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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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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Pirate Game Rules Thoughts
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| (...) 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 (...) (23 years ago, 2-Mar-02, to lugnet.gaming, lugnet.pirates)
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