Autoduel GURPS/Champions 2024

I am working on converting Classic Car Wars to a 3d6-or-less system, such as GURPS or Hero System. The ideal goal is to use the 3d6 system for the to-hits, while everything else—damage, handling, combat, and vehicle designs—still use the Car Wars system and keeps the "metal underneath" the same.

Damage is going to scale. Car Wars to Champions is a 3-to-1 scale, so 1d6 Car Wars is 3d6 Champions. Car Wars to GURPS is more like 18-to-1, based on the 0.50 cal. M2HB (7dx2) and the 66mm LAW (6dx6). So if a LAW in Car Wars does 2d6, that is 36d6 in GURPS, and the 0.50 MG in GURPS does 14d6, which is close enough to 18d6, so 1d6 in Car Wars, which matches the MG damage.

To-hit modifiers in both games are doubled. So, if firing at the front of a car is a -1 in Car Wars, that is a -2 in Champions or GURPS. Use Car Wars for all to-hit modifiers, with the only exception being the OCV and DCV modifiers in Champions - the driver's OCV and target driver's DCV do apply to the to-hit roll (if they have Combat Driver skill otherwise it is zero), as they do in Champions. This was a cool rule in the Autoduel Champions days, where a driver's abilities could make the vehicle harder to hit.

Do not do size and range modifiers with either system! Stick with Car Wars' range and to-hit to calculate the final CW to-hit modifier, then multiply by two.

To-hit modifiers for weapons are based on a Car Wars 7+ to-hit number. Every point above or below is a +/-2 modifier to hit when using the gun. Targeting computers factor in as usual, so a hi-res target will give a -4 to-hit modifier (lower is better).

For handling, use the Car Wars Control Table. If you get a 'safe" result, do not make a driving skill check. If you get a number 2 through 6, that is your negative modifier to your driving skill check to avoid a roll on the Crash Table. So if your vehicle is at 60 mph, and you have a current -2 HC, the number on the chart is 2, so you need to make a driving skill roll at a -2 to avoid a Crash Table roll. HC resets as it does in Car Wars.

With GURPS, the combat turn is one second, and you usually get one attack, so this is a very clean conversion. The Hero System rules use a Speed system from 1 to 12 and a 12-second turn. This does not work that well in Classic Car Wars, and the old Audoduel Champions' way of handling it is allowing characters to make a vehicular weapon (not hand weapon) attacks every second (like SPD 12) but zero out OCV and skill bonuses on non-acting phases.

This means an SPD 4 character in the Hero System who acts on phases 3, 6, 9, and 12 and gets their full skill and OCV bonuses on those phases only. They can attack in phases 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 11, but at an OCV or zero.

Hero System DCV always applies; this helps balance the "firing every phase" issue below!

Stick to the Hero System phases when making hand weapon attacks or using superpowers. So that SPD 4 characters can make a hand weapon or superpower attack every 3 seconds. This is a change from Car Wars, but given the games, it makes sense. This also puts people on foot at a more significant disadvantage than vehicles since they can get fired at every phase.

This has stayed the same since Autoduel Champions, and letting characters keep their full DCV (even in non-acting phases) helps balance this out and keeps superheroes from being sitting targets by a stream of per-phase machinegun fire. Haying for a DCV of 6 is going to be a huge benefit when the attacking vehicle is acting off-phase, and the attacker can't use their OCV and skill bonuses.

Movement should be done in Car Wars, with everything in mph, including foot movement. I know this will mess up Hero System movement rates, where characters only move during their phase, but we are entering "simulation land," where all foot movement is done per phase.

Hero System uses meters, so do a rough conversion and multiply by 3 for feet. For simplicity, assume Hero System "meters per turn" equals "miles per hour." Most characters in Hero System move 12m, which is about 12.5 mph in Car Wars, which is running speed foot movement (Car Wars Compendium). If a character has a running superpower of 40m per turn, he runs at 40 mph, and all movement is done according to Car Wars (every second).

