Sports-themed RPG's?

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Given the popularity of The Fast and the Furious and a string of related video games, I'm surprised no one has come out with a street racing RPG (auto racing is a sport).

GURPS Autoduel came out in '86. Car Wars (upon which it is based) is primarily a wargame, but it has its own rudimentary skill-based system suitable for RPing.

(Granted, autoduelling is a made-up sport, but it's not that far from racing or demo derbies.)

The closest I ever came to RPing Car Wars / Autoduel was a corporate duelling circuit back in the early 90s. Each player had several characters (drivers, gunners, etc.) and a budget to build cars, etc. While we didn't actually roleplay the characters per se, it was a lot of fun to watch them advance in skill and fame (or crash and burn).

ironregime

 

[trancejeremy]

Yeah, I knew about Car Wars (and I actually have Gurps Autoduel somewhere in my pile of books), but I was thinking more along the lines of just racing. Car Wars/Autoduel is actually kinda more post apocalyptic/ Mad Max than anything else (more like the original movie, where society has regressed a bit, but still exists), though it does have what I was thinking of - lots of rules for the car design and such... (which is pretty fun).

To a certain extent, sports have replaced gladiatorial style combat as entertainment in society. But in RPGs, they mostly still seem to focus around actual combat, as opposed to conflict/contests.

I was thinking street racing partly because I am playing a couple video games based on it now (Midnight Club 3 and Street Supremacy), but also because it seems suited to an RPG format, as there is direct conflict and a lot of crunchiness in describing the cars/characters (which seem to exist in the most popular RPGs, like D&D and Storyteller and Gurps) and seems more suited for smaller groups (3-4 players) as opposed to many other sports where you need 5+.

I mean, generally speaking, you start off as a low level racer, usually with a wussy car. Then you slowly battle other low level opponents, and gradually get better (and improve your car). And then many games nowadays have team racing, and where you fight other racing teams/clubs for control of territory and prizes. It seems well suited for an RPG.

Maybe not something like "My 10th level Mustang with +2 headers and tires of drifting can beat your 11th Level Skyline with +1 Turbo", but I'm convinced it would work well as an RPG. And possibly sell well. (Include rules for drifiting and stats for an AE86 and you'd get all the Initial D fans to buy it)

 

[Glyfair]

Has there ever actually been a sports-themed roleplaying game, one in which the players play athletes in whatever professional sports league (preferably an existing sport, but a fictonal one could do as well), roleplaying both the actual games and the life in-between games?

The main issue here is the line between roleplaying game and simulation game. For there to be any significant roleplaying, you need some sort of story elements. Most sports have a minimal amount of that. That's why you see wrestling mentioned the most here.

Sure, you could roleplay a baseball superstar and his tribulations away from the field. Basing an RPG around it seems to be just above the "Papers & Paychecks" game of playing an office worker getting through the day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And somewhere between the Wrestling games and the Car Wars RPG lies the aforementioned X-Crawl and unmentioned Dream Park games.

FYI, they model LARP as a sport, (AFAIK) first imagined by writers like Larry Niven and Steven Pournelle in their Dream Park books, and hinted at in books/movies like Westworld.

I once ran a heroic level martial arts campaign in HERO in which the PCs were all (obviously) martial artists who were competing for prize money & other honors. I did sprinkle in other plotlines, of course, like you'd see in so many movies from Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Jean-Claude Van Damme (etc.) or even in the Highlander and Kung Fu series. Thus, its clearly possible to design one that would do a good job of simulating it for some sports.

The toughest part, IME, would be capturing the "behind the scenes" stuff in any meaninful way. After all, while its clear what you can do with a bunch of martial artists when they're not in competitions ("We must rescue Ancient Wu from hte 8th Street Dragons' dojo!"), what do you do with a bunch of NASCAR racers away from the track, or football players away from the gridiron? (Ask the Vikings and the Cowboys...they're not an easy bunch to control...)

Basing an RPG around it seems to be just above the "Papers & Paychecks" game of playing an office worker getting through the day.

Well, there are ways to do a P&P game and make it fun...ever play the shareware game "Harry the Handsome Executive," read/watch "Dilbert" or see the movie Office Space (based on a Mike Judge cartoon)?

 

[Goodsport]

Have any sports-themed roleplaying games been released in the last year or so?


-G

 

[Umbran]

Have any sports-themed roleplaying games been released in the last year or so?

None of which I'm aware.

You'll find, in general that games based on something too much like real life don't do well - Boot Hill, Gangbusters, and other more strictly historical games go nowhere fast - being a football player and having an otherwise normal human life just isn't that interesting. We already understand that kind of life, so there's not much to roleplaying through it.

RPGs tend towards the more fantastic. Give that football player superpowers, and maybe you'll have something.

 

[wolfpunk]

I wrote a golf game. You can find it here.

OGL Golf

 

[pedr]

Let me plug the UK Indie RPG scene. Collective Endeavour's 'Contenders' is "A game about the blood, sweat and tears in the lives of boxers." (http://www.princeofdarknessgames.com/Contenders.htm)

It's a GM-less quasi-competitive story game where each player takes the role of a boxer fighting against the odds to 'make it' from the spit-and-sawdust back-street gyms to fame and fortune.

I've only played it once, so can't really give it a review, per se, but it was fun!