Really Abstract Locations

[PhoneLobster]

This was one thread of several from the discussion at the time.

I must have missed them entirely. When is this even from? How can you have a discussion in a thread dedicated to a topic and not post enough relevant material in the thread to discus the topic? Don't go getting your panties in a twist with me because you can't put a complete idea in one place.

The idea is that unclaimed locations are just that - unclaimed. They are also uncontested. If you assault into a location, you also contest it. If you're the only person there, it's yours. And it stays yours, even if you assault something else, until your enemies do something to contest it.

While potentially the (vague) basis of something more workable it is still rather up in the air, as well as working toward a really static and rather dull combat dynamic.

So if you find your targeting limited, it is because your opponents have assaulted territory and limited your targeting.

Again, where in this is a randomized targeting mechanic called for? Fine you control less territory, there are mechanics that limit your targeting and your mobility. But why is it those mechanics involve a bullshit randomized targetting mechanic?

What does the randomizing of a key basic player choice that people WILL hate you for taking from them ADD to this in the way of beneficial effects? Why are you trying to implement your zone control mechanic by means of such a horrid methodology?

a focus location that your opponents had not assaulted yet, you would still have an open shot and be able to choose any target area you wanted.

DM: You enter a large empty room and...
Player 1: I Assault space 4!
DM: Er...
Player 2: I Assault space 1!
DM: Guys there isn't anything in here...
Player 4: Screw it, something might come in here, and when it does WE OWN this zone! I Assault space 2!

No really, why do you ever enter a room or other site where the enemy doesn't "own" all the space already? Is that really a good thing. Isn't owning and attacking all this empty space REALLY silly? I mean this is pretty much literally "I cast magic missile AT THE DARKNESS!"

Yes, being outnumbered is bad, and in this system it is the hope that it will be tactically advisable to clear enemy chaff rather than immediately assassinating the BBEG in every battle.

Being out numbered isn't just bad, being out numbered takes away a significant and basic aspect of control of your character and humiliates you further by giving that control over to a 1d6.

This is a gotcha because your mechanic directly benefits the outnumbering group when they perform the activity of "we focus down the smaller elite group or individual". So among other things it encourages the party to travel everywhere with 30 peasants who's names are all "Mirror Image".

But aside from all of that. Fine, you want to deal with the focus the BEG down issue?

1) The way 3.x D&D does it.
You can totally focus the BBEG down first, and hell, you are basically encouraged to do so. So everyone does that, like all the time.

2) You institute actual hard zone control or attrition mechanics that just plain prevent that option.
You just plain CAN'T reach or kill the BBEG first when he is surrounded by his helpful minions.

3) You institute soft zone control or attrition mechanics that discourage that option.
Players CAN try and focus down the BBEG first but zone control and attrition limitations make that harder and cause there to be significant risks and costs involved. To the point that it becomes a questionable decision as to whether it is the most effective option on a case by case basis, if at all.

4) You do it YOUR way with a randomized targeting mechanic.
This means players CAN focus down the BBEG first OR they can "clear the chaff first". But instead of being a tactical cost/benefit choice the decision on whether to focus down all your attacks on one zone/target or not is RANDOMIZED. So sometimes the dice tell the players "You apparently chose to focus down the BBEG first" and sometimes the dice tell the players "You apparently chose to clear the chaff first".

What about the randomizing of that decision is good? You aren't making "clear the chaff" an attractive tactical option at all, you are making it a COMPULSORY option, worse a RANDOMLY compulsory option.

Thats... really dumb.

That's like GW designers saying "Gee no one likes taking this weak sauce troop choice in their armies. I know lets make them roll a dice during army construction so that sometimes they randomly HAVE to spend more points on the weak sauce troop choice!"

along franks idea a system of "zones".

Abstract positioning systems around these parts at least are MY baby, not Frank's. As far as I can tell from this (apparently somehow incomplete) thread the only notable variation on my material on the subject he is presenting here is the randomized targeting of those zones.

If I recall correctly back when I first introduced discussion on abstract positioning systems he openly frowned on the idea. So it rather annoys me if people are now going around talking about abstract zones and positioning systems like they are Frank's idea.

