Keeping the vehicles as rules-light as possible yet maintaining some level of realism has been the goal of the design so far.

The game mechanic runs on the comparison of character attributes (with skill bonuses) and the generation of a target number from that comparison.

This target number needs to be equalled or rolled to or under on a d20 to generate a success.

The operation of vehicles and artillery is done by a series of skills, such as the Pilot skills (e.g. Pilot Tank, or Pilot RDC) that refers to the character's ability to control that vehicle. Sensors (covering things like navigation, communication and locating targets) and Gunnery skills are separate again, but ultimately the vehicle control is boiled down into three skills:

Pilot, Sensors and Gunnery

Piloting is really only tested when the character tries to do something either a) at high speed or b) the manufacturer never intended.

It is assumed that the character can control the vehicle without incident until it passes its Cruising Speed, at which point it loses stability and greater skill is required.

Evasive action is a CVM (Combat Vehicle Manoeuvre) and is anything you can think of to avoid incoming gunfire or missiles, e.g. bootleggers, emergency stops, dives, rolls, etc, and is almost identical to a CAM (Combat Action Manoeuvre) performed by characters.

This requires a specific test of the character's skill against a difficulty number (set by the speed of the vehicle, the terrain and its handling abilities and condition) - a CVM can be made at any time and any speed, and does not fall under the 'no-check-if-Cruising' rule.

Sensor checks are one of the areas where I've done very little work. At the moment, aside from listing a few different systems for communication and target identification, I have only ideas. As with the Piloting, it would mostly be a series of modifiers that form a difficulty number for the player to compete against (affected by terrain, distance, weather and possibly defensive or evasive manoeuvres from any parties wishing to avoid sensor location).

Gunnery operates identically to ranged combat among characters - the character's skill against an accumulation of modifiers on range, visibility, target size and movement.

The most immediate failing I can see with the system so far is the accumulation of modifiers that make the difficulty number.

For example, firing a shot from a moving vehicle at another moving vehicle could potentially involve a modifier from each of the following tables:

Aggressor Speed
Defender Speed
Aggressor Terrain
Defender Terrain
Target Range
Target Visibility
Target Movement (evasion)
Target Size

If that wouldn't bring a tense combat situation grinding to a halt, I don't know what would.

The problem is the vehicle rules are a very early incarnation of the game, and long-overdue for an overhaul.

But then, that's why I'm here.

I have just cut off a little excess fat while I was looking at the tables.

Instead of Aggressor Speed and Defender Speed being separate tables, I've amalgamated them into Disparate Speed, so if they're moving away from or towards each other the two vehicles will suffer more of a penalty, but if they're keeping relative pace, the shot will be easier.

I've also removed Defender Terrain - it doesn't matter whether the other vehicle is bouncing or rattling - it won't make enough of a difference to throw off the shot.

So...the tables currently stand as follows:

Disparate Speed:
01-50kph --------------0
51-100kph--------------+3
101-200kph-------------+6
201-300kph-------------+9
+301kph----------------+12

Aggressor Terrain:
Rough------------------+3
Very Rough-------------+6

Target Range:
Point Blank------------0
Optimum Range----------+3
Long Range-------------+6
Extreme Range----------+9

Target Visibility:
Poor-------------------+3
Very Poor--------------+6

Target Evasion:
CVM--------------------+6
Dual CVM---------------+3

Target Size:
Small------------------0
Medium---------------- -3
Large----------------- -6
Huge------------------ -9

Not all of these modifiers are relevant to every situation and I've tried to keep things fairly nebulous and let the GM tweak the scores as best reflects the situation.

So, a character with a modest Gunnery skill of 7 trying to shoot an enemy tank at long range in poor weather while going over rough terrain would have a difficulty number of 9 (+3 Rough Terrain, +6 Long Range, +3 Poor Visibility, -3 Medium Size).

This would generate a Target Number of 8 or less on a d20.

