Ending TNE Work Stoppage

[virgil]

While that could be a good thing, I'd prefer to move a touch away from RP's wargame roots. I can live with the system consisting of "in the room", "in melee with an orc", "down the hall", and that being about the sum of the positioning system for your average dungeon crawl.

[PhoneLobster]

Maybe I should clarify more what I mean by emergent tactics

I think you should.

Because I see two things wrong here.

1) Your understanding of "emergent tactics" seems odd. Again you are suggesting that checkers, descent, war hammer 40K and chess can have emergent tactics but diplomacy, arkham horror, magic and risk can't.

2) Your determination that providing intercepting/bypassing with effectively accidental, insanely complex and poorly supported "emergent tactics" is in any way better than providing for a popular and desirable tactic with actual direct and well designed rules. It's rather like saying "I'd rather disabling traps not be a direct rule, I'd prefer it to be an emergent effect of the movement, collision and trap exploding in your face rules combined with the NPC hiring rules".

I'd also like to take the opportunity to point out I was arguing about "abstract" positioning on the gaming den since before it was cool.

[Draco_Argentum]

I find that melee combat is far better done with abstract positioning. We're talking about small groups, not pike walls. Position should be fluid and changeable because that fits the style of combat that the game is actually attempting to simulate.

Flanked should just be a natural consequence of getting attacked by several enemies at once. Combine with a bonus for unengaged individuals and you get the emergence of attempting to engage your opponents whilst providing flanking bonuses. The best combination of the two will require tactics just as surely as chain-tripper area denial.

[CatharzGodfoot]

↓↓↓

[CatharzGodfoot]

There's no reason to even think about 'two characters closer to their foe than each other' when the position of all three is in constant flux.

So you see no problem with two archers in melee range of each other and at medium range from the monster "flanking" that monster?

Archers shouldn't 'flank', period. The only factor for 'flanking' I see as important is that two characters place their melee focus on one.

There are some reasonable, realistic situations in which two archers could be seen to have a flanking effect on a person. None the less, I think that restricting them from such effects would have a positive effect on combat. For one, it encourages characters to go into melee. For another, mostly ignoring where the archers are beyond 'out of melee range' and possibly 'in a tree' or 'behind a wall' means that you can mostly ignore where melee fighters are beyond 'in melee range of X' or 'guarding the exit'.

Surprise attacks by archers might benefit from the target being distracted by another foe, but that would not be "flanking" any more than sneaking up behind someone and stabbing them in the back.


On the other hand, I think that your formulation of flanking would be great for a boxless miniature-based tactical system.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Archers shouldn't 'flank', period.

I'm all for ranged attackers not being able to provide standard flanking bonuses, but there needs to be some provision for a crossfire effect. It's basic ranged combat tactics, it deserves to be rewarded.

[Username17]

Lateral and Vertical Advancement
“I can play the piano.”
“I can make mountains explode.”

It is an undeniable fact that characters interact with the campaign on several different levels, creating success and failure based on a variety of criteria. The original function of these games after all was one in which the tactical mini-game was the entire game: where nominally all participants were granted troops to command of roughly equivalent value and the one with the best luck and tactics in an ostensibly fair contest was the winner. But as time has gone on, the emphasis has moved over to a storytelling emphasis. And storytelling has no real winners or losers, so the whole idea of fair contests is simply inapplicable.

There are roughly 3 different portions of a character that should be considered, each important in its own way but each horribly inappropriate to be sold away to “pay for” other portions of the character. Here's what we're considering:

