Tangential: Deckplan-based miniatures combat

[robject]

Concepts courtesy Jeff Johnson.

Dangerous thinking: If you sit down and develop a set of six deckplan type miniatures scenarios into something *FUN*, people will play it.

Maybe no one's done that since CT because solving this problem in a Traveller context isn't really on the agenda. Why not actually compete with stuff like Space Hulk, Frag, and GURPS tactical combat for table time.

Everybody wins if the designers solve this problem to the point where referees can take it to a con, sit down, and just start having fun.

Plus: answering the question of how to implement a good Azhanti High Lightning game in today's marketplace is a worthy cause.

 

[aramis]

Concepts courtesy Jeff Johnson.

Dangerous thinking: If you sit down and develop a set of six deckplan type miniatures scenarios into something *FUN*, people will play it.

Maybe no one's done that since CT because solving this problem in a Traveller context isn't really on the agenda. Why not actually compete with stuff like Space Hulk, Frag, and GURPS tactical combat for table time.

Everybody wins if the designers solve this problem to the point where referees can take it to a con, sit down, and just start having fun.

Plus: answering the question of how to implement a good Azhanti High Lightning game in today's marketplace is a worthy cause.

A good modern analogue would need to be a $60 box set with minis. Probably more like Snapshot than like AHL in scope.

The combat system should play without tables, or with only a table or two, and those tables should be small enough to be learned. (AHL has issues here. Snapshot is far worse, being book 2 combat.)

The figures should have character cards of no bigger than poker-size, and have ALL the data needed on it. Wound tracking via counters or smaller cards on the cards is plausible. For the best example of this kind of thing, look at FFG's X-Wing...

 

[David Johansen]

I love this idea. I've always wished ICE had gotten X-Decom out.

Personally I'd rather have record keeping than a million specialized chits and counters on the table. I tend to look at FFG's games as absurd design catastrophes. (Arkham Horror and Descent in particular)

Still, I think we could take a cue from GW's Mordheim. Figure laid down face up = knocked down, figure laid down face down = stunned, figure removed = dead.

Traveller already has dead simple resume summaries and I'd suggest using them straight up. What we really need is simple tactical combat rules and scenarios / setup conditions.

When it comes to adapting combat to a grid you'd need to set a turn length and actual movement rates. I think anything longer than ten seconds is unreasonable for close quarters boarding actions. That's already in the range of fifty squares per turn at a run. I'd probably tie initiative directly to movement. So if you ran five squares you'd attack after people who ran one two four. I'll have to think about it a bit. You don't want it to break down to moving a single square at a time.

I actually wrote a bit on rpgnet about boarding actions in Traveller a while ago, I'll go find it.

 

[David Johansen]

Well, generally you need to kill the power plant first. There's no point in boarding a ship with its inertial dampners and grav plates functioning. Even battledress dies in a game of grav pong. So first you have to match vectors and couple hatches. Again, a ship with power will simply move so you have to kill the power. If they've surrendered they have to send over hostages before you board and fully power down the plant.

Next up you need a drone or something a robotic suicide bomb because they'll defend the first corridor and airlock. A lot of times you don't need to map more than that because it's a machine gun assault in a bare hall. You also have to watch out for guys slipping out from another airlock and boarding your ship in vac suits or combat armor. Sure you can pump a ram grenade or something into that first intersection, but so can they the minute to pop the hatch.

Smart PCs will build a hull metal bunker with a nice VRF gaus gun or automatic grenade launcher at such choke points. Really, a nice roof mounted laser turret dome in the intersections can avoid a lot of unpleasantness.

So anyhow, you blast the heck out of the hall behind the airlock, then you have to split up to cover diverging points in the corridors. Toss grenades through hatches before entering. Try to kill the life support system so the enemy are pressed to fight and recover it. You want to take the bridge and engineering but you might want to bring your own computer the other one's probably pretty hostile. It depends what you want. Open the hold and grab the cargo? Take prisoners and ransom them.? Strip and salvage the ship either to fix yours or sell since they're worth more than any cargo?

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I think we could come up with a reasonable compromise between T5's abstract combat and miniatures-with-record-keeping-on-a-grid style.

My rough idea would be we can visualise combat with minis and a deckplan, but movement is still abstract and we keep all other T5 rules. So long as a figure doesn't move further than the measurement of a range band in meters, it is simple moved from start to desired move point. If an enemy can trace a line of sight anywhere along the movement, the mover may not claim a cover bonus but allow exceptions for moving behind cover (e.g. behind another character in a narrow corridor). Of course, the weakness here is that we might be setting ourselves up for arguments around the table.

Finally, be accurate with damage to bulk heads (I'm thinking of players blazing away with heavy weapons in closed areas); give area effect weapons (grenades and so on) specific areas of effect and I'm pretty sure it would be playable.

In terms of tactical movement, this allows quick movement of figures across a deckplan in an approximate fashion. For most ACS ships, this provides unlimited movement across a deckplan, but if there's a particularly long corridor (say, on a BCS) it might take more than one round to move down it in a boarding action.

 

[mike wightman]

Isn't the fun bit the movement from square to square though?

Then the next fun bit is attacking first, getting out of line of fire etc.

The final fun bit is damage resolution.

 

[David Johansen]

One of the most effective aspects of Space Hulk is rolling to hit for every square the genestealer moves. It really builds up tension as you roll time and again looking for that six.

The thing is that you shouldn't be able to run straight down the hall and punch a machine gun armed foe in the face.

Also, I may be wrong but, I think we're talking about a T5 based tactical wargame here, rather than tactical applications for roleplaying.

 

[GypsyComet]

The thing is that you shouldn't be able to run straight down the hall and punch a machine gun armed foe in the face.

