Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

[Orion]

Praetor,

If you ask me, Shadowrun and After Sundown have always had too much granularity. Tracking 12 or more different values for PC ability wasn't interesting or fun. I don't care about 9 dice or 10 dice of hacking and I don't want to have to pretend that I do. Now, Frank's proposed system made dice more valuable, so stats and skill might run 1-4. I think I can deal with 1-8 as an acceptable dice pool. But with penalty dice, that's up to 11 dice per test, 15 if we're adding equipment bonuses in traditional Shadowrun fashion. Ultimately, I think using free hits rating PC capability on a 0-5 scale is a little bit tight but probably sufficient.

I don't understand what you mean about not having a way to do "easy tasks." In my proposed system, every task resolution would call three numbers: the PC's Baseline, the Task's Threshold, and the Penalty Pool. You would succeed if (Baseline-Rolled Faults)> Threshold, and Threshold can be -1 or -2 if you want it to be. You need a separate Threshold and Penalty Pool because some tasks are difficult, (meaning you need a professional to even attempt them, but a professional can do them reliably), while others are risky (meaning anyone could get lucky and do it, but unpredictable problems can screw over even the experienced).

Finally, I understand that it's a little counter-intuitive, but I think you can actually spin that into successful flavor text and marketing buzz. Basically the idea you want to hit throughout your rulebook is that career criminals are not gamblers. The PCs would prefer everything to go as smooth and predictable as possible. They don't like risks and they don't like surprises, so "rolling the dice" is always a bad thing both in and out of character.

[Seerow]

If you ask me, Shadowrun and After Sundown have always had too much granularity.

Huh? One of my biggest complaints with shadowrun is lack of granularity in skill. We're talking about a game where 1 is barely trained and amateurish, and 7 is so amazing and rare that he's legendary... but the difference between those values is on average 2 hits.

[Orion]

That's not granularity, that's range. Your complaint is that Max output it too smilar to the Min output. "Granularity" refers to the number of discrete intermediate steps. My proposal that PCs be awarded 0-5 free hits has a range of 5 hits, greater than the 3.3 you get from 2-12 dice in Shadowrun. However, it does so with 6 granules instead of 11.

[Username17]

OK, here were some minigames I thought needed to be worked in there. Let's see how they work with dice mechanics:

• Infiltration -The infiltration minigame is about
  bypassing security systems. Sneaking, hacking, lockpicking, and so on.
  Ideally this should feel like you're playing Blackjack: pushing your
  luck as far as you can without "going over" and getting the heat down.
• Disasters - The Disasters minigame is about using your
  abilities to fix problems that are escalating. Fire fighting, stopping
  runaway trucks, portal closing, medicine, and so on. Ideally this
  should feel like you're playing Arkham Horror - switching back and
  forth between dealing with different escalating problems while working
  on solutions.
• Chases - The Chases minigame is about catching things in a
  hurry. Not just getting away from the cops or catching fleeing
  suspects, but also getting to or from bombs before they explode and
  crossing dangerous roads or factories to get to the action. Ideally,
  this should play out kind of like Liar's Dice - with players pushing
  and bluffing their way to outdo the opposition while accepting greater
  risks for doing so.
• Investigation - The Investigation minigame is about finding
  stuff: clues, suspects, answers, gear, whatever. Stuff needs to be
  found. Ideally, the subsystem should play out like Memory or Clue,
  with players guessing and matching to get breakthroughs.
• Politics - The PR minigame is about pushing public agendas.
  Spin, reputation management, news management, collecting and spending
  political capital and so on. Ideally it should feel like Bazaar or
  Monopoly - accepting trades while trying to build and leverage
  synergies to accomplish distinct goals by spending out.
• Debate - The Debate minigame is about convincing people to
  do or believe things. Haggling, Seduction, Interrogation, and so on.
  Selecting an appropriate avenue of "attack"by exploiting weaknesses in
  the target. Should feel like an episode of crossfire somehow.
• Combat - Most RPGs have a combat minigame. It should feel
  like a tactical exercise. Pretty selfexplanatory.