• Traits – Many characters have various things that they can do or which are important about them whose only real use is to be something to hang a story on. These things can be anything from them being good at seamanship (which allows a story about them going to sea to be pulled down) to being able to speak an obscure language (which allows a story to hinge on said language). But they can also be things like “Shark Cultists killed the character's brother” or “Character was horribly burned by phoenixes.” The thing is that narratively those things are exactly the same. The character may never encounter that obscure language or shark cultists, but if they do then their character's input will automatically become more important than the other characters for the duration of that story.
• Tactics – During the tactical mini-game, characters are confronted with challenges that are numerically “fair” in some manner or another. Each player is given roughly equivalent force and a variety of potentially useful abilities to harness into a plan to “win” a confrontation. These abilities are genuinely strong and weak within a framework of an assumed set of fair combats. These abilities are tactically different, good and bad in different situations and against specific opponents. For example, a Jaguar Warrior may take a tactic of being able to bite like a jaguar (an attack that hurts a single target a lot) or a breath of fire (an attack that threatens a group of enemies at close range).
• Strategies – When characters are not in combat there is no expectation of fairness. If the story revolves around fighting the minions of a powerful darklord then the characters are likely looking at things stacked well against them in the large sense, while a more modest campaign involving wandering around a major city causing trouble may see the players being much the master of the world to the extent that they care about it. But regardless, the players are not sitting at the table to passively sit there and watch as the Game Master regales them with stories of his choosing, they are there to be a participant in a cooperative storytelling experience. And to that extent characters have abilities to directly impose their will upon the story direction. And these abilities are called strategies. For example: a Necromancer might have the ability to raise an army of the dead, an Orator may have the ability to sway crowd opinions and start riots, and an Alchemist may have the ability to flood the region with special silver swords. All of these characters can use their strategies to effect change upon the story direction by destabilizing the region that they are in.

Gaining Tactics: An Obsession With Fairness
“They will burn. They will all burn.”

It's important to note that tactics really only become gained during level gain. This is for several reasons, the fact that for power levels to maintain correspondence between characters it is necessary for a specific power level to actually exist looms large of course, but there's also a very important fact that players have a learning curve with whatever tactics they have available in order to attain real effectiveness with whatever their characters can do.

That doesn't mean that characters have to be completely inflexible within a power level. Characters can and should be able to prepare specific tactics in advance. Prepared powers can come in many forms, and all characters should have the ability to do that.

Gaining Traits: Anything Goes

Unlike tactics, characters can gain traits every adventure whether they are completing quests and gaining levels or not. Indeed, every character should be gaining some kind of trait from pretty much any memorable adventuring. Furthermore, characters should be allowed to have “backstory” between adventures. Gaining traits from these background adventures is perfectly fine.

[baduin]

Because of the recent discussion about gridless combat, I recollected a post on True20 forum with a form of Marvel Super Heroes areas system. I think such a system could be interesting, at least for comparison:

http://true20.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1684

"TRUE20 NARRATIVE COMBAT
This system allows for narrative combat, where no miniatures are used, in combination with strong tactics. The goal is to entice a more imaginative experience combined with fast, heroic action.

AREAS
Instead of tracking precise movement and placement in 5-foot increments, Simple Combat uses abstract areas. Generally, the immediate surroundings are a single area. Examples of areas are a room, hallway, or stairwell. Wide open areas (e.g. outdoors, very large chambers) are roughly divided into 30 foot increments, which are as square as possible.

SPEED & RANGE
Speed is measured in areas per move action. Characters have a base speed of 2. Encumbrance reduces a character’s speed by 1 (overloaded characters have a speed of 0 by rule). Likewise, Improved Speed (and similar abilities) increases a character’s speed by 1.
....

RANGE INCREMENTS
Like Speed, range increments are measured in areas:
....
THE MELEE
Even though there are no miniatures used in Simple Combat, there are still tactical considerations. Characters may still effectively guard, protect, and intercept their opponents.

DISENGAGE (FREE ACTION)
A character may simply leave an engagement (see below) as part of their move action. However, in doing so each opponent with whom he is engaged receives an automatic free attack on the disengaging character. This free attack action may be avoided by a successful withdraw action (see below). This attack action may be an attack, grapple, or trip attempt. Opponents who are prone* do not get free attacks against you as you disengage.

*There are other situations which may be ruled to be effectively prone to the disengaging character. An example would be seated at a table.

ENGAGED IN MELEE (FREE ACTION)
Just because multiple characters are within the same area, it doesn’t mean they are within arm’s reach of each other. Part of making a melee attack requires engaging an opponent. Once this occurs, each character is locked into the engagement and must remain there until the fight is resolved or one character disengages or successfully withdraws.

Characters using reach weapons attack opponents without engaging them.

GUARDING & BLOCKING (STANDARD ACTION)
Characters may guard another character or object (called the guard’s charge) in the same area as a special from of a Readied Action. During the readied action, the guard may engage any other single character who attempts to engage (or attack with a reach weapon) his charge. This need not be the first enemy to attack the charge as the guard may wish to be selective. Any character engaged by a guard may not attack (or engage) the guard’s charge.