[virgil]

So it rather annoys me if people are now going around talking about abstract zones and positioning systems like they are Frank's idea.

Abstract zones are hardly owned by you. I've written up my own basic idea of abstracting distances/areas, and if anything, his ideas are closer to mine than yours (I doubt he 'stole' from either of us, though). It'd already been noted by at least some people that his ideas show similarity with FATE's abstract location system.

The other major thread I saw Frank elaborate his thoughts on the subject was on the Tiers and Levels thread. If I recall, there was an implied pre-battle 'mapping' (giving size numbers and designating where features go, etc).

As for the WoF thing... *shrug*. He's been on that mechanic for years now. From what I can tell, and I might be wrong, he likes how it reduces mid-combat option paralysis and cuts down on DM planning for making a battle where you do more than press the A button every turn.

[PhoneLobster]

Abstract zones are hardly owned by you.

I am well aware that abstract positioning has been around since forever, even when I originally brought it up around here one of the things I discussed was how effectively many gaming groups ALREADY use abstract or fuzzy positioning systems even when supposedly trying to use systems with various "small squares" style specific positioning systems.

But suffice it to say this. No one around here ever talked about abstract positioning. I brought it up, discussed it and promoted it. Frank stated he disliked the idea (and I think it was Murtak? absolutely exploded over it).

Some time not long after than Frank started discussing and using his own variants of abstract positioning systems and now people like you are wandering around saying "well randomized targeting aside I like the bit where Frank has this great general idea of abstract positioning..."

You want to call me out for not owning the idea that I introduced into the local zeitgeist, but feel inclined to attribute it to Frank, who opposed that introduction, without a second thought?

And where the hell is Murtak exploding all over Frank for using a fuzzy positioning system?

And THAT, I think rather justifiably, pisses me.

From what I can tell, and I might be wrong, he likes how it reduces mid-combat option paralysis and cuts down... ...press the A button every turn.

Winds of fate was never a mechanic I felt comfortable with. Just like randomized targeting it suffers the basic conceptual problem as follows.

Problem : People press A button every turn, because it is the best/only option.

Solution 1: Make a rule that people just plain aren't allowed to do that. Enforcing the use of inferior options. This balances out because, well, it's enforced. Every sucker MUST press B and C or else. This is... doable... as long as the rest of the system contains some choice.

Solution 2: Change the options so that pressing A each turn ISN'T the best/only option. Bringing real choice into the game.

Solution 3: Randomly enforce the use of inferior options (like randomized targeting mechanic). This DOESN'T work well because sometimes people still "exploit" the repeated use of the broken A button, they just do it randomly now. You have actively actually removed more choice from the game (compared even to the initial A is best scenario), added more rolls and complexity in the process. And STILL haven't removed the problem that repeated hitting of A is too good AND sometimes still happens.

Solution WoF: Combination of solution 2 (which is nice) with solution 3 (which is not nice). Thus creating a "solution" which is a mess, needlessly complex, and not nearly as good as just going with solution 2 out right.

[virgil]

The only reason I 'called you out' for not owning the idea is because you gave the distinct impression that you felt like you did, and I certainly didn't intend to give the impression that I felt Frank had any claim to originality.

While I can't explain other people's behavior, I can mostly explain mine. While I've expressed interest on abstract positioning before, I avoided commenting on your big fat squares because I didn't like your specific implementation, and it's been long enough that I don't remember exactly why.

For whatever reason, Frank's interpretation is more palatable than yours (to me, at least). It's not the WoF part that's doing it for me, as I'm neutral at best about that mechanic.

Speaking of Frank's interpretation, how does one handle AoEs? I know that if the size of the AoE equals a zone it will hit everything in the zone, but there are hiccups on first glance. If an AoE hit more than one zone (assuming their combined size doesn't exceed the AoE's), then the lack of relative positions between zones can cause immersion issues. If an AoE can't hit multiple zones, then the ability to subdivide/create zones mid-combat is immensely powerful; while at the same time kicking the epic character with the firestorm ability in the crotch.

