Re: Stargrunt "one" points system?

> I take exception to the implication that losing is never fun for the
> loser.  I enjoy my games, win or lose, if its well fought and well
> played.  If I start from a hopeless situation I may have aims that
> have nothing to do with my force's survival (delaying actions,
> moralle, whatnot).

ok, this is going to be a long rant, so that I don't end up posting a
lot
of short rants on the same subject....

1: Fair games do not mean even points. fair games mean that both
players,
being of equal skill, will have an even chance of winning the scenario.
If
the forces are not equal in power, then the scenario should be "tilted"
to
make up for that (ie, you don't need to kill everybody or survive
yourself, you just need to kill one particular person or some such). To
say you enjoy games where you lose does not mean you enjoy games that
you
can't win at all. If I give you a standard infantry grunt, make your
objective to wipe out a tank that is waiting in open terrain, that game
will not be fun, and you will lose. If I make the objective to sneak
past
the tank waiting in waist-high weeds, that game might be more fun, even
if
you did lose.

2: to decide the size of a game based on points is no less fair then a
game based on the size of the combat unit (platoon, squad, etc...).

example: you say, "hey, bring a platoon with you tomorrow, I've got a
scenario planned out". You bring a standard type of platoon with
infantry,
a couple heavy weapons. I bring my shock platoon from Legions of steel
(in
point terms, it's worth about 3X yours) that's not even close to even,
where you may have expected 2 platoons to be much more equal in power.

a point system is not a mathematical certainty, and problems arise when
it
is used as such. However, it does allow someone to make an approximation
as to the relative power of their 2 forces. It does nothing to preclude
scenario games, and is in fact a usefull tool when designing a scenario.

Brian Lojeck
lojeck@mizar.usc.edu
Entertainment Technology Center