Shifting Gears

From AdamWiki

Shifting Gears is a game about the adrenaline rush of illegal street racing and the stark realities of life. Players take on the roles of street racers who build up their cars and their street cred while trying to keep their regular life from falling apart. Players go head-to-head as rival racers, and they try to distract everyone else's character with tough decisions between races. You can focus your resources on your day stuff, or put those resources to use on your racing stuff. How important is winning?

You don't have to know much about cars to enjoy this game.

Characters

You're a street racer in Southern California. You're young, probably under 21, definitely under 28. Late at night after the Williams and Bettys of the world are tucked safely into bed and the roads are clear, you and your friends light up the highways and backroads at breakneck speed. You have a car, but at first it's a piece of shit. You have some driving skills, but you're not ready for the big time. Mostly you have raw enthusiasm for driving fast.

By day, you have normal shit to deal with. Probably a crappy job, some family, and other responsibilities. You want to spend as much time as you can fixing up your ride, but reality has a way of fucking up your plans. And you gotta get paid if you want that new Weapon R cold air intake.

Your character consists of a handful of attributes, with permanently set scores, a growing list of "freeform" skills, and some resources that you have to manage.

Attributes

Attributes in Shifting Gears are all about the Three R's: Racing, Responsibility, and Relationships.

Racing is the attribute that wins you races. It governs everything that happens when you're in the car.

Responsibility represents everything that isn't racing or people. This governs your day job (if you have one), going to school, taking care of your family, and all that other junk. This attribute helps you earn money, which you can spend to maintain and upgrade your car.

Relationships is about the people. This ability governs working with people and getting them to help you. How you get people to help you is up to you. You might be manipulative and coercive, or you might be persuasive and diplomatic. Don't skimp your Relationships too much, or your problems will get in the way of your racing.

Each attribute gets 1d6 to start (assign these dice, but don't roll them; that is, you might write "2d6" next to Racing). Distribute 10d6 more among the three attributes, any way you like. If you want Racing 11d6, Responsibility 1d6, Relationships 1d6, you can do that, but don't think you'll win all your races. You might never even make it to the race because your real life is so fucked up.

Skills

Skills represent lessons you've learned and things you know how to do. These are spread across your three attributes--you'll have Racing skills, Responsibility skills, and Relationship skills. Each skill gives you an extra "boost" to that attribute when it makes sense to use the skill.

The skills are "freeform," meaning there's no list in these rules; you'll write down anything you think that might be useful. You must write very specific skills, though, not broad ones. You can't write "great driver." If anyone at the table objects to a skill, rewrite it. For example, you might write "excellent turn handling" or "fast reflexes."

You start out with 8 skills total. The number of skills you can put under any attribute is limited by the larger of the other two attributes. For example, if you have Racing 11d6, Responsibility 1d6, Relationships 1d6, then you can have up to 11 (well, 8) skill in Responsibility or Relationships, but only 1 skill under Racing. If you have Racing 8d6, Responsibility 4d6, Relationships 1d6, then you can have up to 4 Racing skills, 8 Responsibility skills, and 8 Relationship skills. Remember, you only get eight skills total, though.

Resources

You have three resources: Car, Job, and Friends. These are commodities that change during play.

Car. You'd be a pretty stupid racer if you didn't have a car. Don't think you're gonna have the most awesome car ever though. You gotta start small and work your way up.

Job. Your job pays the bills. It keeps a roof over your head and put fuel in the tank. It pays for replacement parts when you blow your engine. It buys kits that get every last drop of boost out of your car.

Friends. Your friends (which includes family, too) are your support network. A life without friends is a sad, lonely existence. Friends are there when you need them. They're there to celebrate your victories and keep you level-headed.

Resources start at a random value, determined by rolling your attribute scores. Racing determines Car. Responsibility determines Job. Relationships determines Friends. Resources are also ranked as dice (d6es).

Roll the dice for each attribute and look at matching dice. The best match (in number of dice, not face value) is your resource score. For example, if you have Racing 11d6 and you roll 11122334566, your best match is three 1's, so you get 3, or Car 3d6. Note that the worst you can get is 1, because if you roll 1d6, it is always a match of 1.

Also, these are just numbers. Put some details on that chassis. What kind of car is it (year, make, and model)? Is it beat up? What color? What is your job? What's your boss' name? Who are these friends? What do you do for fun, other than racing? What are your friends like?

Style

You're not done yet. The hardest part is still ahead: You need to name your character. You can't do that without knowing a little about the racer you're about to play. Where is she from? What's his ethnicity? Who are mom and dad?

While you're at it, make some notes about what the character looks like and wears, quirks of her personality, and so on. Don't write a book. Just jot down some adjectives so you aren't caught in neutral when it's time to go.

Play

This is a competitive game. You'll be complicating the lives of other players' characters so that it makes it harder for them to win races. They'll be doing the same for your character. How well you handle your character's "real life" influences the resources you have for winning races.

In some ways, it's not a competitive game. Winning isn't always everything. I mean, fuck it, go all out to win races, but don't end up a royal asshole or tragic loser to get there. Well, you can if you want to, but--you know, people will think your character is an asshole or loser. Shifting Gears makes it difficult to win at both life and racing, and sometimes you'll have to choose, and that's what play is really about.