[erik]

Here's PL's Big Fat Squares thread from the wayback machine.

Now, PL, if Murtak was in this thread cock-gobbling on an idea that he did not care for then it would be grounds for asking him what caused the about-face. But that hasn't happened. Nor do I think anyone was trying to steal your thunder from BFS. I don't think we can seriously hold anyone to the standard of coming and posting against every idea out there that they disagree with. Hell, even if Murtak were aware of this thread, perhaps he did not have the desire to get into it again 5 years later.

That was my main reason for staying out til now. I haven't followed this thread closely enough to form any real opinions beyond that it seemed too complicated or abstract for me. There was the Tiers and Levels thread that discussed it a bit more in depth and I didn't think the system as described was really for me.

I kind of liked the BFS so long as there was a rider where the default of indiscriminate area affects be that they were actually indiscriminate between targets. You did not want that, and that's cool. To each his own.

When I played Hollow Earth Expedition it is a much less rigid system than say d20, and I essentially keep things pretty simple for combats. I didn't explicitly use BFS, but that's pretty much the system as intended. Bad guys are "over there," some of them are using cover. If someone is trading melee blows with the bad guys then they are "over there" too for the purposes of area affects. I only had a few combats before the game got derailed for a year (hopefully we can start up again soonish), but it worked out alright when things did get fighty.

[PhoneLobster]

All the same this thread is apparently supposed to be about a "very abstract positioning system" and while there is still some talk about "well gee wouldn't we all like some sort of abstract positioning system (regardless of who talks about it)" the actual ideas presented by the OP, and the only clear/new ideas in the thread are ACTUALLY just a randomized targetting mechanic.

Which I would still like to talk about because as far as I can see my "Randomized A Button Pressing does not solve problem with A Button" criticism is pretty thoroughly damning.

[Username17]

The randomized targeting is specifically and exactly a way to consistently model the effects of taking territory without getting into fiddly threat mechanics that aren't well supported by abstract locations. The amount of the territory your enemies are contesting is the chance that your activities will be limited each turn. The amount of territory your team is contesting is the chance that your enemies will have their actions limited each turn. Its an abstraction of zones of control, which is a concept which is very important to most games. But despite being an abstraction, it does function as zones of control. Controlling more zones is good in a quantifiable way.

I could never get in to your big fat squares precisely because there was no way to control anything without handwaving or exceptions to the rules. To my mind, the entire point of a location system is to make there be some kind of simply explainable benefit to being one place or another that make tactical choices matter.If being one place or another place doesn't make any difference, it would be better to just use MTP for the whole thing.

Speaking of Frank's interpretation, how does one handle AoEs? I know that if the size of the AoE equals a zone it will hit everything in the zone, but there are hiccups on first glance. If an AoE hit more than one zone (assuming their combined size doesn't exceed the AoE's), then the lack of relative positions between zones can cause immersion issues. If an AoE can't hit multiple zones, then the ability to subdivide/create zones mid-combat is immensely powerful; while at the same time kicking the epic character with the firestorm ability in the crotch.

An AoE which is as large as or bigger than a location or feature it targets hits everything in the location or feature. If it is smaller than the location or feature, it becomes essentially single target unless two or more targets are "linked" (example: man on horse). AoE attacks hit friend and foe alike in the areas they strike unless they specify that they are selective (example: Whirlwind Attack).

Attacks that are very much larger than a location could in fact hit multiple locations, but I wasn't really satisfied with my original concept for how to do that. I am probably instead going to simply say that if your AoE is bigger than the location it is targeting by another entire location, you can simply choose to hit that location too - giving you what is effectively omni-targeting if your attacks are physically large enough.

-Username17

[virgil]

Attacks that are very much larger than a location could in fact hit multiple locations, but I wasn't really satisfied with my original concept for how to do that. I am probably instead going to simply say that if your AoE is bigger than the location it is targeting by another entire location, you can simply choose to hit that location too - giving you what is effectively omni-targeting if your attacks are physically large enough.