Speaking of Autoduel Champions, we were sort of inspired by this project since we played it a lot in the 1980s. We had our own Traveller-like system for our game, but having Champions' superpowers convert easily was a huge plus. It allowed us to do the mixed superheroes and Car Wars campaign we loved.

And you can tell we played many of these games since these conversions are very natural for me to bust out as I think through how the games are played.

If I were to do our game today, our Traveller-inspired 2d6 system, I would skip all the newer versions of Cepheus and go straight for the digest-sized Cepheus Light. The skills are 99% compatible with Car Wars and are all 2d6 and N+ compatible. The personal combat rules can be used instead of the ones in Car Wars. The only rules I would add are the optional Traits system (30 XP to buy a new one) and the Cepheus Enhanced Edition rule for raising an ability score (3x new level in XP).

Why Cepheus Light and not one of the newer versions? I don't need anything in the newer versions. It is digest-sized and feels like a Car Wars book. The game even has a "cargo" system that works directly with Car Wars to haul loads between cities (Grav Vehicles would be Auto Parts or the cars themselves).

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/257644/cepheus-light

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/262129/cepheus-light-traits

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/342060/non-random-character-generation-for-cepheus-light

Those three are really all you need. Another benefit? If you need a simplified RPG for Battletech, that works just as nicely. For Battletech, you may want to use a more complete and modern edition since you will get a lot of extra "sci-fi stuff" you will use, but for Car Wars, Light is all you need.

Hero System Basic Rulebook

At 138 pages, the Hero System Basic Rulebook is more of a superhero roleplaying game than most dedicated superhero games. This is a low-cost introduction to the full-blast Hero System, and the differences are described in a paragraph in the book below:

BR differs from the full HERO System rules in just one major respect: the amount of details, options, alternatives, and minor/special rules available. The core mechanics of the two systems — how you make an Attack Roll or a Skill Roll, how characters take damage, and so forth — are identical. But where the HERO System might include ten paragraphs and four special Power Modifiers to explain a particular Power and provide ways for gamers to customize it, BR probably only has a couple of paragraphs. It leaves out a lot of the detail and options of the full HERO System. The intent is to pare the HERO System down to its most necessary rules — that way you can easily learn them before diving into the more complex, but much richer, rules of the full system.

A good example is the Change Environment power, a 3/4 column of rules in the Basic Rulebook; the full rules are 4 pages for many unique situations. I could run a superhero campaign with the Basic Rules and never need the complete rules. As it is, the basic rules are more complete and powerful than many full superhero games.

One thing I love about the Hero System is that conversions are stupidly simple. Instead of converting, you design the item as a power source. All weapons and items are created as powers. Do we want a laser pistol?

RKA 2d6 (30 points), AP (+1/4); 37 active points; OAF (-1), No Knockback (-1/4), 20 charges (2 clips max) (+1/2). Total: 21 points.

And any superpower can be designed into an item. So you can have flash grenades, ESP helmets, luck potions, tangle guns, holographic illusion projectors, mind control rings, powered attack claws, and anything the power system can do can be designed straight into an item. I am calculating the points; you don't need to go through that for "found items" that you pick up; this is just a convenience if someone wants to use that laser pistol in a character design and also to know the relative power level of the device compared to others.

This makes games like Gamma World or Fallout in Hero System infinitely more fun since the devices of the ancients can go way beyond what they have in the books, and they can have all sorts of strange and wild effects that nobody expects - along with side effects that can be designed as limitations. And your mutations are also essentially superpowers.

It is all one power system, go to town designing.

And if you always wanted to, you could just say an item "is what it is" without designing it.

In this sense, it is a better design framework than GURPS since everything in the world is designed using the same system. In GURPS, you will have characters on one system and other items on another; nothing is unified and straightforward. Here? It is easy. The entire system will be unlocked once you learn how to design a power.

The Basic Rulebook is capable of running many games and conversions. There is also a great PWYW introduction to the system here. Also, for those who complain about all the math, this game isn't for you. I see a lot of complaints about math-heavy games like this and GURPS, and frankly, if you aren't willing to put in the work, plenty of other games out there may suit you better. This is the same with all the reading needed to play Runequest; if you don't want to put the work into learning about people and cultures, you will miss out, but there are always alternatives.

