Dangerous Vehicles

[Alverant]

I just saw a YouTube video about an ATV and it was mentioned that thousands of people died using them. I'm assuming most of the ATV accidents were from someone "failing a driving check" so badly that they were either thrown off or the ATV rolled over on them. So I was thinking, how would this be done in Hero? How would you make it so there were circumstances where operating the vehicle improperly could cause injury or death? IMHO even doing a critical failure (18 on 3d6) can happen too often to be realistic depending on how often you make the skill check. But if you tack on too many conditions (like failing a DEX roll after a critical failure) it becomes cumbersome an not worth it. So what's the best way to represent the kind of danger a vehicle like this presents to its rider?

[dmjalund]

Unluck?

[IndianaJoe3]

Buy some of their movement with RSR and Side Effect. Drive too fast, and you need to make a driving check. Miss the driving check, and you have an accident and take damage.

[Ninja-Bear]

Alverant since Hero System at its base is Cinematic, I would into increasing damage done by accidents. One suggestion years ago would be halving the person’s  PD against Normal Damage.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Keep in mind that for 'normal' driving you don't need skill checks at all, only when there are particularly challenging circumstances.  In game terms, ATVs are much more likely to be driven in challenging circumstances because they are used off-road and on difficult terrain, and because they have a poor center of gravity.  So it really comes down to how often you want to make a character do the driving check.  When a critical failure does come up, if you want to give the PC's some leeway, let them do a Breakfall roll to reduce some of the damage.

[unclevlad]

I'd never give the driver a Breakfall roll.  He has to maneuver around the steering wheel;  there simply isn't time.  A passenger might get one for being thrown...but in many cases it'd be at a huge penalty.  There MIGHT be time for other defensive measures, tho...like Barrier.

 

But Ockham's point is sound, I suspect.  The accidents are happening because the driver's doing tricky/dangerous stuff, like running across a dune face.  I think I've also seen one where the ATV was trying to climb a steep hill, and ended up flipping nose over tail.

Here's an article that might help:

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/the-dangerous-truth-about-atv-accidents-25021#:~:text=Causes of ATV accidents range,exceeding capacity on the ATV.

 

Some things are patently obvious...if it's  built for one and someone else is hanging on, well...gee, what do you expect?  Weight limits...the ATV might be rated for no more than 400 pounds.  Put 2 football players totalling 475?  Problem.  I think I'd not worry in advance about what the mishap chance should be...if this is all NPCs, well then it's all narrative.  If this involves a PC then perhaps we get into the RP...is the driver overconfident/foolish/naive or knowledgeable and prudent?  Booze clearly impacts things.  Storyline matters...if this leads to a rollover that could kill a PC or important NPC, well...it's a Stupid Death, and not necessarily something the GM wants to do.

[Scott Ruggels]

Long ago I wrote an article about a fictitious Italian sports car. The car had 3 dice of unluck. Every time the driver had to make a driving roll, they had to make an unluck roll. The car itself had good stats and would grant pluses to driving skill, but missed rolls spawned unluck rolls, with one level causing minor irritation, two levels ending your trip, and three being life threatening. I’ll see if I can dig up the article. 

[Crusty]

It was largely the trikes that killed people. They could turn on a dime, which is a serious design flaw at anything more than walking speed with only one wheel up front. God help you if you turned fast
 

Flipping was an issue also. Too much torque at low speeds. You could plow  through a swamp but even a small mound could flip that thing over onto you. 

That was a case of the design making it dangerous, and not the driver taking chances. 
 

[Duke Bushido]

4 hours ago, Crusty said:

It was largely the trikes that killed people.
 

 

That.  That right there.

 

Imagine your forward momentum carrying you, then you turn.  Your momentum wants to keep going straight.  With four wheels, the suspension on the appropriate corner helps absorb that energy until you've obtained a new direction.

 

With a trike, you have nothing on the front corners: the  trike happily rolls right over.

 

I run into this a lot with "normal" street trikes.

 

For years, I ran a website for beginning motorcyclists.  I was a riding instructor (street and racing) for many, many years.  Frankly, if it were up to me, the big street trikes would be banned for the exact same reason: they roll over and kill people.  Sadly, they kill mostly older people who have decided they can't ride a bike anymore, but feel they would do fine on a trike (which not only takes much more strength to turn, but--- there's the "rolls over on a whim" problem).  "Tadpoles" or "reverse trikes" like that Bombardier thing on the market right now are great: they solve the problem by putting the suspension where it needs to be on a flat-turning vehicle.  However, between the two wheels widely spaced up front and the underpowered 750-powered CVT means there's really no reason not just buy a car. 

 

 

As for the four-wheeled ATVs and the remarkable number of fatalities associate with those, well, I can't claim expertise, but I live in an extremely rural area (most of our roads around here, in 2020, are still dirt), and there are just as many ATVs as there are trucks, if not more.

 

What I typically see is that the bulk of ATV riders are underage.  This doesn't mean they're not capable, mind you, but it tends to mean a lot of people without proper reaches for the extremes of the controls and without enough physical strength sufficient to wrestle the controls when they fight back....    well, the bulk of people wrecking the things are kids, and have no business on them in the first place.  I have yet to meet a parent who doesn't believe that his kid is somehow special and able to do things beyond his maturity and beyond his physical development.  Judgment plays a huge part as well, and --- well, there's more than one reason we don't let kids make split-second life-or-death decisions.

