The job of refereeing a multi-player Car Wars scenario can be exhausting - if not fatal. But the referee's job is important. A good referee can make the game better for everyone. A poor referee can slow down the game and irritate the players.
The job of refereeing a multi-player Car Wars scenario can be exhausting - if not
fatal. But the referee's job is important. A good referee can make the game
better for everyone. A poor referee can slow down the game and irritate the
players.
Nobody wants to be a poor referee...so here are a few suggestions, culled from hard-earned experience, to improve your refereeing style. If you duelmasters out there have more ideas, send them to ADQ and help improve the game for everybody. In the meantime, here are some things you can do to make play smoother and more fun...
Your game counters should also be organised. Car Wars scenerios use a lot of different kinds of counters...smoke, paint, debris, obstacles and barriers, pedestrians, breach and fire markers, mines, spikes...and, of course, cars. And now that a "wreck" counter is available for each of the vehicle counters, you may want to make sure that a wrecked purple car is represented by a purple wreck, and so on. How? There are several ways. Some referees keep their counters in a tackle box; others use plastic counter trays of the sort SPI used to sell (Close Simulations is making counter trays now, and they're quite good). Or you can just stock up on small zip lock bags. Whatever you do, any sort of counter-organisation will speed up play tremendously.
Have a good supply of duplicate record sheets. It is legal to photocopy all Car Wars record sheets for your own use - do it! If you are running a tournament or scenario with pre-panned vehicles, fill out the record sheet for each vehicle in advance. Make copies and hand them to the players, ready to use; keep the originals in your notebook for reference.
Announce the scenario rules well in advance. The more pre-planning your players have to do, the more time you need to allow them. Otherwise, you can find half of a four hour play session eaten up by the fellows who have to design a new car...This is a nuisance. But it's not the players' fault, if they didn't know what to prepare for. If you are planning a scenario where the players are given pre-planned characters and vehicles, you should allow 30 minutes or so for them to familiarise themselves with the characters and cars, and to plan strategy. If they have to design cars from a pre-set budget, allow a minimum of one man-hour per vehicle to be designed - and remember that you, as the referee, will have to check each design when it is finished to make sure that it is legal and stays within the budget! When I'm running a scenario, I like to announce the vehicle budgets the day before, if at all possible - and then require the players to give me their finished vehicle designs at least two hours before the game starts, so I can check their designs. I don't always do this - but everytime I fail to do it, I'm sorry.
Choose a scenario that's appropriate to the players. If you are refereeing for your local AADA, and the players know the rules as well as you do, then you can play a long, free-wheeling battle through downtown Midville (or Houston, or Baltimore, or whatever...), using Sunday Driver and Truck Stop rules. You can even throw in helicopters. Your players can handle it. But if you're dealing with novices, don't confuse them by hitting them with all the rules at once. Set up some road sections from the basic Car Wars game, or put them in a simple arena, and let them drive and shoot. They don't need to worry about sidewalks, building breaches, overshoots, and all the advanced things. They'll have much more fun with a simple scenario - and so will you.
Sometime you'll have a mixed group. What I do in that case is provide a fairly simple scenario, and tailor the roles to fit the players. For instance, if you have several inexperienced players and two aces, you can divide the group into two teams, with an ace in charge of each. Put them into an arena for a team melee. The aces won't mind the fact that it's a simple scenario. They'll be having a ball helping their novice drivers design cars, planning their strategy and barking out orders over the radio as their team charges into the battle. And the new players will be able to learn as they play - because they'll have experienced captains to help them.
If most of your players are experienced, and a couple are novices, you'll have a different problem. You can still divide the novices equally between the teams - but if the aces out-number the new fellows two or three to one, the novices may feel left out. One thing you can do is to let the novices handle a "third force" between two larger sides - like the police in Sunday Drivers, or a gang of pedestrians (or a single big truck) in the neighbourhood of a cycle war. Give them one experienced player to lead them. Then the novices won't feel left out - because the other two forces will try to negotiate with them, to win them over.
Tape down the map, too. I try to use drafting tape rather than ordinary cellophane or masking tape; it peels up afterwards without destroying the paper.
Organize your game material on the table in front of you, or on a chair beside you, so you can reach it easily. This includes all the rulebooks you're using, your own scenario notes, and the record sheets for any NPC characters or vehicles. You don't want to have to interrupt play every few minutes to scrabble for a rule.
Make up special marker chits for each driver. This little trick makes games go a lot faster, especially if you don't personally know all the players. Instead of using the little marker counters from the game set, take light cardboard and make up your own, about the same size. On each one, write the name of the player controlling that car - or better yet, the name of the character driving it! Beside the name, write the number (or numbers, if there was a tie) for that drivers reflex roll; this will help you when you have to decide who moves first. Now instead of saying "Red Car," or "Car 26," you call out "Fast Eddie, Move!", "Killer Konarsky, move!". People react better and faster to their names than they do to a number or colour - and a name cuts through noise much better. And it's more fun for the players when the referee calls their characters by name. If you make a point of remembering the characters' names and using them, your players will get more into role-playing, and you will have much more fun than watching them.
Use the reference screen and turning key. I'll keep this paragraph short, because don't want to sound like I'm just trying to sell stuff. But both those little pieces of cardboard are handy. If you don't believe me, borrow them from somebody else and try them out. 'Nuff said.
Use the numbers at the top of the Movement Chart to record phases and seconds. I usually put a yellow counter at the top of the chart, and move it along from one phase to the next. I call out "Phase 1," "Phase 2," and so forth, even if nobody moves during that phase; it helps players to keep track of time.
I also put another counter - red or green, depending on what comes to hand - above the "phase" counter on the chart. This one keeps track of seconds. At the end of Phase 10 each turn, I move the "seconds" counter up by one. This helps keep track of multi-second actions (like calling for help, getting into a car and starting it, etc.). Therefore it eliminates a lot of arguments.
Call for combat at the beginning and end of each phase. At the very beginning of each phase, I ask "Anybody pulling the trigger?" This gives all players an opportunity and reminder to start the turn with an attack if they so desire. I treat all such "opening attacks" as simultaneous; it's not strictly according to the rules but it works. Likewise, at the end of each turn, I ask "Any final shots?" to remind players who have not fired that this is their last chance.
Be ready to supply special rulings as needed. That's what a referee is for. As long as you are even-handed, your players won't mind - in fact, they will appreciate your flexibility. Usually you will find yourself bending a rule, or allowing a special action, for the sake of realism. For instance, if I'm refereeing and the corner or a counter brushes a wall, I look at the car. If it was a luxury car, it sideswiped. If it was a compact or a cycle, I say "Watch it - you scraped paint on that one.". I even allowed divine intervention once...but that's another story.
As the referee, your job is to keep everything moving smoothly. It's really not hard. Plan ahead...work with your players...interpret the rules creatively when you must, but always be fair to both sides...and they'll ask you to referee again and again.