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At BricksWest, Steve and I had some discussions about the game rules.
One thing Steve has been trying to come up with is a way to eliminate
plotting moves since this slows down the game the most. The problem I
would have with eliminating this is the fact that naval (and space)
games can easily become rather boring. The problem with them compared to
most miniatures games is that terrain has little effect, so the
complexity of the game can become too simple. I think the key here is to
have enough other stuff in the game to maintain interest. To this
extent, the role playing aspects of the campaign game I think make for a
better game.
Perhaps with move plotting eliminated, the game would run enough faster
than even with a shortish game session, one could get enough role
playing aspects in to keep the game interesting even though the naval
combat portion becomes somewhat simplistic.
Another key point to work on if plotting is eliminated is making it
harder to cross the T. In general, I suspect it should be extremely hard
to get more than one turns worth of crossing the T in a row. This could
be dealt with in two ways. One would be to require a line extended along
the target's centerline to intersect the attacking ship at between a 60
degree and 120 degree angle of it's centerline (i.e. no more than 30
degrees off of the presumed line of fire of a broadside). Perhaps it
should even be between 75 and 105 degrees (i.e. within 15 degrees). A
simpler way would just be to allow the fairly simple crossing the T
measurement currently used (like my method of requiring the line of fire
to enter within the angled part of the bow, and leave within the angled
portion of the stern) but disallow crossing the T shots on consecutive
turns by the same attacking ship on the same target ship.
Eliminating plotting will also get rid of accidental collisions, and
probably eliminate situations where your shot is blocked by another ship
in your fleet. These are minor things to lose and will mostly eliminate
frustration by less experienced players.
One thing which helped the diversity of the Saturday game at BricksWest
was that each hit on the opponents base scored 25 points. This allowed
an alternative target and meant that ships didn't just all wind up in a
mosh pit in the center of the ocean.
There is always a fine balance between having enough complexity to a
game to make it interesting and having so much complexity as to limit
interest in the game or make games take too long. A good way to improve
the Pirate Game is probably to look for ways in which complexity can be
included which can be handled concurrently. Plotting moves of course is
concurrent so that in some ways is good complexity. Battle rules
complexity can be handled concurrently by having multiple GMs. Role
playing complexity can also be handled by multiple GMs. The question
then comes down to does the plotting of moves add enough interest to
justify the time it takes.
One thought of a way to reduce the time to plot moves is to allow goal
oriented plots for certain things. A goal oriented plot would not be
allowed for attempting to get a crossing the T shot, but would be fine
for landing on an island, or closing with an enemy base, etc. Even just
closing with the enemy when the distances are great would be an OK goal
oriented plot.
One way to handle such plots would be to ask everyone to plot. Then ask
goal oriented plots to be announced. If no one raises any objections, a
GM or player then sets out markers to indicate a decent plot (basically
lay out a die at each turn point for those goals requiring multiple
turns). If an objection is raised, the player must re-write his orders
with a real plot. The GM may assign a point penalty if the goal oriented
plot was inappropriate and can overrule objections ("No, I'm not going
to force fred to use a goal oriented plot to land on that island which
he is 6" from and you are 24" from, he'll get there before you could
block him."). The first couple turns of plotting will then go real fast
(most plots will be of the form of: "Land on the closest island" or
"Close at maximum speed"). Goal oriented plots can even be used in some
opposition situations. For example, if a particular ship is being
chased, the chasing ship might just plot "Close at maximum speed
assuming the target ship flees on it's current heading" (which it is
likely to do). The target ships plot of course is simple, "24 inches at
current heading". If the target ship does something interesting, just
mark where it would have gone had it plotted maximum speed at current
heading and move the attacker appropriately (also note, the attacker
could also plot "Close on target ship assuming it turns to X heading and
flees at maximum speed" since there will be times when it is pretty
obvious what the target would do if it wanted to flee at maximum speed).
