I had the opportunity to play a one shot of the indy game CRASH//CART and I had a blast, even though the group and I had some critiques of the system.
CRASH//CART is about a group of paramedics and their flying emergency medical vehicle trying to save patients while working for a for-profit corporation, all in a cyberpunk world. If you are familiar with Cyberpunk 2020, think of Trauma Team International. If Shadowrun is more of your jam, consider Doc Wagon or CrashCart or one of the other corporate medical services.
CRASH//CART was created by Galen Pejeau and is hosted on itch.
A Blades in the Dark based game, CRASH//CART uses a modified deck of cards instead of dice to resolve actions taken in game. I’ll get into the mechanics more later. Right now, suffice to say that this was my first exposure to the CRASH//CART mechanics as a player and my first encounter playing with a Blades in the Dark system. I had read Blades in the Dark in the past, but reading a system and actually playtesting it are two utterly different experiences as you all know.
Let’s get to how my character, “Action” Jackson (no last name) came to be. I was playing with one other player and a Game Master. This is significant because CRASH//CART recommends 3-5 players on the itch page. Since we were less than the recommended number of players (page 22 of the pdf recommends four characters), we followed the playbook prioritization of Medic, Pilot, Orderly and Mechanic. My compatriot chose the Medic and I selected Pilot.
Summarizing character creation a bit, as a Pilot I started off with one dot each in the Actions Evading and Fraternizing; and I was given four more dots to distribute among my Actions as I saw fit. Since I didn’t have a full understanding of the system, I chose to put one point in Scuffling (since my character had a Vice of Violence), and a point each into Moving and Hacking. I put the last point in Evading since I assumed that was the “Get the Fuck Out of Dodge” skill. In retrospect I likely should have put that second point from Evasion into Moving, since Moving was used far more often; but on the other hand, Evading did come into play in a couple of clutch moments.
The Adventure
Speaking of adventure, our GM started with an abrupt emergency call for a PLATINUM level client. We only knew that they were in medical distress. Oh, and also they were a clone. Welcome to the world of Cyberpunk. The address we were given landed us in an extremely posh estate on the coast with a lavish view of the now-toxic sea. There were floor to ceiling glass doors and one of them had been smashed to pieces. The Medic played it wisely and sent one of our shiny and new Pathfinder Drones into the house through the broken door. The commotion was on the second floor. Our PLATINUM level client was on his back trying (and failing) to fend off a much hairier and more muscular naked person on him who was trying to gouge his eyes out. Standing there ineffectually and shouting at the assailant to stop were…two more clones? Yep, something very odd was happening in this house, but that didn’t matter; we had a PLATINUM level client to save!
Our Pathfinder Drone circled the assailant and yelled at him to stop, as the Medic and I jumped out of the EMV with important gear. The Smart Gurney exited the vehicle autonomously and trundled along behind us. As the Pathfinder Drone got closer to the assailant the hairy man turned around and we got a good look at his face before he backhanded the drone to the floor. Yes, you guessed it, the muscular naked hairy man was yet another clone, with the same facial features as our PLATINUM level client, who by the way was writhing around in his own blood and screaming as one eye was not so gently removed from his face. Squick.
As a side note, in CRASH//CART, all playbooks have a list of equipment for each character. The equipment by default is kept in the EMV. When you exit the vehicle and enter a scene each player may take only two pieces of equipment from their equipment list. One of the pieces of equipment I took was Fine Buzzknuckles. They were “impact resistant gauntlet[s] with embedded taser leads and capable of delivering multiple 1,200 volt shocks,” according to the book. When the medic and I raced into the manor and up the stairs, I was smiling. Those Buzzknuckles were just charging up.
The Medic, professional as ever, quickly introduced himself to the two ineffectual clones (turns out one of them had placed the call for an ambulance) while I dove at the muscular fiend with Buzzknuckles blazing. I tackled the hairy clone and the electrical discharge sent him slamming into the far wall. The Medic convinced the two ineffectual clones to help restrain the hairy one (You! Grab an arm. You! Grab the other arm and hold him down!). I got off our mangled PLATINUM level client’s body and joined the melee to subdue the now angry hairy man. The Medic jumped on our client’s body and immediately began emergency services as he now saw a deep gash along the clone’s stomach, likely caused by a knife or maybe even a shard of glass from the now broken glass door downstairs.
The mystery of all these bloody shenanigans would have to remain unsolved for us. We had a client that had to get to a hospital, and the sooner we got there, the sooner we got paid. Wrestling with the hairy muscular clone was hard, even with assistance from his two brother clones. Frantically, I looked around for something heavy and expensive. Luck was with me and I found a crystal brandy snifter. Smash!