Alrighty, so the infiltration game is pretty self explanatory. It's a Threat Test with a series of obstacles. You bypass the obstacles without busting and you get to the artwork/data/prisoner/whatever without setting off alarms. As soon as you bust, you get to play some combination of the chases and combat minigame while you continue to bypass the remaining challenges.

The Investigation minigame is pretty much the same idea, only in this case you are doing a series of Threat Tests where you trying to discover and follow leads without making too much noise. So when you get a lead and successfully follow it without busting, you get something (in the case of investigating a target, you get an increase in the Fault Threshold for infiltration at that target, for example). If in following a lead you bust, then you make enough noise that people who care about such things find out that rocks are being looked under. Suspects can bolt and compounds can set alert status.

Disaster Management is also a threat test. For things like fires, where it's not really a question of a bomb going off or anything, you have individual Fault thresholds. Each person contributes as much as they can before busting. You could even have a thing where a building is burning down and you're trying to save people and data and stuff, and you do as much as you can but if you bust, then you get trapped when the building collapses. That sort of thing.

The Debate minigame is a variant on the combat dueling thing I was talking about earlier. Opposed tests it's called. you declare a gambit (similar to an After Sundown Contention) and you declare an importance, and then you try to make that number of hits with your social test. Then the other guy can try to counter by declaring a matching social gambit or they can try to overbid. The big thing is that apathy is a social gambit. People can and will try to "not care" which gives them a number of dice based on how important whatever they are doing is.

The Chase minigame is the same deal, save that you are bidding actual stunts and ties go to the faster car.

Combat is largely handled like chases. You declare combat stunts, and other people can respond or overbid. And you get to hit people for damage if you win that exchange. But it's also a threat test, and if you bust you get hit too.

OK... PR. Spin. Rock-n-Roll. Pirate news. It's really important to the cyberpunk aesthetic. Open Threat Tests where you get to reset the Fault pool by coming up with new talking points for the news cycle and you're trying to be as persuasive as possible without boring the viewers? Not sure on that one.

-Username17

[Wesley Street]

I would throw in "Rocking" as a mini-game though this would cover all forms of counter-culture music from scratching records to setting your guitar on fire.

My suggestion would be to treat it as a variant on the opposed test. Players, as a band, decide how much heart they want to put into a performance. This increases or decreases the performance difficulty (the dice pool available to score successes). But cookie-cutter performances (cover songs) draw less monetary reward/fan following/rep/etc than memorable performances (Hendrix at Woodstock).

The audience would make an opposed social test - the audience's available dice pool would be modified by the band's reputation (the higher the rep, the smaller the audience dice pool) and venue (the bigger the venue, the larger the pool).

Or something like that.

If the players succeed in the test, they accomplish their goal and keep the crowd entertained. Exceeding the target threshold by set amounts increases rep/cash/reward exponentially.

[Username17]

Dice Pools
“Roll a d6.
Repeat.”

In Asymmetric Threat, success or failure of an action is determined by rolling dice. Specifically, rolling several six sided dice. When making a test, a player rolls a number of six sided dice, which is collectively called your “dice pool”. There are two kinds of dice in the dice pool: Bonus Dice and Penalty Dice. Bonus Dice always count for you or nothing, Penalty Dice always count against you or nothing. There is never a time when you would be advantaged by having more Penalty Dice or disadvantaged by having more Bonus Dice. It's faster to roll a separate color of dice for Bonus Dice and Penalty Dice, but if all your dice are the same color you can roll Penalty Dice separately, either into another area or at a different time.