Another thing which needs work on the rules is grape shot. There were
only a couple of shots where grape shot made any sense. I think the
number of casualties has to be increased. I also wonder about the bonus
for the number of men on the target ship. That makes grape shot real
useful against large ships and probably never useful against small
ships. Perhaps the bonus should be figured by totaling the number of men
and dividing by the number of hull sections (not class, a wide ship
doesn't spread out the men that much more than a narrow ship). The
numbers still need to be adjusted so that grape shot rates to kill more
men than solid shot (in the second game, I counseled the youngest player
a couple times to just take a regular shot since it would almost
certainly kill just as many men as grape shot).
I also wonder at the idea of giving all men a cutlass and a musket. The
games only had one or two boardings since musket fire basically swept
the decks of all opposition. I'd be more inclined to assume everyone has
a cutlass and pistol, and skip muskets for simple games. My general
feeling about the genre is that muskets didn't see too much use on a
ship, except perhaps by marines on a regular navy ship. Of course this
will make for some boring turns as cannonless cutters attempt to close,
but perhaps that just means cannon should be a little harder to take
out.
Some rules interpretations that I appreciated were:
- I'm glad my interpretation of how broadside cannon were distributed is
correct (count each pair of cannon which face opposite sides as one
cannon, of each pair can only shoot once per turn).
- Plotting ship to ship small arms fire by measuring the closest
distance between the two ships certainly simplifies things. Ranges
should still have some effect when fighting breaks out aboard a ship,
but perhaps there is a way to simplify this. Things are a little tricky
when ships get real close. Perhaps in a non-role playing scenario,
boarding could be simplified with a simple chart to roll on which takes
into account the relative numbers of people on each ship (such a chart
should have some "surrender" options on it, since very rarely would a
crew really fight to the death).
Frank
Frank
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In lugnet.fun.gaming, Frank Filz writes:
> One thing Steve has been trying to come up with is a way to eliminate
> plotting moves since this slows down the game the most.
It seemed to me that getting the hang of plotting took a few turns for most
people and then they could mostly do it in their sleep. When I've played, I
typically had my next turn plotted long before the previous turn was resolved.
Do the experiences of others here differ?
> [but it can get boring without some compleity] To this
> extent, the role playing aspects of the campaign game I think make for a
> better game.
Agreed.
> Eliminating plotting will also get rid of accidental collisions, and
> probably eliminate situations where your shot is blocked by another ship
> in your fleet.
I consider this truth a fault with the idea, not a benefit. Those things and
the possibility of them make for more interesting and careful plotting. At
close range, if you close quickly without care, then bad things happen. So be
careful.
> One thing which helped the diversity of the Saturday game at BricksWest
> was that each hit on the opponents base scored 25 points. This allowed
> an alternative target and meant that ships didn't just all wind up in a
> mosh pit in the center of the ocean.
I would generally like to see alternative point scoreing goals. Maybe, in
fact, each player could have a secret point-scoring mechanism that they would
have the option to pursue in addition to the normal stuff. Actually, I'm not
even sure how points work.
> One thought of a way to reduce the time to plot moves is to allow goal
> oriented plots for certain things. A goal oriented plot would not be
> allowed for attempting to get a crossing the T shot, but would be fine
> for landing on an island, or closing with an enemy base, etc. Even just
> closing with the enemy when the distances are great would be an OK goal
> oriented plot.
I don't know what's everyone else did, but if it wasn't affecting anyone, I
just pseudo-plotted and then moved the way I meant. When I was engaging, I was
careful to be precise. I imagine that we could just trust everyone to do that
and it would be fine.
> One way to handle such plots would be to ask everyone to plot. Then ask
> goal oriented plots to be announced. If no one raises any objections, a
> GM or player then sets out markers to indicate a decent plot (basically
> lay out a die at each turn point for those goals requiring multiple
> turns). If an objection is raised, the player must re-write his orders
> with a real plot.