The hairy and now alcohol smelling clone slumped to the ground at about the time the Smart Gurney chimed amicably and arrived. The Medic and I carefully slid the PLATINUM level client’s groaning body onto the gurney and then we turned and ran out of the manor house. Was there a story the clones were going to relate? Was this some sort of clone’s twisted homicide/suicide plot against himself? Don’t know; doesn’t matter. We had our patient secure in the EMV and began flying towards the hospital. That was until we got a call from the Leland.
What the hell is a Leland? You know them. Everybody knows them on an EMT team. A Leland is that person who is a repeat caller to an EMT squad. They always seem to be in trouble and they are a fixture of the sector where the EMT team works. The Medic’s player had an interesting twist on the Leland. They suggested that the Leland was an owner of a night owl dive diner who acted as sort of a den mother to people from the street. She wasn’t calling for herself, she would call for medical services for her patrons repeatedly, thus she got the Leland nickname. The Medic added additional details by saying his character would go to the Leland’s watering hole after his shift so he had a motivation to keep her happy.
As the Medic was treating the gut wound of the PLATINUM level clone client, I gently touched down in the middle of the city where the Leland was flagging us down and clearing a path to her diner for the Smart Gurney to trundle along. Our new patient, “Dennis”, a youngish man, had overdosed on something and was having seizures. At least that is what we were told when we saw Dennis covered in some strange blue goo emanating from his mouth and hardening enough to prevent us from removing him from the floor. What the hell was this situation? As I chatted up the Leland to gather more information (using the Fraternizing action), the Medic was using his background as a former medical scientist to Diagnose what this hard blue goo was. A solid success gave the Medic the information that the blue goo was actually experimental medical nanobots that had been given to some soldiers during the last war. Dennis was evidently a war veteran that had taken some drug that caused this adverse reaction, and he needed help now. The problem was he was stuck to the floor. Fortunately, the Medic had taken a Laser Cutter from his kit on the EMV and while I was telling the Leland “I’m sure your building insurance will cover this, honest”, the Medic cut a Dennis shaped hole in the linoleum.
The Smart Gurney chimed and cheerily trafficked Dennis into the EMV where I hurriedly prepared for takeoff. Because there was a problem. Our PLATINUM level client was groaning because his stomach was expanding with the gut wound, and I’m not a doctor I’m just a pilot but I knew we had to get our patients to the hospital fast. The EMV was careening through the wild blue yonder when we got two signatures on our radar. The Medic was using his Microsurgical Rig (designed for brain surgery but it should work on a gut wound in a pinch, right?) on our clone patient when over the radio came the demand “Turn over the criminal to us or we open fire”. Two corporate black helicopters were on our tail.
Mere minutes away from the hospital landing pad I turned on the radio, said “No” not knowing or caring who was the criminal; and immediately took evasive action, jinking and swerving the EMV to avoid their missiles from locking on (keep in mind I had two points in Evasion). Well, these daredevil antics made my compatriot the Medic less happy as he struggled with using his brain surgery rig to try to close the worsening gut wound. The GM ruled that my shenanigans, though successful in shaking off the weapons lock, banged the patients around in the interior of the EMV and they both took a point of damage as a result. Not even bothering to say “sorry” I managed to land on the hospital landing zone (thanks to our trusty Smart Gearbox) and the corporate helicopters decided to peel off. Now the patients were the hospitals’ problem. We cheered and momentarily celebrated another shift completed in the absolute chaos of the CRASH//CART world.
Now I do want to point out I usually play characters more empathetic to NPCs, however the world and the design of the game really focuses the players on the EMT job and getting the patients to medical care as quickly as possible. So, I would have loved to delve into the mystery of the clones or been more careful with the patients that I frantically flew to the hospital, but the message from the game was clear. That simply wasn’t our job. Look at the omnipresent Dispatch, Patient, Destination tracker under the EMV schematic. Our objective was to deliver as many patients to the hospital as possible while being under budget. And yes, that is gritty and horrific the way cyberpunk can be at times.
During Downtime for the shift (which I will explain in more detail later), I decided to indulge in my vice of Violence and go pick a fight at a bar a decent walk away from the EMV’s refueling area to Blow Off Some Steam. Fortunately, this action reduced my 8 stress to 2. Feeling chipper, if a bit sore and bruised, I got back to the corporate canteen where the Medic was just waking up (as he had spent both downtime actions to Catch Some Z’s). We were ready to go for another run.
