Subject:
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Re: Pirate Game Postmortem (Was: Re: Brickfest)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.gaming
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Date:
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Tue, 13 Jun 2000 13:46:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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1279 times
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Well, I guess I'm going to do some piecemeal responses... I will craft a
final report in a week or so though.
Some quick comments before addressing some of Lindsay's comments:
After looking at some of the pictures, I'm glad I forgot tape measures
and rulers. The LEGO range sticks look real good in the pictures, and
highlights the LEGOness of the game. I will make some smaller rulers for
personal combat. Sometimes it was hard to maneuver the large ruler
through the ships rigging to get the range for a pistol shot.
Mr L F Braun wrote:
> This is probably why Steve has many "assistants." When a game is that large, is
> it possible to allow people unconnected to that particular battle to mediate? I
> have a feeling that a 5- or 6- person Pirate Game might feasibly be run by one
> person in stretches of three or four hours. I did indeed encounter the same
> idleness issue once skeleton-slaying and alligator-whacking got underway, so my
> response was to see if there was any way I could aid in resolution of other
> pending battles. The GM is certainly never idle!
In the future, in addition to using more GMs, I will delegate
experienced players to handle simple combat situations which they are
not a party to.
> > Also, I was really frustrated with that merchant ship, 'coz I followed it
> > diligently, yet every time I caught up on her, you moved it further away.
> > Perhaps having it move a constant distance each turn (wind-related, of
> > course), and actually measuring the distance (instead of arbitrarily moving
> > the ship) might've been a better idea, then I could predict where it'd end up
> > and board her.
>
> My success in the game is largely traceable to a merchant vessel. I'm glad that
> the initiative system allows smaller ships to plot movement after large ones, but
> it seems that a randomizer with regard to initiative might be in order--a skilful
> merchant captain being better than an unlucky pirate. But both my positioning and
> the appearance of the merchant were quite fortuitous (however the appearance of
> the Imperial ship was a nice balance--had the pirate base not been there, I would
> have lost my prize and likely my captain as well). Of course, when you get above
> initiative level 2, you have to start splitting movement into two phases--but even
> so I wonder if perhaps without a randomized element, initiative becomes a snowball
> factor.
I think an initiative randomizer would add too much complexity to the
game. The pursuit rules you mention below probably are a good comprimise
which helps in the situation where it is most needed. I don't think it
is at all a problem that the initiative gives the pirates and initial
advantage over the bigger ships. The idea is to be able to upgrade your
ship. Playing the whole game with a cutter would be boring. Note also
that cutters can be merchants or imperial ships (we just didn't have any
left for that purpose) so there will be times when the merchants or
imperials have a better initiative than the pirates.
> However, if a ship starts out ahead of you, and the wind is constant, you're not
> likely to catch them unless you've got a trolling motor or you damage their
> rigging with shot, so as frustrating as the Fruitless Merchant Chase can be, it's
> very faithful to the reality. But didn't merchant vessels being pursued sometimes
> dump cargo overboard to pull away or make themselves more manoeuverable? That
> would imply that a laden merchant ship would be a mite slower than a warship of
> the same class.
>
> But the frustration of pursuit is covered in the rules, to wit:
> http://www.io.com/~sj/PirateGame1.html
> under "Pursuit Speed." Did we make use of this clause?
Yea, I didn't use the pursuit rules. You are correct in your analysis of
what happened though. Shiri probably could have caught the ship if she
had taken off at an angle instead of heading straight for it initially.
Of course that would have required guessing that the ship was going to
head in a straight line. It also could have more clearly escaped had it
changed tack (it had a 12" move 45 or 90 degrees off the wind to the
cutters 10" speed).
Chris and I also discussed modifying the weather to be a somewhat
simpler system, and also guarantee more changes in wind direction.
Playing a whole game essentially under one wind direction was boring
(and resulted in frustration for Shiri, a wind change would have either
given the merchant a surge and cleaner escape, or would have given her
an advantage).
> A few other thoughts, really quickly:
>
> -Should hull hits have an adverse effect on ship speed? Drag is definitely
> changed.
>
> -I was going to ask about turning radius, but Steve already has a clause: that a
> ship can only turn as many compass points (ordinals and cardinals, or 45-degree
> marks) as it has initiative points. I'd amend that to exclude initiative points
> derived from non-ship sources, or limited to one extra point, because there's only
> so much even the best captain can do with an unresponsive ship.
>
> -What do you (plural) think about the -6 grapeshot penalty? It would seem that
> grape would have a *higher* chance to hit at exceptionally close range; could the
> -6 flat modifier be changed to a range-based modifier, or perhaps the penalty
> reduced and the range limited?
>
> -What do we think of odd weapons, such as murderers (the swivel-guns on 16/17c
> ship railings) and mortars (monstrous examples of which I brought)? The former
> might be simply subsumed into "muskets," and the latter would be rare because
> they're military siege weapons. But as Frank stated in an earlier message, a
> mortar would help to even the score between installations and pirates--and they
> would have great strengths and equally nasty weaknesses that would pretty much
> require a serious investment and probably also piratical cooperation (Arrr! Ye
> spake the forbidden word!). Thoughts for siege mortar stats (in random order)
> follow in the next message.
I need to look over all of these ideas. I do have some thoughts on
smaller cannon, though I'm not sure they will be feasible. I would like
to see an option to mounting two smaller cannon on a cutter. I would
also like to see more granularity in making merchant ships have lighter
armament.
Of course in all of this there is a balance in providing options and
having complexity which slows the game.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Pirate Game Postmortem (Was: Re: Brickfest)
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| (...) Great! Is this something you can share with us when it's crafted? (...) I agree--I really liked the brick rulers. However, I do think that 1x3 segments would be more useful than 1x4 segments--I'd rather have compressed the range somewhat. I (...) (24 years ago, 13-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Pirate Game Postmortem (Was: Re: Brickfest)
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| Hi! (...) This is probably why Steve has many "assistants." When a game is that large, is it possible to allow people unconnected to that particular battle to mediate? I have a feeling that a 5- or 6- person Pirate Game might feasibly be run by one (...) (24 years ago, 13-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
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