Sometimes, I like a game to be more complex since those who want to love and play the system will put in the effort. The community will be smaller but more interested, engaged, and knowledgeable.

Hero System is one of those games. If you buy into and learn it, you can design any other game imaginable using the same framework. It scales from gritty, low-level street heroes to cosmic superheroes.

It is a worthwhile game, and the design system itself is a hobby in its own right.

Off the Shelf: HERO System

As I went through my storage boxes, I pulled out the set of HERO System 6th books I got during the pandemic, but I needed more time to play. It got put into storage last year. I got them out because I played a lot of Hero System 4th with my brother, and we liked the system enough to run it as a fantasy campaign. We also used it for our superhero system in the 1990s when we abandoned the heavily censored AD&D 2nd Edition. What is old is new again, with 6E being rewritten to avoid upsetting people; the old rule of every even version of D&D sucks is still true today.

These days, I would never use this to play Marvel or DC, and I would likely stick to the official Champions universe. Steaming service media companies have killed all the legacy superheroes. The death of Marvel and DC isn't about politics; it is a lack of self-control at the highest levels that allows directors and comic book writers to do whatever they want. You see it in many of these newer superhero movies; they are passion projects and self-inserts by the creators and have nothing to do with the original source material.

So, if Marvel and DC are dead, why play superheroes? The costumes?

I don't have an answer to this question. Another part of what killed superheroes is that everyone co-opted the model. This is like the overuse of wirework and bullet time after the release of the Matrix movie, and you see it today with those dumb "180 flip shots" that movies do, where they flip the screen upside down in some cheap visual candy.

D&D is superheroes. The D&D movie was a superhero movie. 5E-based games are superhero games. Story games are superheroes. Every genre is a superhero genre these days.

Today's tabletop characters are overpowered, never die, push enemies over, and larger-than-life figures. They walk into any situation and "boss" it. All media is superhero media. Any form of escapist entertainment is superhero entertainment.

Do we even need the superhero genre anymore?

I honestly don't know.

Are capes and costumes enough? Or is that just marketing and cosplay?

I play games grounded in realism, like Basic Roleplaying or GURPS. They give me a mental break from everyone being over-the-top and invincible. I am tired of the superhero genre these days. It has turned into a junk power fantasy, the same everywhere, and the entire message of the genre these days is this semi-fascistic "power makes me right" theme. All that matters is power, getting more, and using it to prove you were right in the first place.

There is no responsibility for possessing power anymore. Power is just a tool that validates your point of view. That may be what my HERO System game is about: the vast tide of "power makes right" versus a few still holding onto the old ways and them all destroying the world.

We will see.

Hero System: Vehicle Combat

Still, these are the best vehicle rules for Champions ever - at least for movement and combat. And the vehicle rules, even in the 6th Edition, seem copied and pasted from the 4th Edition, and they have not changed, nor do they have an excellent example of how they work. The Autoduel Champions system was written for the 2nd Edition Hero System, and it uses a very early version of the Car Wars design rules as well.

One of the most considerable problems for the Hero System is movement is tied to the character's speed characteristic. A character has a 12-phase turn, with one-second phases. A character with a speed of 2 (average) will move and attack twice in that 12-second turn.

A vehicle or person in motion should move every second, and Autoduel Champions handles this structure. There is a clear difference between the games, and Hero System is more a "superhero sim" than Car Wars, which is a "reality sim."

5 miles per hour of speed or acceleration is roughly 2 meters per second. A car at 50 mph will move (roughly) 20 meters per second. One of the problems comes up with using Hero System combat with the SPD 2 character driving into a wall because they can only act every 6 phases.

Car Wars characters and vehicles can maneuver and turn multiple times during a one-second turn, increasing difficulty per maneuver.

How Do You Fix This?

You have to flip the "simulation switch" on in Hero System and allow everyone to move and maneuver their movement every phase. Make a combat vehicle operations roll for the maneuver based on difficulty.