My biggest concern is the immersion issue because of the lack of relative positioning between locations under these rules.

For example, the party is fighting atop a pair of plateaus connected by bridge, & nothing's OSHA compliant. There are gene-spliced gorilla troops on the plateaus, some jetpack-assisted riflemen in the air, and it's generally just not a fun time. If I understand the system thus far, we'd have a 'map' like this...

• Plateau A [Size 12; bridge entrance (size 3); 6 gorilla grunts (size 3 each)]
• Plateau B [Size 12; bridge entrance (size 3); 6 gorilla grunts (size 3 each)]
• Bridge [Size 6; 4-man party (size 2 each)]
• Airspace [Size 30; 3 jetpack riflemen (size 2 each)]

If somebody were to introduce a phlogiston grenade (Explosive, size 30), then your current idea would create the very real scenario of incinerating both plateaus while leaving the party on the middle bridge unscathed.

[PhoneLobster]

I could never get in to your big fat squares precisely because there was no way to control anything without handwaving or exceptions to the rules.

...

• Harrying Stance
  Maneuver: 4
  If an opponent attempts to attack or move out of your location without outmaneuvering you, you get a free attack on that opponent.

That is all the tanking you need. And substantially more tanking than a grid system generally gives you.

-Username17

...really? Seems to me you have no problem with that at all.

And your randomized targeting IS a fiddly little exceptional hand waver, only if ALSO happens to be randomized god damn targeting.

You don't get to say "The randomized targeting is to avoid complexity!". Because that isn't it's only, or even primary impact, and indeed it actually ADDS complexity.

And in the example of Randomized Targeting vs your very own Harrying Stance mechanic we have two types of rules that BOTH make abstracted zone control an issue in one way or another, and the one that doesn't use a randomized targeting mechanic is simpler, less "fiddly" and as a side benefit doesn't involve replacing player options with a god damn random number generator.

And you STILL haven't answered the "Randomized A Button Pressing does not solve problem with A Button" criticism. Because even if you claim that your randomized targeting is there to create behavior that causes Zones and Zone control to matter... your very own randomizing mechanic means that randomly some combats and many individual actions in combat will act exactly, and I stress EXACTLY, as if Zones and Zone control did not actually matter.

You are seriously implementing a mechanic which might as well be "flip a coin, heads means positioning maybe matters briefly".

That is pretty much by definition an incomplete fix.

[Murtak]

PL, with Frank's system it may be tactically random what happens, but the mechanics are clear. Your big squares system was mechanically random, which is simply not acceptable. Let me be clear on this, I'm not even sure whether I like the general concept of Frank's locations. But at least they look like they might work. I am not sure if they would end up promoting varied and tactically interesting gameplay, but the mechanics seem sound. And this is important. Your big squares on the other hand featured logical impossibilities and special cases galore. It does not even matter whether they worked better for whatever specific case you had in mind, because they made no sense to begin with.

You also seem to be confusing complex rules with complex tactical combat. Rules should be simple, tactics should be deep. In this case "if you move away your opponents get a free attack" is a simple rule. Deciding whether provoking that attack is a good idea on the other hand depends on the situation in all other locations (and the roll of the dice) and is very hard to answer. But what happens after you make your decision is clear.

Contrast this to your big squares cover rules. In order to have them work at all you needed to introduce positioning within your big squares. You had similar issues with charging and intercepting. That is a prime example of rules complexity and thus bad.

[Username17]

PhoneLobster: here's the deal: I care what you feel. I don't really care what you think. You've registered that you are viscerally opposed to using random numbers in lieu of turn-to-turn double booked accounting. That's real data. Erik registered the same opinion, and that's real data too. It means that a genuine demographic exists who simply don't like inputting random numbers rather than extracting them from formulas or keeping track of duration counts. That's fine. There are in fact, lots of games that go for the formulas and duration counts method.

