Re: Big Games

On Mon, 20 May 2002 21:28:59 -0400 (EDT), "John Crimmins"
<johncrim@voicenet.com> wrote:

>Now, the last time I ran this game it went pretty well...but it was
slow, very 
>slow.

FMA, like SG2, is a fairly slow game. Ten figures per side is about the
maximum you can expect to use and still have a game complete in two to
three
hours unless you strip things out. I did a playtest with 6 figures per
side
for a rule that Jon was asking about. It was played on a kitchen table
with
buildings as the only cover. It used a new rule that Jon came up with
having
to do with suppression. There was no time for overwatch or a number of
other
things that could have slowed down the game. It took about 90 minutes to
playtest. The suppression rule Jon is working on actually speeds the
game up a
bit.

If you want the game completed under, say, 3 hours, you'll need to limit
players to 2 or 3 figures each. 

Look at it this way. If it takes a player, on average, even just 2
minutes to
resolve the actions of one figure, 15 figures on the table will take 30
minutes per turn (until figures start dropping). Now, of course,
maneuvering
is much faster than that, but combat is slower. Plus there's all the
table
talk, questions, running to the bathroom, etc. 

If running with zombies, you might want to use the group activation
rule. In
fact, you could enforce the group activation rule for the zombie player
(i.e.
they have not choice).

Another option is to play the game using SG2. I haven't tried giving one
player "squads" of individual figures and the other player regular
squads, but
it might actually work. 

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, 
unimaginable mortician was revealed!"