[Bywhan]

So I am planning on running a Death Race style game for my RL players. No teams to speak of, just a free for all race to the finish. However instead of just doing the 3 lap/ 3 race style (and to encourage different builds) to have the first part be a road race like Death Race 2000 (without the silly "hit people on the road for points" More just try and off the other drivers) to a ruined small(ish) town. The second part is a foot run through the city. I'm having problems thinking up a third stage for the competition and rules for the race and foot run. Since there are only going to be 5 players I'm also going to have to make a few NPCs to run with them. Any ideas or suggestions?

[Lagoruthon]

I tried running a race just like this for 5 players.  The 4E chase rules failed completely.  First the multiple side penalty made it almost impossible to control the vehicles.   Secondly if the characters are not evenly matched, dice pools, vehicle stat wise and IPs, it is likely that one player will easily win the engagement range tests and escape using the maneuver action.  Also balancing the vehicle speeds and acceleration gave us problems and to use either tactical or chase combat turns.

The results of my race were.  One player escaped and no one was ever able to catch him.  The first player died on combat turn 3 the second to die was combat turn 6 and third lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a wall at full speed.  My track was 16 turns long with each turn being one combat turn.  We never even finished one lap.

[street.mage]

I was involved in a cross country race once, that went from Seattle, through the Tir, then onto Phoenix.  Each "leg" had stopping points, and whoever came in first got that much time of head start on the next leg.  Each team had "bodyguards" (which the players served as - one was actually a racer) to handle protection and to make things go well.  Of course, if a team was caught tampering with the other's cars, team, or driver, they were disqualified.  Caught being the key word!

It was really fun, it probably took like 3 sessions to do the thing (maybe 4, don't remember), but it was fantastic.  The team member that served as the racer had surgery to make her look like a racer we were attempting to protect - who was getting threats to not race.  We had to protect her, our member diguised as her, and be timely on all aspects as well....which was really difficult, because the team wasn't in a race car.  So during the race, while we were in our trucks, suv's, etc, real damage could be done.

My suggestion for a third leg of the race is the desert.  Not only do they have the wear and tear/length of the race, but they have hazards of weather too.  Check out Hazard Pay for info on deserts.  Another idea that just came to me was to have a scavenger hunt type of race; kind of like the reality show "the amazing race."

[Michael Chandra]

You probably should get rid of the multiple-side penalty.