HoW IT ALL WORKS. LE GRAND CIRQUE FOR BEGINNERS By Walter O'Hara Copyright, 2001 Walter O'Hara I. INTRODUCTION: LGC is a silly game about racing "conveyances" in an alternative, VSF style world. You will need a pile of contraptions to race around a course, a few extra figures to provide comic relief as spoilers, some figures for referees, some playing cards to provide an activation sequence, and the files provided here. You will need a largish space to play in. Roughly 5 x 8 feet for a decent event. It takes about 3 hours to do one lap, shorter if you do "Johnny Lighting" rounds. Theme terrain is called for-- Jungles, the Wild West, the Desert. Add enough to cause problems here and there along the course. You should definitely have flags out that mark the race "gates", much like a slalom skier uses to keep on course in a downhill race. At four or five points during the race, place referee figures so that they have a good view of the pack of racers. Place the referee templates under each figure, and face them all in one direction. II. CONVEYANCES: Are classed as Small, Medium or Large. This notion is important for the racing aspect of things. Guidance: Small-- A man on roller skates, a unicycle, a pennyfarthing bicycle, a small motorcycle. Medium-- a large steam motorcycle, a small monowheel, a giant mutant dodo pulling a chariot, that sort of thing. Large-- Vampire coaches (From GW), the Skaven Doomwheel, really big monowheels... LARGE vehicles need to be reigned in somewhat in terms of width and length. They block up the track most horribly... which can be a great strength if you are the driver of the large vehicle, of course. Still, I wouldn't go much past 8" long by 3" wide. Essentially, a CONVEYANCE uses ENERGY POINTS (of which there is a generic allotment at the beginning of the race) to do ACTIONS. ACTIONS are usually "Go real fast in the general direction of the finish line". ACTIONS have ENERGY POINT COSTS that translate into combinations of dice (1D6 for everything in this game) to throw for movement. MOST actions are negative cost (you use up energy to move), but there are a few actions that actually give you energy back (coasting, stoking an engine, winding a dynamo, winding a spring etc.) Actions that Cost you Energy Points are COST ACTIONS. Actions that GIVE you Energy Points are GAIN ACTIONS. III. CONVEYANCE CATEGORIES: I have come up with five that seem to work well together, and two that don't. Here they are-- STEAM POWERED: Uses a rudimentary boiler that stokes to get Energy GALVANIC POWERED: Uses a large battery and dynamo to feed a crude electric motor CLOCKWORK POWERED: Uses a giant winding spring and gears to move forward. MUSCLE POWERED: Any combination of bicycle, any human with skates, Any fantastic animal pulling a chariot. SUPERNATURAL: Flying Carpets, Vampire Coaches, Golem Wagons, etc. They use some supernatural movement that needs appeasing on occassion. These five work very well in combination with each other. These two don't: FLYING: ANY flying convyance has an incredible benefit that is almost too much of an advantage-- it ignores terrain restrictions. I don't want to give up on them just yet, but have to build in a limiting factor somehow. WIND POWERED: Sails powering a conveyance looks impressive but they tend to not have the umph needed to win in almost every race I've thrown. IV. CONVEYANCE SHEETS: I've created a powerpoint file that has all the conveyance sheets on it. They also explain the concept of Energy points and Activation Costs for Action on the back. You will note that there are discrepancies between the conveyance types about how they use energy. I'll try to explain this. A Steam Powered Engine burns coal or wood to make a boiler provide power. You can stress this concept by STRAINING an engine or REDLINING an engine. These two actions use up loads of energy but give you loads of distance. Problem is, they use up your engine, too. Every time you do a Strain or Redline, you increase the chances for critical failure. I'll explain BAD THINGS at the end of this discussion. A Galvanic has a steady stream of electric power coming from a giant battery filled with a poweful acid. This is enough to make the wheels go but to get any real speed out of a galvanic you'll need to increase current temporarily, by "Cranking the dynamo" (the equivelant of a strain or redline). A Clockwork runs very differently from the previous (who are similar to each other). The normal "go action" is UNWIND THE SPRING. The Spring is wound up for a round, then unwinds for 3. You can OVERWIND or STRESS, which gives a temporary burst of speed-- but cancels out the 3 rounds of steady movement (e.g., you'll need to wind the spring again). A Muscle Powered vehicle is even more different. It has the most GAIN ACTIONS of all of the other categories (COAST, COAST 2 and COAST STOP). It also has FATIGUE POINTS (moon symbols). You fill out a fatigue point every 3 turns, and two if you pedal x 2 or Pedal to the metal. Once FPS build up the performance of the bike goes down, as explained on the sheet. I envision Supernaturals as being conveyances where the pilot has made some sort of deal with a supernatural force to give it energy. Therefore, his actions are described