There are systems onboard most of these combat vehicles that help counter some of these effects - MarksMN, for example, negates any speed or terrain modifiers (the computer system calculates parabolic arcs and trajectories, etc, to compensate for the bouncing and rattling of moving vehicles).

So the same character taking the same shot with a MarksMN system installed would have a Target Number of 11.

Hi,

Thanks for posting all of this stuff about the vehicle rules in No Quarter. It kind of leads me to a some questions:

Is there a point in the game where it ceases to be an RPG (in the normal sense) and becomes a tactical level (skirmish) wargame? In many cases, comprehensive vehicle combat and chase rules are unecessary. the function they serve could be easier handled by something far more simple. However, in the case of NQ, you explicitly state that the game will be 'semi-tactical'. So, is it worthwhile to look at your vehicle combat rules as a small wargame within the overall structure of the RPG?

This leads to the thought: would it be worth having a point in the game where it ceases to be an RPG and moves into the tactical wargame arena? e.g.: The PC group wishes to infiltrate an enemy base. To do this they must fight their way across rough terrain, with armed opposition in the way. It would be cool to make this part of the game more tactical, with each player controlling a small unit (or collectively controlling a small number of units) in the battle that ensues. Their objective is to get the characters to the base. When they reach the base, the game pops back in to roleplaying mode.

Simple maps and drawings would probably suffice for this, no need for miniatures and so on. And thinking on, which not scale up to the strategic levels as well: prior to the assault, the group must take the role of the overall command staff and see how what they players characters will eventually do fits in to the overall strategy for an ongoing conflict.

A game which operates on the personal/tactical/strategic level is Burning Empires by Luke Crane. it might be worth checking out as an example of how you can integrate tactical and strategic elements into a RPG and still maintain a flow of play around the table.

I hope this is useful in some way to you.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

I see where you are going with this, but it's perhaps a bit of a departure from what I wanted to achieve with the game.

I'm trying desperately to keep the scale of the conflicts small enough for the players to count - for their contribution to carry weight. One of the reasons the PCs are commandos and not regular infantry is because I wanted to isolate them from the general thrust of the battle and give them specific mission goals, i.e. you must blow up this bridge, you must extract this scientist, you must infiltrate this facility.

Perhaps my use of the word 'tactics' has delusions of grandeur. There will be the necessity to think about the mission parameters and devise a plan to complete it - the lethality of most of the firearms means that the PCs can't afford to get caught out in the open ala spaghetti western face-off.

They have to use ambush skills, decoys, stealth, suppressing fire, available cover, grenades, silent kill skills and so on - they will always be up against superior numbers and can't take the head-on guns-blazing approach.

There will also be a number of NPC 'redshirts' taking part in most of the PC commando units - primarily there to lug the necessary kit and demonstrate that war is indeed hell by dying frequently during the fire-fights.

These men and pretty much any other low-ranking infantryman can be given orders (the PCs should be fairly high up the NCO chain of command), and in a few scenarios they may well have a greater influence over the tide of the battle.

What I wanted, though, was to put the players right down on the ground level, Private Ryan style - with the bullets zipping past their ears and skipping off the bricks and the very real threat of getting offed at an inopportune moment.

As cool as your concept of a multi-tiered approach to the overall battle-plan is, I feel it would remove the players from much of that intimacy and immersion.

Besides which, it feels a bit like a step away from RPG and towards table-top wargaming, which is something else entirely.

There will be innumerate satellite maps and bunker layouts and so on to get a good picture of where the PCs are and where they have to get to, but if possible I'd like to do it all through their eyes, down in the mud.

I also take your point about the relative intricacy of vehicle rules when this is an area that will be seldom explored through the players' gaming lives.

Unfortunately, that's just me. I'm constantly having to draw myself back from over-crunchifying the rules. The first incarnation of this game had location-specific damage tables for something like nine or ten different forms of injury, that charted things like tissue damage, blood loss and broken bones.

It did actually work, but was IMPOSSIBLY slow in a combat situation. What should have been a quick and rather arbitrary death by a bullet became a 12-minute oddessey of frowning over tables and muttering under one's breath.

