Recent content by Thomas Shey

Isn't that because most of the tactical elements are buried in character abilities rather than the weapons themselves? (I may be admixing my memory of Outgunned proper with OA here, though).

Ah. Unfortunately for your preference, like the Tolkeinesque elements you see all over fantasy, there's been too long and solid a shadow there to get entirely away from it.

Would you prefer "cosmic horror elements"? Sometimes they're used interchangeably.

And as I mentioned, the "single game" was simply an example. Movement management can be an element of a tactical combat system (and in fact, I prefer that it is) but my point was that you can have an intensely tactical game that cares little about movement, because all the tactical elements if...

Barring the one person I ignored literally the first week I was on here (it might have been the first day), I've usually found anyone I can't just roll my eyes and move on about will ignore me before too-too long.

Sure. I was just talking about the basic form of it here.

While I see your point regarding Stess and Hope (I'm getting ready to run Eclipse Phase which has a slightly different kind of Stress mechanic) I think at the very least Armor and HP are part of a superset of bookkeeping of which combat is an important element. I mean armor in systems where...

Besides the lack of a few things, I still think the loiter-time issues can come up too easily. While you have to pay some attention in most versions of SR to things like this, its not actually hard for someone using the SW magic system to burn through all their power points in 3-5 rounds, and...

I slept with a hanging bookshelf partly extruding over my bed from my early teens until I went off to college. Doesn't mean you're wrong, though; in the Whittier Earthquake the whole shebang partly disconnected and the books slid down the shelf onto my bed. It was just that I was up and off at...

I think there's fidelity to system and fidelity to setting. The problem with SW in this context is I don't think even with some decent cyberware (which as has been noted there's at least one game with) its magic system is going to do an adequate job there. (Honestly, its magic system is often...

Frankly, I don't care if you were or not; what you indicated was the lack of carefully managed movement was an indication DH was not intended to be tactical, and 13th Age was an example where that clearly wasn't the case. I was arguing with your premise, and using an immediately at hand...

Trust me, I get it, I just had to tell myself "Self, you're about to post this sort of response in a D&D thread; all you're going to do is come across like a crank."

I'm not sure the last there proves your point. Movement and distance in 13th Age are very loosey-goosey too, but I think most people with experience with its combat would still describe it as having a pretty tactical combat focus, even accounting for the big-picture focus in parts of them. I...

I'm supposed to be playing in a one-off session of DH in about six weeks. I've read the SRD but I'll be interested in seeing my feeling after playing that, since its a bit off my normal tastes I think.

Even with that I'm not sure I consider it to cut it. SR is too magic focused for the, honestly, overly lightweight magic system in SW. Among other things, it just lacks some effects that are sometimes important in the fiction if SR. Even if you're not trying for literal SR, its just really...