Work hard so I can make cash.
Make cash so I can go fast.

-Richie Branson, “Tofu Delivery”

The year is 199X. You are people with a passion for speed. Some of you are teenagers, some of you are young adults, some of you are genuine adults with real professions. Despite your differences, night after night, you take your car out on the road and look for someone to race. You all know the challenge: High beams on and off three times.

Street by Street is a hack of my previous game, Stride by Stride. No knowledge of Stride by Stride is needed for understanding Street by Street, but you will need the cards and files explained below under Setup.

Setup

You’ll need something to write with, something to write on, and a printed-out version of the Race Cards. Also included with this article are Tabletop Simulator-specific files, the individual cards, and the .xcf files needed to make your own. You can find all of these for free in the downloads section here!

You will also need one d8 per player.

Once you’ve gathered all that stuff together, decide how long you want this game to run. I’d aim for about 20 turns, which should be enough time to tune the heck out of your cars, rack up some [R], and wreck a few times.

Making Your Character

Either print off or hand-write the section below.

Name:

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Pronouns:

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Signature Look: Nice Jacket / Nice Hat / Cool Necklace / Rings / Weird Hair / Classy Suit / Techwear / 10 Pounds of Candy Colored Accessories / Write Your Own Below:

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$:

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[R]:

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Titles:

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Jobs

Vehicles

Modding Your Vehicle

Mods are vital to your success in racing. They represent new engine parts, engine tuning, aerodynamics kits and so on. Every vehicle can only hold a certain amount of mods, represented by its Slots value. The vehicles in this article have a Slots value ranging from 0 (the Supercar) to 5 (the Junker and the Main Battle Tank).

Each Mod changes the vehicle’s stats. Mods you win from races will always be primarily beneficial, but the Minivan and Junker both start with mods that provide a malus to their respective stats, representing the years of war or lack of fitness for racing.

Winning a race allows you to claim the mod at the bottom of one of the race cards. The only other way to get mods currently is to trade another player for one.

Mods can be added, removed or changed out during the Tune action on your turn. They can also be sold at any time for the value listed on their cards. Prices for modifying your vehicle can be found under the Tune action.

In summary: Win races, get rewards, Tune your ride, write down the stat changes, then hit the road again.

Mechanics

There are five basic stats in Street By Street. Everything but Skill comes from your vehicle and its mods, but Skill comes from you, the driver.

Every roll in this game is 1d8, trying to roll under one stat. If you roll under that stat, the difference between the stat and your roll is your result. If you roll an 8, you lose one point of Durability. If your car is souped up enough that you have 8 or more in a stat and you roll an 8, you still lose a point of Durability, but you do pass the check.

Speed: This is your top speed.

Power: This is how fast you can reach your top speed, how fast you can climb inclines, all that fun stuff.

Handling: This stat dictates how agile your machine is, which is important for taking sharp corners, dodging traffic, and so on.

Durability: This is your vehicle’s health, effectively. If you roll an 8 on a check, you lose a point of Durability. If you lose all of them, your car is Wrecked, and cannot be used again until it’s been fully repaired. A Wrecked car cannot be sold for money. If you Wreck in a race, you lose.

Skill: You roll Skill at the start of every race to see who gets off the start line first, and can spend a point of Skill to reroll any check.

Turns

Each turn of Street By Street covers about a week of in-game time. This is not as strict as the time schedule in Stride by Stride, and if you want a faster-paced game, you can treat each Turn as a single night. This makes no real difference, but it keeps tempers high.

At the start of each turn, each player may discard one card from their hand. Then, each player draws until they have six cards in hand. We’ll talk about what the cards are for in a minute, I promise.

After everyone has drawn to their hand size, each player takes one of the following actions:

Actions

Work: Go to your job and earn $.

Tune: Take your vehicle down to the shop and mod it. You can also buy a new vehicle during this action. You can tune up a new vehicle on the same turn that you bought it.

Repair: Buff out those dents. Costs money based on your vehicle.

Race: Hit the road and look for someone to race against. This is how you win Respect (R), Mods, and occasionally money.

Work

You go to your job and roll for your wages, if applicable. That’s it, that’s your turn.

Tune

As you race, you’ll gain Mods, special parts you can add on to your vehicle to improve its stats. You can spend a Turn at the Tuner Shop to add or remove mods. Removing a Mod costs $50, and installing a Mod costs $100. Swapping one Mod out for another counts as both removing a Mod and installing a Mod, and thus costs $150.

Selling Things

Every mod has a cost, listed in the bottom right of the card. You can sell it to the tuning shop for its listed cost at any time, or sell/trade it to another player for a cost you two both agree on.

Repair

Racing isn’t easy on your car. Maybe you broke a strut, smashed a headlight, popped a tire… Whatever it was, check the repair cost on your vehicle’s cards and pay up when you pick this action.

Race

If two or more players decide to Race on the same night, they race against each other. They decide how long the race is. This number must be divisible by the number of drivers.

If only one player decides to Race, they race against a random driver in a four-Leg race. This race is drafted with cards from the top of the deck, replacing the other racer’s contribution. This NPC racer has 3 in every stat.

Players can also opt to make a wager on the race. The only in-game asset you can’t bet is Respect [R], everything else is fair game. Your car? A mod? Money? All fair game, as long as both parties agree to the wager. You could bet your Job, if you wanted to. I wouldn’t recommend it, since there are no rules for getting another Job in this article, but I’m not your parent.