If something says to “add dice to the dice pool” it means to add Bonus Dice. If a modifier adds Penalty Dice, it will always specify that. If the type of dice are not specified, such as “+2 dice” or “one more die” or whatever, that always means Bonus Dice. Most actions will have a base dice pool of Bonus Dice based on your character's attributes and skills. Bonus Dice count for nothing on a 1-3, and count for you on a 4-6. When a Bonus Die gets in the 4-6 range, it is called a “hit”. In addition to Bonus Dice, most die rolls involve Penalty Dice. These dice count against you on a 1-3 and count nothing on a 4-6. When a Penalty Die generates a negative hit, it is called a “fault”.

The base number of Penalty Dice to be rolled on any test is 3. If no modifiers to the Penalty Dice apply, you roll three of them. If there are negative circumstances (such as trying to climb while it is slippery, trying to shoot someone when it is dark, or trying to resist a bullet when you are small because you are a frog), you may be asked to roll extra Penalty Dice. Some enhancements will reduce or eliminate the Penalty Dice from specific circumstances. For example: gyro-compensation will reduce the number of Penalty Dice to shooting from moving. Effects that reduce the number of Penalty Dice generally are rare, the most common being Skill Specialization, which reduces the number of total Penalty Dice by 1 in addition to granting an extra Bonus Die.

Basic Tests: Getting Stuff Done
“Do I succeed?”

The most common die roll is performed simply to determine how well or poorly a character performed on an action. Because this is the most common, this is called the “basic test”. Basic tests are called for whenever it is important to what degree the character succeeds or fails on the task. The MC should not call upon players to roll dice for trivially easy tasks, nor should dice be rolled for tasks that could be attempted over and over again until successful, or for tasks whose outcome makes little difference. Players should not be called upon to make a basic test to throw a burrito in the garbage unless it's a burrito with a grenade in it that is being thrown many meters or something.

On a basic test, each fault counts as one less hit. If there are more faults than hits, the number of total hits is considered to be negative. The number of hits left over after subtracting faults are your “net hits” (if there are more faults than hits, you can talk about “negative net hits” or “net faults” – it's mathematically the same thing). Some people like to pair off hits and faults and only count the excess of whichever there was more of. Other people like to count the hits and faults separately and subtract the faults from the hits. Do whichever is faster for you. The more hits are achieved, the more effective the character was. A normal task requires one net hit to succeed. Very difficult tasks may require more than one net hit to achieve success, while very easy tasks may succeed even with net faults. The number of net hits required to succeed at the task is the “success threshold”. Characters will often roll more or less net hits than the success threshold. The number of hits the test succeeded or failed by is called the “margin of success (or margin of failure)”.

Stupid Die Rolling Tricks

For the basic test, the fact that we are rolling d6s by default is not actually important. You could roll d10s and count 1-5 and 6-10 or flip coins and count heads or tails. You can even generate basic tests if you don't have access to different types of dice or coins, because you get mathematically identical results if you add the Bonus and Penalty Dice together as Bonus Dice and assign as many faults as there were supposed to be Penalty Dice. Because a Bonus Die plus a fault equals a Penalty Die. These identities do not hold with Threat Tests and Open Tests, where it is important which of your dice are Bonus Dice and which are Penalty Dice. On Open Tests, it is actually important that you are rolling d6s, although if it was for some reason important you could rolls d12s or d30s (or use some other random number generator that gave results that were divisible by 6).

Threat Tests: Pushing Your Luck
“I don't think I want any more.”

Another type of test is the “threat test”. Threat tests are done when there is a specific disaster that characters are attempting to avoid while going about their business. A threat test differs from a basic test in that the faults (actual literal faults, not net faults) are added to a running tally – a “fault pool”. The specific disaster that threatens will have a fault threshold, and if the total faults in the fault pool ever equal or exceed the fault threshold, then disaster strikes. When that happens, the threat test is considered to have “busted”. Yes, like in Blackjack.

