{"id":831,"date":"2011-10-30T23:08:35","date_gmt":"2011-10-30T23:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=831"},"modified":"2011-10-30T23:09:45","modified_gmt":"2011-10-30T23:09:45","slug":"the-hawks-1000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=831","title":{"rendered":"The HAWKs 1000 at Fall In 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The winner of the HAKWs 1000 race being awarded a GASLIGHT Compendium T-shirt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year is the 100th anniversary of a number of key events, including the first outboard motor, the discovery of the South Pole, the first car race across the Texas desert, and an early balloon race. \u00a0This convention also saw the 1000th convention game run by the HAWKs in the past 10 years. \u00a0We decided, as a club project, to run a GASLIGHT-based race game.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The starting line for the leg of the race involving two-man zeppelins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The game involved four legs: a boat race in the Amazon involving pygmies, pirates, dinosaurs, and pirates; a dog sled race involving yetis, the Terror of the Yukon, polar bears, troublesome penguins, a VERY hungry walrus, and lots of action; an aerial race involving two-man zeppelins racing between mountain peaks; and a car race through the desert, involving a crazed hermit, the fountain of youth, and an archeological dig.<\/p>\n

In the picture on the right, my daughter and I made the mountains from poster board and paper mache. \u00a0The blue dots you see show the heights of the mountains, between 1 and 6. \u00a0I think the look of the mountains and the cotton batting was an effective representation of a race through high mountains.<\/p>\n

\"Lost<\/a>
Lost mountain climbers hoping to be rescued by one of the zeppelin crews<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In each leg of the race, first place earned five points, second place earned three points, and third place earned one point. \u00a0In addition, there were a number of additional objectives that were worth points. \u00a0In the zeppelin game, for instance, rescuing one of the lost mountain climbers was worth a point. \u00a0In my dog sled game, capturing the Terror of the Yukon was also worth a point. \u00a0In this way, vehicles that got a late start could still earn points and stay competitive in the overall race.<\/p>\n

Each round lasted 75 minutes. \u00a0After each round, points were awarded — in the form of poker chips. \u00a0The players carried their points with them as they rotated between tables with the different legs of the race. \u00a0 After the fourth round, after each leg was completed, the player with the highest total number of points was awarded a GASLIGHT Compendium T-shirt.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A scene from the boat race<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What’s not to like about pirates, motor boats, pygmies, dinosaurs, and alligators battling along a jungle river? \u00a0This was Todd Harland-White’s scenario. \u00a0This scenario involved a LOT of shooting. \u00a0In iteration I had a chance to watch, the lone crew member of the lead boat was shot in the back by a long range rifle shot, just inches from the finish line. \u00a0The players were racing to be the first to reach one of the waiting gunboats.<\/p>\n

In my arctic dog sled race, the participants weren’t allow to shoot at each other until they got out of line of sight of the event judge. \u00a0Once out of sight, the shooting began in earnest. \u00a0In one of the iterations of the race, two sleds were damaged and rolled 20’s for results — the sleds fell apart and the dogs ran off. \u00a0The racers continued on foot. \u00a0In one case, two sleds bumped and were locked together three inches from the finish line. \u00a0On the next card, the driver of one of the locked sleds sprinted across the finish line to win the race.<\/p>\n

\"Dog<\/a>
Dog sleds bumping, crashing, and going in the wrong direction<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the last iteration of this leg of the race, the winner was on foot. \u00a0The second-to-last player knocked out was eaten by a polar bear. \u00a0The third-to-last player knocked out was shot by the player on foot. \u00a0It was quite bloody.<\/p>\n

In all of the legs of the race, players were issued small cards with dirty tricks and other misfortunes they could play on the other players at any time. \u00a0These included things like “your engine conks out,” “you are attacked by yetis,” or “desert tribesmen attack you.” \u00a0There were also some “good” cards, like an extra burst of speed (an extra 1d6 of movement).<\/p>\n

In GASLIGHT, maximum movement in a turn is a fixed amount, depending on the Speed<\/em> attribute of the vehicle. For this race game, we borrowed a couple of ideas from Jamie Davis’ excellent Future Race game. \u00a0We first made movement partially random. \u00a0In the dog sled race, for instance, the base speed was 2 inches per remaining dog in the team.<\/p>\n

To this, the players added the roll on zero, one, or two six-sided dice, at the player’s discretion. \u00a0The player could choose how many dice to roll; however, once they decided, they had to move the full amount rolled. \u00a0This often resulted in sleds crashing into cliff walls, trees, rocks, flocks of penguins, or each other.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A scene from the desert leg of the race<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In GASLIGHT, vehicles turn up to their Spin attribute and then travel in a straight line up to their Speed number of inches. \u00a0For the race game, once the movement distance was determined, the players had move at least half their total movement allowance before turning up to 45 degrees. \u00a0This too resulted in crashes and other mishaps.<\/p>\n

Finally, when vehicles bumped into each other, they had to roll on a bump table to determine if either (or both) vehicles were damaged. \u00a0Between the dirty tricks cards, many obstacles, and requirement to move up to half before turning, there were many bumps, crashes, flips, and other mishaps. \u00a0This is what made the games so much fun.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One final view of the zeppelin race as the balloons near the finish line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n