 

Another common cause of wrecks on these things is lift kits.  It's three, maybe four feet wide (for the ride-behind type), and few are as much as six feet long.  Why would you make it taller?  I don't mean a little bit taller; I mean "the floorboard is now five feet of the ground" lift kits.  Sure: you can ride through deeper water.  You can ride through deeper mud.  But ever little tip and lean is so amplified....  over she goes, and on top of whatever momentum and whatever you're landing on, you can add a five-foot drop as the machine _flings_ you very much head-first for a side-of-the-skull impact.

 

When you find an ATV with a snorkel kit, you know two things:  

 

You know that the guy bought a kit that will let him creep his ATV through slow-moving or stationary waters regardless of how deep the water is.

 

You know that at some point, he has or will run that thing with the wick wide open across dry ground and straight into a body of water or mud, either of which will stop him cold from a full run.  Over he goes, straight across the handlebars, face-first into whatever is waiting for him.

 

 

Then you've got the fact that most people want to treat them like dirt bikes, which just doesn't work: you can't keep the front end up in a jump; you can't slide them sideways around a tree, etc.

 

Anyway, that already went on far longer than I wanted it to, so let me jump to the point:

 

 

 

Are they really failing their driving roll?  I mean, sure: they are, but why?

 

Let's say the character has driving 14-.   Then he climbs onto his ATV.   Now this ATV is _not_ a car.  In fact, the characteristics of this thing-- the very way it is built and operates, means that just going straight and stopping forces a -6 to your roll.  Then you want to do a maneuver-- running full tilt and swerve.  Given the suspension design, the center of gravity, the deep bite of the tires into the earth, etc-- this maneuver takes another -2, perhaps you're going fast enough and over terrain broken enough to make that a -4.  Now you've got a -10.  Fourteen minus 10 means you have to roll a 4.  Given the half-a-percent chance of rolling a 3, your odds don't get much better for a 4.

 

Now let's say that you're small:  you're too light to affect the center of gravity (you have to lean and roll your body as if you were on a bike, just because the things are so cussed small; this helps prevent a side-ways roll-over.  You're also short: in order to really throw the bars, you have to lean _into_ your turn, actually _increasing_ your chances of rolling over sideways.

 

You're also inexperienced:  you don't really understand the importance of all the stuff above, or when to do what.  You don't even understand the danger that you're in (or that your idiot parents have put you in).

 

 

Realistically, what's killing you?

 

 

The machine?  Or trying to outclass your skill level?   Or using the wrong skill set entirely, assuming "well, it looks like a motorcycle; it must work like one" or "it's got four wheels; it must work like a car"?

 

 

Yes; this could go on and on and on, but it boils down to that last suggestion in most of the cases I see around here:

 

Not so much as "blowing the skill roll" as "not having the right skill to roll against."

 

 

Just because someone can operate an end loader doesn't mean he can operate a bobcat.

 

 

Now game-wise, it works the way you want it to:  perhaps "dirt bike" or "motorcycle" or "combat driving" provides equal skill in your game for for cars, pick-ups, vehicles pulling camper trailers, and ATVs.  If so, that's fine.    But if you want to apply the game to the world around you, I strongly believe the real world problem to be "wrong skill" or simply that you think you have more of that skill than you actually do.

 

 

 

[Crusty]

Sooo much better than what I said and how I said it. Worth seeing it all broken down like that. Nice post. 

[Duke Bushido]

Thank you, Sir (I presume; forgive me if I err).

 

I talk way too much.   

 

 

[unclevlad]

5 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Thank you, Sir (I presume; forgive me if I err).

 

I talk way too much.   

 

 

 

It's not excessive verbiage;  it's supplying a comprehensive analytical discourse, rather than the written equivalent of a sound byte.

[Duke Bushido]

Thanks, Vlad.

 

For what it's worth, I _detest_ sound bites.

 

I swear, I really believe the increase of sound bites on the news is contributing to a rise in stupidity.   😕

 

 

[unclevlad]

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I swear, I really believe the increase of sound bites on the news is contributing to a rise in stupidity.   😕

 

 

 

I'd tend to call it a sharp decline in critical thinking...and the patience to actually try to do it.

[Duke Bushido]

Agreed.  I just think it's spurred on by the mistaken idea that "well this sums it all up nicely" 

 

Particularly if it is in anyway humorous _or_ I  any way insulting to those you disagree with.  "insult them until they agree" has been the model of social and political "exchange" for what?  Three decades now? 

[Crusty]

19 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Thank you, Sir (I presume; forgive me if I err).

 

I talk way too much.   

 

 

I second Uncle Vlad. In a medium of memes and sound bites I’ll take a well written porterhouse steak 🥩 any day!

[unclevlad]

The answer itself is frequently less important than the reasoning behind it.

 

And if I want a quick bite...lambsicles.    (Frenched rib chops.  2" of bone with a couple ounces of meat at the end.  YUM!!!!!  Unfortunately VERY expensive and not commonly available.)  FAR tastier than sound bites.

[Chris Goodwin]

Vehicles can certainly take Physical Complications to represent instability in certain circumstances, a tendency for failed Driving rolls to result in user injury or death, or even a requirement to make Driving rolls more often.  

 

I mean, normally a failed Driving roll results in something bad happening, which could be anything from a minor skid to a "roll and burn" depending on a lot of factors.  The Physical Complication means that more of those factors that result in user injury or death tend to apply.  (Edit)  Couple that with a tendency for some vehicles to have DEF that doesn't protect the operator and passengers at all, and that can even allow the vehicle to land on top of them and kill them that way.