Similarly, you may block access to an object if the area is appropriate as judged by the Narrator. Common examples would be blocking access to a door or hallway.
..."

(This is only the beginning of the rules..."

[Manxome]

Now in a non-abstract spatial system (not necessarily grid-based), if you have the minions in front of the technologist in a wide-open area, people can circle past them. So maybe they try to find a position where their flanks are guarded by walls or dangerous terrain features. And the opposing side, in turn, tries to prevent them reaching such an area, or occupy that area before they get to it, or render it unsuitable. There are various degrees of safety and various methods to circumvent them, and most of them involve more tactics (on the players' part) than "use the Guard ability to guard someone".

Yeah, I think everyone gets that. The part that I'm having trouble with is why you think that emergent properties don't occur in other systems, too.

It is true that most of the proposals would involve turning your specific examples from emergent properties into explicit ones, but that doesn't mean that emergent properties won't exist, and I don't see any particular reason that having those particular tactics be emergent rather than explicit would be important.

Your examples aren't even really good examples of emergent tactics in the first place. You start with the simple and obvious rules that people and obstacles take up space and can't move through each other, and you get the emergent tactic of putting obstacles between your opponents and the place they want to move. That's a real huge jump from the explicit rules right there. And even that tactic is marginal or ineffective in lots of games with grid-based movement unless they have additional supporting rules like attacks of opportunity, because moving around obstacles tends to be really easy with discrete movement.

Under something like the "focus" system I sketched out, minions have to choose between focusing on their target, in order to stay and range and have a better chance of hitting, or focusing on the technologist they're guarding, to make sure they don't get "drawn off" and leave him exposed. If there's a useful terrain feature, the heroes can choose to get close to it in order to make sure that the enemies can't get close to it without getting close to them (by the inferred distance rule). Those are nominally emergent tactics, like your example--there's no "get between bad guys and terrain feature" or "stay in a tight group" abilities listed on your character sheet; those are implied effects that result from the interaction of other rules.

More complex and subtle properties will tend to emerge as rules and abilities are added and the system is studied in more detail.

[Tydanosaurus]

That's a nice way to break out the powers and avoid tradeoffs like "I can summon a Solar"/"I can move an extra square per action."

[Ice9]

Ok, I'll admit that a movement system could be designed to have emergent tactics. However, would such a system really end up any simpler than non-abstract movement? I mean, Magic is given as an example of a system with non-movement-based tactics - but I think most people would agree that Magic is more complex than grid-based movement. It's not that non-abstract movement is the only way to provide emergent tactics - I just think it gives you the most bang for the buck.

Again you are suggesting that checkers, descent, war hammer 40K and chess can have emergent tactics but diplomacy, arkham horror, magic and risk can't.

Risk does have non-abstract positioning of units, actually. Magic has plenty of emergent tactics, but they aren't related to movement/positioning. Just because attack manuevers have tactics doesn't mean that movement shouldn't.

It's rather like saying "I'd rather disabling traps not be a direct rule, I'd prefer it to be an emergent effect of the movement, collision and trap exploding in your face rules combined with the NPC hiring rules".

It's interesting that you picked this example, because I would point out that the actual process of disabling a trap by rolling Disable Device has no tactics involved and is not particularly interesting. The tactics are things like deciding when to search for traps (and when to take 20), how far back the rest of the group should stand, trying to disable or trigger it from a distance, and what precautions to take before making that roll. None of which are a direct rule.

[Quantumboost]

Abstract vs. concrete positioning is a spectrum. D&D 3.x's movement system is considered "concrete", at least in this discussion, but it has abstraction - you're in a particular 5-foot square, but it doesn't really care *where* in that square you are. A completely concrete system would have you pinpointing the exact position of your center of mass. A completely abstract system would have you be "somewhere" and another person be "somewhere, which may or may not be where you are".

Risk's positioning system is on the abstract side compared to D&D3.x and other more positional systems - units are in a particular place, but the "particular place" in this case is, for example, "Russia". There are a comparatively small number of locations in the entire game that they could be.