This sounds like a hassle and probably more slow than just plotting moves. But
maybe I'm not really envisioning it. I'm game to try stuff like this in any
case.
> I also wonder at the idea of giving all men a cutlass and a musket. The
> games only had one or two boardings since musket fire basically swept
> the decks of all opposition. I'd be more inclined to assume everyone has
> a cutlass and pistol, and skip muskets for simple games. My general
> feeling about the genre is that muskets didn't see too much use on a
> ship, except perhaps by marines on a regular navy ship. Of course this
> will make for some boring turns as cannonless cutters attempt to close,
> but perhaps that just means cannon should be a little harder to take
> out.
My preference would be to have so many points of some kind to spend on creating
and outfitting your ship(s) and crew. Of course there has to be a point
balancing effort then, but I think variety and diversity in the startups would
be a good thing. If I want a leaky tub staffed by crack musketeers, then why
not? Or why not allow someone to trade their starting cannon for an extra 2"
(or whatever) of movement?
> - Plotting ship to ship small arms fire by measuring the closest
> distance between the two ships certainly simplifies things. Ranges
> should still have some effect when fighting breaks out aboard a ship,
> but perhaps there is a way to simplify this. Things are a little tricky
> when ships get real close. Perhaps in a non-role playing scenario,
> boarding could be simplified with a simple chart to roll on which takes
> into account the relative numbers of people on each ship (such a chart
> should have some "surrender" options on it, since very rarely would a
> crew really fight to the death).
On first thought, I don't like the range being between closest points rather
than between firer and target. It was easy enough to get in with a six-"inch"
rangestick and do the calculations "right" that I'm not sure why we'd want to
do it that way. But if you wanted to simplify with a table, you could have a
volley by volley roll and the commander would have to decide when to surrender.
of course, I guess there'd have to be a good reason (like a point break or
something) to actually surrender, and of course a mutinous surrender could be a
table result.
my thoughts,
Chris
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In lugnet.fun.gaming, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.fun.gaming, Frank Filz writes:
>
> > One thing Steve has been trying to come up with is a way to eliminate
> > plotting moves since this slows down the game the most.
>
> It seemed to me that getting the hang of plotting took a few turns for most
> people and then they could mostly do it in their sleep. When I've played, I
> typically had my next turn plotted long before the previous turn was resolved.
> Do the experiences of others here differ?
My reading is pretty much in line with Chris here. But then again,
I'm a metricating fool. The big problem with plotting, as I see it,
is that when ships close in, independent plotting loses its connection
to reality. If anything, I'd suggest that when ships are within a
certain distance from one another, that plotting moves be divided
up--into halves or quarters--to allow a more logical resolution of
boarding attempts. But that could in fact make plotting more difficult;
I'd suggest that it would have little effect on players who are used to
plotting, because it requires you to do it on the fly anyhow.
> > [but it can get boring without some compleity] To this
> > extent, the role playing aspects of the campaign game I think make for a
> > better game.
>
> Agreed.
Also agreed. However, a fleet game doesn't preclude this--it just
makes the goals far narrower and thus constricts the subject.
> > Eliminating plotting will also get rid of accidental collisions, and
> > probably eliminate situations where your shot is blocked by another ship
> > in your fleet.
>
> I consider this truth a fault with the idea, not a benefit. Those things and
> the possibility of them make for more interesting and careful plotting. At
> close range, if you close quickly without care, then bad things happen. So be
> careful.
See above regarding division of moves for ships attempting to close.
I agree with Chris regarding the realism of possible "knocks" of ships,
but I also agree with Frank that they're far *too* common in the system
as is.
The way I envision it is this: Two ships closing on a third; one some
distance away, one within one turn's movement distance. The ship farther
away would plot a full move; the others would move in response to one
another, following initiative order, in quarter-movements. That movement
would all be done *after* full movements, because the ship under duress
would be maneuvering much more actively. It would also allow grappling
to be resolved between partial moves.
