Sidewinder: One-Shot RPG Rules

Hi Michael. I couldn't agree more. For launch, I primarily focused on aircraft that would be featured in the first adventure, Crossing the Rubicon. I'm working on an aircraft supplement that will include the aircraft you list and more! I do have guidelines that I follow, so I'll update the doc to include a page at the back with how I work out the stats. Great suggestion!

I welcome questions. I was in the same situation you were, keeping my eyes open for an air combat-centric game. I tried Night Witches. It's a pretty cool game but wasn't what I was looking for, so I decided to create one for OSRPG. You can post questions here or drop me an email at oneshotrpg.gm@gmail or reach out to me on Discord (Phzoul#5624).

Thank you for your reply, David. I notice that Sidewinder doesn't appear at your website, so is it a prototype. If so, it's an extremely tight, well-done one. I collaborated with clash Bowley at Flying Mice Games on In Harm's Way: Wild Blue. Wild Blue pretty much covers the same subject as Sidewinder, but in unfortunately excruciating detail. We are currently in the process of writing the second edition which will use the considerably simpler Starcluster 4 rules. I've been writing game stuff since the seventies and cowrote MiG KiLLERS for Gamescience with Rocky Russo (RIP). I have all of the BoP stuff and drag out every couple of months or so to see if I can bear to play it with all of its realistic detail. The latest iteration actually uses a real flight computer to do the math! So...why am I bothering with Sidewinder? Because sometimes you just need to calm down and have a cinematic adventure! Detail is nice for all of us airplane aficionados, but sometimes you just want to play a game. Sidewinder looks like...See more it will fill that niche very nicely. I've already created a character, I've already rolled some %D and I think that this will be an excellent system to get my very patient friends to put up with my war stories, kick the tires and light the fires. Now, as to a few minor critiques- Some of the stats are a bit wonky, unless you apply the rule of cool. The MiG-25 Foxbat is a good example of this. A bird capable of traveling at M3 only does that when it has to, pretty much in a straight line. No self-respecting Foxbat driver would ever get into any kind of fight other than BVR, employing slash-attacks and get out of Dodge. I see that the game uses real-world, published stats for the most part, and that's fine. The trick is where you get your guestimates of Maneuver. IRL, you would worry about thrust to weight and wing-loading, fudging for variables like variable geometry, canards, delta versus trapezoid versus swept, thrust-vectoring, high tech g-suits versus a kidney belt and blocks on the rudder pedals, reclined seats, HUDs versus HMD, and so on. Guestimating whether a fighter is a slash fighter or a dog fighter is key. Never get into a turning fight with a fighter that weighs less than yours (or at least has lighter wing-loading/thrust-loading). David, I respect what you've done and I can't write your game for you, but I can at least suggest looking at some of these basic ideas. OBTW, all of your birds need to have a big penalty when they carry external stores such as fuel tanks or bombs. Just a quick look at the wing-loading would tell you how much. Looking at the MiG-29 Fulcrum (right in front of me), I would penalize all of its Maneuver % by -10 to -20% when flying dirty. Sometimes, like with the Hornet that the Fulcrum so much resembles, you have to fly dirty to a target and then pickle off your bombs, tanks, and pylons so you can slick up and turn with the defenders. Crap, looking at all the above it's obvious I've gone on far too long here. I apologize for that, but I do look forward to trying out a variant of Rubicon with my local buds. Thank you for your patience and creativity.

Hey Michael. As with all of my products, Sidewinder is constantly evolving. My website is outdated because most of the activity is here on DTRPG. I added it to my to-do list. Wild Blue and MiG KILLERS sound pretty cool - pretty intense that a real flight computer is used. I can get lost in detail sometimes, but it's a hard sell with my regular gaming group. Also, thanks for the feedback. It is always welcome, and the more, the better. Email me a copy of your character if you get a chance, and let me know how your games go. Feel free to reach out to me on Discord and let me know if you have any more thoughts.

Thanks, David! Wild Blue is pretty much Sidewinder on steroids, using the original Starcluster % engine. At the time of publication, we included a metric ton of stuff with a lifepath-style character generation system and a "relatively" complex air combat game involving generating energy points and then spending said points on movement, altitude change and maneuver. Like Sidewinder, Wild Blue had a PK type BVR game and a WVR dogfight game. The game was supposed to be the toolkit to make an air-centric PMC who would hire out to provide training cadre and fighting forces for a country that wouldn't otherwise be able to resist a well-equipped enemy. The concept was loosely based on the manga and anime' Area 88 and also modern techno-thrillers, both movies and novels. MiG KiLLERS was a boardgame designed to satisfy the need for a modern air combat game that would be better than SPI's Air War (Dunnigan and Isby). It was the first air combat boardgame to incorporate g-forces and induced drag and thus had a...See more realism level that exceeded the forest-killing Air War. Both of these games are now severely outdated. These days, I play games such as Check Six and FASA's Top Gun as well as Paper Forge's jet game that they haven't finished yet. Birds of Prey (the game that will use the flight computer) is a pain in the butt that I love to test myself against, but it's hard to get other folks interested as it's too much like filing your taxes. I'm hoping that Sidewinder will fill the niche of the clean and simple air combat rpg and I'm looking forward to trying it out this week.