M:tG doesn't have a movement system at all, so it's hardly the best example of an abstract movement system. Its tactics are a result of the interactions between the different card mechanics.

A well-designed abstract positioning system could be simpler than a similarly well-designed coordinate system for several purposes. Abstract systems have less data that needs to be communicated or derived; concrete systems only have less data that needs to be communicated. If you're holding a game over PbP or IM, there isn't a coordinate map (i.e. battlemat) and each person needs to keep a mental or independent physical picture (i.e. notes on paper or a text editor) of all information. If you're in person and have a coordinate map, you can place things on the mat so that what people would otherwise have in their head can just be *seen*. But that's a situational thing - it isn't available in all incarnations of the game, and if the game is dependent upon having the map it can't be played as effectively in other media.

[Ice9]

The only media where a visual representation is less preferable seems to be IM though.

With tabletop or virtual tabletop, a map makes the situation easy to see, even if you don't track things precisely. With PbP, it can work either way, and people have enough time to update their own maps, if they want to.

For that matter, an abstract system still has a nontrivial amount of data to be kept track of. While a list like:

Dave: Focus on Ogre (Melee)
Bob: Focus on Ogre (Close)
Sara: Focus on Goblin 1 (Melee)
Brian: Focus on Goblin 3 (Medium)
Ogre: Focus on Dave (Melee)
Goblin 1: Focus on Sara (Melee)
Goblin 2: Focus on Sara (Close)
Goblin 3: Focus on Sara (Close)
Goblin 4: Focus on Brian (Medium)

Is less information than a full map, it's still enough to require writing down.

[Quantumboost]

The thing is, an abstracted system has less need of a map to effectively communicate than a more concrete system does. If using a virtual map program is user-unfriendly enough, the existence of such programs does nothing. Also, IMX, maintaining and coordinating individual battlemaps is enough effort that many people won't want to do that.

Some people may want to play games with an atmosphere different from that of a tactical skirmish, and having the map out may be less than ideal for that purpose (let alone having to break it out and possibly breaking any built-up tension).

If they go with the approach "let's just handwave where people are", which I've seen often in say IRC games, they have automagically switched to an abstracted system of their own design anyway and the original design has failed.

In short, having a system that doesn't require a map is a good thing all else being equal, and not just in IM. Thus, it's something that should be taken into consideration when designing a system.

[Crissa]

What, you can't remember that you were fighting the orc on the left and the orc on the left was trying to hit your friend and the orc on the right was chasing you?

-Crissa

[Manxome]

Ok, I'll admit that a movement system could be designed to have emergent tactics. However, would such a system really end up any simpler than non-abstract movement? I mean, Magic is given as an example of a system with non-movement-based tactics - but I think most people would agree that Magic is more complex than grid-based movement. It's not that non-abstract movement is the only way to provide emergent tactics - I just think it gives you the most bang for the buck.

First of all, simplicity is not really the goal. It's more like ease-of-use, which is related but not the same.

Secondly, you're comparing an entire actual game to the platonic ideal of a subsystem of a hypothetical game. The fact that the former is more complicated does not tell us anything useful.

Thirdly, you seem to be comparing a grid-based system with miniatures and a battle mat to an abstract system where all information is represented verbally, and that's an apples-to-oranges comparison. If you happen to have handy visual media for storing and conveying the state of the battle, many abstract systems will be able to take advantage of that. And whether you have visual media available doesn't really depend on what system you prefer to use. So the proper comparisons are when both systems are represented visually, and when both systems are represented verbally. Most of the abstract systems suggested so far actually lend themselves pretty well to clear and concise visual representation, at least for common situations. And I think it's pretty clear that the grid system is going to have its ass kicked in the second contest.

Example: Using your own mock-up with the 4 heroes, the 4 goblins, and the ogre, if you happen to have miniatures on hand, you put Dave and the Ogre right next to each other (melee), you put Sarah and Goblin 1 right next to each other (melee), you put Brian off to the side, and sprinkle the rest around (assuming the scale of the battle is "close"). There are two pairs of figures in melee, Brian is medium away from everyone, and every other range in the entire battle is "close," and you'll be able to take that in at a glance.