If you look at the way that age-of-sail fleets moved, this sort of
close tacking is very much in character with ship-to-ship actions
fought at close range.
> > One thing which helped the diversity of the Saturday game at BricksWest
> > was that each hit on the opponents base scored 25 points. This allowed
> > an alternative target and meant that ships didn't just all wind up in a
> > mosh pit in the center of the ocean.
>
> I would generally like to see alternative point scoreing goals. Maybe, in
> fact, each player could have a secret point-scoring mechanism that they would
> have the option to pursue in addition to the normal stuff. Actually, I'm not
> even sure how points work.
I'm not sure of this either. But making it imperative to defend a
base from marauding enemies does add another objective! Another
possibility--an interesting one, from my viewpoint--would be to
make it a point *transfer* for base damage. That would mean that
players in the lead could find their base under siege by other
players who have, to this point, been far behind.
> > One thought of a way to reduce the time to plot moves is to allow goal
> > oriented plots for certain things. A goal oriented plot would not be
> > allowed for attempting to get a crossing the T shot, but would be fine
> > for landing on an island, or closing with an enemy base, etc. Even just
> > closing with the enemy when the distances are great would be an OK goal
> > oriented plot.
>
> I don't know what's everyone else did, but if it wasn't affecting anyone, I
> just pseudo-plotted and then moved the way I meant. When I was engaging, I was
> careful to be precise. I imagine that we could just trust everyone to do that
> and it would be fine.
See above. Having a "close-in" division of plots, and automatically
resolving the movement of ships within, say, 12" or 16" of one another
after other movement is taken care of would help.
This would also allow one to "free up" others to plot at will. Frankly,
initiative would then only matter with respect to ships that are in
immediate danger of collision/conflict/whatever. The rules for order
or composition of ship movement plotting would therefore be rendered
moot for the vast majority of players at any time in the game.
> > One way to handle such plots would be to ask everyone to plot. Then ask
> > goal oriented plots to be announced. If no one raises any objections, a
> > GM or player then sets out markers to indicate a decent plot (basically
> > lay out a die at each turn point for those goals requiring multiple
> > turns). If an objection is raised, the player must re-write his orders
> > with a real plot.
>
> This sounds like a hassle and probably more slow than just plotting moves. But
> maybe I'm not really envisioning it. I'm game to try stuff like this in any
> case.
"Goal-oriented plots" would require that ships be close to one
another, IMO. Whether or not there's a goal, then, it would help
to plot on a shorter scale--because the chance of an accident
really ought to be there.
So I'd prefer a distance test for careful plotting, rather than
a "goal" one, which strikes me as nebulous. (Especially true if you
want to mask your intentions--are you just passing by that ship,
or are you planning to attack it?).
> > I also wonder at the idea of giving all men a cutlass and a musket. The
> > games only had one or two boardings since musket fire basically swept
> > the decks of all opposition. I'd be more inclined to assume everyone has
> > a cutlass and pistol, and skip muskets for simple games. My general
> > feeling about the genre is that muskets didn't see too much use on a
> > ship, except perhaps by marines on a regular navy ship. Of course this
> > will make for some boring turns as cannonless cutters attempt to close,
> > but perhaps that just means cannon should be a little harder to take
> > out.
>
> My preference would be to have so many points of some kind to spend on creating
> and outfitting your ship(s) and crew. Of course there has to be a point
> balancing effort then, but I think variety and diversity in the startups would
> be a good thing. If I want a leaky tub staffed by crack musketeers, then why
> not? Or why not allow someone to trade their starting cannon for an extra 2"
> (or whatever) of movement?
This is a fairly good idea, I'm in favor of it. I'm not sure about
adding significant amounts of movement--unless we consider it to be
a case of a "properly scraped bottom" allowing for better motion.
Perhaps copper sheathing as a "bonus quality" for one's ship?
