Team Oxracers, Ep. 4: If life gives you a lemon … roll with (and for) it
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After a short while, Lucas joins the other three when Jane wants to continue the rolls, this time for the trim components. Meanwhile, Mary is still frantically drawing lines and curves on large sheets of paper at the other end of the garage.
Jane announces: “Okay, let’s start with the 1d6 rolls for the chassis components. Thanks to the critical failure earlier, the only thing that matters is a 6, so that we can at least change the component if we want.”
“And we need to”, Michael emphasises. “This is prime shitbox suspension.”
“Alright, here goes nothing.” Jane sounds a bit more enthusiastic than she perhaps has the rights to be. “Two… Four… Five… Three… Six! Yes!”
“That’s for front suspension?” Michael asks hopeful.
“Ye-hes. No McDonalds for us… erm… MacPherson… if we don’t want to.”
“And we don’t want to, right?” wonders Lucas.
“Noo, we most certainly don’t want to”, answers Michael.
“And… Two - for the rear suspension. So we have to keep everything, including the rust-on-the-steel, but can swap out the front suspension for something more useful. I’ll make sure to get some parts.”
Jane rolls again and stares for a while at the top of the die.
“What is it?”
“Another Critical One”, Jane admits sheepishly. “Car body techpool. And that with all the rust and patches already in place.”
No changes here for the Oxracers, unfortunately
“You are bad at this!”, Corazon exclaims. “Let me roll!”
Jane holds the 1d6 die far up in the air, out of easy reach for Corazon. “Your job is to drive. My job is to make this thing fast. So let me do my job!”
“Fine.” Corazon folds his arms and pouts.
“Now car body quality: Three. Not that it matters as 0 is essentially the maximum after our crit failure for car body techpool. Next, drivetrain. Five! And Two.”
“That’s better”, Michael states. “At least the techpool.”
“And at least not another critical failure!” Corazon is still sulking and starts to get bored to boot.
“And important since this thing at needs a LSD and different gearing. The quality rolls will hardly matter from now on anyway. I suspect the front suspension swap will eat almost all ET that we are allowed… IF we can actually make the swap work under ET restrictions.”
“Sacrifice everything for that, if necessary, please”, pleads Michael.
“Sacrifice. I like the sound of it”, states Jane, a bit too gleefully and reminiscent of an entirely different context before she returns to a more relaxed tone. “Wheels next. Another Five. And… critical 6!”
“Wohoo - where the rubber meets the road!” Corazon’s mood swings from one extreme to the next in an instant. “What does it mean?”
Jane repeats the rule for critical success on quality rolls from earlier. “You can make a somewhat unrealistic choice.”
“And what’s that going to be here?” wonders Michael.
“Well…” Jane starts. “Do you think there are many types of cheap wide low-profile 13 inch tyres out there? And we’ll need all the grip we can get.”
“Fair point”, Michael concedes.
Jane continues. “Okay: Brakes. Four. And another Four. So another max techpool, at least.”
At the other end of the garage, Mary has now moved on from hasty pencil sketches to careful drawing on half-transparent paper for her work on ‘sponsorship’ for the race.
"Aero. Five! Yes - spoiler time! And… Boo. Critical failure on aero quality. "
“Did we have that before?” wonders Corazon.
“I don’t think so. All my crit failures were for techpool so far.” Jane has another look at the sheet of paper next to the die on the table. “You have to set the maximum negative quality allowed, so -2.” She frowns.
“Did they actually make body kits for this… fridge?” Michael sounds very skeptical.
“If they did… my friend Ludo* will either have one in his junkyard storage area or know where to get one.” Jane sounds reassured. “Not that it will matter much with -2 in aero quality.”
“True.”
“Now Interior. Four for techpool.”
“At least I’ll be comfortable when driving.” Corazon also sounds reassured.
“Or so you think”, Jane counters. “And… Two for quality. Not that it matters, because I am going to gut everything anyway!”
Michael is a bit taken aback by Jane’s gleeful announcement. “Add lightness?” he suggests meekly. Corazon suddenly looks less reassured.
Jane continues undaunted. “Steering… oh no! Critical failure again! And… Critical success for quality! How do these two rules go together then? Max techpool… 0? And quality -2?”
“That one shouldn’t matter either way”, Michael stated. “I drove it here, and it was quite light to begin with, even without power steering. Or ABS.”
“So there is one thing you like about the car?” Jane retorts. Michaels answer is a dead stare.
“Okay, safety”, Jane continues. “And another Critical One! And a Two.”
“So we all are going to die?” Lucas wonders, with a worried undertone.
“No, only the person who crashes the car while driving”, Jane corrects nonchalantly. This does little to assuage Lucas’ fear.
“I am going to rip out all of the few safety features this thing actually has anyway to ‘add lightness’”, she announced enthusiastically, with a side glance to Michael. “So this doesn’t matter, really.”
Michael agrees. “Rust does not give much impact protection either.”
“And, last one, suspension: Three. And Four. Not too bad, all in all.”
“So, and what does that all mean now?” Corazon seems to be really impatient now. “Is the car good or what?”
“It’s going to be good”, Jane assures. “As good as I can make it. Now to take a closer look again and hatch some plans for modifications.” Jane smirks and rubs her hands together.
At the other end of the garage, Mary also smirks as she looks at her first drafts for their ‘sponsorship’.
* A tiny bit of foreshadowing for the next episode perhaps for anyone reading this and being familiar with knowledge of German reality TV / documentary series of the 2000s....
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