Finally, you seem to be relying entirely on your personal intuition for your claim that the grid system provides "the most bang for the buck," which is particularly precarious given that you just used exactly the same intuition to defend a different and stronger claim until people started poking holes in it. Why do you think a grid (or something similar) will provide more depth per unit complexity? Because I can seriously sit here and tell you with a straight face that I think you're wrong, and if you don't have anything to back up your position, that's kind of a wash.

And it doesn't even really matter which broad type of system is theoretically better, because the actual game is going to use some real system with precise rules that some person or people actually manage to design, and it's entirely possible that the best specific system that we actually come up with is of type A even if type B is better "in general" or "at best" or whatever.

We've already identified several real and definite problems with grid positioning:

• It doesn't make the jump to verbal media well.
• It doesn't handle continuous motion elegantly.
• It doesn't handle non-orthogonal motion elegantly.

Those are actual fundamental issues with the grid abstraction that cannot be overcome without changing a basic accumption. The typical exemplars of grid systems also have the following issues, though perhaps some clever person can find a way to overcome them:

• They don't handle tight spaces elegantly.
• They don't handle simultaneous motion well (even when that motion is not continuous)

Others can probably come up with more.

You can't make a list like this for "non-grid systems" because that's too wide a possibility space. You might be able to make a list like this for specific proposals given so far, but you've been trying to tackle everything en masse and giving us untenable generalities.

[Ice9]

Some people may want to play games with an atmosphere different from that of a tactical skirmish, and having the map out may be less than ideal for that purpose

This might be the real issue - some people want a tactical skirmish, and some people don't. I'm not really sure it's possible to please everyone, because even an abstract system complex enough to support tactics is probably more tactical and precise than you want for free-flowing style combat.

What, you can't remember that you were fighting the orc on the left and the orc on the left was trying to hit your friend and the orc on the right was chasing you?

Straw man much? Sure, I can remember that. Now can you remember the relationships between five PCs, ten foes, a circle of power, two walls of flaming chains, and a deep chasm?

Abstract positioning works fine when your combat has only a couple people on one side, or is in a wide-open plain, or your didn't want to go into tactical details anyway. But some people do want to have a tactical skirmish with a fair number of people and some nontrivial terrain.

[Ice9]

You might be able to make a list like this for specific proposals given so far, but you've been trying to tackle everything en masse and giving us untenable generalities.

Ok, fair enough. Here's an issue I've seen with the prosed systems, right off the bat: No support for one-to-many relationships.

When you have a horde of zombies, and you have a mage trying to back away and fireball them, the mage is not focussed on any specific zombie - he's trying to move farther away from the entire horde.

Now given that this is possible in terms of actual space, a system where he can retreat easily from one zombie but the others which were right next to it can surround him is rather screwy. And then there's the other factors, such as:
* If the zombies spread out, they can mitigate the effects of the fireball when it happens. But spreading out will slow their pursuit of the mage.
* If the mage enters a tight passage, the zombies have a harder time following him and must stay bunched-up to do so.
* But if that passage has a dead end, the mage will eventually run out of room to retreat.

Now how would you cover that in an abstract system, given that:
* If the intial position of the zombies and mage was different (say, two groups, one on either side, but both are still "Close" range), the mage might not have been able to retreat as easily.
* "Tight passage" is a relative term - some passages are tighter than others.
* A passage can be made tighter with spells like Wall of Fire.
* A passage might not have a dead end per-se, but a tough foe could effectively create one by standing next to one entrance.

[Crissa]

Straw man much? Sure, I can remember that. Now can you remember the relationships between five PCs, ten foes, a circle of power, two walls of flaming chains, and a deep chasm?

Why not?

I complain when the number and coloring of mice in the background of a movie scene changes, why wouldn't I remember the positions of the PCs?

-Crissa

[CatharzGodfoot]

When you have a horde of zombies, and you have a mage trying to back away and fireball them, the mage is not focussed on any specific zombie - he's trying to move farther away from the entire horde.

Now given that this is possible in terms of actual space, a system where he can retreat easily from one zombie but the others which were right next to it can surround him is rather screwy.

I agree. Characters simply trying to avoid engagement should be able to circle out of reach of all foes.

