Vehicles
It’s been a real quiet week compared to last week, but that’s ok! It’s just given me more time to work on today’s post! This is the one that I’ve been mulling over for quite some time, so I hope it all makes sense!
One of the cooler aspects (pardon the pun) of the Haloverse is all the cool vehicles you get to play with. I remember fondly jumping into the turret on the warthog for the first time, with my roommate behind the wheel. Up until that point, most FPSs that I’d played was infantry only, no vehicles. I was ecstatic!
Anyway, on to the show. I proudly present to you: Vehicles!
Basic Understandings
First off, I want to bring you back to my first post on basics:
People are gear. Remember my comment above about vehicles being treated as characters? Well, when in a vehicle, you play the vehicle, and your character becomes gear, modifying the base skills of the vehicle.
It kind of feels odd quoting myself, but whatever. It highlights the relevant part of the post.
Anyway, when you’re driving in a vehicle, you play as the vehicle. This is because all vehicles have a baseline performance, regardless of the pilot’s/driver’s skill. A fast motorcycle is fast, while a lumbering 18-wheeler can haul a lot of stuff.
Vehicle Skills
Just like the characters they emulate, vehicles have skills. Unlike characters, vehicles skills are a column, not a pyramid. This means that they have an equal number of skills below. For example, if it’s a two-deep two-high column (terminology subject to change), the vehicle has two each (two-deep) of +1 and +2 skills (two-high).
For now, I think I’m going to stick with a two-deep for all vehicles. That’s how Diaspora does it, so it should work well for my needs.
All vehicles have access to the following skills:
- Direct Fire - Shooting within line-of-sight
- Indirect Fire - Not needing LoS
- [Movement] - For getting around. This skill will be different depending on the vehicle. A banshee will have fly, while a warthog will have drive
- Armour - This skill is used to resist damage
- Stealth - Avoid detection
- Cargo - How much stuff the vehicle can hold. Includes vehicles, infantry, and generic “goods”
- Sensors - Effectively, this is the “perception” skill. If low, it might mean no sensors, or even no sensors and a bad viewing angle
- One other skill that I haven’t figured out yet.
Aspects & Stunts
Of course, vehicles are going to have one “free” aspect that talks to its main purpose. For example, the scorpion would have Main-line battle tank as its aspect. Additional aspects can be added as needed.
Vehicles are also welcome to have stunts just like characters do.
Interaction with Characters
So how do characters fit the role of “gear” for vehicles? Pretty easily. The character’s appropriate skill is used to modify the vehicular skill. So if a vehicle has a Drive of 2 and the driver has a Driving skill of +3 or higher, they add 1 to the vehicle’s skill of 2.
Why do it this way, you ask? Because I think that most of the capabilities of a vehicle are based on the vehicle itself. A good driver can eek out more performance from their chosen car than a poor driver can. In most RPGs, vehicles modify the rolls of the character. So a really good pilot flying the best starfighter in the galaxy is rolling with an ungodly bonus/pool of dice.
In my opinion, you can only go so far beyond what the vehicle was designed to do, and having the good driver modify the poor car represents that better than vice versa.
Well, that’s my opinion on the matter, what do you think?
