Re: [GZG] Opening a can of worms

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Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lIndy, Indy,
Indy.... <shakes head>.... and Allan.... <shakes head again>

1) Pre-measuring always slows a game down, at least a small amount, and
sometimes a big amount - I've seen it.

2) The game already provides you with far more knowledge than your ship
commander would be blessed with ergo making the game unduly
deterministic -
most of the time SSDs are public, you know the exact class of ships the
enemy brought, you know the point balance of the scenario and therefore
that
reinforcements aren't going to happen, and you have *positional
certainty*
that the ship is actually where the figure is.

In the 'real' (yah, right) world of space combat like this, you'd have
data
that's possibly seconds or minutes old, you'd have no surety that the
enemy
wouldn't suddenly get help, you wouldn't know for sure if enemy ships
were
new variants or which variant they brought, and your sensors might be
altogether fuzzier in an EW-laden battlespace.

So yes, although measuring makes sense from the perspective of laser
range
finders (assuming stealth coating and so on doesn't muck with some
assumptions), it is still a good idea to dispense with it for games. FT
has
a limited enough set of tactical choices once the battle is arrived at -
every extra one where you can reintroduce some of the real challenges in
judgement that actual captains would have to put up with is worth
having.
Every extra choice or judgment the gamer has to render helps make the
game
that little bit less predictable and formulaic.

3) I don't see why the judgement of distance should be any less valid as
a
skill than:
- luck/unluck with dice (present already)
- knowledge of the game (can draw SSDs freehand from memory and quote
various rules flavours without a reference) (already present)
- mathematical skills to quickly analyze average damage from and to the
enemy at various ranges depending on weapon and defense (already
present)
- player inability to make overall plans (deer-in-the-headlights -
already
seen often)
- player inability to be decisive (already seen)

These sorts of things already all exist in the game....and are also
outside
the realm of player judgement or tactical choices directly. I'm not sure
why
an inability to judge distance is seen as somehow a separate class of
handicap.

To me, measuring *would* be realistic, but so many other unrealistic
God's
Eye View facts are available to players, having an uncertainty in
measuring
only helps (barely) to compensate for that.

And your argument about munchkinism is silly - munchkins can manifest in
any
game in any format. Nothing stops cheese from other players other than
them
not being jackasses. Allowing measuring allows just as much (nay, far
more I
say!) cheese - like moving to exactly the precise point to fire at a
given
range or to lurk outside of one or measuring to be just a hair out of
arc,
etc. Then you get into nit picky arguments anyway.

If you have people that think winning matters and that the game is a
competition instead of a shared entertainment, you'll tend to get that
stuff. Maturity level of the gamers is a factor too. Ultimately, I
rarely
care if I win or lose, just that I and others had fun. I find
competitive
games (and those that have point systems are among the worst) to often
spawn
crappy conduct between players. And allowing pre-measuring won't stop
that
either.

I call no pre-measuring 'sensor uncertainty' and I think it serves a
valid
role in the game. It's also faster.

And I have all cheesemeister munchkins cannibalized for the good of the
gaming group.

For that matter, Allan mention SG2 target priority - if FT had that,
there'd
be some amount less cheese as well.

TomB

-- 
http://ante-aurorum-tenebrae.blogspot.com/
http://www.stargrunt.ca

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine

"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty
quits the horizon." -- Thomas Paine