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More DMing analysis from Lewis Pulsipher
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6340998" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Being rid of it is an aspiration for purist-for-system sim play, at least as I have engaged in and encountered such play. Edwards' comments on that - "the system is not to be messed with" - resonates for me.</p><p></p><p>The aspiration may not be realisable in practice, but I think there are significant differences in where the bumps appear in the rug. For instance, in 3E or 4e-style turn-based combat with small parties and movement speeds that are somewhat slow relative to real-world human capabilities, you won't get peasant railguns emerging. But the fact that the system can't, even in principle, be extrapolated to larger groups of characters without introducing such problems is (from the purist-for-system point of view) a flaw, because it is a marker of causation being violated.</p><p></p><p>It is hard to exaggerate the number of hours and amount of intellectual effort that I, as a RM GM, put into trying to construct an initiative system and action economy that would allows for initiative (ie reflexes) to matter - and hence have an action declaration and initiative phase - but would also permit continuous action without peasant-railgun-type problems. And there were still problems: probably once every half-dozen sessions it would turn out that the way in which the end of the round fell made a difference to someone's action resolution for a reason that made no ingame sense (mostly because their movement would bring them within reach of an enemy before the end of the round, and hence they couldn't redeclare their parry, but if the enemy were 5' or 10' away then they would be outside reach and hence have a chance to redeclare parry at the beginning of the round before the last distance would be closed and the attack from the enemy come in).</p><p></p><p>These problems were grudgingly tolerated but were clearly experienced by all the game participants as just that - problems.</p><p></p><p>One way to try and solve this problem is by making "rounds" so short that all the events can be seen as happening literally simultaneously. I understand that GURPs has 1 second rounds. In HARP the rounds are 2 seconds. In Burning Wheel they are "1 heartbeat" ie around about a second or so. This solution has other issues though, which can be seen in HARP: archery, with requirements to spend time nocking, drawing, etc, becomes a less interesting option in play (because a lot of your actions don't actually involve attack rolls), and there is at least the risk (depending on how the maths of attacks and defence work out) that it is less powerful too.</p><p></p><p>BW uses a different time-frame for archery duels and firefights (flexible rounds of 20 seconds to 1 minute), and suggests that when a melee and a firefight are happening simultaneously that you resolve the rounds on a 1:1 basis, handwaving the differences in elapsed time. This is a fine gameplay solution, but reintroduces all the "violation of causation" issues once again.</p><p></p><p>(The above also constitutes more evidence/explanation for why Edwards' discussions around combat resolution and initiative, and the problems they cause for sim play, resonate so strongly with me!)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6340998, member: 42582"] Being rid of it is an aspiration for purist-for-system sim play, at least as I have engaged in and encountered such play. Edwards' comments on that - "the system is not to be messed with" - resonates for me. The aspiration may not be realisable in practice, but I think there are significant differences in where the bumps appear in the rug. For instance, in 3E or 4e-style turn-based combat with small parties and movement speeds that are somewhat slow relative to real-world human capabilities, you won't get peasant railguns emerging. But the fact that the system can't, even in principle, be extrapolated to larger groups of characters without introducing such problems is (from the purist-for-system point of view) a flaw, because it is a marker of causation being violated. It is hard to exaggerate the number of hours and amount of intellectual effort that I, as a RM GM, put into trying to construct an initiative system and action economy that would allows for initiative (ie reflexes) to matter - and hence have an action declaration and initiative phase - but would also permit continuous action without peasant-railgun-type problems. And there were still problems: probably once every half-dozen sessions it would turn out that the way in which the end of the round fell made a difference to someone's action resolution for a reason that made no ingame sense (mostly because their movement would bring them within reach of an enemy before the end of the round, and hence they couldn't redeclare their parry, but if the enemy were 5' or 10' away then they would be outside reach and hence have a chance to redeclare parry at the beginning of the round before the last distance would be closed and the attack from the enemy come in). These problems were grudgingly tolerated but were clearly experienced by all the game participants as just that - problems. One way to try and solve this problem is by making "rounds" so short that all the events can be seen as happening literally simultaneously. I understand that GURPs has 1 second rounds. In HARP the rounds are 2 seconds. In Burning Wheel they are "1 heartbeat" ie around about a second or so. This solution has other issues though, which can be seen in HARP: archery, with requirements to spend time nocking, drawing, etc, becomes a less interesting option in play (because a lot of your actions don't actually involve attack rolls), and there is at least the risk (depending on how the maths of attacks and defence work out) that it is less powerful too. BW uses a different time-frame for archery duels and firefights (flexible rounds of 20 seconds to 1 minute), and suggests that when a melee and a firefight are happening simultaneously that you resolve the rounds on a 1:1 basis, handwaving the differences in elapsed time. This is a fine gameplay solution, but reintroduces all the "violation of causation" issues once again. (The above also constitutes more evidence/explanation for why Edwards' discussions around combat resolution and initiative, and the problems they cause for sim play, resonate so strongly with me!) [/QUOTE]
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