The way things seem to go with me is they start out with huge elaboration and detail and are gradually boiled down by degrees to something several orders of magnitude smaller.

Hopefully, the vehicle rules will be no exception.

That's totally cool. It's always good to have clear design goals and be able to set out what exactly you want from the game.

It seems that tactics and planning form a large part of the game play in No Quarter. So, other than being able to set out what they are going to do in a given mission and so forth, do the players get any mechanical advantage from planning, engaging in tactical decisions and so forth? As an example (and bringing the discussion back towards the vehicle rules):

The players have worked out how they will assault a target, they have chosen vehicles and equipment for the job, noted their tactics on a map, assigned each others roles and so forth. As a result of all this planning, do they receive any advantage when assualting their target? Is this purely up to the GM, or is there a formalise way of working how how good their planning is? Like a series of questions, a 'tactical checklist' that they use for planning purposes. The more detail they give, the greater the potential advantage. And on the flipside, they could go for a total, balls out, random attack. What would be the consequence sof that?

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

I'm not sure how I'd go about designing a game mechanic that had the effect you discussed - I wouldn't know how to give the players a mechanical advantage to the scenario other than roleplaying out the effects of their plan.

For example, the characters might be tasked with getting into an enemy installation, grabbing their captured colleague and getting him out as quick as they can.

Let's assume they decide to use a vehicle because of it's greater speed and them not knowing the condition of their colleague (whether or not he's capable of a fighting retreat over 10 kilometres of rough terrain).

If, for example, the characters chose an RDC to swoop into the encampment and load up their colleague, perhaps sending in one man to set an explosive distraction on the opposite end of the complex to misdirect the enemy's attention, that might well give them a big enough window to get in and out before any serious resistance could be organised against them.

Perhaps they'd take a fast ground transport, fit a plough on the front to smash through the enemy gate and place a couple of snipers on the ridge with rifles to take out rpg-armed opponents and break up resistance until they had re-captured their colleague.

Either of these strategems (and a whole host of others) could be played out with high chance of success (depending I suppose on the strengths of the enemy and how good the dice were).

However, if the characters loaded up on a clapped-out delivery truck and floored it to the enemy base, trying to shoot their way in and out against mounting odds in an unreliable vehicle...well, that strategem would be doomed virtually from the start.

I suppose it's as much sound tactical forethought and a degree of common sense as anything else that would predict the outcome.

I've no real idea how to encapsulate this tactical advantage other than playing it out in-game, though.

If they have enough sense to reconnoitre the facility and find their colleague in a secure holding cell then they'll know to bring a device or explosives to open it, or infiltrate or scout enough to locate the key.

If they don't, they don't. And the rescue attempt will probably fail.

In terms of the gung-ho, standing-ankle-deep-in-spent-brass approach, the characters would probably all be dead by the third or fourth round.

I play-tested it last night with a couple of friends - when you're in cover or have the jump on your opponent, your chances are excellent. If you're out in the open and there's more than one or two guns on you, you'll be cut to pieces.

Not completely unlike the real thing, I imagine.

I'm not sure how I'd go about designing a game mechanic that had the effect you discussed - I wouldn't know how to give the players a mechanical advantage to the scenario other than roleplaying out the effects of their plan.

I think it could be quite easy. So, you have a standard 'battle plan' document that the players use to focus their discussions. Things like their force levels, the equipment they might be using, additional personnel, what they thin the opponents might be, the terrain, what backup they might ask for and so forth.

The more detail the players put into the 'battle plan', the more of an advantage they get. Maybe they get scene token or something similar for a certain amount of detail they put in. Perhaps spending a scene token during the game allows them to overcome an obstacle more easily, e.g.:

"Dammit! This fire position is more difficult to take than we thought, they've got us totally pinned down! [player spends scene chip] But that intelligence report told us there was an underground access hatch to the bunker, maybe would could use that to get in an take it out? [GM and other players nod vigourously]"

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios