Cinematic car chase scenes? -- is it possible?
Sonja:
I just watched the 1960s movie Fantomas and was really inspired from the long, dramatic and amusing chase scenes. Reminded me of the endless chicken fights in Family Guy that go from vehicle to vehicle to vehicle. Are there any RPG mechanics that successfully capture these kinds of cinematic chases?
I currently play D&D 4e, and I'd like to adapt some excellent vehicle chase mechanics to have a vehicle chase gaming session.
Sonja
Vulpinoid:
This is the kind of thing that Iwas hoping someone would attempt when I put forward my idea for the GAS project contest.
A series of game mechanisms that would really help to push a very distinct style of scene, whether cinematic, dramatic, comedic or otherwise.
In the end there were only two of us who even attempted the challenge, and most people just didn't get the notion of designing a game mechanism to reflect a specific scene type. Either that, or they were too filled with hubris that their thought their catch-all mechanism covered everything and they didn't need to worry about such things.
As for your specific point, what is it about the "car chase scene" what is it that really grabs you about the concept?
Is it the thrill of the hunt; pursuer dedicating their successes toward getting away from thew hunter, while the hunter dedicates their successes to getting closer?
Is it the chance to see this chase go through specific obstacles? Can I outrun the police vehicle over this frozen lake without the ice breaking under my car?
Is it the emotion running through the drivers minds? Can my girl handle the adrenaline coursing through her veins and the keep a steady head as she swerves her way through traffic?
Really start to think about what it is that motivates your emotions when it comes to scenes like this.
I've played games where a series of contested dice rolls determines the outcome of a car chase. I'll use the terms getaway car and police car in this example, but these could easily be changed. The getaway car has a 1 success head start, then each side gets to roll against a simple difficulty.
If they both succeed, they progress to the next part of the chase scene.
If the getaway car succeeds but the police car doesn't, then the getaway car gets another success ahead. They've made ground on their pursuers.
If the getaway car fails but the police car succeeds, then the police car catches up to them.
This continues through a variety of obstacles with different difficulties reflecting the different types of terrain that the pursuit goes through. If the getaway car manages to get three successes ahead of the police car, they lose the tail. If the police car manages to get ahead of the getaway car, then they manage to catch their prey.
One group really got into the descriptive element of the game, really developing the chase into an epic piece of storytelling. They'd narrate the emotions going through the minds of their drivers as they succeeded or failed on critical rolls, they'd bring stereotypical cliches into the chase just to up the ante bit (eg. old lady pushing stroller across the road, bus pulling across the intersection).
Another group just used it as an excuse to roll dice against one another. My roll, success. Your roll, fail. My roll, fail. Your roll, Success. My roll...
...and that got really boring and didn't give the feel of the chase at all. It was just your standard roll off, much like most D&D combat I've experienced.
If you want to adapt some car chase mechanics to D&D 4e, I'd seriously consider checking out some of the Spycraft stuff reeased a few years ago for d20 Modern. It shouldn't take too much to convert it across.
Just some ideas...
V
chance.thirteen:
Much like a fencing duel (in my mind) the fun I can imagine putting into play is the way the chser and the chasee seems to foce one another into dangerous situations where they test their various abilities against one another. Some are tests of handling, some of nerve, some of toughness of the car, some of speed, willingness to damage things or people in the way, and many of quick thinking and knowledge of the terrain.
I would love to see the same thing for foot races, but it doesn't work in my mind as well, which is a shame as I thought about this first in the contest of a chase in an opening situation for a game.
visioNationstudios:
We've got a 30's game with the editor now that uses two standard decks of cards for any chase scenes (initially for cars, but we realized it worked for any type). The very basic mechanic was that the chaser/chasee were moving around a 60 segment board (which, incidentally, also is used for that game's 60-second combat mechanic).
Cards are turned over simultaneously, a la WAR. Black cards are always good, Red cards are always bad. If a number is turned over, the player moves their pawn n segments in either the positive (black) or negative (red) direction. Turning up a face card generates special effects, like clipping nearby objects, maneuvering in a position to take a shot (or two) at the other vehicle, among others.
We added some special rules for when the vehicles were on adjacent or shared spaces on the board, so they could ram or trade paint. Passengers in the vehicles have opportunity every so often to fire their weapons. And ultimately, the chase ended (or sometimes restarted) when one vehicle crashed or the chasee made it 20+ segments in front of the chaser, effectively "getting away".
Just a thought, but one we've found extremely entertaining. Even had a couple groups at cons that just wanted to play chase scenes as a standalone.
FredGarber:
If your characters have a decent skill/stat/ chance at success in driving? A success based model works. But if the characters lack the requisite skill, it can be sometimes frustrating for the players, and leads to the DM sometimes fudging the roll to extend the tension. One of the things that worked for me is making it about whomever screws up the least.
The idea was each time the driver failed the roll, they had to describe something rotten happening to their car. The worse they botched the roll, the worse it was for the vehicle. I did the same thing for the pursuers, and it allowed the players a little more freedom since they could take more cinematic risks, instead of just making their stakes about winning the Fortune mechanic.
The redcard/blackcard/face card thing sounded great too.
-Fred
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