But your actual arguments can be dismissed flippantly because they are poorly conceived, and motivated by visceral dislike rather than dispassionate analysis. WoF isn't something you do instead of "everyone can use any power whenever they want" it's something you do instead of Warm-Up or Cool-Down mechanics. It replaces the act of keeping track of round by round durations with rolling an activation die each round. Same number of steps, same average uses per fight, but you don't have to continuously increment or decrement numbers on a round by round basis - each turn you perform the check you do the same thing, so you never have to worry about skipped rounds or fallen counter stacks or anything.

So when you go on about how it's an extra layer of complexity, I am less inclined to be generous towards you. Because objectively, no it isn't. You may not like it, and apparently you don't. And that's too bad, and that's valuable data to me. But your actual argument is bullshit I don't care about it.

Similarly, when you pull in crap like this:

your very own randomizing mechanic means that randomly some combats and many individual actions in combat will act exactly, and I stress EXACTLY, as if Zones and Zone control did not actually matter.

Uh... are you fucking kidding me? Yes, if your plan of action is one which is not impeded by the zones of control, you will act exactly as if the zones of control did not exist. Is that supposed to be a revelation? Is that worth using ALL CAPS? What the fuck, dude? Yeah, if you intend to full attack someone in melee in 3e D&D, their threat range doesn't mean shit to you that action either. What the fuck? That's how zones of control always work. In every system. The fact that if you just want to keep meleeing the guy in your zone you don't have to care about lines of fire is a feature.

If somebody were to introduce a phlogiston grenade (Explosive, size 30), then your current idea would create the very real scenario of incinerating both plateaus while leaving the party on the middle bridge unscathed.

Now, to an extent there are going to be edge cases where things stop making sense - like the full cover you get from standing in a 4'11"x4'11" box in 3.5 D&D. And I'm not super wedded to the idea of characters being able to specifically choose any other location that their AoE would fit in to spill over into. But in the example, I can think of a lot of ways that a burst of fire could take out gorilla super soldiers on both plateaus without nailing anyone on the bridge. So it could be that I'll end up doing that. I'm not entirely sold either way.

-Username17

[Sashi]

It really sounds like the solution is to divide the battlefield into Big Fat Squares on the strategic level and then use the abstract loctions Zones and Tide of Battle check to determine who's got better positioning within each BFS on the tactical level.

[PhoneLobster]

OK so now we have Murtak here fellating Frank with actual lies about my mechanics. I am so fucking shitted with this community.

It really IS the fucking cult of fucking Frank.

[virgil]

Because a Murtak doth make a cult? It's not like I'm letting Frank's discussions go by without questions/criticisms. I avoided doing the same with your fatass squares because the problems had already been stated and responded to, your attempts at explaining things are opaque (I recall a statement that you don't care if we've trouble understanding your writing), & you're even less receiving of critiques/questions than Frank.

Also, not even being sure if one likes the concept is fellating?

[erik]

OK so now we have Murtak here fellating Frank with actual lies about my mechanics. I am so fucking shitted with this community.

It really IS the fucking cult of fucking Frank.

Shit like this makes me want to write a slash fan fiction starring members of this board, shipping people who hate at each other as secret lovers.

Sadly I'm way behind on my danged full casting classes project so that must wait.

[Zinegata]

That was my main reason for staying out til now. I haven't followed this thread closely enough to form any real opinions beyond that it seemed too complicated or abstract for me. There was the Tiers and Levels thread that discussed it a bit more in depth and I didn't think the system as described was really for me.

+1.

Shit like this makes me want to write a slash fan fiction starring members of this board, shipping people who hate at each other as secret lovers.

As a former fanfic writer... +1 too.

It would be the most awesome fic ever.

[RobbyPants]

Also, not even being sure if one likes the concept is fellating?

I guess it is if they don't agree with you.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It really sounds like the solution is to divide the battlefield into Big Fat Squares on the strategic level and then use the abstract loctions Zones and Tide of Battle check to determine who's got better positioning within each BFS on the tactical level.

The implementation, IIRC, was more along the lines of 'BFS in abstract zones', where the BFS are explicitly delimited locations. So if you have a hunter's blind in zone 4, you can be 'in zone 4' or 'in the hunter's blind in zone 4'. If a fireball targets zone 4, the person in the hunter's blind will still get hit, but might get some cover.