And then there's the other factors, such as:
* If the zombies spread out, they can mitigate the effects of the fireball when it happens. But spreading out will slow their pursuit of the mage.
* If the mage enters a tight passage, the zombies have a harder time following him and must stay bunched-up to do so.
* But if that passage has a dead end, the mage will eventually run out of room to retreat.

1. I realize that your example is primarily for the sake of argument, but why are zombies spreading out because they're worried that a wizard might fireball them? Why would farther-apart zombies move more slowly than close-together zombies?
One way of handling this is having 'formations', where each member is in melee range with the others, and all are considered to be maintaining a degree of cohesion. They can 'break formation', but they'd loose its benefits. That's useful if you actually want to deal with formations of creatures, and otherwise adds little to the game.

2. A tight passage is a terrain effect (choke point) which limits the number of characters that can be present in it. You could use formation rules, or simply state that if those present in the passage exceed a certain number they are all 'crowding'.

3. A 'dead end' to a narrow passage is just that. If the zombies are now 'defending' or 'crowding' the corridor, the wizard it in a bad place. Hopefully she has some trick up her sleeve.

Now how would you cover that in an abstract system, given that:
* If the intial position of the zombies and mage was different (say, two groups, one on either side, but both are still "Close" range), the mage might not have been able to retreat as easily.
* "Tight passage" is a relative term - some passages are tighter than others.
* A passage can be made tighter with spells like Wall of Fire.
* A passage might not have a dead end per-se, but a tough foe could effectively create one by standing next to one entrance.

1. If the zombies have the wizard 'surrounded', that matters. Otherwise it doesn't.

2. Why do you care? There's no good reason to keep track of whether a passage is 3' 4" or 3' 6" wide, and I don't know of any pen & paper system in which a meaningful distinction is made. A certain passage might be tight for creatures of a certain size or larger, but that's a much more general concern (a passage that's 'narrow' for human-sized creatures won't be 'narrow' for a cat).

3. Mainly it would be made hotter.

4. That's 'guarding'.


Anyway, great questions. These are the kinds of considerations any system has to deal with (even if it's 'we ignore that').

[Manxome]

I think you could handle those things pretty easily in an abstract system like the one I sketched out. You'd need one or two rules that I didn't explicitly mention in my first post for some of those, but nothing terribly complex.

A mage comes upon a group of zombies grouped around a fresh grave, feasting on the entrails of some hapless villager. Suddenly, one of them sees him, and lets out a low moan. In an instant, all the zombies are shambling towards the mage.

The GM surveys the situation and decides that since almost all of the combatants (the zombies) are grouped into a tight space, the scale of this battle is "melee," but the mage is initially only "close" to the zombies.

The mage goes first, focuses on one of the zombies, and runs away. The zombie is either too dim to oppose or fails its movement test, because it's a zombie, so the mage is now medium away from that zombie. All the other zombies are "melee" from the zombie the mage focused on (by the battle scale rule), so by the inferred movement rule, those zombies are now all "medium" from the mage, as well.

If the zombies focus on the mage right now and each try to move towards him, the mage can "circle" to oppose each movement, rolling a separate test for each one (unless the zombies are numberous/weak enough that we decide to treat them as a single "horde" unit or something).

Summoning his arcane power and lifting high his jeweled staff, the mage conjures a globe of fire that falls from the heavens upon the zombie horde.

The mage hurls a fireball at the zombie he's focused, which, as per the power's description, has an area-of-effect of "melee," so all objects within melee of his target (in this case, all the other zombies) are also affected.

* If the zombies spread out, they can mitigate the effects of the fireball when it happens. But spreading out will slow their pursuit of the mage.

The zombies recoil and cry out as the fiery blast strikes them. Momentarily forgetting the mage, they scatter.

Each zombie focuses on the zombie that was just blasted with the fireball and moves away; the primary target does not oppose, so this is automatically successful, and each of the zombies moves from "melee" with that zomebie to "close." By the inferred movement rule, each of the zombies is now "close" from every other zombie and "medium" from the mage.

The GM decides that the scale of the battle has changed, and so the next round, he declares the scale is now "close" rather than "melee." Thus, the zombies will remain "close" to each other (rather than "melee") even when they focus back on the mage next round.

* If the mage enters a tight passage, the zombies have a harder time following him and must stay bunched-up to do so.

