4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

A while ago, someone on another forum described Runequest as a VW Bug.  That got me thinking of ways to compare other role playing games to cars, houses, and whatnot.  I even came up with a list of comparisons between different RPGs and cars.

Such a list may be helpful in describing the differences among the different role playing games.

Call of Cthulhu
A Ford Pinto with more than 400,000 miles on it, and liable to quit just when you most need it on a dark night, leaving you stranded on a deserted stretch of rural highway, alone, in the fog.

Cthulhu D20
A Ford Mustang that has had two quarts of oil drained out of it, and parts of the engine disabled just to make things interesting.  The air conditioner and radio have been disconnected, and the GPS Navigation system has not been installed.

D6 Adventure, D6 Fantasy, D6 Space
A new Cadillac with more options than a new Cadillac.

Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition
A Ford Mustang.  People like to make fun of the company, but nobody can say they don’t put a lot of horsepower under the hood.

Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition
A heavily modified old banger that now has so much new stuff bolted on to it that it no longer resembles what it started out as, and requires a substantial ongoing investment in parts to make your initial purpose worthwhile.  Attribution note:  Most of this phrasing is from a reponse to my posting on the Mongoose Publishing forum

Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition
A Model T Ford.  You wouldn’t want to drive one today, but it was the car that got everybody on the road.

Exalted, 2nd edition
An Italian sportscar that says “If the cops want to give me a speeding ticket, they’ll need an airplane to catch me!”

Exalted, 1st edition
An Italian sportscar that goes very fast and has a lot of horsepower, IF the engine works today.

GURPS
A pickup truck with an external combustion engine which can run on practically any fuel that burns.

Hackmaster
A modern-day replica of a classic car.  Some modern materials have been incorporated into the design, but the controls faithfully copy the style of the cars of yesteryear, and you have to start it by getting someone to turn the crank with a handle.

Mage: The Ascension
This is not a car unless you believe this is a car.

Rifts
An M1 Abrams tank.

Runequest and Mongoose Runequest
An old VW Bug and a new one.  The new VW Bug looks mostly like the old car and has a specific charm but no one would ever have designed a car like that if the old one did not exist.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse
A World War II surplus Sherman tank.  Not as good as an M1 Abrams tank, but you’ve got to take it seriously.

Werewolf: The Forsaken
A military Humvee.  This is a new vehicle designed that indicate that somebody is going to get their butts kicked.

This was someone else’s reply on the other web forum, so I can’t take credit for it.

Tristat System (Big Eyes, Small Mouth)
A Japanese car that everybody says good things about.

This list is useful to describe differences between gaming systems in the same way that it’s useful to describe differences between countries by saying what happens there if you own two cows.

This list seems mostly fair, except that Rifts is a tank that is actually fueled entirely by two or three small solar panels.

So I guess I don’t know enough about the other systems to comment intelligently.  It seems that Exalted is the ideal then?  Or am I just not getting the comparison?

I took Exalted mostly as a statement of ridiculousness, which seems in line with what I’ve seen--though I’ve never played it. From what I know about Utgard I’d say that GURPS supposed to be the ideal. Too bad the truck won’t start in the winter.

Some more:

Castles & Crusades: A Ford Mustang that’s been refitted with a steam engine.

HERO System: A sixteen-wheel rig with more control panels than the Enterprise and the horsepower of a Honda Civic.

I am not saying that any of these is the ideal.  Perhaps I should list some options for the Exalted sportscar nitro-jet thrusters and ink shields.  Then again, I don’t have a lot of experience with Exalted, only that it is supposed to let you be over-the-top like in the Xena TV show.

As for GURPS and its external combustion engine, long ago I read an interesting Popular Mechanics article about a guy who made a car with an external combustion engine designed to not only run on alternate fuel sources, but to be able to switch from one fuel source to another.  But there is a reason why we are all driving cars with internal combustion engines instead.

I didn’t know enough about Rifts to suggest that it was outfitted with solar panels.  Lately I’ve been buying a bunch of Rifts books for ideas to use in other games, but otherwise I’ve just had to rely on what I’ve heard about the game and how it supports characters who can do mega damage.