Remember, vehicles can accelerate and decelerate every phase too. A car with 5 mph acceleration at a dead stop will move 2 meters in the first phase, 4 the next, 6 the next, and all the way up to 24 meters per phase (roughly 55 mph) on phase 12 of the same turn. Deceleration is also per phase, with 5-15 mph deceleration being average and higher levels being control rolls.

See Car Wars for the exact deceleration values, but above 15 mph, deceleration in a phase is very risky.

Making attacks? Keep that to the turn chart on the specified phases in Hero System. Higher SPD characters can make more attacks per turn while trying to avoid death while driving like maniacs. You will miss attack chances, so if there are exceptional cases where someone needs to make an attack before driving behind a building, that will be up to the referee to decide if it is possible and if an ability check is needed to time it correctly for the out of phase action. These out-of-phase actions will be the exception, not the rule, and will still consume the character's following attack action.

Roughly Autoduel Champions

This system is roughly similar to Autoduel Champions but more 6th Edition in spirit. It does require a "simulation mode" toggle, which breaks Hero System's movement system and puts it in a "per phase based on velocity" system of movement. High SPD characters will not move at faster velocities, but they will get to act more during a turn. If you are trying to create a speedster, focus on raw velocity rather than a high SPD.

Also, note Car Wars characters are assumed to be SPD 12 by the wargame rules since they can attack every phase. The Hero System pulls this pretty far back but puts everything on a more realistic level. In the ordinary world, while driving a car, you will be fortunate to get an attack off every 6 seconds with everything going on and trying to control a speeding car.

Also, note movement will be much higher than the base Hero System with "simulation mode" toggled on. An SPD 2 character will be moving "at speed" and six times faster than he would with simulation mode off. For melee, superhero fights, and dungeons, leave simulation mode off. For vehicles - turn it on.

So my jury-rigged system is a compromise between the "on the metal" Car Wars system and preserving the action economy of Hero System 6th Edition. I would play with 2-meter hexes, even if that meant some cars would be 2 hexes long (move and turn with the front part of the counter).

Convert or Play As-Is?

This is tough since the Autoduel Champions system has excellent Car Wars-style vehicle design rules. The design system is dated by Car Wars standards (turrets take zero space in the vehicle), so I would likely use the Autoduel Champions damages and component damage system while using stock Car Wars for vehicle designs - and convert the armor values via the system provided in Autoduel Champions. I would use the latest up to date Car Wars design rules too.

Would I like an updated Autoduel Champions? Yes. Do I really need it? No.

Does Hero System need updated vehicle rules?

Oh, yes.

Western Hero

Hero System is the BSD Unix of role-playing games.

Insanely complicated to wrap your head around, arcane, full of configuration, build-it-yourself, and full of homebrew and hacking to create a working system. Lots of math. A lot of understanding of what this does versus that.

But once you understand it, the system can run for decades and still work well after other games have come and gone. It is rock solid. The character sheets are full of numbers, but the numbers logically work in four ways:

• They modify a 3d6 roll (OCV, DCV).
• They are a 1d6 per 5 points stat, like STR.
• They are a damage-based (pool or reduction) stat, like physical defense.
• This is SPD, which determines attacks per turn and attack order.

Once you know the numbers, you can play off the character sheet.

Hero System is a universal system, like GURPS, but it works on a much lower level. This system is best suited for superheroes, but you can play all sorts of genres with the game once you know how it works. The beauty of Hero System is that the entire game is built as a "game creation toolbox," and it invites you to dig in and build your own creations. 

The game is honestly a Home Depot of parts, and while you need to know a lot to use them all - once you do, you are not just "playing someone else's game," but you are building your own. It is the difference between putting together a shelf from Ikea in a rented apartment (5E character creation) and building a house and owning it (Hero System).

Once you own that house, no one is knocking on your door, telling you the rules are changing (One D&D). Or that they are raising the rent and who can live in your apartment (D&D Beyond). Or every so often, you get notices on your door that maintenance is coming in, and you have to clean your place up (One D&D Playtest materials).

Is a specific power not working right? You are the game designer; get your tools out and fix the power yourself. The cost to get started is higher, but you are the plumber, electrician, carpenter, painter, window installer, roof expert, appliance installer, and repair person.

