If Runequest was a car...

[Utgardloki]

In another thread, somebody described Runequest this way:

Think of the difference between the old VW bug and the new one. The new VW Bug looks mostly like the old one and has a specific charm but no one would ever have designed a car like the new VW bug if the old one did not exist.

That got me thinking of how to compare other RPGs to cars:

Dungeons & Dragons A Ford Mustang. People like to make fun of the company, but it is a classic, and nobody can say they don't put a lot of horsepower under the hood.

Exalted, 2nd edition An Italian sportscar that says "If the cops want to give me a speeding ticket, they'll need an airplane to catch me!"

Exalted, 1st edition An Italian sportscar. It runs fast, IF the engine works.

GURPS A pickup truck with an external combustion engine. An external combustion engine is an invention described in a long-ago issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. The design allows it to run on just about anything.

Tristat System (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) A Japanese car that everybody says good things about.

Rifts An M1 Abrams tank.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse A Sherman tank. Not as good as an M1 Abrams, but you've got to take it seriously.

Werewolf: The Forsaken A military Hummer. It's new and designed to serve the needs of the modern military.

Mage: The Ascension This is not a car unless you believe it is a car.

Call of Cthulhu A Ford Pinto with more than 400,000 miles on it, and liable to quit just when you most need it on a dark and stormy night, leaving you stranded on a deserted stretch of rural highway, in the fog.

Cthulhu D20 A Ford Mustang that has had two quarts of oil drained out of it, and parts of the engine disabled just to make things interesting. The air conditioning and the radio have also been disconnected.

D6 A new Cadillac with more options than a new Cadillac.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Shouldn't that be:

D & D - a heavily modified old banger that now has so much more new stuff bolted on to it that it no longer resembles what it started out as, and requires a substantial ongoing investment to make your initial purchase worthwhile.

 

[iamtim]

D & D - a heavily modified old banger that now has so much more new stuff bolted on to it that it no longer resembles what it started out as, and requires a substantial ongoing investment to make your initial purchase worthwhile.

*blink, blink*

Yeah. Just like a Ford Mustang.



(And I'm a Mustang owner, so I can say that.)

 

[Utgardloki]

Shouldn't that be:

D & D - a heavily modified old banger that now has so much more new stuff bolted on to it that it no longer resembles what it started out as, and requires a substantial ongoing investment to make your initial purchase worthwhile.

That would be a good description of Second Edition D&D. I should add that to the list.

Third Edition is a completely new model, which keeps the name, but has been completely redesigned. Also, once you have the three core books, you do not need to buy a single one of the 13,616,617 D&D supplements that have been published. Not a single one.

I guess First Edition would be a Model T Ford. You wouldn't want to drive it today, but it was the car that got everybody on the road.

 

[mthomason]

Shouldn't that be:

D & D - a heavily modified old banger that now has so much more new stuff bolted on to it that it no longer resembles what it started out as, and requires a substantial ongoing investment to make your initial purchase worthwhile.

Plus there's a bewildering choice of spare parts you can use rather than purchasing them from the manufacturer. These range from the rare few that are actually better than the manufacturer's parts such as the mirrored windows that can almost hide the crappy interior completely, to the replacement bumper that will drop off the second you turn the key in the ignition. This leaves many thinking maybe it's best to avoid getting the spare parts completely and just go buy a different model.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

Werewolf: The Apocalypse A Sherman tank. Not as good as an M1 Abrams, but you've got to take it seriously.

Werewolf: The Forsaken A military Hummer. It's new and designed to serve the needs of the modern military.

I have no idea what this means, though I'd sure like to.

 

[lastbesthope]

If any RPG was a car ....... YMMV :lol:

LBH

 

[Utgardloki]

Actually, the Forsaken should be a Humvee, not a Hummer.

Werewolf is a game where the PCs are werewolves, and the game revolves around werewolves fighting against other mythical creatures such as vampires. Thus, the military analogies.

As you can imagine, werewolves are pretty tough, thus, I chose the Sherman tank to represent it. Perhaps I should say "A World War II surplus Sherman tank. Not as tough as an M1 Abrams, but anybody driving it means business."

Werewolf: The Apocalypse was the earlier incarnation of the game, and Werewolf: The Forsaken is the newer version, thus I chose the newer military vehicle, hoping to elicit a truck full of marines ready for battle.

I'm not that familiar with the Forsaken storyline, although I've played the Apocalypse version.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

Actually, the Forsaken should be a Humvee, not a Hummer.

Werewolf is a game where the PCs are werewolves, and the game revolves around werewolves fighting against other mythical creatures such as vampires. Thus, the military analogies.

As you can imagine, werewolves are pretty tough, thus, I chose the Sherman tank to represent it. Perhaps I should say "A World War II surplus Sherman tank. Not as tough as an M1 Abrams, but anybody driving it means business."

Werewolf: The Apocalypse was the earlier incarnation of the game, and Werewolf: The Forsaken is the newer version, thus I chose the newer military vehicle, hoping to elicit a truck full of marines ready for battle.

I'm not that familiar with the Forsaken storyline, although I've played the Apocalypse version.

Ah, I just didn't understand the analogy.

I played Werewolf: the Apocalypse for years. And I know Werewolf: the Forsaken pretty well. I wrote chapters in over half the books for it.

 

[Utgardloki]

Ah, I just didn't understand the analogy.

I played Werewolf: the Apocalypse for years. And I know Werewolf: the Forsaken pretty well. I wrote chapters in over half the books for it.

Great! I hope I wasn't too far off in my analogy.

I played Werewolf: The Apocalypse a little bit, although my character was a pacifistic albino werewolf who was afraid of cats and drank a lot of beer. I think that the other werewolves were annoyed with him, because he always avoided fighting.

I never played Werewolf: the Forsaken, and I don't know what they changed for it.