The Medic and I suited up, locked in to the EMV, and received a distress call from a GOLD level client. The client had made the call from her motorbike, screaming down the Interstate-10 with a biker gang in close pursuit. There was only one tiny little problem. The client was legally dead.
Normally I didn’t think our policies covered dead people, but based on the call and context of the situation I was rapidly coming to a disquieting conclusion. Our client was likely a Shadowrunner, fleeing a botched job. I brought our EMV to a position above the client’s motorbike, matching her speed as she tore down the highway. The bikers behind her were shooting and occasionally hitting their target. Unable to directly talk with the fleeing client for technical reasons, our Medic had the bright idea of using one of our Pathfinder Drones to hover around our client and announce the fact that we were here to help.
The drone flew down and circled our client’s head, beeping and booping happily. Watching the video feed, we caught a disturbing bit of audio. Our client was speaking with two voices. Uncertain of what to do or what state our client was in, things suddenly became clear. We heard the client yelling in one unmistakably blended voice, “Get them off of me!”
Then I said something you never want to hear from your Pilot, let alone your EMT. “I’m going to try something stupid,” I said to the GM, grinning. I pulled two black face cards. A critical success. What I had done was to use my two points in Evasion to fly dangerously low between the bikers and the client and to kick up dust with my rotors to give the client time and distance away from the pursuers. It worked like a charm. The bikers shot their guns up in the air and booed unhappily as they peeled off. Then we saw the second wave of antagonists. Three police vehicles.
Disheartened but not exactly surprised (after all, this was cyberpunk), I attempted another risky maneuver; but this time everything hinged on our Medic. I flew radically low to the ground so the Medic could hop out of the EMV and grab the Shadowrunner client as she came to a screeching stop with the motorbike and nearly passed out into his arms. Still flying, the EMV was hovering off the highway by inches when the Medic, our hero, fireman-carried the bleeding client and jumped into the back of the EMV where the Smart Gurney was waiting, chirping invitingly.
But it didn’t stop the police from pursuing us. The Medic was screaming at me from inside the medbay that the client was bleeding out due to bullet holes. To complicate things, some asshole had coated the bullets in some form of acid so they were melting through the Medic’s metal tools. Our client was none too happy with the fact that she was dying, and was very vocal about it.
In the eye of this shit-maelstrom, the police were demanding that I land and hand over the “criminal”. They punctuated this by shooting some glue ball into one of the rotors, gunking up the works and forcing me to compensate for the EMV pulling to the side. Things were going to shit and fast. I sat down for a hot second and tried to strategize with my Medic. His suggestion was just to stall for time, to comply with the police request while he patched up the patient, and then spring a little trick on the cops.
Won over by my Medic’s argument, I terminated evasive action and ever so slowly brought the EMV down for a landing on the interstate. Why is that you Officer Bob? I recognize your voice from this cop bar I frequent … I began attempting to Fraternize with the enemy. The Medic got the patient stable to some degree, or at least to a less leaking state. But bullshit can only last so long. The cops came to a full stop, surrounding our EMV on the highway and slowly started to wander up to our vehicle. Hey, only half of the cops had guns drawn on us when they approached. I consider that a success!
As I slowly got out of the cockpit and went to meet and greet our pursuers, I asked for the Warrant for our patient while our Medic was in the back, furiously hacking the computer. Why? Do you remember the fourth upgrade, the Skeleton Key? As I was talking to the head police officer in charge, our Medic deployed the Skeleton Key to back hack the channel the cops opened to send us the Warrant so we could scramble the cop’s connection to the Warrant database. “Are you sure your Warrant is up to date officer?” I said. “It’s all blank…” Just as the cops were decrying their computer glitch, something happened that invalidated CrashCart’s warranty.
The client, on some very good happy drugs, had had enough of this bullshit, jumped out of the gurney, ran into an unoccupied cop vehicle and hightailed it out of there before we could all blink. “Well, I think that’s the end of the shift,” I mused, smoking an illegal cigarette and looking at our once-client fly off into the yellow-red Pacific coast sunset. Another police vehicle tried to lift off and ended up crashing into a local Wendys. The smoke enhanced that beautiful reddening sunset between the palm trees. Synthwave was pounding from the EMV’s speakers as the dejected police officer threw his cap on the ground and said that that was yet another toll runner that they’d never be able to catch.
Roll credits.