Just because *I* shouldn't be able to do so doesn't rule out the possibility of a skittering face-eater who has already caused visceral reactions of terror in its targets doing so. Remember that Space Hulk has its foundations firmly in the Horror genre by way of the Alien movies. If being able to emulate that genre is a design goal, even a secondary one, the resulting game may have a wider appeal.

Psionic invisibility is already part of the setting of Traveller. Add a little Telempathic FUD, darkened passageways, and a morale condition or two, and the rest of the game can be vanilla skirmish.

 

[agorski]

One of the most effective aspects of Space Hulk is rolling to hit for every square the genestealer moves. It really builds up tension as you roll time and again looking for that six.

The thing is that you shouldn't be able to run straight down the hall and punch a machine gun armed foe in the face.

Sounds like the old impulse movement system of Star Fleet Battles.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Isn't the fun bit the movement from square to square though?

Then the next fun bit is attacking first, getting out of line of fire etc.

The final fun bit is damage resolution.

Hell yes!

But for the T5 system we'd need a substantial re-write / "deck-plan" supplement that returns the system to tactical movement combat. Then we'd find we'd be using it for all indoor situations. Then outdoor situations. Then we'd find that we'd basically ditched everything in T5 PCS except for task resolution and that we'd re-written PCS entirely. My impression so far is that this isn't on the cards. I also like the abstraction for some situations where detailed visualisation is not necessary.

What I'm suggesting is a compromise that keeps the existing rules framework but takes into account visualising a combat indoors, in detail where necessary.

 

[aramis]

Sounds like the old impulse movement system of Star Fleet Battles.

A technique no longer much tolerated, especially to the level SFB does. Fed Commander (the simplified SFB sister game) doesn't use the full chart. There are concerns with it even for Car Wars 6th.

And, despite a lot of grogs disliking the chits and small cards on large cards of FFG's X-Wing, it's actually QUITE popular, so much so that Wizards licensed it for Star Trek.

With the rapid demise of overheads in favor of video projectors, even the old overhead pen and page protector mode isn't looking long-term viable.

 

[David Johansen]

Space Hulk plays a lot more smoothly than SFB. But then you're talking 5 - 10 Tactical Dreadnaught marines against a virtually unlimited number of genestealers.

What I'm suggesting is that we have a movement phase followed by a shooting phase with the person who moved less shooting first and certainly shooting before the guy with a cutlass.

Still, it depends, are we looking at one character per player? One fire team? A squad or platoon.

Personally the better it scales up the happier I'll be. Which might let out my movement idea. What about interrupts like Megatraveller used?

If a combatant wants to interrupt an action they basically have to roll initiative? That's a very Traveller way to do things.

So, suppose we have initiative by side determined by leadership. And if you can see an action in progress you can attempt to interrupt it with a Dexterity contest with a bonus for any movement already completed. That would let your face hugger bounce down the hall but wouldn't make it automatic.

 

[aramis]

Personally the better it scales up the happier I'll be. Which might let out my movement idea. What about interrupts like Megatraveller used?

You mean, "The singlularly worst-explained mechanic in the history of Traveller core rulebooks"???

It's cumbersome due to the interrupts of interrupts, and works best with off-map tracking. As in, a token and mat.

Each unit gets a token on the mat. all start the turn in the ready box. first to go goes onto a second box - the "stack" - and if not interrupted, into the "done" box. If interrupted, the interupting unit goes into the stack, on the top. If it's interrupted, it's now second on the stack, with it's interruptor on the top. In simple firefights, I've had as many as 5 levels deep worth of interruption.

 

[Ulsyus]

Still, it depends, are we looking at one character per player? One fire team? A squad or platoon.

Yeah, best decide on the scope of this thing first. If it's kept down to a manageable size then the mechanics can be a little simpler.

Blind movement is also an excellent mechanic to include: the blips in Space Hulk always added a nice element of uncertainty to what was going on. The defenders in a ship could have that sort of advantage to start off with until computers or sensors are disabled, then both sides get it, or the attackers take over the computer/sensor network, then the defenders are stuffed. This wouldn't be a difficult thing to do in a game, just include a sheet of Dummy counters in red and blue with a neat little logo or image on top.

 

[David Johansen]

My own interpretation of interrupts is essentially roll individual (or squad if you want to scale up) initiative only when required. The importance of this is that you have to get the high roll to go first in the interrupt sequence.

If we're talking ACS boarding actions individuals are fine but for BCS boarding actions you might want something more like SPI's Valkenburg Castle where each counter represented a squad.

 

[mike wightman]

Why reinvent the wheel?

Take the best bits from Snapshot and AHL (wasn't it Snapshot that introduced the mechanic that would become the MT interrupt?).

 

[David Johansen]

because T5?

 

[mike wightman]

I mean the AP system from Snapshot and AHL can be adapted for a deck plan based game - you can keep the T5 task resolution mechanics, damage etc. (if it's ever fixed and just be sure to include twenty dice of at least 4 different colours in the box set).

 

[Ulsyus]

The AP system is a good mechanic to use. The T5 task system is also pretty easy to adapt, as the ranges are pretty low (0-1 normally, never more than 2) so you're not rolling many dice unless you're snapping a shot off. That'd make tactics, initiative, grenades and armour really important.

Methinks a few drones or bots would be very handy at keeping the casualties down.

 

[David Johansen]

It's not the number of dice but the modifier stacking that gets crazy. -6 for their cover, -3 for yours, -2 because you're running, -2 because they're running hits -13 in a hurry. Okay, it's a silly example and the revised combat rules should fix it.

I wonder if it's too late to agitate for a paragraph or two on tactical combat right in the revised text?