I get it; like home ownership, Hero System is not for everyone. Some people like the curated experience that a D&D provides, sort of like a JRPG on rails. Hero System feels like Tunnels & Trolls, with lots of d6 flying and totaling damage and effect rolls. Only where T&T is highly simplified and abstract, Hero System is particular and calculated. There is also this phased particularity in the game, which reminds me of the classic Aftermath RPG (and Hero System could do a fantastic Aftermath-style game).

Some of us are sick of being forced to buy new game editions and being fed constant errata. We love using our hands and being game designers. We like to design the powers. We don't need "character classes" or "premade ancestries." And we certainly don't need privileged (and mostly anonymous) game designers telling us what we can or can't do with our storytelling and fantasy gaming.

I don't want others breaking my favorite character builds, nerfing things, and making a mess of the rules.

Just give me the tools, and I can do it better.

If I break it, I will fix it.

Western Hero?

I picked this up on a whim, and since I have boxed up and unboxed my Hero System 6th Edition books about 5 times now, I thought it would make a fantastic addition to the repeated storage attempts.

And a western game is just about as far as you can get from "what Hero System is all about" as you can get. On its face, it seemed this would be a terrible use of the Hero System and be complete overkill for a genre better done by an OSR and B/X style of game. There are no superpowers here; you have no use for a robust design system, and 90% of the rules would not be used.

Who needs rules for force walls, entanglement powers, energy blasts, tunneling, flight, de-solidification, and mental attacks in a game about cowboys in the Old West? Granted, the powers are not in the Western Hero book, and you need to get some of the other Hero System books to add them in, but the rules were designed to factor in mental and energy defenses, so the framework is still here. You could have them, though, if you wanted.

What the book does focus on is the nuts and bolts of the game system and all the options appropriate to the Western genre, which nicely focuses the game on the setting. But the book is enormous, and the rules are dense; we are talking about a 276-page game that uses all of the Hero System combat features.

Again, my mind wants to go running and screaming back into the B/X as the cave allegory, and I tell myself, "Why do I need all of this for a simple attack bonus versus AC roll?"

Because this is cool, that is why.

And surprisingly, it works well.

The game only uses the d6 and is a 3d6 and "roll equal or under the target number" type of system. It is like GURPS, but it works on a lower level and is more "on the metal" than that game. Where GURPS is a curated RPG experience, Hero System is a numerical model of a superheroic reality that also works as a roleplaying game.

I can have a completely realistic game that goes by the base rules, or I can bend reality as much as I want and allow characters to buy resistance defenses - and have bullets bouncing off the skin of the characters like they were some sort of superhero. I can flip open the power design rules of the superhero game and build gadgets, like a Gatling gun that shoots cannonballs. I can let the characters design and buy superpowers and limit the power level of the game if I want - or let it go wild. I can give a snake monster "laser eyes" if I want. I can have characters with psychic powers. An owl can have a sonic attack in a 10-meter-long cone that does stun damage.

And then you get this...

• No! The monsters need to be in monster manuals!
• You can't introduce new power systems unless you pay money to a game designer!
• You can't break the rules or bend the genre! This isn't balanced!
• Expansions must be paid books!
• We were told, "The people that play the game can't be game designers!"

Um, this is Hero System; it is all in the book. Even the "every player is a game designer" part. Seriously, people play this game together, and it all works fine. We balance it ourselves. The game gives us the power to cheese, and we just don't do it. If something is insanely overpowered, it will be insanely expensive and the only thing you can do. We are all adults here.

But the game defaults to this gritty, old-school, Aftermath reality style that I love. The game plays like a survival-horror game at its basic level. The research is well done and very complete, down to horse traits and markings. Parts of the genre that could be problematic are highlighted, and they are there for you to choose to use or ignore - the game doesn't ignore them, but since a lot of the source material was produced in different eras, it is nice to be given a warning about these elements and have readers informed.

And I sit here with a game I bought as a joke, to see how this possibly could work, and it may be the one that just gets me back into the Hero System.