• Example: Merci and Ki are infiltrating A/V warehouse to take pictures of the contents. A/V has a security system in place, and they are trying to not set it off. When Merci picks the lock, she is making a threat test – while she succeeds, two of her penalty dice came up faults, putting two faults into the fault pool. Fortunately, the fault threshold is higher than that. But if she had busted the test, the alarm would have gone off. Later when she sees the locked door to the manager's office, Merci has to contend with the fact that she already put two faults into the fault pool with her last lockpicking attempt, and has to decide whether to leave it alone or risk the alarm.

Some threat tests have individual fault thresholds, and some tests have group fault thresholds. For individual fault thresholds, each participating player has a separate fault pool and busts individually. For group fault thresholds, every player is adding faults to the same fault pool, and the group busts or not as one. Most legwork tasks have individual fault thresholds. Most alarm risks have group fault thresholds.

Open Tests: Expect the Unexpected
“Well... that was impressive.”

In an “open test”, there is no limit to how good or bad the results can be. When a Bonus Die comes up with a 6, that not only provides a hit, but it also provides an additional Bonus Die. When a Penalty Die comes up with a 1, that not only provides a fault, but it also provides an extra Penalty Die. Open tests can take a while to resolve. Theoretically an open test need not ever end since if you keep rolling 6s on your Bonus Dice or 1s on your Penalty Dice you keep getting more dice that can roll 6s or 1s. In actuality though, open tests do eventually end, and usually fairly quickly.

Still, the fact that they often take longer than a Basic Test is reason enough to save them for special occasions. Open tests happen at major turning points of stories, and whenever a player goes “all in” on an action. But they also happen when crowds of people are involved. Rock-offs and news reports are almost always open tests. An open test can also be a threat test, in which case a 1 on a Penalty Die would not only add to the fault pool, but it would also force the rolling of an additional Penalty Die that might also add to the fault pool.

Challenge Tests: Upping the Ante
“That's impressive. Let's see if you can do this...”

A “challenge test” is one where two or more characters are attempting to outdo one another. This works in a series of bidding. One character has the initiative, and they can bid a number of net hits that they expect they can get. Then, they make a test (which itself can be a basic, threat, or open Test depending on the situation). If they make the number of hits they bid, then initiative passes to their opponent. If they fail to back up their own boast, they lose the challenge with a major loss. When initiative passes to the next character, that character has three choices for their bid: they can fold – making no bid and no test, and losing the challenge with a minor loss; they can call – making a bid for the same number of hits as the previous character's bid – if they succeed in making that number the challenge is a draw, and if they fail they lose with a major loss; and they can raise – making a bid for more hits than the previous character, if they fail to get that number they lose with a major loss, and if they succeed they pass initiative back.

Having initiative at the beginning of a challenge is not always a good thing. Whoever has the edge in a challenge test can choose either take the initiative (in which case they start with it) or pass the initiative (in which case someone else starts with it and they can also elect to pass). If no one makes a bid, the challenge is tie. What a character actually gets for a major win, a minor win, a tie, a minor loss, or a major loss will vary with the challenge type. In combat, losses often correspond to getting struck with weaponry, while in chases wins, losses, and even ties change relative positioning.

• Example: Merci is in a car chase and her sports car is a faster model than the security patroller on her tail. Since her vehicle is faster, she has the edge. She chooses to pass the initiative to the security goon, and the goon bids a 2 hit driving stunt, which he succeeds at. Now the initiative passes back to Merci, and she elects to call with a 2-hit driving stunt of her own, which she also makes. The challenge is a tie, and that increases her lead because her vehicle is faster. The security goon is going to have to try something more reckless or allow Merci to escape.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Dice Pools
“Roll a d6.
Repeat.”

