Project: Death Race Alpha Rules – Revision 0.7
The newest revision of the Project: Death Race alpha rules are ready. Numerous bug fixes and a totally new, much simpler collision system are the big changes in this version. Come check out the full change log, download the new rules and join our group of loyal playtesters!
If you’re new to Project: Death Race, the original alpha rules article has some background information.
Download the new rulebook here: Project: Death Race version 0.7.
This printer-friendly version omits all graphics and the examples: Project: Death Race 0.7 printable version.
While there were a few aspects of the game that some playtesters found issues with (movement and weapon targeting, primarily), I didn’t change any of those for this revision. I wanted to focus on the major change to collisions, and making too many changes at once would make it difficult to evaluate any of them. I did boost the attack bonuses on many of the weapons, which may help alleviate some of the weapon targeting problems. Here’s the full change log:
- Reworked collision rules. Should be much faster and simpler.
- Reduced ram damage. Rammers now deal ram value plus speed rank, not ram value times speed rank.
- Turrets moved from inherent to light equipment. This reduced the cost of several vehicles. Now you can put a turret on any vehicle.
- Weapon equipment costs reduced, should be able to carry more ammo and weapons now for a reduced point cost.
- Added points and ammo to Smokescreen. They were accidentally omitted before.
- Did away with Severe Damage inherent effect. It no longer applies negatives to handling, acceleration or speed. The only effects caused by Severe Damage will show up on individual equipment (such as Ablative Armor).
- Fixed the spin modifier in the example from 10 to 15. This was a typo.
- Fixed Longbomb damage from d20 to d10. Also a typo.
- Changed drift rule from one car-width to one inch for clarity and remove ambiguity due to different model sizes.
- Clarification and cleanup of various rules, including skids and spins.
- Recalculated equipment and vehicle point costs. Equipment is generally cheaper now.
- Added higher attack bonuses to many weapons to make it easier to hit.
Related posts:
July 24th, 2009 1:27 PM
We definitely need some playtests using the new rules. Obviously, we’re looking to see if the new collision rules work, but also if weapons seem more effective and if ram damage is less ridiculous. Assuming none of this is horribly screwed up, the next revision will focus on movement and weapon targeting, and possibly firing arcs. Any comments/suggestions on those aspects will be very helpful too.
July 24th, 2009 3:32 PM
my schedule has been swiss cheese, however Brian and I plan on testing the new rules!
July 24th, 2009 9:00 PM
Nice!
The new collision rules look good. I am going to try to get this on the table this weekend with my son. i just picked up a bunch of hotwheels at a garage sale for 25 cents apiece to mod up for this.
If you are looking for testers, I would suggest posting in the Designer forum of BGG, there is also a Testers guild you can join and post to as well. You can also check out bgdf.com and post it there.
I uploaded the two new files to the games BGG page, so they should show up there soon.
July 24th, 2009 9:29 PM
Thanks JR, I was going to add to the BGG page for this over the weekend. You’re way ahead of me!
I’ll check out those forums you mentioned, I didn’t know about them.
July 24th, 2009 9:57 PM
One other thing I could use some feedback on: I’m pondering a business model for the game in the future, once all the bugs have been hammered out. What I’m thinking is, the rules will always be free, and the car design formulas will be free as well (I’ll release those at some point, when the rules are more stable). But I’ll release sets of equipment cards on a semi-regular basis that are available as pdfs from DriveThruRPG and the like, for something like $5 for a whole set of 40 or so cards. The cards would, of course, be much more graphically sophisticated than the test versions.
Does this seem fair? Too few cards per set to make it worth it? A terrible, capitalistic, greedy idea altogether?
July 25th, 2009 6:48 PM
That’s pretty similar to what I am considering for my Print and Play game.
I would say the more content with them the better, maybe some equipment, new cars, and some kind of short story/scenario. Or other kinds of content, like a couple new mechanics in each release.
August 2nd, 2009 6:31 PM
This game looks interesting… if only I had anybody to try it out with! Maybe I’ll find somebody (and some hot wheels) soon. I was just reading through the rules and I think I found a typo–on page 4, “Once you are done maneuvering, you may drift your up to one inch to either side.” (I assume it’s just sliding the whole car, but it could be drifting one corner of the car to change your direction.)