System Description
Before we get into a description of the CRASH//CART system, let me describe the software we used for our game’s online setup. Character sheets were hosted for players on the Fari App. Our GM had generously provided a character sheet for CRASH//CART in a json format that we updated and edited with information from the playbooks. The gameplay space with the deck of cards and tokens, which you can see in the pictures above, was provided by PlayingCards.io. PlayingCards.io was very intuitive to use as a player. We could draw cards from the deck, flip the cards, shuffle and keep cards apart from the deck in our hand in the bar below the graphic of the EMV.
The basic system of CRASH//CART is based on Forged in the Dark mechanics. However, a major difference is that you pull from a preconstructed deck of cards to resolve actions rather than rolling dice. The preconstructed deck is created as follows: Add a black ace through six plus the face cards of both the clubs and the spades to the deck. Next, add the ace through nine for both red suits. Finally, include one joker. Aces are not considered face cards in this game. They count as a draw of “one”.
To summarize a bit, when you are carrying out an Action, your GM tells you your Position (Cautious, Risky or Desperate) and you draw a number of cards governed by the number of dots you have in a particular action. A mixed success is drawing at least one black card. A black face card gives you a full success and drawing multiple black face cards is considered a critical success. Now here is the trick. If you drew a black face card you may put it in your Cache. All other black cards (mixed successes) end up in your Trash. Red cards drawn go into the Discard pile. When the Joker is drawn, you set it aside and draw another card. A drawn Joker adds a complication to the story. Also, all cards remaining in the deck and in the Discard pile (only red cards) are shuffled into a new deck.
Since each player puts successes (black cards) that they drew from the deck into either the Cache or Trash, as play progresses, successes (black cards) become more and more rare to draw. Also the rate of drawing a Joker increases. All of this is by design. As the author says on page 2 of the book, “The deck runs down as the players take actions, gradually diminishing their future odds of success. The players have opportunities to partially refill the deck during their downtime, but each successive run on a shift will get more and more difficult.” This “diminishing successes” mechanic ensures that the pressure is kept on the Crash Cart players throughout the game (as the author says the GM should do on page 39).
There are several mechanisms to enhance a player’s odds of success (if there are any successes left in the deck). First, the player may push themselves at the cost of two stress to draw an extra card. Also, the player not acting may acquire two stress if they have at least “one dot in the relevant action” to allow the acting player to draw one card. A note about stress, if you ever reach the maximum of 10 stress, you are essentially out of the game as you can no longer interact with the deck in a given scene.
In the game we played, our GM ruled that if you could justify using a skill you had as contributing to the primary player’s task, regardless of the skill name, then you could obtain two stress and allow the primary player to draw an extra card. I thought this was a flexible interpretation of the rules that made the game as a whole flow faster.
In addition, in order to draw an additional card, any player may ask the GM for a Devil’s Bargain. A Devil’s Bargain is an exchange; the player will lose something concrete or suffer some narratively interesting disadvantage in exchange for the opportunity to draw one more card.
So, as you can see, the maximum number of cards you can draw on any one action is 3 (Push self, Help from another player, Devil’s Bargain) plus the number of dots you have in a particular action.
System Criticism
The trouble our group found with the rules came near the end of the second shift. Specifically, when we ran into the diminishing successes mechanic for the final few Action Draws in the game; the fact that the players were able to estimate that there were only one or two successes (black cards) in the deck, and that we had about the same chance to draw one of the black cards as to draw the Joker, killed any sense of anticipation as to what was going to happen for those final rounds. For us at the table, the forgone conclusion of failure made the last bit of the game boring.
Now given that our opinion is that the diminishing successes mechanic leads to a boring conclusion, were there mechanics in game that could have mitigated the diminishing successes mechanic, for example replenishing the deck with successes (black cards)? The answer is yes. Let’s look at each of these success replenishment mechanics in turn.
First of all, let’s look at Downtime. During Downtime after a shift, you have two downtime actions. If you want the opportunity to replenish the deck with some successes (black cards), you can spend both downtime actions to Catch Some Z’s, which allows you to return half of a player’s combined trash and cache to the deck. However, since Catch Some Z’s takes both downtime actions, this prevents you from doing anything else in this phase.
During our Downtime, in between getting the clone and overdosing patient to the hospital and before encountering the fleeing Shadowrunner, my character had acquired 8 stress. As previously stated, a player that gets to 10 stress cannot interact with the deck, so it was imperative that I reduce the stress with whatever downtime actions I could. Fortunately, there was the downtime action Blow Off Some Steam, which takes one downtime action, essentially allowing a player to potentially reduce their stress.
