Mad Max Car Bits

Soon, the apocalypse we've prayed for will come, and we'll fly through the wasteland in crazy fucked-up road demons, shiny and chrome. Until that glorious day, maybe you want to pretend to do that in an RPG.


At the start of the game, give everybody 2 skulls and this page of car bits. They can pool their skulls to get anything on the page, or anything they make up.  Here's clarification on what some of this stuff does:

Bull Bar: Can be raised or lowered, sending up plumes of sand dust.
Spiked Wheels: Pops the wheels of any nearby car.
Boarding pole: Swings around with a counterweight, so you can swing onto another car.
Harpoon Grapple: Pierces another car. Can be swung around and aimed.
Smoker: Belches thick black smoke, blinding people behind you.
Caltrops: Each skull gives you one shot of them. Tip them out the back of your car to pop tires.
Wall of Sound: Hook up a musician to inspire the troops. The musician can give one of the following effects to cars around them:

  • Strike fear: All enemies must save or flee.
  • Pump up: Everyone drives faster
  • Death or Glory! Everyone becomes stronger and suicidal brave.
You can keep giving your players 2 skulls to customize their cars and grow a fleet every time they level up. Otherwise, you can just let people buy this shit and customize their car naturally.




While I'm here: Here's a simple tool to judge how much damage your car just took.

For a small amount of damage, roll a d6.
For a decent hit, roll a d12.
For a massive blow, roll a d20.
  1. Paint scraped. 
  2. Rear view mirror smashed. You can't see behind you.
  3. Side door fucked up. If it was open, you can't open it. If it was closed, you can't close it.
  4. Windshield smashed. Everyone in cockpit must roll or take damage from flying glass.
  5. Any oil or gas you've got around - in flamethrowers, oil tanks, etc - catches on fire.
  6. Tire punctured. Roll randomly to see which one.
  7. Brakes destroyed. You can't stop the car.
  8. The engine's taken damage and the car is slowing down rapidly. 
  9. Door torn off.
  10. You careen off-course in a random direction.
  11. You're skidding out of control. 
  12. Engine's overheating. If you keep driving it'll explode. 
  13. Someone is flung out of the car.
  14. Steering wheel destroyed. You can't steer.
  15. One of those beautiful car bits you bought has been torn off or destroyed.
  16. Roof torn off.
  17. The car's on fire.
  18. Your car screeches over on it's side. It's about to roll!
  19. The car has split into two pieces, both of which are still rocketing down the road.
  20. Giant, fiery crash.



    When you use a result for one specific car, mark that you've used it. If you roll that result again, use the next result up. So, if the windshield has been smashed and you roll a 4, you go up to result 5. If result 5 has been used up as well, keep going up until you find one you haven't used. This means even a small amount of damage gets more and more harmful as a car gets smashed up.

    If your car has armor, you can use it up to declare that a specific hit does nothing. One piece of armor is two skulls.

    May our lord V8 preserve us. Amen.

    No comments:

    Post a Comment