second thing, I want to keep the D20 system as a binary system. You roll and BOOM you know if you’ve made it or failed. With this in the back of my mind, here is another suggestion.


Execution: Fearing crunchy maths, I would provide a lookup table and roll percentiles.
I’ve added a sample at the bottom via link.

I would use a standard curve for example “14d3-28”. While obviously there should be a range of results from -14 to +14, I truncated these to only -7 to +7 given there is only ~1%?? chance of a “7” and rarer results are; both less than 0.5% which doesn’t round, plus a waste of the game master’s time!

:)

Note how average of the dice is zero. So basically turning the game into: 14d3-28 + combined modifier. Dropping the D20, means I/we gain a lot more wiggle room good for a narrative system.

I’m not sure how I want to balance the pool mechanic say in terms of average speed vs how much of a narrative mechanic of interpreting the pluses and minuses. But I think both are better than D20 in this case.


If all the players and NPC where with ~15% of each other *cough* it should work really well. But having too much competition means the winner would need to have an extreme bias.


For a pure racing game ( one player per car ) I would give hand outs to players and have them rolling the percentiles for an NPC. Assigning players would also allow cars to become wounded, which I wouldn’t need to track. This damage mechanic could allow the PC to easily past all the limping carnage, with only a few easy skill checks and less risk of damage.



Here is a sample:
https://docdro.id/5MqY5Yd
https://www.docdroid.net/5MqY5Yd/sample.ods