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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9438002" data-attributes="member: 907"><p>There's no one bright line that separates tactical from non-tactical, but it's more like a spectrum. I think the main thing that moves games along that spectrum can be summed up as giving people meaningful choices in combat other than what weapon to use and upon whom to use it. Generally speaking, these choices can be divided into three categories:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Environmental tactics: where is everyone and how does that affect things? At the simplest levels, this would include bonuses for ganging up/flanking and penalties for range or cover, but it can also include environmental manipulation, repositioning yourself or your opponents (possibly into hazardous terrain), and things like that.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Combat options: these are generally choices the attacker or defender makes in the moment. Do you want to do an all-out attack or fight defensively? Do you want to target a particular hit location? Do you fire a single shot or full auto? Do you want to trip your opponent? These can in turn be divided into two subcategories: deliberate or opportunistic. A deliberate combat option is something you decide before the attack, while an opportunistic one is something you can decide after. For example, in AGE a successful attack, in addition to dealing damage, has about a 50% chance of giving you a number of stunt points to spend on things like extra damage, knockdowns, and so on.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Resource management: This is where doing a thing has a cost so you can't do it all the time, and therefore have to pick the right moment to do it. This can often create powerful options, because they don't have to be balanced with "normal" attacks. In 5e, choosing to use a Shove to attempt to knock an opponent prone is a combat option, but a Battlemaster using a Trip maneuver is resource management. These often create the most interesting tactical choices, but can feel like the game is intruding on the fiction, particularly if these are discrete abilities and not just pulling on some shared resource like "stamina". On the other hand, discrete abilities generally create more variety because you can't just pull a particular move over and over.</li> </ul></blockquote><p></p>

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