In Asymmetric Threat, success or failure of an action is determined by rolling dice. Specifically, rolling severala test of six sided dice. When making a test, a player rolls a number of six sided dice, which is collectively called your “dice pool”The number of dice that you roll in a test is your dice pool. There are two kinds of dice in the dice pool: bonus dice and penalty dice. Bonus dice always count for you or nothingin your favor or for nothing; penalty Dice always count against you or for nothing. There is never a time when you would be advantagedgain advantage by having more penalty dice or disadvantagedbe harmed by having more bonus dice.
It's faster to roll a separate color of dicequick and easy to use different colors for bonus dice and penalty dice, but. If all your dice are the same color, you can roll Penalty Dice separately, either into another area or at a different timebonus dice and penalty dice in different areas, or roll one set after the other.

Re-written for (IMO) greater clarity. I love your writing style, but the intro section on how to roll dice should be written to be easy to understand rather than fun to read.

[Grek]

I don't find that to be clearer at all.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I don't find that to be clearer at all.

Take out all of the editing marks.

[kzt]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the "PR minigame" is better titled PR or spin rather than Politics and the "Debate minigame" is better titled Convince rather than Debate.

The word politics to me doesn't fit things like planting news stories and debate doesn't fit seduction in a bar or talking your way past the security guard.

[Whipstitch]

I agree with Grek. If one were concerned about page count than nixing many of the adverbs would be an easy way to address the issue but in that case I would recommend going a step further and applying the same standard to the rest of the rules so as to keep the style consistent. Beyond that, replacing perfectly good words (such as "disadvantaged") feels like change for change's sake.

[A Man In Black]

Not to derail this into politics or current events, but if you can't get a CFH arc out of this, you're not trying.

[Username17]

Catharz's version of the section is 128 words long instead of 133 words long. In my opinion, there isn't substantive difference and I don't know why I'd care. Stylistic note however is that i've been capitalizing "Bonus Dice" and "Penalty Dice", while Catharz's version does not. Also, his version bolds some stuff.

Would it be clearer if bonus dice were bolded the first time they were mentioned? Would it flow better if "bonus dice" was not capitalized?

-Username17

[Hicks]

Threat Tests: Pushing Your Luck
“I don't think I want any more.”

Another type of test is the “threat test”. Threat tests are done when there is a specific disaster that characters are attempting to avoid while going about their business. A threat test differs from a basic test in that the faults (actual literal faults, not net faults) are added to a running tally – a “fault pool”. The specific disaster that threatens will have a fault threshold, and if the total faults in the fault pool ever equal or exceed the fault threshold, then disaster strikes. When that happens, the fragile test is considered to have “busted”. Yes, like in Blackjack.

This is the only mention of a "fragile" test. Did you mean to say "threat"?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Catharz's version of the section is 128 words long instead of 133 words long. In my opinion, there isn't substantive difference and I don't know why I'd care. Stylistic note however is that i've been capitalizing "Bonus Dice" and "Penalty Dice", while Catharz's version does not. Also, his version bolds some stuff.

Would it be clearer if bonus dice were bolded the first time they were mentioned? Would it flow better if "bonus dice" was not capitalized?

-Username17

I don't care about bolding or capitalization. The biggest stumbling block I had reading the section was actually "for you or nothing" and "against you or nothing". Admittedly, TGD seems to be a pretty smart crowd. Most of you probably have better reading comprehension then me, so if you don't see a reason to change it, don't.

[Lokathor]

And for those friends of ours who happens to read Python better than English:

Code: Select all

from random import randint

def asymetric(bonus,penalty,open=False):
	hits = 0
	faults = 0
	
	while bonus > 0:
		roll = randint(1,6)
		if roll == 6 and open:
			hits +=1
			continue
		if roll > 3:
			hits +=1
		bonus -=1

	while penalty > 0:
		roll = randint(1,6)
		if roll == 1 and open:
			faults +=1
			continue
		if roll < 4&#58;
			faults +=1
		penalty -=1
	
	return &#40;hits,faults&#41;

edit: oh man I used else where I totally shouldn't have.

