An Introduction to Gaslands

Racing has always been a popular theme for video games—everything from Formula 1 to street race simulations, from high-octane cyberpunk vehicles racing through a futuristic urban landscape to a world where strange little Italian plumbers chase each other in go-carts. But this genre has never translated well to the world of physical, tabletop roleplaying—until now.

Games such as Steve Jackson's Car Wars and Games Workshop's Battlecars admirably attempted to recreate the vibe for Tabletop RPGers but, in my opinion, never quite got there. But if you want to capture the magic of the car-on-car action of the Mad Max films (well, the first two films and the reboot, at least; no one watched the third installment, did they?), Gaslands is the place for you.

Here are more than enough reasons for you to give it a shot.

1: Value For Money

In a world where RPG rulebooks, peripherals, scenarios, add-ons, and miniatures run into vast sums of money, the core Gaslands rules come in one book you can find new for less than 20 bucks. On top of that, you need only a few specialist dice, some cars (for more of which, see below), movement templates, and some terrain, all of which are either cheap to buy or made for free. Gaslands is one of those games that lends itself to improvisation, custom conversions, and invention.

2: Availability of playing pieces

Often, the additional pieces needed to make an RPG session look and feel believable will cost you. After all, in a game such as D&D, if the players heroically storming a demonic temple find their characters standing on a sheet of graph paper, with walls made out of pencils and confronting a creature from the underworld that has been converted out of a toy from a cereal packet, the game's illusion will quickly dissipate.

Gaslands offers a neat solution for both cost and believability. The rules are based on the use of Hot Wheels cars. This range of toy cars has been popular since the sixties, and as children's tastes have moved on, you can now pick them up for a dollar or two on eBay, at garage sales, and in the discount racks of toy stores.

They might not seem like the stuff of the dystopian badlands in their original form, but all that is about to change.

3: Zen And The Art of Custom Car Maintainance

Most gamers also love collecting, painting, and perhaps converting miniatures - everything from creating your favorite Runequest character to building the mass ranks of a Warhammer 40k army. If you are one of those people, Gaslands is undoubtedly the place for you.

So, you might start out with a basic model of a standard pickup truck. But by the time you have given it a futuristic paint job or made it look like it has been traveling through a nuclear desert for a decade, you are starting to get somewhere.

If you dig through your box of modeling spares (the gamer's equivalent of that kitchen draw with all those spare fuses, that unused garlic press, the emergency candles, and various unfathomable kitchen devices), it can be turned into the suitable ride of a wasteland racer. A rocket launcher here, twin machine guns there, and all manner of spikes and shotgun-wielding passengers, and you are ready for the fight.

The same goes for terrain. You might eventually buy a playing mat, terrain pieces, and other terrain flotsam and jetsam, but with a bit of imagination and deft modeling, you don't have to.

When I played my first game, we used a sandy-colored tablecloth. This was later upgraded to a sizeable off-cut of carpet (a large burn-hole even became a craterous terrain feature), and only later did I spend $10 on a terrain mat. (Again, which the modelers amongst might want to build anyway. There are loads of hints and techniques available on the net.)

Buildings were fashioned out of boxes, customized with all sorts of kitchen junk and bits from the modeling box—pieces of modern battleships and heavy WW2 weapons are very useful. Old shampoo bottles became weird structures, strange-shaped packaging was turned into all sorts of buildings, fences were made from matchsticks, actual stones were collected from the garden, and I found that snack food tubes made ideal industrial towers. You will never look at your household waste in the same way again.

4: Slowly Does It

Gaslands is a layered game. The rule book maybe 180 pages long, but much of that is reference material, and the rest can be mastered in layers anyway. Once you have read the first thirty or so pages, you are ready for a spin. You will know how to drive, maneuver, ram, attack, dodge, dent, barge, bend, overtake, take shots at each other, throw missiles, drop spikes, spread oil, and everything else that goes hand-in-hand with such carmageddon. Just imagine downtown Miami at the end of office hours...only with full-contact driving, gas grenades, and shotguns.

Once you have mastered those, you can gradually introduce the add-on rules for perks, teams, sponsorships, and audience support.

5: The Rule of Carnage

Many RPG rule sets are complex. While this is not an issue, it does lend itself to a certain type of player who is always looking for every advantage, angle, and loophole—someone who "roll plays" rather than roleplays—the rules lawyer.

Gaslands, is not for them.

The "Rule of Carnage" states that if you are unsure of an outcome, "choose whichever option results in the most carnage for all concerned!" Gaslands is a spectator sport, and by the time you have mastered the full rules, the audience has a crucial role. They get to vote for a player or team based on the most spectacular collision, uncalled-for acts of aggression, most memorable explosion, etc. As with all reality TV, votes matter and lead to more buying power once you have mastered Gaslands enough to run an entire campaign. Sacrifice and destruction of your vehicle is often the name of the game. Don't get too precious about your builds.

Sometimes, it is about losing the fight to win the war, and if you are going to lose the fight, you should aim to go out in style.

6: Other Reasons Why Gaslands is great

It's quick to play a session. You can complete a tournament (the equivalent of an adventure or scenario) in 2-4 hours, so games don't need to cliffhang between sessions.

That said, each tournament is a chapter in an ongoing competition or league. Between these tournaments, you can spend money and completely refit, rearm, and repopulate your team, meaning that if your opponent has worked out your weaknesses, the next time you meet, such advantages are long gone.

Gaslands doesn't require a referee or GM, meaning you can have a meaningful and balanced game with just one other like-minded soul. If you find more interested parties, you can work through the bigger tournament types; three, four, five, or more players can be accommodated through the team's system or as one big free-for-all Battle Royal. That is when the real meaning of the word carnage is revealed.

And it is more than just a car chase in a dystopian world. Although inspired by films such as Mad Max, you can create whatever setting you like—from the desert wastes of apocalyptic Australia to a more cyberpunk, urban experience to a more aggressive take on Fast and Furious. You could even set it along the I20 in the present day if you like.

The rules also cover everything from buggies and bikes to tanks and battlebuses, and you can even add in gyrocopters or have the game plow right through a zombie apocalypse. I've even seen people modify the rules for speed boats and trains! There is something to suit everybody's tastes, provided their tastes are all about maximum mayhem in a futuristic arena of a diesel-powered deathmatch. And who doesn't like a bit of that?

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines...

Post written by Dave Franklin, you find them here.