[PoliteNewb]

Shit like this makes me want to write a slash fan fiction starring members of this board, shipping people who hate at each other as secret lovers.

As a former fanfic writer... +1 too.

It would be the most awesome fic ever.

Are you sure? He didn't mention any names, just "people who hate each other". I seem to recall you and Kaelik having some pretty...heated discussions...

[RobbyPants]

Maybe he's looking forward to the resulting fanfic.

[Murtak]

OK so now we have Murtak here fellating Frank with actual lies about my mechanics. I am so fucking shitted with this community.

It really IS the fucking cult of fucking Frank.

Oh please. Frank can write rules that work, you can't. What's worse, you are not even able to comprehend that your rules do not work. What you misunderstand as me fellating Frank is just intellectual honesty. You see,
I don't need to like Winds of Fate and similar systems to recognize that - mechanically speaking - they work. Your mechanics on the other hand, however much I want to like them, do not.

And that means I disagree with you a lot as far as mechanics are concerned and with Frank a lot as far as flavor and feel are concerned. Since I don't feel the need to piss all over his ideas over what amounts to my personal opinion I tend to agree with him. And since I like the general gist of most of your ideas but hate the execution I argue with you a lot. And if you were willing to listen to feedback there would actually be a reason for me to do so. As is, it feels a lot like slamming my head against concrete.

Summary: Get over yourself, recognize discussion as a compliment, start accepting feedback. And maybe, just maybe, recognize that others may be better than you at writing mechanics.

[Username17]

There are several things that positioning systems can do:

• Determine whether Location A is between two other locations or not.
• Determine whether a Character can reach Location A this turn.
• Determine whether a Character can attack an Enemy in Location A this turn.
• Determine what Characters and Enemies get hit by an Area Effect targeted at Location A.
• Determine whether and how a Character can defend Location A or an Ally or Objective at Location A.
• Determine how many Angels can dance at Location A.

Now of those, about the only one that PL's Big Fat Squares really do is the first one: determine what locations are between other locations. Everything else seems to be handwaved or composed entirely of special cases. Interestingly, the Very Abstract Locations actually do all of those things except tell you what things are between other things. Information about "between" is essentially lost in this system. And perhaps surprisingly, I don't actually care very much. I think that the concept of "between" is totally over rated, and it almost never actually matters.

You could kludge it back in, by having a location have the property of "Choke Point" - wherein any Lin of Fire that was less than the Choke Point's number was redirected to the Choke Point if the character was in a location with a higher number and the Choke Point was contested (and vice versa for low number zones checking line of fire to high number zones). But that would very rarely actually be called upon, because most battles take place in actual terrain and there is pretty much always some way to go around.

Seriously, whether you're in a forest or a swamp or a desert or a city or a mountain range, it is almost invariably true that there is more than one path that you could take from any location to any other. Whether "the path" to the target is obscured is thus a dynamic question that is determined by what path you tried to take and what other people were doing. In short, it actually makes more sense to generate that information randomly each turn than it does to impose some arbitrary hard-and-fast "betweenness" as a standard part of the game.

I understand that it is heresy. I just happen to not give a flying fuck whether one thing is "between" two other things or not. It's a piece of information that I am not only comfortable losing in the abstraction, but I'm actually glad that it is gone. Betweenness creates one-dimensional thinking, and I find it both unrealistic and boring. A deadly combination.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

So all the info is kinda spread around the topic, and possibly outside of the topic.

Could you post an actual play example of how it would all come together? Like you did for the SR Hacking thing, but, you know, for a system that works.

[Prak]

OK so now we have Murtak here fellating Frank with actual lies about my mechanics. I am so fucking shitted with this community.

It really IS the fucking cult of fucking Frank.

What am I, the reform branch?

Shit like this makes me want to write a slash fan fiction starring members of this board, shipping people who hate at each other as secret lovers.

...for the record I hate koumei...

[Orion]

AC is a stupid mechanic. Randomly, in some combats, everyone will act exactly as though AC didn't exist.