[Whipstitch]

Catharz's version of the section is 128 words long instead of 133 words long. In my opinion, there isn't substantive difference and I don't know why I'd care.
-Username17

That is more or less the way I felt. The adverbs and character count critique is a minor nitpick and one that amounts to very little if not extended to the entire project to boot. Personally, I like using words like "specifically" but at the same time I understand why Catharz and some others might consider them extraneous as often as not.

As far as the capitalization and bolding goes, I am a fan when it comes to introducing and defining mechanics. I've had too many arguments about Physical Skills linked to Physical Attributes in Shadowrun to believe that people won't default to the loosest interpretations possible when it benefits them even if you take pains to define terms narrowly.

The biggest stumbling block I had reading the section was actually "for you or nothing" and "against you or nothing". Admittedly, TGD seems to be a pretty smart crowd. Most of you probably have better reading comprehension then me, so if you don't see a reason to change it, don't.

I must have failed to properly note those tweaks the first time. I agree that "against you or nothing" is awkward although I would say that just plonking a "for" in there and leaving the rest alone would work as well as anything.

[Username17]

Challenge Tests: Upping the Ante
“That's impressive. Let's see if you can do this...”

A “challenge test” is one where two or more characters are attempting to outdo one another. This works in a series of bidding. One character has the initiative, and they can bid a number of net hits that they expect they can get. Then, they make a test (which itself can be a basic, threat, or open test depending on the situation). If they make the number of hits they bid, then initiative passes to their opponent. If they fail to back up their own boast, they lose the challenge with a major loss. When initiative passes to the next character, that character has three choices for their bid: they can fold – making no bid and no test, and losing the challenge with a minor loss; they can call – making a bid for the same number of hits as the previous character's bid – if they succeed in making that number the challenge is a draw, and if they fail they lose with a major loss; and they can raise – making a bid for more hits than the previous character, if they fail to get that number they lose with a major loss, and if they succeed they pass initiative back. If your opponent suffers a major or minor loss, you get a major or minor win, while a tie is a tie for both parties.

Having initiative at the beginning of a challenge is not always a good thing. Whoever has the edge in a challenge test can choose either take the initiative (in which case they start with it) or pass the initiative (in which case someone else starts with it and they can also elect to pass). If no one makes a bid, the challenge is tie. What a character actually gets for a major win, a minor win, a tie, a minor loss, or a major loss will vary with the challenge type. In combat, losses often correspond to getting struck with weaponry, while in chases wins, losses, and even ties change relative positioning.

• Example: Merci is in a car chase and her sports car is a faster model than the security patroller on her tail. Since her vehicle is faster, she has the edge. She chooses to pass the initiative to the security goon, and the goon bids a 2 hit driving stunt, which he succeeds at. Now the initiative passes back to Merci, and she elects to call with a 2-hit driving stunt of her own, which she also makes. The challenge is a tie, and that increases her lead because her vehicle is faster. The security goon is going to have to try something more reckless or allow Merci to escape.

It is generally a bad idea to repeat one's self during a challenge test. If you make two or more bids during a challenge test (presumably because your opponent raised), then the later bids get 2 penalty dice for each time the character had attempted essentially the same thing. This doesn't always mean that the character has to switch skills to avoid a penalty for repetition, but it couldn't hurt. What options are available to a character to make different bids will vary depending upon the type of test. For example: in combat a character might break cover and charge while in an interrogation a character might bring in a new tactic. If a character gets more hits than they needed to make their bid, they make their bid in style. And the amount of style they get is equal to the number of extra hits they achieved over their bid amount. Style is especially important in combat, where it can be used to buy additional maneuver effects. However, style does not change the difficulty of someone else calling or raising, and gets canceled out if the character does not win.

[fectin]

Does Marci's car give her a bonus for being faster?

[DrPraetor]

However, style does not change the difficulty of someone else calling or raising, and gets canceled out if the character does not win.

It should absolutely be possible to fail in style. I'm not sure what it does, but it should totally be possible.