> > - Plotting ship to ship small arms fire by measuring the closest
> > distance between the two ships certainly simplifies things. Ranges
> > should still have some effect when fighting breaks out aboard a ship,
> > but perhaps there is a way to simplify this. Things are a little tricky
> > when ships get real close. Perhaps in a non-role playing scenario,
> > boarding could be simplified with a simple chart to roll on which takes
> > into account the relative numbers of people on each ship (such a chart
> > should have some "surrender" options on it, since very rarely would a
> > crew really fight to the death).
>
> On first thought, I don't like the range being between closest points rather
> than between firer and target. It was easy enough to get in with a six-"inch"
> rangestick and do the calculations "right" that I'm not sure why we'd want to
> do it that way. But if you wanted to simplify with a table, you could have a
> volley by volley roll and the commander would have to decide when to surrender.
> of course, I guess there'd have to be a good reason (like a point break or
> something) to actually surrender, and of course a mutinous surrender could be
> table result.
I'm more in favor of target-firer distance calculation.
The surrender point-break: I'd suggest a rule of thumb, such as
"when target crew is 50% of attacker crew" or "attacker has more
than 2x as many cannon as target" or "target has no cannon remaining".
Modify this with "promised clemency" and "reputation of attacker"
(honorable, scurvy scalawag, etc.) and you could get some pretty
reasonable results. But what was really wrong with the old system?
best
LFB
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In lugnet.fun.gaming, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.fun.gaming, Frank Filz writes:
>
> > One thing Steve has been trying to come up with is a way to eliminate
> > plotting moves since this slows down the game the most.
>
> It seemed to me that getting the hang of plotting took a few turns for most
> people and then they could mostly do it in their sleep. When I've played, I
> typically had my next turn plotted long before the previous turn was resolved.
> Do the experiences of others here differ?
I had a hard time figuring out how plotting worked from the sheet. But once
plotting was explained to me it was dead simple. But then I've done Star
Fleet Battles(tm) plotting which is quite complex compared to this.
I think plotting adds a fair bit of realism and strategy... you have to
think about how you want your ship to end up. Just like in real days of sail.
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Christopher Weeks wrote:
>
> In lugnet.fun.gaming, Frank Filz writes:
>
> > One thing Steve has been trying to come up with is a way to eliminate
> > plotting moves since this slows down the game the most.
>
> It seemed to me that getting the hang of plotting took a few turns for most
> people and then they could mostly do it in their sleep. When I've played, I
> typically had my next turn plotted long before the previous turn was resolved.
> Do the experiences of others here differ?
That works well for some players, but if you recall, there is always one
player who hasn't even started plotting when you ask if all plotting is
complete.
> > One thing which helped the diversity of the Saturday game at BricksWest
> > was that each hit on the opponents base scored 25 points. This allowed
> > an alternative target and meant that ships didn't just all wind up in a
> > mosh pit in the center of the ocean.
>
> I would generally like to see alternative point scoreing goals. Maybe, in
> fact, each player could have a secret point-scoring mechanism that they would
> have the option to pursue in addition to the normal stuff. Actually, I'm not
> even sure how points work.
In the role playing game, winning has generally be determined by wealth.
In the Saturday game at BricksWest, 200 points were scored for each
capture of a ship, and 50 points scored for each hit on a base.
In every game I've played, evaluating who is a winner has actually been
done by obviousness or hasn't really been a factor. At BricksWest the
winning side was obvious in each battle (all enemy ships captured), at
BrickFest, I just awarded prizes to those I thought played the best
overall, not really the winner (though at BF 2001, the prizes fairly
well followed the wealth acquired). At BricksWest, I awarded a prize to
the young player who was such a good sport in both games (Steve DeCramer
had given me a copy of the Pirate comic, which I felt bad accepting
since I have a couple copies I am trying to sell/trade, so I donated it
as a prize).