as "requesting" energy from some supernatural energy source. Note, I don't make any judgements here based upon religious preferences-- an angel is supernatural as well as a demon. I just use "demonic" terminology because that's the stereotype. Change the terms to suit your style. Generic info on all sheets: An energy point grid. You roll for initial allotment of energy at the beginning of the race, and black out all the ones left over. You won't get any more EPs than this. Gained: Sometimes you can do fun things like give the racers "presents" of extra EPs. These should be recorded in the GAINED box, and used up FIRST. Faction is to note any national factions in the race by drawing their flags here. Size class is three boxes, small medium and large... check the approrpriate one. Driver is the "hit points" of the driver, forwhen the actual pilot takes damage in a crash or as a result of combat. V. BAD THINGS: If you STRESS (or the equivelant) your engine two turns in a row, or REDLINE YOUR ENGINE, you must roll on the Bad Things table. These are Critical Hits on your engine. Basically, this is the standard saving throw (3D6, look for anything but a one). If you FAIL, you roll 2D6 on the table, cross-checking for Conveyance type. VI: ACTIVATION: At start of race, shuffle a standard deck of cards, and deal them out to everyone. They write down their card/suit on their sheets and hand them back to you. Set these aside. GRAB the JOKER(S). Set them aside. Put all other cards away. Shuffle the cards you collected into an ACTION DECK. After turn 1, shuffle in Joker(s) to activate SPOILERS (more on this below). Line conveyances up on Starting line. Blow a horn and make a grand show of starting the race, and turn the first card. The player whose card this is now decides what ACTION he/she will take. They pay the Energy Point cost by marking off the boxes, rolls the requisite # of dice, and rumbles forward. The next player goes, and so on. At the end of the turn, get one of the players to shuffle the deck, they feel more involved that way. VII: MOVEMENT: This can be tricky the first time or so, and you may have to apply good judgement and divine powers of the GM to avoid heated discussions (you'd be surprised how overwrought some players may get about who gets to move where). Basically, movement is in a straight line. LARGE and MEDIUM class conveyances can turn ONCE inside a turn template (more on that next) per turn, and SMALL class conveyances turn twice inside a template per turn. NO other turns, though some discretion can be applied here to move the game along. MOVING AROUND EACH OTHER: This is important. Racers plot by eyeball exactly how they plan to move and where they end up. Sometimes this can be impossible due to terrain (going over a bridge is a natural choke point). At times like these, see if the racers can use their turn(s) to maneuver around a vehicle. If they can't, they'll have to BRAKE or RAM (a form of attack). As a rule of thumb, I let Small Class maneuver around almost anything, Medium I sometimes decide with a dice throw, and Large have a very tough time of it. TURNING TEMPLATES: Included in your package is a group of turning templates. One for L/M and one for S. When turning, unless it's obvious that it's legal, place these in front of the front wheel(s) of the conveyance, and turn the back end of the vehicle in the desired direction. If the front end points into the coloured zone, the vehicle must make a balance or displacement check. BALANCE OR DISPLACEMENT: by far, this is the most common roll in the game. As vehicles move around they may have to maneuver violently to avoid each other. When this happens a BALANCE/DISPLACEMENT check is called for. There are two types: Hard or Normal. Which one applies is up to the referee-- a good measure is how violently the conveyance would have to maneuver to avoid crashing. HARD CHECK-- Roll 3D6. Look for 6s, which is a free pass. On 1 or 2, you tip over. On 3, 4, 5 you stay up but pay an extra EP as cost for gyrating wildly. EASY CHECK-- Roll 3D6. Look for 6s, which is a free pass. On 1 you tip over. On 2, 3, 4, 5 you stay up but pay an extra EP as cost for gyrating wildly. A Large class doesn't tip over, it displaces. Put the displacment template in front of the conveyance. Roll 2D6 of different colors-- 1 is the direction it displaces (the rear end swings around) and 2 is the number of inches on the template it swings. A displaced L class can really be a pain in the neck to maneuver around. VIII: COMBAT RAMMING-- This happens either deliberately ("I'm ploughing into the side of the Clockwork Goat, over there!") or as the result of movement (you may have nowhere else to go BUT ram someone). When this happens, check the COMBAT VS. CONVEYANCES chart (made from a spreadsheet second tab). Determine what is ramming what (S vs. M, etc.). There are two columns next to attack type, attacker and defender. These are the dice you roll (1d6 as usual). Each side rolls. If the Attacker gets a 6, the attack goes through. If the Defender gets a 6, it blocks the attacker's attack. There is a range of results, but basically this is what happens. DEFENDER WINS OR NEITHER SIDE WINS: NON-EVENT status. The Ramming conveyances stops, no