[A Man In Black]

Does Marci's car give her a bonus for being faster?

Well, at this point it gives her a bonus in that she gets the initiative and wins ties. Car chases aren't resolved with tactical movement, but rather in a scene-by-scene way. This wouldn't work well for a car porn game, like Initial D the RPG, but works for a general action movie car chase scene, where Jason Bourne gets in a beat-up Mini Cooper that pulls to the left and outruns the entire Paris police force.

[fectin]

If it's all character based, then the speed shouldn't make a difference, and a tie should not gain you anything.

[A Man In Black]

If it's all character based, then the speed shouldn't make a difference, and a tie should not gain you anything.

Having ties default to one party or the other introduces some tension and forces scenes to end at some point. It's not very much in keeping with action movie car chases for them to happen like real world car chases, which tend to go on until one side gets bored or exhausted.

Making car speed that source of tension, or dealing with differentials in car speed this particular way, however, is not the only way to force people to make stunts or deal with speed differential, simply one way.

[DrPraetor]

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
"Pilots take no special joy in walking. Pilots like flying." - Neil Armstrong

In Assymetric Threat, Vehicles (including Drones) are a special category of equipment which has some attributes in common with characters or creatures. Like any other inanimate object of relevance to the plot, a Vehicle will have a Scale, and a Strength. Unlike other objects, Vehicles will have the following additional attributes:

Class	The "Class" of a Vehicle can be one of: Stationary = 0, Pedestrian = 1, Automotive = 2, Rotocraft = 2A, Jet = 3A or Boat = 2S. Immobile class 0 "Vehicles" are a game-mechanic simplification for gun turrets and the like. Vehicle that moves roughly as fast as a person, such as bicycles or most humanoid robots, are class 1. Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles and other land vehicles with a cruising speed near 100kph fall into the Automotive class, class 2. Air vehicles with roughly the same speed are class 2A Rotocraft, including Helicopters and prop planes. Jets and space ships are class 3. More exotic types of vehicles are outside the scope of the main book.
Acc	The Acceleration ("Acc") attribute is used in some chase stunts, or simply to determine how long it takes to travel along a straightaway. This attribute abstracts the differences in speed between vehicles within the same class, where a 3 is always typical. Thus, a MiG-9 is Acc 1 but because it is a Jet, it is of course still much faster than the Acc 7 Stellamaris 2070 sportscar which Merci drives.
Hand	The Handling ("Hand") attribute is used in any stunt depending on the performance of a vehicle in making tight turns, remaining under control in adverse conditions such as icy pavement or turbulence, or the like. Again, an average vehicle is 3, by definition. The mechanical significance of the Hand of a vehicle will generally arise during stunts.

Furthermore, like Characters, a Vehicle will suffer both generic damage and the corresponding dice pool penalties, as well as specific injuries from called shots. Called shots against vehicles are especially popular (shooting out tires, for example), and can also be used to attack the passengers of a vehicle, who are considered "body parts" of the vehicle in which they are riding, for targeting purposes, assuming the vehicle is enclosed.

Vehicles vs. The Environment
"Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what's gonna happen next: not on a freeway, not in an airplane..." - Claire Lewicki in Days of Thunder

Vehicles vs. Vehicles
"... and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs." - Claire Lewicki in Days of Thunder

Vehicles vs. Weapons
"" - (there's a story that in Vietnam troops would ride outside their M113 to stay safe from RPGs and Mines; but maybe this is false I can't find a good quote)
In general, Vehicle Combat is a special case of a vehicle chase where the participants are also trying to kill one another using more conventional means.

[Draco_Argentum]

Basic tests are called for whenever it is important to what degree the character succeeds or fails on the task.

You mostly seem to be using italics for reserved game words. The sort with a defination in the glossary. Here you have 'important' itallicised for emphasis. You should stick with one or the other, it makes it easier for new players to know when they should look at the glossary.