I never really had watched Dude Where's My Car. At all. From what I've seen in the trailer, it seems to be The Hangover if it had the wackiness of Bill & Ted and that the characters have to find a car rather than a person. It also seems that I have a nack for coming across cult classics that become RPGs by loyal fans recently, but this doesn't have as high ratings as SOAP or TINS, having an (as of now) eighteen percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I guess that's why the RPG said that it was better.

This was published by Tim C Koppang, who you might (keyword being might) recognize as the person who made RPGs like Mars Colony, Hero’s Banner: The Fury of Free Will, and Persona. The guy has quite a few RPGs under his belt, though as far as I can tell, Dude Where's My Car the RPG is perhaps one of his first. Is it better than the movie, or just as bad? Let's find out. Again, any and all GM-related things for example play will mostly be handled by the Mythic GM Emulator.

Style

It's just a page. That's it. It's a single, HTML page that's no bigger than two pages in Word. Like, in about one swipe of the mouse wheel, I was able to go from top to bottom in one second. Now, it's not by all means bad, since that means less words and more of a chance to understand the rules, and it does. It even gives off a terminology list for words that are used later in the RPG. It's okay for what it has, is pretty straight forward, and simplistic. The game is intended to be this way because it's made for road trips and paperless games. Reading that, I commend Tim for doing this. However, there are some rules that may require rereading a few times just to get, and you'll be trying to skim across the page trying to find out stuff like how one person ends their turn and another begins their turn or how the roles of GMs are switched around. For that, it gets a 2.

Substance

Player Content

Character generation is brief. It begins with you and the players going clockwise three times, each time doing something else. You select an Evocative Name for your character and a concept for the first go-around. An Evocative Name is a name that suggests a personality for your character. An obvious example would be something like Fluttershy or Grumpy Bear. The next go-around has you pick something that the character is good at, a skill that the character will always succeed at, and the last having you pick something the character is bad at, something your character will always fail at. That's really that simple. Again, it's made that way, and it accomplished the purpose well. It gets a point.

For the sake of example, I made a character by the name of Poker Face. As the name implies, the thing he's good at is keeping a straight face (it's called "poker face" since it's ideal to not give any facial cues during a poker match) but he's bad at telling lies, meaning he will tell the truth, even if it's not the best idea.

Gameplay Content

The game has an objective in the form of being the first to find the car. As that statement implies, there's going to be a lot of competition from both players and GMs. As I mentioned before, the game is meant to be played on the road, so it heavily relies on directions, such as "clockwise" or "to the right of you", and heavily implies that more than two people should be playing it, especially given the concept of teams and competition. You get five actions or less on your turn to do whatever it is you want to do, but you have to spend your time on those actions with the GM to make sure that it's a success or a failure, as the game doesn't have dice either. You don't have to use all your actions, but you're unable to preserve them for even more actions on your next turn.

Our example of play begins with Poker Face being in jail, about to be interrogated by cops. Poker Face is told that if he gives away the location of the Car, he'll be free to go. Poker Face's first action is to ask the cops what they'll do with the car. Their response is that they just want to help find the missing car, but there's something about them that doesn't set Poker Face right. After asking the GM, I concluded that the cops are really trying to get it for personal gain. The third action he does is try to subtly untie the ropes that he's tied to, but he is unable to do that. He's then asked to tell the truth, and the fourth action is him telling the cops where he last saw the car. The cops then let him go. The fifth and last action that Poker Face would do is to deck a cop in the face and run out of there. The GM accepts this action and he promptly does so. End scene.

Although the game's nature is competitive, there's often a chance to form teams with other players, and take their turns at the same time, and even steal (or give) future actions from each other for their own advantage, provided that the characters bump into each other. The only problem is that once you leave a team, you can't join another. That's... a little strict, I will say. Lastly, there are Complications and Vetoes. A player may spend one of their future actions to introduce a Complication during another player's turn. They can also spend the point on retconing, or Vetoing, a decision that the GM may have made. I like this, as it makes the actions you make your very resource. The game ends when one person reaches the car, with that person being the winner. Even if he is in a team. It kind of makes for interesting gameplay, but I don't think everyone will like the Double Dragon-style of having cooperation with other players, then having to backstab them to win the game.

The next turn begins with the cops using their first action to fire at Poker Face (I'm assuming, for this example, they're the next player after Poker Face). The shots hit Poker Face, and the GM notes that they're lethal. Poker Face spends one of his future actions to Veto that, and say that the shots only cripple him. With that in mind, the cops try to tackle Poker Face. They do, but another future action is spent to create a complication, in which one of the cops gets a call from their girlfriend, saying that unless they stop pursuing Poker Face, she'll break up with him. Odd, but the GM allows it. So, said cop (hence forth Rebel Without A Cause) takes one of the other Cops' actions to stop the others from apprehending Poker Face and allowing him to get to the car. The GM allows this, and he stops the Cops. The last action the Cops take is to set up an ambush for the heroes in the next scene. The GM obliges and a trap is set up next scene, where the turn falls on Rebel Without A Cause, who Poker Face uses his future action to Veto the ambush, leaving him with only two turns.

I actually sort of like this gameplay. It's very unique and I like how it can turn into quite the story telling experience. This gets a point.

GM Content

There's nothing really much for the GM to do other than tell a story and give the players something to do. In fact, the game points out that the role of the GM is switched to the next player during every new turn, but like I stated before, doesn't really have a pronounced way of actually pointing that out. Nothing really special for the GM to do. Although what the RPG says about the GM does the basic job, there's nothing really there to behold, so it doesn't get a point.

Setting Content

Seems to be an occurrence that I come across RPGs that are based off movies, yet have a lack of mention of their setting. However, SOAP and TINS both have some sort of idea what their setting was (One's on a plane, the other is in a computer simulation), Dude Where's My Car the RPG has no setting. All it has for fluff and setting is "there's a car. Go get it." One could make the assumption that it's up to the player to put in the setting, but it's not really much. All we understand from this is that the setting is modern times, or at the very least 2000. That's pretty much it. Y'know, the movie featured stuff like aliens and high technology, so I'm not exactly sure if that's in the RPG too because of the ambiguity of it all. Because of this lack, it doesn't get a point.

Final Analyis

The rules are sparse, though it does get the job done. However, because of some things that some people might find odd, like the cooperative gameplay turning competitive or the lack of clear mention of when a GM switches roles with another, it stays as Sparse. Overall, that earns a 4 for Dude Where's My Car: The RPG. However, despite the low score, I give this a grand recommendation to anyone who wants a fun, rules-lite game to play on the road.