more movement. ATTACKER WINS: Roll 1D6 on the Damage table (to the right). Follow the results as indicated. Note that a NE (non-event) can be rolled here, as well. DAMAGE FROM RAMS: Balance Checks and Displaces you know already. DODGING is turning the target vehicle so it rotates 90 degrees AWAY from the direction the ramming vehicle is moving in. It represents the panicked pilot desperately moving out of a broadside ram... CRASHES. The vehicle goes over. Even a L class can crash, though it's tough to turn over. Place the model on its side. It takes a turn to right it. The pilot will usually get a LW (Light Wound) as well. ALL conveyances can point in any direction they please when righted. NOTE: This does not count as resting or doing nothing, the pilot is actively engaged in turning his conveyance over again. IX: COMBAT COMPONENT ATTACK-- a much rarer attack type is attacking something ON the conveyance to make it stop, crash, or blow up. This is handled via the ATTACK VERSUS CONVEYANCE SYSTEMS chart. It's handle similar to the RAM table and somewhat self-explanatory. X: COMBAT VERSUS INDIVIDUALS-- this used to happen more often, but has phased out as people are starting to become more enamored with *winning* LE GRAND CIRQUE, and not just driving around and causing trouble, which most assuredly decreases a racer's chances of winning. Be sure to stipulate that this will be considered a CAD-LIKE ACT (see CODE OF THE SPORTSMAN, below). To attack an actual pilot, see the COMBAT VERSUS INDIVIDUALS chart, cross reference for the weapon type (as close as possible), and roll a combination of attack and defense dice. In THIS instance, if a Defender wins (both are looking for that magical SIX result), the Attacker is counterattacked succesfully, and the defender rolls on the appropriate (for the weapon) row on the chart. A defender will not be called a Cad for defending himself. If the attacker wins, roll for the appropriate result on the Damage side. Damage from personal attacks are explained, as well as what wounds do, on the COMBAT VERSUS INDIVDIUALS CHART. XI: CODE OF THE SPORTSMAN-- One of the diqualifiers in this race is ACTING LIKE A CAD (right out of a Victorian dime novel). If a pilot ATTACKS VERSUS AN INDIVIDUAL, or RAMS INTENTIONALLY, he is automatically checked for being a Cad. See which referee has the best view of the situation by taking a squint over the figure. Roll 1D6. You will see a quadrant in the referee's circle-- see which direction the CAD CHECK event is from the ref's perspective (2,3,4,5). If you roll 6 (autospot) or the direction indicated (2,3,4,5), then the pilot is Called for being a Cad. (be sure to ham it up and encourage booing and hissing). He/she must write a "C" on their sheet. THREE CAD CHECKS AND THE RACER IS DIQUALIFIED. Enforce this. XII: SPOILERS-- One of my favorite things to do to add color to a race is to add spoilers. These are little groups of non-racers that are trying to interfere with the race in some fashion.. Some of the spoilers are almost as endearing as the racers themselves, such as the Internationalist Vegetarian Conspiracy, which launches flaming pigs into a race as a bitterly ironic gesture, or The Kaiser's Personal Insurance, a team of Jagers trying to shoot out the tyres of French and English racers, or various mummy teams at the Pyramids. SPOILERS ACTIVATE ON THE JOKER, after turn one. Sometimes you'll have multiple choices of which spoiler to try. Choose the one that makes the most sense, but don't do multiples of a spoiler, as they slow down larger games. I use the SPOILER COMBAT chart on the XLS spreadsheet. I deliberately encourage a sense of comic ineptitude for spoilers. I don't like to have racers suffer unduly from what is essentially a random event. So generally speaking the spoilers won't do much more than cause a Balance Check or Light Wound. As a referee, play them up as being more lethal than they really are... this can get pretty funny. XIII: JOHNNY LIGHTING ROUNDS: For convention events, where I often get more than 20 players, I need to speed the race up sometimes. CONSIDER THIS OPTIONAL. Every third turn I stand up on a chair and ask a really easy trivia question, based in the field of Victorian history, Science Fiction, or Science. If anyone in the audience gets it right, I declare a Johnny Lightning round. That means, everyone moves at once, at a basic "GO ACTION" speed, no EP costs, NO COLLISIONS, NO ATTACKS allowed!! This gives the ref a chance to get a drink of water and regain his voice. XIV: DAME FORTUNE: Another thing that should be CONSIDERED OPTIONAL. For advanced players only. You may wish to START every turn's card flippage with a SMILE OF DAME FORTUNE roll. Make up a random events table, usually bad, that keys off of rolling three dice. If you have three matches (the same number 3 times), then DAME FORTUNE has either smiled (six) or frowned (one) at you, or any combination in between. Make something up for the race you are running-- I usually key this to the current theme of the race. XV: CONCLUSION-- You now have enough information to get started. If you have questions, contact me, I try to be helpful. V/R Walt O'Hara aka COL HIRAM OLIPHAUNT, Knight Commissioner of the Grand Circuit Races