Re: brief Fall In convention AAR

On 8 Nov 2015, at 12:12, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

> Eh, it's all good (the Kochte Effect or, as was being passed around
ECC for some years, The Curse of Indy). I had fun with it. :-D	I mean,
if I didn't, I'd probably have soured on gaming altogether! :-/

Heheh….  ;-)

> 
> Firecons. I'm all good with how they are written. But there are
(apparently, as I have now learned) some folks who feel they are too
restrictive. "If you have two firecons on a ship, and five weapons, you
can only shoot at two ships?!? You can't shoot at five different
targets?? Why not? That doesn't make any kind of sense." This is where
they are coming from. 

Ah, OK, that makes more sense - I think I'd misunderstood your comment
in the AAR, they are simply approaching it from a different angle of
PSB….. it's not that they find the FT rule difficult, it's simply that
they don't agree with it….  ;-)

> In the Silent Fury game, ships have weapons, but they completely take
out fire control systems as being systems to hit, damage, whatever. They
fold fire control into the weapon systems. So if a ship has four
weapons, it can shoot at four targets. To them this makes a lot more
sense. 
> 
> I get where they are coming from. But I like having the fire control
separated from the weapons. This gives the players a tactical decision
point in what they are going to do in a given turn. While I like simple
games (as opposed to, oh, say, Starfleet Battles), I like having
tactical decision points in the games, too. 

Yes, the more tactical decision points that can be put into a game turn
(WITHOUT overcomplicating things), the better, I feel, but as always
others may disagree!

Jon (GZG)

> 
> Mk
> 
> 
> On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 5:37 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> Interesting report, Indy - sorry to hear that the Kochte Effect is
still haunting you….. don't worry, in FT3 there will be some cases
where low rolls are GOOD for you (though I suspect that will be when you
start rolling 6s….)  ;-)
> 
> Re the comment about the Firecons in FT (especially in FT Light) I'm
afraid I really can't see how anyone can find that complicated, unless
they've completely misunderstood it of course - after all, if you have
one Firecon then you can only fire at one target each turn, if you have
two then you can split your fire between two targets and so on, I really
don't know how it could be much simpler than that…?
> 
> Jon (GZG)
> 
> 
> 
> On 8 Nov 2015, at 02:20, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > So, had an opportunity to jet up the road to poke into Fall In
today. Saw several people from my local game shop.club there, as well as
Mark Kinsey. Wearing my GZG ECC shirt, had one guy come up to me to
inquire about it. He was hesitant about maybe going, because he only
recently learned about Full Thrust, and while he likes it a lot, has no
one to play with/against, and wasn't certain how he, a noobie, would be
received at the con. I assured him he would be welcome by pretty much
everyone there. Yay, new ECC attendee!
> >
> > I spent entirely too much time (and money) in the dealer hall, but I
think I have my Check Your Six needs met for the next few months/year. 
:-D  I then made my way back to the main resort where I ran into Mark
Kinsey for a bit. Then toured the flea market, browsed around a number
of games, then got involved in a new starship combat game currently
under development called Silent Fury. I had done a blind playtest of the
game about a month ago, after being put in touch with the game designers
who were looking for some folks to do blind playtesting, so it was nice
to meet them in person. And after the debacle of our playtest session
(which, according to them, went far better than others they had gotten
feedback from!), sitting at the table with them I saw all the mistakes
we made.  :-D
> >
> > Their game is definitely not Full Thrust. It IS pretty quick and
relatively simple in many ways, but it is also immersed in hex movement
(surprisingly they use vector hex movement - which works pretty well,
actually), and offers a sub-game in the form of boarding action (where
you actually play out boarding party/ship crew battles on another ship
as you take over various systems on the opposing ship - if they don't
kill you off first!). However, my Full Thrust Curse Flag flew true!
> >
> > The first ship I was assigned was the first ship destroyed - on turn
2. Took ONE hit...and exploded catastrophically. I hung out to kibitz
and take some photos of the game for the designers, then got an
opportunity to take over another ship as one of the other players on my
side had to leave early. That ship was catastrophically exploded the
next turn. One of the badly damaged enemy ships was involved in an
overwhelming boarding party action with boarders from another player's
ship from my side. As he was having a tough enough time fighting his
ship, I happily took over for him. I managed to take the enemy
ship...but then was fired upon by our opponents which all but gutted my
new ship (I had one functional engine and one crew unit remaining). As
the game then wrapped up at that point (so luckily my third ship lived),
one of the game designers took stock of the carnage on the table, and
the tally of ships blown out from under me. He looked up from across the
table, shook his head, and said, "You are just cursed, Indy!"
> >
> > I chatted some with him after the game. Turned out that he had
gotten his first taste of Full Thrust yesterday in a FT Light game that
was being run (don't know who was running it; I wasn't there yesterday).
He liked it, but he wasn't very fond of how the fire control
system/rules worked. (to his mind tracking firecons that have or have
not been used to fire on enemy ship was a needless complication;
firecons should just lock up at any time they are needed)
> >
> > Was a fun time, but alas I only had enough time to be there just
today. Maybe next year I'll try for the whole weekend.
> >
> > Mk
> >
> 
> 
>