Getting Our Motors Running

Recently playing a forgettable computer game that featured some post-apocalyptic car-racing.

It brought me back to Car Wars, that classic Steve Jackson game of, you guessed it, post-apocalyptic car-racing. There have been numerable attempts to create this in an RPG. GURPS Autoduel and Atomic Highway spring to mind.

But I've never found these sorts of RPGs entertaining in anything other than very small groups. Something about the environment and the size of the vehicles -- part of it is a pack of four to six player-character-driven vehicles forms such a formidable swarm, and part of it is the excitement in high-octane highway duels is the "one on one" or "on vs the horde" angle, where it's just you and your skill (and your car) between survival and death.

Why is dungeoneering, for instance, any different? Why is skirmish combat with a small band of heroes versus an enraged Ogre, or a pack of murderous bandits more enjoyable than a pack of cars hunting down a heavily armed pump-truck full of raiders?

I still want to run a "Car Wars" style game of Mother, Jugs & Speed -- the full-contact Gold Cross ambulance crew -- one day.