As the ravenous zombies chase after him, the mage spots a tunnel in the nearby hillside. Seeing his salvation, he turns and sprints towards it.

The "tunnel entrance" is a terrain feature. It has the "bottleneck: melee" trait, which means that it segregates the battle area, and no one can cross from one section to the other unless they first come within "melee" of the terrain feature.

The zombies are now "close" to each other and "close" to the mage. The mage focuses on the tunnel entrance and approaches (and succeeds, since the tunnel entrance doesn't move very fast), putting him within "melee" of the entrance. The zombies, which were all focused on the mage, get their distance updated to their previous distance plus the amount moved, and are now "medium" from the mage.

The mage tosses a spell over his shoulder as he runs, but takes an accuracy penalty because he isn't targeting his focus.

The next turn, the mage can move into the tunnel, and the zombies will all need to get within melee of the entrance (and therefore of each other) in order to follow.

If the passage continues to be severely narrow, we represent that with a series of bottlenecks, so the zombies can theoretically spread out, but will always have to bunch up again to follow the mage if he continues retreating.

* But if that passage has a dead end, the mage will eventually run out of room to retreat.

The mage runs out of bottleneck terrain features to retreat through. The only way out is through the bottleneck that the zombies are already at.

* If the intial position of the zombies and mage was different (say, two groups, one on either side, but both are still "Close" range), the mage might not have been able to retreat as easily.

Two groups of zombies; zombies within each group are "melee" from each other, and "close" to the mage and zombies from the other group. The mage focuses on one zombie and retreats, as in the first example; the mage is now "medium" from all the zombies in one group, but still "close" to all the zombies in the other group.

* "Tight passage" is a relative term - some passages are tighter than others.

So there's also a "bottleneck: close" terrain trait that works exactly the same, except you only need to be within "close" of the terrain feature to cross over, rather than "melee."

* A passage can be made tighter with spells like Wall of Fire.

The "wall of fire" ability targets a "bottleneck: X" terrain feature, and any creatures passing that bottleneck must either close within X-1 range of the bottleneck first, or suffer fire damage as they pass.

* A passage might not have a dead end per-se, but a tough foe could effectively create one by standing next to one entrance.

Probably works a lot like the wall of fire; the bottleneck narrows by one range step, but you can pass through at that range anyway if you're willing to give the opponent a free attack as you pass. (Other implementations are possible.)

[TarkisFlux]

Sure, I can remember that. Now can you remember the relationships between five PCs, ten foes, a circle of power, two walls of flaming chains, and a deep chasm?

Ok, while I wouldn't have an issue tracking this, I could certainly see some of my players having an issue with it. They used to have problems along those lines back before everything had a mini and a square, but they were always minor and never a big deal. It didn't matter how many things were in play, or what the terrain was like, because you wrote those things down or made quick sketches. We're just talking about ditching a fucking tactical battle mat here, not about neglecting to make a diagram of the encounter site or map of the dungeon.

Seriously, if these things are already on your map and you vaguely point at them or sketch the initial setup for people, you can quit worrying about players getting confused. Once they know that there's stuff to kill between them and the deep chasm, they go and attack it. I don't care where they are exactly, as long as they're not fighting on the edge of the chasm or near the flaming chains. And if they are over there, it's cause they had a reason to go over there. If someone drops a field changing effect, I add it to my map and people run away from it on their turns if they can, and suffer if they don't/can't.

Once you have this stuff somewhere, you're back down to a player-on-whatever setup, where you can sorta trust the player to keep track of their stuff. Believe me, they'll tell you when you move a baddy away that they should have gotten to attack, or when you move a guy into harm's way. They're players after all, they'll track the bad guys as long as it's to their benefit.

As to your zombie example...

Now given that this is possible in terms of actual space, a system where he can retreat easily from one zombie but the others which were right next to it can surround him is rather screwy. And then there's the other factors, such as:
* If the zombies spread out, they can mitigate the effects of the fireball when it happens. But spreading out will slow their pursuit of the mage.
* If the mage enters a tight passage, the zombies have a harder time following him and must stay bunched-up to do so.
* But if that passage has a dead end, the mage will eventually run out of room to retreat.

