Episode 13: Vehicles
Vrrrroom! (Sorry, I had to). In this all-hands-on-deck episode, we’re talking about vehicular play and the scale shifts it introduces as it opens new horizons.
What happens when you bring a knife to a tank fight - and how do you avoid trivialising the whole game when you’re the one in the tank? How do you set stakes when everyone might go down with the ship? And when does hyper-specialisation for crew roles actually cripple your cooperation?
Violet puts the cart before the oars. Freya mounts her soapbox. Violet rigs the game. Freya floats a flotilla.
*** Timestamps ***
Mailbag - 0:09:02
Topic intro & design questions - 0:17:34
History - 0:49:20
Comparing Wildsea experiences - 0:55:59
Taxonomicon - 1:03:13
Freya admits her serial salvage surplus & shipmate shortage - 1:41:59 to 1:52:05
Design Dreams - 1:53:23
Freya’s insectile aspiration announcement - 2:12:01
Wrapup (and oops, more bugs) - 2:12:54
*** Design Dreams ***
Violet - Record of a Spaceborn Fugitive
Freya - Disney Pixar’s Cars: The Driver’s Licensed TTRPG
Violet - Wormhole Long Haul
Freya - Transform and Role Out
*** Games discussed ***
Tool Team[*1]
Bestial Princess Disease: A Torture Chamber[*1] (can be seen here: https://files.catbox.moe/5mb50b.webp)
Several collage contributors
Drake Barcode: Morse Inspector [*1]
Shadowrun (2e, specifically)
Pathfinder
Lancer
D&D 5e
Scherzando! [*2]
Break!!
Sword World
Pico
Classified
Rifts
Traveller
Mothership
OD&D
D&D 3.5e
Star Trek Adventures
Wildsea
Last Caravan
Ribbon Drive
Car Wars
GURPS
Heavy Gear
Apocalypse World
Scum and Villainy
Blades in the Dark
Edge of the Empire / Genesys
Fate
Homeworld [*3]
Mothership: Gradient Descent
Transit
Horse Girl
My Girlfriend Has Turned Into A Car (And We’re Escaping This City)
Savage Worlds
Cypher
The Magnus Archives RPG [*4]
Electric Bastionland
Mythic Bastionland
Intergalactic Bastionland
Wanderhome
Stars Without Number
Eberron
Ion Heart
Last Fleet
Songs for the Dusk
Pasión de las Pasiones
Honey Heist
Good Society
*** Other media discussed ***
Affinity Publisher (does that count as media??)
Magic: the Gathering
Camel Up, Heat, Thunder Road, and Magical Athlete
The works of Adrian Tchaikovsky (as usual)
Shadowrun series (Harebrained Schemes)
Fuga: Melodies of Steel
Slay the Spire
Captain Sonar
Star Trek (Voyager & DS9 specifically)
Sunless Sea
Rogue Trader
Get in the Car, Loser!
Subnautica
Star Wars: Galactic Racer
X-Wing
Radio On (1979, dir. Christopher Petit)
One Piece Live Action Season 2
Pacific Drive
Magic Mike XXL (and other roadtrip movies)
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Shut Up & Sit Down
Gaslands
Akira
Hot Fuzz
Bug Fables
The Wandering Village
Dunecrawl
Star Trek: Armada
XCOM
Moby Dick
Railsea
Embassytown
Record of a Spaceborn Few
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters
Battlestar Galactica
Disney Pixar’s Cars
Rocket League
Iron Lung
Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture)
Transformers
Thunderbirds
Nowhere (1997)
Cowboy Bebop
Shadows of the Apt
*** Notes & Links ***
[*1] if you haven’t heard of these games, that’s because they’re ours and some of them aren’t released yet.
[*2] now with canon-compliant exclamation mark.
[*3] which is indeed published by Modiphius.
[*4] the Magnus Archives RPG is indeed based on the Cypher system.
Some research thanks to my local tank museum (and also, totally normal people on the internet) suggests that modern tanks have dedicated commanders among a crew of 4, and WW1 tanks had crews of 8 or more because they were huge and horrible and required a lot of manual labour. My tolerance for military history forums hit its limit at that point so I refuse to research WW2.
American Psycho (Wet) - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eY9ccvv7Nlg
Living spaces in space, from Cowboy Bebop - https://www.tumblr.com/bluedelliquanti/123202722454/one-of-my-favorite-things-about-rewatching-cowboy
Random bug generator - https://perchance.org/bug-species
My chair is unusually creaky in this one, so keen ears will probably pick it up occasionally. Sorry about that!
*** Contact us! ***
Thank you to everyone who has emailed into our mailbag - If you too have a question, idea, or interesting game you’d like to share with us, email systemshoppodcast@gmail.com
*** Additional Credits ***
Our intro music is
"Magic Escape Room" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
