Excerpt from the Rules
These rules started their development life in the mid to late 80's, when in our war gaming hobby we collected so many different brands and kinds of toy vehicles we thought there had to be a way to put it all into a game, regardless what the exact era was. That "stuff" ranged from die cast vehicles, walkers and Battletech, sci-fi or "space marine" infantry and more; all somewhat close to 1/72. Even die cast helicopters and other types of aircraft. We called this idea "QuarterMaster: Bring Your Inventory to War."
The idea was there should be rules for a game where everything you have can be put into it.
But we were also big Car Wars fans, not the game rules, but the concept.
We just couldn't make CarWars work as it was, and almost immediately tweaked it better. Regardless how "Steve" and the guys tried to improve on it, it just fundamentally was not workable for a lot of reasons.
So, while working on our historical rules we thought QuarterMaster should be along the same lines: easy to play but realistic. In the end, our simplification concerned several realms of discussion:
a. Player characters have jobs, they have to have substance
b. Weapons have to stop being so crazy. The idea of beam weapons is a little hard to believe given the power source(s) available.
c. The socio-economic role playing and story-based scenarios. Cinematic is a word that came up.
d. The Arena: The sport event where players can earn Credits (money). The more spectacular your win or failure the more notoriety you get.
e. The technology: Not everything in this version is like Car Wars and there are only so many weapons the general public can get. The general public are NOT military and not all the weapons are military grade e.g. a "machine gun" may or may not be a military grade; it may just be a rapid-firing 22 caliber weapon; a "recoiless rifle" is a single shot (each time but it auto-loads) shot gun firing various kinds of rounds- it is "recoiless" so the effects of firing it are not felt in the firing vehicle (otherwise, large weapons that aren't "recoiless" when they fire, cause all other weapons from the vehicle to have -1 penalty except for dropped weapons). And, there are no BEAM weapons yet, and all "rockets" are not too far from big versions of the model rocketry stuff with various kinds of warheads; hence the reason they are affordable in the first place.. but also, volatile meaning a hit in the ammo pack/magazine could start a pretty bad chain reaction.
And yes, all vehicles are electric.
The general population had to arm themselves and their vehicles because beyond the walls of local towns lawlessness exists pretty much everywhere and people fend for themselves as the economy tries to improve. It's a different world. So this is where we are at: Peds on the ground, vehicles in the city streets and in the sky. The only real difference from today is that the whole thing takes place after some kind of apocalypse and is now in a recovery status, where the main entertainment is dueling with vehicles in an arena. And like all sports, TV coverage and the "show" is the entertainment for the masses.