Re: [SG] - Turn Sequence Idea

Owen,  I understand what you are trying to do here - and I've seen
plenty
of examples of play like the two you described.  But is "randomizing"
the
turn sequence a good solution?	Think about a platoon commander who
gives
an order for two of his squads to lay down supressing fire so a third
can
break position and advance.  He has to order the squads to act in
sequence
- or he'll have the advancing squad chopped to ribbons 'cause the
supressing fire isn't...

How in this type of system would you account for the need to sequence
events based on your tactical situation, objectives, etc.?

I know it isn't entirely useful just to criticize without offering a
constructive suggestion - but I'm at work (at 5pm on a Sunday, no less,
and
want to get out of here...) and don't have time to think the problem
through all the way...	sorry.	 My gut reaction is to tend toward
guilting
people into not doing cheesy crap during a game, and recognizing that
the
game is a big abstraction and will always have some
inconsistencies/inaccuracies.	That's not to say the rules can't be
sharpened up when something bother you... it's just really difficult to
force people into playing by the "spirit of the game" with game
mechanics,
without getting into a huge morass of complex rules.  Where there's
gamers,
there's people who want to play the rules not the game - and there are
people who will find any and every exception to exploit.  Ever been to a
GW
tournament?  You'll end up trying to create a house rule for every
possible
situation - and that would get really tiresome.  Maybe the trick here is
to
make sure that the people you play with are somewhat like-minded toward
this kind of thing, and have a "gentleman's agreement" not to do stuff
like
that unless it really makes sense from a situational perspective.

Anyway, just a thought...

Adrian

>Someone at our club came up with a suggestion for SG and the turn
sequence.
>Each squad has two actions in its activation. The suggestion was to use
a
>'deck' of cards containing two cards for each squad on the table.
Shuffle
>the deck and then draw a card at a time. The card is the squad that can
do
>its action. Obviously this means that squads are moving at random and
there
>will need to be the exception where a squad will use its two actions at
once
>to conduct a close assault. Commanders activating subordinate squads
will
>occur as normal. Now it appears that this would only be useable for the
>smaller SG games where you have 4 to 6 squads a side.
>
>Now, this is prompted by noticing that some people 'play the rules' in
some
>situations and not the spirit of the game. Specifically two examples
were:
>
>1. A squad firing at a squad directly to its front with one action then
>laying down smoke to prevent the enemy squad returnign fire. Now the
game is
>meant to be simultaneous activity but broken into squad activations as
a
>mechanic to manage the game turn. In reality a squad is not really
going to
>have the opportunity to fire at an enemy squad then pick up and throw
smoke
>grenades and whilst the smoke is billowing up sit smugly knowing that
they
>can't be shot at as teh enemy squad hasn't had his turn yet! If the
squad
>throwing smoke is on the smaller side he will ALWAYS have initiative
and can
>do this every turn for the entire game!! Yes, I know that you can use
house
>rules to limit smoke and we try to get people to play realistically
using
>smoke only to cover advances or withdrawals.
>
>2.  A squad is wanting to do a dash across an open piece of terrain.
The
>player doesn't want to chance a Combat Roll going short so he waits
until
>all units in LOS have activated. Now he can stroll across happy in the
>knowledge that he CAN'T cop a burst of Reaction Fire.
>
>Has anyone heard of this style of turn sequencing before or played it?
how
>much do people think it would effect teh flavour of the game?
>
>Owen G
>