+1 Pants of Drving. Pure win.

Now, in the first Random_Expansion article I did, I mentioned that out of all of the ideas there, I loved the Occult Tank Crusade idea most, and in passing, mentioned that I would love to play it as an RPG, rather than just some drive-along-and-shoot-em-up kind of game. So, looking for inspiration, I googled and Wiki'd all sorts of terms and words to try to get a feel for other vehicle-based RPGs, just to see what was out there and what had been done with the sub-genre.

And you know what? There's squat all out there.

As far as I could tell, many RPGs used vehicles as either a convenient means to get their characters from A to B (maybe pausing in the middle to fight monster C) or as simple combat extensions of their characters. The vehicles would be nothing more than vessels for the party members - sure, they might fight in the vehicle, use the mounted weapons and what have you, but ultimately the vehicle was not in itself a character, or even a significant part of a character. They were convenient to use, powerful to use, but other than that, no use at all. It ultimately came down to the fact that most RPGs had skills for every conceivable possibility in the game - but when it came to vehicles, the skill taken to operate one was entirely on the part of the player, not the character.

Now in most games, this makes sense. Most fighting / interaction doesn't take part entirely from the vehicle - instead most characters dismount to do such things. But what about a game that took place entirely from a vehicle? Where the tank / plane / submarine wasn't just a vehicle, but the most important part of the party itself - perhaps going so far as to say the vehicle is party, and the characters within mere upgrades? You see, the system I imagine is one where the party members exist solely as crew members of the vehicle. They are all parts of the vehicle's whole, each member bringing their own talents and capabilities to augment or enhance the vehicle's performance.

This presents us with a conundrum. Most RPGs have their stat systems aligned so that they take into consideration, and reflect, the direct physical prowess of the characters. But what use is Strength when you're holed up inside a metal shell? How much Dexterity is required to preform mindless loading actions? We see here that the traditional RPG stats fall apart when we introduce them into a world where the characters fight entirely from a vehicle. Physical stats don't mean anything any more, because they characters aren't being physical. They may preform physical acts - pulling levels, pumping shells - but these can be abstracted away by taking the rather bold assumption that characters know how to do the jobs they're trained for. You can just assume that a Gunner knows how to work the guns. That a Driver knows how to drive. You shouldn't have to test for something at that basic level of aptitude. They wouldn't be a Gunner if they didn't know how to work the guns to the best of their ability. A Driver shouldn't suddenly forget how to drive and strand the vehicle in the middle of nowhere whilst he tries to re-roll and remember which lever does which.

So, what stats can we use? Surprisingly, the mental stats (traditionally something along the lines of Charisma, Intellect and Wisdom) remain. Why? Because these stats are for dealing with interaction between people, and that is at the cornerstone of role-playing. Whilst we can assume that all combat and violence-based interaction will occur from within the vehicle, we can at least predict (and design) that the characters within the vehicle do on occasion get out and mingle with the townsfolk. This sort of system works best in a real-time game, where the accuracy and combat skills of the character are controlled directly by the player themselves rather than some closed-doors number rolling (this sort of thing thoroughly annoyed me in Morrowind, where you could stand right in front of something and not hit it, because your stats were too low. Dude! It's right in front of you! What kind of idiot am I when I can't even hit something with my twelve-foot sword at point-blank range!) We abstract away the stats that should be controlled directly by the player and the physical limitations of their avatar and leave behind the stuff that puts the role-play in RPG.

But, now that we have done away with the physical stats, how do we account for characters who are extremely skilled at their jobs? One of the possible ways is to introduce a skills-set based system. A Driver should have the Competent Driver: Tank skill if they're a competent tank driver. I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't let just anyone to drive a tank. I'd expect them do know what they're doing. And the inclusion of this skill means that you're able to drive the tank to the best of your own (that is, the player's) ability. Now, the inclusion of this skill now opens up a new skill-tree - Driving: Tank Skills. This is where the customisation of each character comes in, and is where their individual talents are introduced. This skill tree may include things such as Skilled Cornering (which advances into Advanced Cornering -> Masterful Cornering), Even Grounded (shakes the crew around less, allows for more accurate aiming) and the like. None of these raise your skills to an adequate level, they simply enhance it. Most RPG systems have you starting off not knowing how to do anything, and then building upon those skills until you're at a Competent or Beginners level. Why? Why not start out at a Competent level and, like I've said before, assume that the character actually knows what they're doing?

Of course, to go another way, you could instead go back to the number-based stat system, and replace the physical stats with some more traditional numbers. So instead of Strength, you have Gunnery, instead of Dexterity, you have Drive. Using a numbers-based system would be far more familiar to players, but it does take away some of the charm. Plus you'll always find it grating when you find those +1 Pants of Driving.

Another issue we have to take into consideration is that most games assuming that the damage being dealt to your characters is against their physical bodies. By fighting from a vehicle, you now have the problem of having 12 inches of reinforced steel between the attack and the character. The vehicle itself could just have the traditional armour / HP setup, or you could have something complex that requires a certain amount of penetration from the attacking weapon, individual health values for the crew members, etcetera.

These are just some random thoughts on vehicles in RPGs. Feel free to comment your own views on the situation.