There is one way to earn extra [R] from a race: Roleplay a scene between the involved racers. Whether it’s a loud argument at the gas station, a challenge delivered at one participant’s job, or anything else that gets the blood pumping and puts your pride on the line. The winner of the following race gets 1 bonus R per participant in the scene.

Each Leg is represented by one card. Players take turns playing cards until the agreed-upon length is reached.

Once route drafting is done, you move on to the actual racing!

At the start of the race, each participant rolls 1d8 vs their Skill. Whoever has the highest result takes the lead. They are ahead of the next participant by the difference between their rolls.

For each Leg, roll vs the skills called for on the card and repeat this process. If at any time the difference between the leader and second place is zero, they are in [DEAD HEAT], and the race is now worth one additional [R]. If you end a race in [DEAD HEAT], roll Skill to determine the winner.

Example turn

Ahmed and Juniper are both racing. They draft the following course:
Leg 1, Straightaway, Speed and Speed
Leg 2, Chicane, Power and Handling
Leg 3, Hairpin, Handling and Handling
Leg 4: Uphill, Power and Power

At the start of the race, Ahmed rolls a 1, against his skill of 3. His Result is 2. Juniper rolls a 2, against her skill of 4, so her result is also 2. They are tied coming off the starting line. They are in [DEAD HEAT].

Ahmed’s car has a speed of 4. He rolls a 6 and a 1. The 6 is higher than his stat, so he gets a zero for that roll. His total for this turn is 3.

Juniper’s car has a speed of 6. She rolls a 2 and an 8. She succeeds on the first roll and gets a score of 4, but the second roll damages her car and lowers her Durability by one point.

At the end of this Leg, Juniper is in the lead by 1.

In Leg 2, Ahmed scores a total of 8 from his rolls, and Juniper scores a total of 5. Ahmed outscored Juniper by 3, and is now in the lead by 2.
In Leg 3, Juniper outscores Ahmed by 1, reducing Ahmed’s lead to 1.
In Leg 4, Juniper outscores Ahmed by 2, overtaking him at the last minute and winning the race by 1.

Get Rewards

Winning a race awards 1 [R] for every two legs and one [R] for every participant. The winner also takes one of the race cards to use as a car mod.

The loser rolls 1d4. If the result is higher than their current Skill, they gain one point of Skill, representing what they learned in the race.

Staking: If the participants agree, they can also bet money or the right to take a mod on the race. The bets do not have to be symmetrical; somebody could wager $500 against a part, just as long as all participants agree.

For winning a four-leg, two-driver race with no additional stakes, Juniper wins 3 [R], plus one additional [R] from the [DEAD HEAT] bonus. and one Mod from the cards used for the race.

Ending the Game

When you finish the turn you decided to end on, it’s time to determine who won.

First, compare how much money everyone has. Whoever has the most money gets 5 [R] and the title “Moneybags.”

Then, compare [R] values. Whoever has the most [R] wins and gains the title “Legend.”

There are a few other title conditions:

Anyone who filled all five mod slots on a Junker gains the title “Sleeper.”

Anyone who bought the Main Battle Tank gains the title “Rhino Enthusiast.”

Anyone who Wrecked a vehicle and repaired it to full Durability gains the title “Phoenix.”

Anyone who Wrecked a vehicle more than once gains the title “Cursed.”

Want to use your character in another run of Street by Street? Great! Strip off your mods, reset your [R] to zero, and hit the streets.

Setting: River City

Welcome to River City, 199X. River City is the platonic ideal of car-centric design, with freeways, highways, subsurface tunnels and surface roads connecting every part of the city, as long as you have a car.

During the day, these roads are filled with traffic. People need to get groceries, groceries need to get to stores, and kids need to go to hockey practice, after all. But at night, these streets are mostly empty. These empty streets have become a playground for a certain kind of person: Street racers. Night after night, they tear through these wide, straight streets, driving at dangerous speeds to see who’s got the grit and the gear to beat everyone else.

You’re one of those people. Maybe you grew up watching NASCAR, maybe you spent too much time playing Ridge Racer, maybe you got your first car and felt the need for speed overwhelm you.

Points of Interest

Rud’s Auto Shop

Rud’s is an old art deco-styled auto shop that has been operated by the same family for three generations. Its current owner, Marlaina, can tune up anything from track cars to street racers to vintage military equipment.

Lookout Point

Near the peak of Mt. Hunter, this parking lot overlooks the entirety of River City. This is a popular starting point for races, and the cluster of vending machines and benches at one end of the lot is a popular hangout for race fans and other delinquents. The light poles are covered with logo stickers from local street racing crews stretching back over a decade.

Danny’s Diner

Danny’s is a chain restaurant that serves breakfast 24 hours a day. The coffee sucks, the donuts are usually stale, but the waffles are made fresh. This makes it a popular hangout spot for night workers, truckers, wannabe writers, and of course, street racers. There’s a promotion going on for some science-fantasy film right now, involving waffles with pop rocks in them.

Afterword

I love vehicles. Trains, fighter jets, mechs, cars. I love things that a person can sit in and gain capabilities beyond imagination. It’s fascinating to me. Combine that with the interpersonal drama, the fires of rivalry, and you’ve got a good time.

The major inspirations for this article came from Initial D, Wangan Midnight, the Burnout games (specifically 3 and Paradise), and Racing Lagoon for the PS1. Specifically, YouTuber Dungeon Chill’s video about Racing Lagoon. It’s a wild ride, you should check it out.

This is all fiction, drive safe in real life, or take transit.

-Garm

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