As for D6, I have been planning a D6 Space campaign, and thus have experience with how it supports more options than a new cadillac.  It’s almost as bad as GURPS in terms of having to bolt stuff together yourself, although to be fair both GURPS and D6 Space have setting books where all the work has already been done.

That’s cool.  Like I said, I wasn’t sure what the comparisons were really saying in some cases.  It seemed to come down to which car was coolest and that was the one you’d most want to drive.  Rereading now that you and LP have posted some responses, it makes a lot more sense to me.

Shadowrun: It seems to run fine once you get it in gear, but upon really close examination, you find the ignition is from a Ford, the transmission a Chevy, the engine a Yugo, all packaged to pretend its from Japan.

Iron Heroes A Ford Mustang with an engine made of gold.

Utgardloki - 29 September 2007 07:08 PM

I don’t have a lot of experience with Exalted, only that it is supposed to let you be over-the-top like in the Xena TV show.

Exalted actually works more like anime than Xena, I think. Well, anime produced by Gainax or any other studio known for producing sheer undiluted crack. You get more dice for taking actions that sound really cool when you describe them. It’s so much fun.

Mutants and Masterminds is a Honda Civic that turns into a giant robot. It’s just that customizable. And—giant-robot-esque.

Iron Heroes A Ford Mustang with an engine made of gold.

Thought of another one:

Paranoia XP: A hastily converted kit car, controlled by a Computer that causes the vehicle to explode if you do not obey it… or if you fail to use your turn signal.

LeadPal - 29 September 2007 08:07 PM

Iron Heroes A Ford Mustang with an engine made of gold.

...so it’s horribly expensive and melts down after running for a few seconds?

Actually...yes. Somewhat.

There’s been 3 IH games on ORP I’ve seen. 1 by Treehouse (awesome) lasted about 1 1/2 years. 1 by me lasted 1 1/2 months. One by another guy (cant remember the name) lasted 1 1/2 weeks.

They seem to die out soon…

I’ve been trying to think of how to compare the various settings, but I think I’ve got it.

World of Greyhawk
A medieval castle that’s been fitted with a few modern conveniences such as battery-powered lamps and indoor bathrooms with running water.

Forgotten Realms
A medieval castle that’s been fitted with a few modern conveniences such as steal-busting radar, automated re-cloning chambers, cruise missile launchers with retina-scan locks and genetic access codes, and an automatic anti-ballistic missile protection system.

Iron Kingdoms
A castle built out of steel with 40 foot ceilings and two-foot thick steam-operated doors.

Rokugan
A Japanese palace where the staff has a very strong union that does not allow you do to any work that they reserve to themselves.

Ravenloft
A haunted mansion where the doors may suddenly close and lock at any time, and the rooms may rearrange themselves without notice.

Scarred Lands
A mansion that’s been gutted by fire but people still live inside.

Glorantha
A villa that is sometimes in the Roman Empire, sometimes not, depending on who won the latest battle.

Cthulhu Dark Ages
A medieval castle where guests are given a cup of lice as they walk through to door so they can have the medieval experience.

Audor
A in the middle of a vast pine forest there is a wooden house with a shrine to each of the Norse goddesses, a lizardman butler/assassin, a karate instructor who gives lessons in the basement gymnasium, and a guest mosque in the back yard.

---
9/30/07 edit:  Changed the first instance of ‘experience’ to ‘have’ in the description of Cthulhu Dark Ages to improve the flow of the phrasing.

Cthulhu Dark Ages
A medieval castle where guests are given a cup of lice as they walk through to door so they can experience the medieval experience.

Kobolds Ate My Baby:

A clown car.

Paranoia
The building where I work.

Traveler
it’s like the Vector, an extremely expensive, super high-tech, hand-built luxury beast of a car that neither you nor anyone you know has ever driven in real life.

Vampire: the Masquerade
A fast looking little coupe with just a 4-banger under the hood, only comes in black, and the brakes won’t stop whining.  Also available in Sabbat edition, which costs nearly twice as much for the addition of a racing stripe and spoiler.

Call of Cthulhu

Also if you get hit from behind on that dark night. With a little gas in the tank.
Your pinto is gonna explode.