Re: Re: [GZG] DSIII q

["Grant A. Ladue" <ladue@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> John Lerchey replied to Grant Ladue:
> 
>  >Ah. Ok, that's actually in there to some exent. It's not clearly spelled
>  >out enough yet, however.
>  >So, let's say Unit A is attacking Enemy A. They start slugging it out, and
>  >after a few TCRs (that's Tactical Combat Rounds boys, it's a technical 
> term!)
>  >Unit A can now see (has LoS to) Enemy B. Unless Enemy B JOINS the
>  >firefight, Unit A cannot initiate fire against them. They are focussed on
>  >units involved in the firefight. Now, that said, I've found it very hard
>  >to make that make sense in play in certain situations. For example, if
>  >Enemy A is withdrawing and passes through Enemy B, and Enemy B is something
>  >like APCs, and Unit A is tanks, it seems unlikely to me that Unit A 
> should not
>  >be able to light up the APCs while chasing Enemy A.
> 
> Agreed; this situation is currently not handled well. Changing the "Target 
> Priority" rule to something like "Elements involved in a FireFight may only 
> fire at enemy elements which are already involved in the same FireFight, or 
> which are located between the firing element and elements already involved 
> in the FireFight" would work better - OK, that sentence obviously needs 
> more work to become understandable, but the intent with it is that if 
> you're already fighting an enemy unit you can also shoot at any other enemy 
> that gets *between* you and the enemy you're already fighting.
>
   My inclination would be to not limit it to a unit between you.  I would 
 define an area around the enemy where you could pick out new combatatants
 during combat.  I'd probably base it around your firing system.  Basic visual
 targetting with laser sights wouldn't pick up much beyond the unit.  Very
 sophisticated remote sensing targetting systems might id all possible threats
 over a quite large area.
 
>  >>I don't know. I'm not sure that I've seen enough to justify my
>  >>"feeling" for it. I am starting to wonder though if the "time change" is 
> too
>  >>drastic.
>  >>It's like there should be an intermediate phase between "non-combat" and 
> "all
>  >>out firefight". Not sure about that though. Hmmm....
>  >
>  >I'm not sure what an intermediate phase would be for.
> 
> Neither am I; that's why DS3 doesn't have one <g> See my previous reply to 
> TomB and Laserlight for more on this.
>
    My initial feeling was that "speed change" was too drastic.  Very fast grav
  tanks seemed horribly slow in combat when they wanted to duck for cover.
  Now that I think about it that way, I'm feeling that if you allowed units to
  move faster toward cover, it would probably fix it for me.

> 
>  >The flow is,
>  >Activate one or more units.
>  >Move a long, long way fast to find/engage the enemy.
>  >Blow the crap out of each other.
>  >Other guy gets to activate.
>  >Repeat til everyone is dead or broken.
>  >:)
> 
> DS3 essentially aims to take the old description of combat as consisting of 
> "long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of intense terror" and shift 
> the time scales so the player can concentrate on the terror instead of on 
> the boredom <g>
>
     Hmm, I agree with the approach, but I have some concern that you've
   created a problem similiar to Piquet's problem.  Almost all the action is
   concentrated around the activated units, and the whole thing can be over 
   before a good chunk of the forces even move.  I don't think this is a 
   problem for people who are experienced with the game and know what to 
   expect.  On the other hand, I find that convention games and other public
   games often involve new or inexperienced gamers.  I'm concerned that this
   can lead to a distinct feeling of not being involved for these players that
   turns them off.  I know that Piquet suffered like this for years, with
   people quickly moving into the "can't stand it" or "love it" camps.  
   Eventually a number of different home rules evolved that minimized the
   effects of concentrating the action around the activated player.  It's less
   realistic that way, but it's more playable in situations where everyone
   wants to be involved.  I agree that careful construction can help to 
   minimize this, but not all GM's are capable of it.  Even fewer can do it in
   situations where they don't know all the people involved.

     One possible suggestion:  In situations with a mobile attacker and a
   static defender, you may want to allow the whole attacking force to activate
   at once.  Alternatively, allow sub units to be entirely activated by the
   main leader with one activation.  It could speed up some pieces of it.

 
>  >[...] In DS3, from the dozen or so games I've played in the last year, it
>  >usually both works and feels right. There are quirks that come up,
> 
> ...and which we try to correct as quickly as possible - after all, finding 
> quirks and trouble spots is what playtesting is all about! ('Course, one 
> drawback with fixing problems ASAP that is that the playtesters 
> occasionally forget which rules were the latest version... ;-) )
> 
   no doubt   :-)


>  >Sorry for rambling... I had the need to explain stuff. ;)
> 
> And you did far more succinctly than I could, too :-)
> 
> On OGREs:
> 

>  >totally lame. The biggest problem is that a game like OGRE just dosn't
>  >translate well into a different frame of reference.
> 
> Translating the "feel" of one game faithfully into another game is always 
> difficult; it is usually much easier to capture the feel of SF novels. IOW, 
> don't work too hard on modeling *OGREs* in DS3 - concentrate on modelling 
> *BOLOs* instead ;-)
>
    Agreed.  I don't think the actual Ogre "game" will translate well.  It's
  simplistic at it's core (a strength! :-) ) in ways that would be out of 
  place here.  I've got no problem with Ogres/Bolo's being different in this
  system, so long as they are effective (which large tanks aren't in DSII).

>  >game is likely to be a sigle Mk III going after a command post defended 
> by >crunchies and squishies (normal tanks and infantry). I'm betting that 
> it'll be
>  >ugly, but fun ugly.
> 
> I'm looking forward to it :-) Which reminds me that I still haven't painted 
> my own OGREttes - those Mk Is and Mk IIs might not be any good against real 
> OGREs (Mk IIIs and larger), but they're still a handful for lesser vehicles <g>

     And very nasty to the infantry too!


   grant

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l