Has anyone managed a Longterm Road Warriors type campaign?

[Tonguez]

So I decided to watch Twisted Metal on Pheonix starring Anthony Mackie as a deliveryman in post apocalyptic USA. Its based on the game Twisted Metal and featured all the expected tropes.
Anyway as a Fan of the Mad Maxx genre I got to thinking has anyone managed to run a Road Warriors style campaign long term, or is inherently a style that works best in one-shots? I use to play sessions of Car Wars but that was all one night affairs where we competed to design the most gonzo battle wagons

So what have yo done to make Post Apocalyptic Road Warriors about survival and not just burning glorious in high octane!

 

[jdrakeh]

I've played in a Cyberspace campaign set within the confines of Death Valley Free Prison, which is very much Mad Max.

 

[ichabod]

I was in a Cars Wars campaign for a while. I'm not sure it had the legs to go long term, but it ended for other reasons.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I ran a Darwin's World campaign that embraced most of the aspects of RW for about 60 weekly sessions.

 

[MGibster]

No. I considered a Mad Max type campaign a few years ago, but I have been unable to find any RPG that has satisfactory vehicle combat rules. I was planning on running a Hell on Earth campaign and have the players members of, oh, I forget what they're called, but they're a society of truckers and other drivers who roam the American southwest as a large community. The rules are Savage Worlds, but I couldn't quite figure out how to solve the following problems.

• Scale - The Savage Worlds combat rules are basically a simple set of table top miniatures war rules. But when you add vehicles the scale breaks down. I'd have to adapt everything to matchbox sized vehicles and then switch to normal scale on foot (this was a problem with Savage Rifts as well).
• Player Options in Vehicle Encounters: In most games, if you're not a driver or a gunner there's not a whole lot you can do during a vehicle encounter.
• Rules - Vehicle rules in most RPGs seems to be an afterthought. They typically assume combat is something done on foot.

 

[Yora]

I think one problem is that the post-apocalyptic car chase battle actually makes little sense in most situations.

It requires that the attackers find the defenders while at their cars, and that the defenders are not fast enough to escape, and also will have an even harder time to defend themselves if they stop.
And even then, it's probably much more efficient to disable the enemy's cars than trying to shot the riders. Or even attempt to jump on and fight them inside their cars.

Such situations might happen occasionally, but it's hard to justify as the default circumstances for combat.

For a film that doesn't have to matter. It's wild, entertaining action and you only have to justify one or maybe two fights in total. For a long running RPG campaign in which things have to be rational enough so that the players can properly plan in ways that make sense, that's much harder.

 

[Tonguez]

No. I considered a Mad Max type campaign a few years ago, but I have been unable to find any RPG that has satisfactory vehicle combat rules. I was planning on running a Hell on Earth campaign and have the players members of, oh, I forget what they're called, but they're a society of truckers and other drivers who roam the American southwest as a large community. The rules are Savage Worlds, but I couldn't quite figure out how to solve the following problems.

• Scale - The Savage Worlds combat rules are basically a simple set of table top miniatures war rules. But when you add vehicles the scale breaks down. I'd have to adapt everything to matchbox sized vehicles and then switch to normal scale on foot (this was a problem with Savage Rifts as well).
• Player Options in Vehicle Encounters: In most games, if you're not a driver or a gunner there's not a whole lot you can do during a vehicle encounter.
• Rules - Vehicle rules in most RPGs seems to be an afterthought. They typically assume combat is something done on foot.

I think one problem is that the post-apocalyptic car chase battle actually makes little sense in most situations.

It requires that the attackers find the defenders while at their cars, and that the defenders are not fast enough to escape, and also will have an even harder time to defend themselves if they stop.
And even then, it's probably much more efficient to disable the enemy's cars than trying to shot the riders. Or even attempt to jump on and fight them inside their cars.

Such situations might happen occasionally, but it's hard to justify as the default circumstances for combat.

For a film that doesn't have to matter. It's wild, entertaining action and you only have to justify one or maybe two fights in total. For a long running RPG campaign in which things have to be rational enough so that the players can properly plan in ways that make sense, that's much harder.

I do think this is very much my concern too, the Road Warrior Action racing genre is about highly contrived set peice battles with vehicle as both weapon and platform for pc rp.
and I agree I also havent found good rules for PCs battling on top of a rig or leaping from one vehicle to another while in hot pursuit.

then theres the whole issue of pc‘s as Road Warrior v Defending a Settlement etc, although the Postman/Milkman option is one possibility as is the Highway Lawman v the Road Gangs

 

[aramis erak]

While I've done post-holocaust a few times, none were Mad-Max style.
I never managed to get Tank Girl to table.
None of my Car Wars campaigns were so chassis & crossbow (the Mad Max style CW setting in Dueltrack).

 

[Voadam]

I have been running a 5e D&D conversion of the Pathfinder 1e Iron Gods adventure path for the last three years and I am now starting module 3. It is basically the Thundarr the Barbarian adventure path with ruins from an ancient crashed sci-fi megaship being the source of dungeons, robots, mutants, and some technomages. Module 2 is basically Mad Max Thunderdome of D&D humanoid gang warfare with some recovered tech in the city of Scrapwall. I spent more than a year running that part. There is a full on arena with notable gladiators including an orc gang leader using a magic chainsaw and a troll with a harpoon gun. Had stuff like the PCs rescuing a prisoner from a necrosurgeon gang's territory and fleeing on a figurine of carrion crawling motorcycle while chased by ghouls and hobgoblin gang members. I turned the end boss from a spider bot into an AI monster truck.

I mostly used some slightly modified 4e D&D skill challenge rules to handle the motorcycle chase/escape for an entire night's adventure and it went great.

The Mad Max D&D vibe came across really well.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I played in a "New Dustbowl" game in Cyberpunk. Everyone was a Nomad in the same family, and we all had a second main skill. No Corps, obviously. We needed to get from ... Kansas City to Phoenix? There were twenty some odd vehicles in the caravan and we would be successful in establishing a new tribe, winter grounds, or something if we got at least 12 vehicles there. Something like that. We needed to chose routes, help / avoid / plunder the little towns along the way as appropriate.

I remember we had a number of AAA maps that we marked up in planning our route. Sending scouts to get info. I remember having a good time with it.