Alternate goals for winning would be interesting, but do increase setup
time. So far, I think I've just had enough energy to get a basic game
rolling. Perhaps when a game session comes around where I have real time
to prepare ahead of time this would work better. It also requires a more
predictable number of players.
> > One thought of a way to reduce the time to plot moves is to allow goal
> > oriented plots for certain things. A goal oriented plot would not be
> > allowed for attempting to get a crossing the T shot, but would be fine
> > for landing on an island, or closing with an enemy base, etc. Even just
> > closing with the enemy when the distances are great would be an OK goal
> > oriented plot.
>
> I don't know what's everyone else did, but if it wasn't affecting anyone, I
> just pseudo-plotted and then moved the way I meant. When I was engaging, I was
> careful to be precise. I imagine that we could just trust everyone to do that
> and it would be fine.
That works well with a certain class of player. Of course, if you
remember, Shiri was constantly upset at the way I moved the NPC ship at
BF 2000 (of course I wasn't measuring, just guestimating distance).
> > One way to handle such plots would be to ask everyone to plot. Then ask
> > goal oriented plots to be announced. If no one raises any objections, a
> > GM or player then sets out markers to indicate a decent plot (basically
> > lay out a die at each turn point for those goals requiring multiple
> > turns). If an objection is raised, the player must re-write his orders
> > with a real plot.
>
> This sounds like a hassle and probably more slow than just plotting moves. But
> maybe I'm not really envisioning it. I'm game to try stuff like this in any
> case.
It probably is slower, I was just looking for ways to avoid detailed
plotting. I think there really isn't any way around it. Naval games just
aren't interesting without plotting.
> > I also wonder at the idea of giving all men a cutlass and a musket. The
> > games only had one or two boardings since musket fire basically swept
> > the decks of all opposition. I'd be more inclined to assume everyone has
> > a cutlass and pistol, and skip muskets for simple games. My general
> > feeling about the genre is that muskets didn't see too much use on a
> > ship, except perhaps by marines on a regular navy ship. Of course this
> > will make for some boring turns as cannonless cutters attempt to close,
> > but perhaps that just means cannon should be a little harder to take
> > out.
>
> My preference would be to have so many points of some kind to spend on creating
> and outfitting your ship(s) and crew. Of course there has to be a point
> balancing effort then, but I think variety and diversity in the startups would
> be a good thing. If I want a leaky tub staffed by crack musketeers, then why
> not? Or why not allow someone to trade their starting cannon for an extra 2"
> (or whatever) of movement?
This is interesting, but increases setup time. I'm not sure how much
flexibility can be had with the initial startup in a campaign type game.
> > - Plotting ship to ship small arms fire by measuring the closest
> > distance between the two ships certainly simplifies things. Ranges
> > should still have some effect when fighting breaks out aboard a ship,
> > but perhaps there is a way to simplify this. Things are a little tricky
> > when ships get real close. Perhaps in a non-role playing scenario,
> > boarding could be simplified with a simple chart to roll on which takes
> > into account the relative numbers of people on each ship (such a chart
> > should have some "surrender" options on it, since very rarely would a
> > crew really fight to the death).
>
> On first thought, I don't like the range being between closest points rather
> than between firer and target. It was easy enough to get in with a six-"inch"
> rangestick and do the calculations "right" that I'm not sure why we'd want to
> do it that way. But if you wanted to simplify with a table, you could have a
> volley by volley roll and the commander would have to decide when to surrender.
> of course, I guess there'd have to be a good reason (like a point break or
> something) to actually surrender, and of course a mutinous surrender could be a
> table result.
Steve does have a table which lets mass small arms fire be conducted
quickly, basically by giving you the expected value on the number of
kills. Calculating individual ranges isn't too bad with just a handful
of men, but would be real ugly with a large ship with 50 men....
Morale rules might be interesting since there currently is no reason to
ever surrender.
Frank
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