Where Are All the Car Monsters?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Demon possessed hot air balloon? Deadly as all heck, but beholden to the wind.

Demonic Dire Flumph!

 

[BigJackBrass]

If you really want to horrify your players, show them the transformation sequence from the 1980s Ruby-Spears cartoon Turbo Teen.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

yup and revlotionary girl utena also suffered from "turned into cars" affliction.

or benders as a werecar!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In D&D, I'd say the problem is that it doesn't really have vehicle rules, and managing car / cart / wagon / boat movement in regular combat is weird.

Games like Shadowrun feature vehicle rules, and drones, and vehicle rules are seperat from normal character rules, except when it comes to walking drones, and then it's... weird again IMO.

 

[Fenris-77]

The idea of monster cars is pretty specific to the horror genre, in general anyway. Even there, it isn't a huge trope, despite Stephen King going back to that well several times (with great success). With King I suspect it's got something to do with his identification of cars as a key part of the 'American Dream', something he does like to subvert (as he does in Cujo, or many of his other books in different ways).

IMO it's a monster of the week at best in most cases. That said, I do think you could build a cool game around the idea of Maximum Overdrive.

 

[Duke_]

In D&D, I'd say the problem is that it doesn't really have vehicle rules, and managing car / cart / wagon / boat movement in regular combat is weird.

Games like Shadowrun feature vehicle rules, and drones, and vehicle rules are seperat from normal character rules, except when it comes to walking drones, and then it's... weird again IMO.

Eh, I think vehicle rules are completely unnecessary for making a monster with wheels than wants to run people over. They're as likely to be a hindrance as a help, given how bad are so many vehicle rules and how poorly they work often with a "human" scale.

 

[Incenjucar]

I had a 4E campaign centered around a pirate ship fused with a dracolich...

That said, RPGs tend to struggle with vehicles, especially fantasy. Even the heroic steed usually ends up a pokemount. Pathfinder Society doesn't even allow vehicles unless provided by the adventure. Personally, I think most adventurers should be rolling around on mounts and wagons after level 5 or so.

 

[Richards]

I'm tempted to list some of the "car" monsters that already exist in D&D...

Carnivorous ape​

Carnivorous plant​

Carp, Giant​

Carrion crawler​

Carrionette​

Caryatid column​

​

...but that would be derailing the thread for my own personal amusement, so I won't.

Johnathan

 

[dragoner]

The Car is the go to:

The Car (1977 film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bagpuss]

Traveller New Era has whole fleets of Vampire Ships, no crew, just controlled by rogue AIs that go round trying to infect other space craft, or even city control grids.