The problem is that I only could carry out the Blow Off Some Steam action to make myself potentially useful in the next coming shift, or ignore my character’s issues and return half of the successes I drew to the deck and hope that my fellow player could capitalize off of them without me, assuming I would take another two stress hit somewhere in the new shift.
I think a more workable option for Downtime, would be for the Catch Some Z’s action to cost one downtime action and recycle maybe one-fourth or one-third of a player’s combined trash and cache to the deck.
In addition to downtime actions, if players choose a particular ability from their ability list during character creation, they may have the opportunity to replenish the deck with successes during the game. The Abilities Shortcut Queen (Pilot), Queen of Borrowed Time (Medic), Hustle Queen (Orderly) and Queen of the Grid (Mechanic) all allow a player to discard a Queen from their Cache to allow another player to recycle their Trash (non-face black cards) into the deck, thus increasing the chances of success for successive action pulls. My fellow player and I did not choose any of these starting abilities because we had limited exposure to the system when we started playing and didn’t quite have the system mastery of CRASH//CART under our belts at the time.
Another factor that the GM brought up was that he could have massaged the card economy by calling for more Fortune Draws during the game. Fortune Draws are used to establish the condition of some situation in game. Mechanically someone, maybe a player, draws a number of cards equal to the dots in their relevant action, plus and minus a number of cards depending on the circumstances of the situation the GM gives you. An example in the book is that a player is trying to establish the nature of a landing zone as the EMV approaches. This could be a Moving Action, so prepare to draw a number of cards equal to the dots you have in Moving. If this is a milk run for the players, add a card. If the opponent has the Edge or they have had no briefing whatsoever, subtract a card. Then draw the final number of cards. As per normal, a black card will give you a partial success and a black face card gives a full effect or success.
Now this is different. After the draw and the result has been determined, you get to shuffle the deck. This means that Fortune Draws do not hinder future successes, unlike normal Action draws, and therefore do not change the balance of the deck. If the intention of Fortune Draws is to have the player keep success cards in their Cache or Trash, this is not indicated. Thus, we are assuming that all pulled cards get to be recycled into the deck.
Suggestions for New Players/GMs and Final Thoughts
Upon discussion with my GM, we recommend the following suggestions for players and GMs new to CRASH//CART:
- (Players) At least one player should take one Ability at character creation that restocks the deck with black cards.
- (GM) Be mindful of the length of clocks. You'll always have at least three clocks: retrieving the patient, delivering the patient, and dealing with their primary aliment. Keep most clocks at 4 or 6 segments.
- (GM) Understand that Clocks aren't necessarily advanced by card draws. Actions in the fiction can just cause Clocks to advance.
- (GM) Be mindful about the distinction between Action draws and Fortune draws. Many Action draws can justifiably be Fortune draws.
- (GM) Helping Other Players. Allow any other player to justify using a skill, and taking two stress to give the acting player the option to draw one more card during an Action.
Ultimately, I did enjoy the game of CRASH//CART, but there are issues with some of the systems. If you don’t enjoy the fact that at some point before your shift ending there may be a high or total rate of failure given any action you attempt, you are going to have a bad time. Granted, our group was one to two members below the recommended minimum, but I don’t see how that could have affected our main issues with the mechanics. I bought CRASH//CART after our game, and though we definitely feel another editing pass to the pdf would be very much appreciated and we had our quibbles with the rules, we had fun.
Special thanks to Staggered Amusement Machine for introducing me to CRASH//CART, being the GM, revisions, additions and discussions. Additional thanks to Anonymous who played the Medic and for discussions about the system.
Resources
Here is a link to the CRASH__CART.fari.json character sheet designed and hosted by Staggered Amusement Machine.
How to use the CRASH__CART.fari.json character sheet:
Download the CRASH__CART.fari.json file from the link.
Goto the fari.app website
On the fari.app website, click on My Binder on the upper left
Click on the Characters folder
Import the CRASH__CART.fari.json file
Click on the CRASH//CART Template
To modify the character sheet, make sure the “Advanced” button is toggled to the right
Enjoy
Edit: The CRASH//CART character sheets are publicly available on the Fari.App now.
Go to My Binder -> Characters -> New, then on the character sheet click the Templates dropdown and search for "CRASH CART" or find Nightjar games.
All character playbooks and the EMV sheet can be found there.
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I had a similar issue with the downtime mechanics in vanilla Blades. Stress healing meant your character didn't get to participate in whatever downtime activities and long term projects the rest of the table was doing. One guy was playing a wizard subclass that took stress damage in order to activate his magic powers. He just never got to do any downtime activities because he always had notches that needed clearing.
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