Now how would you cover that in an abstract system, given that:
* If the intial position of the zombies and mage was different (say, two groups, one on either side, but both are still "Close" range), the mage might not have been able to retreat as easily.
* "Tight passage" is a relative term - some passages are tighter than others.
* A passage can be made tighter with spells like Wall of Fire.
* A passage might not have a dead end per-se, but a tough foe could effectively create one by standing next to one entrance.

You're really assuming a lot of things that I haven't seen any precedent for in this discussion.

Where did you get that you can't escape the entire group of zombies? Unless I missed something, you just move from close to medium, and you're at medium from the entire group. Zombies move back in, but can't circle to flank you unless they get more move actions than you do (whatever that means at this stage). Right?

How far do zombies have to spread out to mitigate the effects of a fireball? How long does it take the mage to cast it, and how far apart can they get during the casting action? This seems less an abstract movement issue and more an action division/initiative issue.

If the mage enters a passage, the zombies have to form a line to follow him. Unless they're trying to climb over each other or otherwise blocking the passage with a mass of bodies, they don't have any harder a time following him than he does walking down it. Again, not an abstract position issue, since you can easily say that the zombies shamble single file down the hall after the mage, who gets to lightning bolt them or something.

And yes, passages have dead ends. I don't think anyone has said that you can move through walls whenever you want, so I really don't see how this is an issue with abstract positioning. Sometimes, you can't go places, and then things get to catch up to you. So what?

Zombie groups on opposite sides... get to move seperately and could pincer you, and then they wouldn't need to circle to flank or trap you. Really, this is already sorta in there depending on how we want to describe flanking.

Tight passages are indeed relative, especially if we bring in wacky sized races. But this is a big point in favor of abstract, cause now we don't have to make 5' passages and could actually make 2' hobbit passages that they don't suffer penalties for stabbing big folk in. It's a tight passage that affects movement rules based on character size, I really don't need much more than that. Walls of fire or whatever in the passage just add on to these rules. I don't have any idea of how pushing a mini down these screwed up tiles is somehow better than just applying a rule.

As for doors, several pages back Frank said that a doorway was a point that he cared about people occupying. It's really as simple as saying "there's an ogre standing in the doorway with a gentleman's club" and characters have a sense that the doorway is blocked. Having a mini on the board does not give any more information, and does not open up new tactics for getting around him.

Honestly, I don't get how having minis on a board helps you do anything in your example aside from waste time moving them to specific places. If it doesn't give players perfect knowledge of the entire combat unless they're really paying attention, I'm okay with that. To me, your example sounds like an argument for a more finished system (which is being worked on I would think) or maybe even a plea for a dedicated chase minigame that interfaces with the combat minigame in several places, but that's about it.

[Tydanosaurus]

The only media where a visual representation is less preferable seems to be IM though.

Uh, that's the main media we're talking about.

Ice, can you give it a rest for a bit? This discussion isn't going anywhere.

For one thing, we're arguing over a hypothetical system that might, hypothetically, work in a certain way, and then arguing over how likely or unlikely it is that this system will be like the hypothetical system you're arguing about. Then, for added argumentative complexity, we're adding wrinkles to both the hypothetical system, and deciding how much we'd like or dislike this hypothetical system.

IMO, there's a couple concerns you've pointed out that I think everybody acknowledged are things to be avoided. Can we move on?

[Ice9]

It does seem to be going in circles a bit.
I also hadn't realized that IM was the primary target platform - if it is, then sure, go abstract.

[TarkisFlux]

I don't think that's the target platform, but making a system that can be ran on IM or play-by-post without any adjustments to the system you would play in person does seem to be a design goal. This is possibly because Frank spends quite a bit of time far from people who would play this (or anything besides 4.0 from the sound of some of his posts) and he'd like to get some use out of it, but I could be totally wrong on that so this shouldn't be taken as attributing motivations to him.

I don't think your favoring a tactical minis game over an abstract one is a bad way to go, I just don't see the benefits or limitations that you keep insisting are present. It's also much easier to build an abstract game and then make it a tactical war game than it is to go the other way. With some of the rather specific abstract systems that are being bandied about, it should be easy to move from those to a squareless tactical system just by making minor adjustments to the movement rules. I don't think anything we're talking about is easily compatible with squares, but I can't say I'll miss them.