Scenes

Play is divided into scenes, like in a movie. Scenes can flow in a relaxed way, but generally a new scene starts when there's a change in location, time, or character. For example, if play is taking place at the diner, then it jumps to your mom's house, that's a new scene. If play jumps forward a day, or flashes back in time, that's a new scene. If play is spotlighting your character, then it shifts to focus on someone else's character, that's a new scene. Don't let one scene go on too long. You can always cut away from it and then come back later. Cut away at a dramatic moment, like when a hard choice has to be made or someone is about to do something dangerous.

Shifting Gears has two kinds of scenes: real life scenes and race scenes. In real life scenes, play focuses on one character and their struggle with relationships, money, and basic safety. The one player whose character is in the spotlight in a real life scene is called the driver or is in the driver's seat. The other players are responsible for making the driver's play interesting and complicated. In race scenes, everyone's character can be involved (but they don't have to be). At least two players have to be involved, though -- it's not interesting to race alone. These scenes showcase one or more street races between the characters.

Play starts with a race scene. Then each player gets at least one real life scene. Once everyone has had a chance at a real life scene, there's another race scene. Repeat the cycle over and over until you're done playing. You'll know when you're done. The stories will have reached a point where the characters have shown who they truly are and perhaps have changed significantly. The story you've told will have some kind of air of finality to it, though there may still be threads left unfinished (that's okay).

You can have more than one real life scene if everyone else agrees that it's okay, but then everyone else gets the same opportunity. Everyone should always have the opportunity to have the same number of real life scenes, because the scene earns you a new skill.

The rules for race scenes and real life scenes are a little different. The rules cover each, one at a time.

Race Scenes

A race scene is about speed, danger, and excitement. It's about winning. Winning earns you Victory dice, which you can use to increase your Resources.

Everyone involved in a race scene uses the contest rules, competing against one another. The initial dice pool is Racing + Car and the players may use only Racing skills. The winner of the contest wins the race and gets 12d6 Victory. Second place gets 6d6. Third place gets 3d6. Everyone else gets 1d6.

What kind of race is this? There are impromptu street races on the highway (perfect for two or three racers). Racers line up while cruising along at 45-55 mph and someone honks three times. On the third honk, everyone guns it. The race goes until once racer has "clearly" won the race. Decide what victory is before starting. A 6-round contest, winning even by a small margin, might represent a longer race that weaves in and out of traffic. An open-ended contest where someone has to be at least 4 points ahead of everyone else might work well for a highway race where victory is determined by being a quarter mile or more ahead. A short drag race can be played out using a contest with 2 or 3 rounds.

Complications in the contest can include traffic, detours and construction, police, bad weather, and vehicle problems like tire damage or a blown engine.

Real Life Scenes

A real life scene focuses on life between races. One player, the driver, plays out a scene in his or her character's life while the other players make things complicated. The more complicated they make it, the more likely the driver will spend valuable resources to fix the character's life problems instead of boosting his car.

At any time during a real life scene, the driver can add one skill to his character. The skill has to make sense in the context of the scene, but the driver has a lot of latitude for working it in. For example, you can't just add a Racing skill during a scene about making up with your girlfriend, but if you're having an argument with your girlfriend while driving, you can probably justify it.

As a side note, it's totally cool to have "races" in real life scenes. These can be friendly races with other players or races with "non-player" characters. These races follow all the rules for real life scenes. Most importantly, such races in real life scenes never earn the player Victory Points.

The driver plays out a contest against the other players, each of whom get free dice to challenge with. How many dice? Add up your two largest attribute scores, count out that many dice from the dice bowl (not your dice), and divide those dice up as evenly as you can among the other players. If your scores are Racing 11d6, Responsibility 1d6, Relationships 1d6, that's 11d6+1d6 = 12d6. That'll split nice and even among two, three, or four players. If you have five other players, each will get at least 2d6 and two will get 3d6. They must use all of these dice during your scene.

Everyone should agree which attribute and which resource makes sense for the contest. The driver gets an initial dice pool equal to that attribute plus that resource. For example, ...

Notes

Choose which attribute you'll increase. Choose which (different) attribute you'll use to increase it. Choose which attribute you'll use to pay for the increase.

If all three are different, lower the "pay" attribute by 1.

• Increase car using friends, lose 1 job.
• Increase car using job, lose 1 friends.
• Increase friends using car, lose 1 job.
• Increase friends using job, lose 1 car.
• Increase money using friends, lose 1 car.
• Increase money using car, lose 1 job.

Example: Car 7d6, Job 4d6, Friends 2d6. Increase Car using Job and pay for it with Friends. Lower Friends by 1 die from 2d6 to 1d6.

If the "use" and "pay" attributes are the same, risk burning the attribute. Roll a number of dice equal to the some of (newly) increased attribute and pay attribute. Lower attribute by largest match (but not below 0).

Example: Car 7d6, Job 4d6, Friends 2d6. Increase Car using Job and pay for it with Job. That could burn Job. Roll 11d6 (7d6+4d6). Say you roll 11123345566. Largest match is 3 (1's), so lower Job 3 dice from 4d6 to 1d6.

• Increase X using Y, lose Z. All different. No burn. Pay 1 Z.
• Increase X using Y, lose Y. Use and lose the same. Burn Y.
• Increase X using X, lose Y or Z. Increase and use the same. Burn X.