jeffro
Jeffro's Gaming Blog: Car Wars, Star Fleet Battles, Ogre, Battletech, and more!
I Invented 5th Edition Car Wars
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Sort of.
Back in the days of the first Car Wars Compendium, I became frustrated by how little we played. We had lots of cool designs, of course... but we just didn't run that many duels.
And if we did run a duel, it'd take two hours to get it together once we actually agreed upon the Arena and the Division. And then we'd always find out later that someone had made a calculation error on their design and had 40 more points of armor than they supposed to. Or maybe they forgot to buy ammunition....
Argh!
I decided then and there not to let the complexity and flexibility of the game get in the way of our campaign. I steadied myself and determined to be no longer tossed about by every wind of rules change or Uncle Albert's gadget.
I carefully designed a half dozen Division 10 vehicles and then xeroxed a bunch of copies. Then I called everybody over and we played. Then we played again. A couple of weeks later we got together and played again with pretty much the same set of vehicles.
It was great; probably some of the most real fun we ever had playing Car Wars.
And ten years later, Steve Jackson Games puts my idea into print! (Thanks, guys!) Of course they've gone beyond just doing division 10, but they've fleshed out Division 5, 7.5, and 15 as well. (Did I mention that Division 7.5 was also my idea??)
Anyways... kudos to Steve and company for doing a killer job revising and improving the greatest game of all time. Y'all have done exactly what we needed to get us away from our spreadsheets and into the arena.
Sort of.
Back in the days of the first Car Wars Compendium, I became frustrated by how little we played. We had lots of cool designs, of course... but we just didn't run that many duels.
And if we did run a duel, it'd take two hours to get it together once we actually agreed upon the Arena and the Division. And then we'd always find out later that someone had made a calculation error on their design and had 40 more points of armor than they supposed to. Or maybe they forgot to buy ammunition....
Argh!
I decided then and there not to let the complexity and flexibility of the game get in the way of our campaign. I steadied myself and determined to be no longer tossed about by every wind of rules change or Uncle Albert's gadget.
I carefully designed a half dozen Division 10 vehicles and then xeroxed a bunch of copies. Then I called everybody over and we played. Then we played again. A couple of weeks later we got together and played again with pretty much the same set of vehicles.
It was great; probably some of the most real fun we ever had playing Car Wars.
And ten years later, Steve Jackson Games puts my idea into print! (Thanks, guys!) Of course they've gone beyond just doing division 10, but they've fleshed out Division 5, 7.5, and 15 as well. (Did I mention that Division 7.5 was also my idea??)
Anyways... kudos to Steve and company for doing a killer job revising and improving the greatest game of all time. Y'all have done exactly what we needed to get us away from our spreadsheets and into the arena.
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