Hell On Eight Wheels: Five – Further Movement


Confrontation (2nd and 3rd Editons) from Rackham had a quick and easy system for miniatures combat, it combined the location of a victim’s hit with difference between attacker’s strength and victim’s toughness, and combined it all into an elegant solution for how much impact this had after an attack was resolved…all by simultaneously rolling 2 dice and comparing a couple of numbers.

Malifaux from Wyrd Miniatures has a system where you randomly draw cards. In certain circumstances a character quirk lets you draw an additional card; if it’s a positive quirk you pick the higher of the two cards drawn for your result, and if it’s a negative quirk you get stuck with the lower of the two cards drawn. This system also allows you to strategically play a card from your hand to gain an advantage during play.

I’ve found that card play works more quickly than dice rolling in the various game systems I’ve used, and since I want the strategic element that we see in Malifaux, I’ve already decided to use cards for this game.

But now it’s a case of combining the elements I like from each system.

I have the idea that game play will basically follow this pattern.

1)      At the start of a jam, each skater is randomly dealt two face-down random cards, and each player holds a hand of cards reflecting the teamwork and strategic planning of the team.
2)      Skaters are activated in turn around the track. When activated, their two cards are revealed, one is assigned to speed, and one to manoeuvrability. Speed plus a constant attribute value indicates how far the skater moves (maybe referenced off a table), manoeuvrability plus a constant attribute value indicates how many times the skater may move to an inner or outer ring on the track (also referenced off a table).
3)      If a skater moves adjacent to an opposing player, both skaters draw one or more new cards to determine the result of any block attempt. A skater may be knocked down, blocked, slowed down or might get through with no problems.
4)      Once activation is complete, any cards used in the activation are shuffled and a skater is assigned two more face down random cards.
5)      Activation moves to the next skater.

Preliminary table idea
Stat+Card
Result
Walk
Run
Sprint
Move
Manoeuvre
Move
Manoeuvre
Move
Manoeuvre
2-3
3
1
5
1
6
1
4-5
4
1
6
1
8
1
6-7
5
2
7
1
10
1
8-9
6
2
9
2
12
1
10-11
7
3
10
2
14
2
12-13
8
3
12
2
16
2
14-15
9
4
13
3
18
2
16-17
10
4
15
3
20
2
18-19
11
5
16
3
22
3
20-21
12
5
18
4
24
3
22-23
13
6
19
4
26
3
24-25
14
6
21
4
28
3
26
15
7
22
5
30
4

Skaters will have states from 1-13 (basically Ace to King from a standard deck), adding a card value of 1-13 gives a total value from 2 to 26.

I’m hoping this isn’t getting too complicated.

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