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Old 06-18-2018, 05:22 AM   #1
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default More choice for "Engaged" figures?

Melee came out in the '70s and at that time I don't recall a whole lot of competition in the Fantasy man-to-man/skirmish game field. Maybe, Avalon Hills "Gladiator" and the "En Garde" game plus some obscure Wargames rules. But they were all a bit specialised.

The re-release is coming out into a market where there are many more such games readily available: Song of Blades and Heroes, Warhammer, Heroscape, Age of Sigmar, etc, etc.

To those of you who have played these more recent games, what do you think are the advantages Melee has over them, and are there any areas where the game might be improved?

One thing struck me in a recent game; most of the decision making in Melee is before combat is joined. Once two figures are engaged options are pretty limited. Other than Defend/Disengage there's not much you can do except roll dice. And we roll quite a lot of dice. Now I don't mind that, but I've noticed others do, especially when there's not much player input into the rolls.

Other games such as Song of Blades and Heroes and Heroscape have reduced the amount of die rolling in combat by combining to-hit and damage into a single roll. Now obviously we're not going to do that in Melee, but could we make the rolls we have to make more meaningful in some way?

Would adding a "push your luck" mechanic help? Now, I realise there are already optional rules for "aimed shots" in Advanced Melee, but they weren't of much use to the character with average DEX. I'm thinking more along the lines of allowing a player to make an all out attack for some sort of bonus, but if the attack fails they lose their next turn due to being off balance or perhaps the opponent gets a bonus to hit back.

What do you guys think?
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Old 06-18-2018, 07:55 AM   #2
Kirk
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

In general, don´t mess with it. But perhaps you are neglecting to use the rules in their entirety, as sometimes even we do.

There is, of course, defend, but also waiting for an opening, attempting HTH, disengaging, aimed shots, and, the one most neglected, forced retreats, which can often change up a fight because it allows a ¨free¨ disengagement of sorts for the start of the next turn.

We´ve found, especially with more than two fighters, that the options are plenty to make for interesting combats, so much so that we often forget to apply one of the aformentioned when we play.
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Old 06-18-2018, 08:01 AM   #3
ecz
 
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Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Rice View Post
Melee came out in the '70s and at that time I don't recall a whole lot of competition in the Fantasy man-to-man/skirmish game field. Maybe, Avalon Hills "Gladiator" and the "En Garde" game plus some obscure Wargames rules. But they were all a bit specialised.

The re-release is coming out into a market where there are many more such games readily available: Song of Blades and Heroes, Warhammer, Heroscape, Age of Sigmar, etc, etc.

To those of you who have played these more recent games, what do you think are the advantages Melee has over them, and are there any areas where the game might be improved?

One thing struck me in a recent game; most of the decision making in Melee is before combat is joined. Once two figures are engaged options are pretty limited. Other than Defend/Disengage there's not much you can do except roll dice. And we roll quite a lot of dice. Now I don't mind that, but I've noticed others do, especially when there's not much player input into the rolls.

Other games such as Song of Blades and Heroes and Heroscape have reduced the amount of die rolling in combat by combining to-hit and damage into a single roll. Now obviously we're not going to do that in Melee, but could we make the rolls we have to make more meaningful in some way?

Would adding a "push your luck" mechanic help? Now, I realise there are already optional rules for "aimed shots" in Advanced Melee, but they weren't of much use to the character with average DEX. I'm thinking more along the lines of allowing a player to make an all out attack for some sort of bonus, but if the attack fails they lose their next turn due to being off balance or perhaps the opponent gets a bonus to hit back.

What do you guys think?
in my opinion combat works perfectly per RAW.
We need only a few clarifications about dodge/defend (does it affect attacks coming from characters with higher DX, and thus acting before the defending figure)?
and HtH dinamics.

May be dodge could be improved some way to make it more attractive, but I would change things in this area (combat) the less possible.

Neatness and symmetry are the strenght (ST) of the system
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Old 06-18-2018, 11:34 AM   #4
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

My favorite system for ancient/medieval tactical combat is GURPS. But it's a much finer level of detail with many more rules and so on.

It seems to me the question, both for new published TFT rules, and for expert TFT GM's, is what would be good to add that doesn't alter the game "too" much (which is of course subjective)?

I have found that for me, adding some house rules can make TFT more or less satisfying & interesting to me still. The main things I would want are:

* the option to move freely despite engagement at the cost of giving foes opportunity to attack

* an option for how aggressively or defensively to fight that takes into account defender's skill somehow, and reduces certainty of being hit if you engage someone and don't take them down before they can attack

* have shields actually block attacks entirely, rather than reducing damage by 1-3 points

* revised HTH rules that take into account attacker/defender abilities much more, and add possibilities such as staying standing, not dropping non-HTH weapons, etc.

* some sort of reaction movement/action

* less armor DX reduction (probably a new talent that reduces the penalty)

* slightly adjusted dead-body terrain effects


Background:
Starting at age 11, as 1980's grade-school students just starting playing RPGs, after playing TFT heavily for 4-5 years (and starting to mainly have characters who usually hit and killed most 30-35-point opponents before they could do anything), TFT started to feel very predictable and unsatisfying to us, and we stopped playing and started redesigning. Fortunately, a year or so later we found GURPS' Melee-equivalent Man To Man, which did most of the things our design was adding, but with well-developed, elegant, playtested rules. Over 30 years later, I'm still interested in playing GURPS combats for their own sake (I use some optional and house rules, but don't need them to find it interesting). To want to play much TFT again, I would want at least a few new and/or house rules for certain things.
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Old 06-18-2018, 11:58 AM   #5
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

There isn't much you can change without extensive play testing just because its easy to 'break' a tactical board game like this. Imagine the mistakes you would make changing the rules of chess without trying them on for size first!

That said, the first thing I would do to modify TFT's core combat resolution is to increase the ranges of many melee weapons, so that combatants interact at a greater diversity of ranges and orientations. This would add a lot of nuance to the role of movement and positioning in the game without significantly changing rules.
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Old 06-18-2018, 12:35 PM   #6
Jim Kane
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Join Date: Mar 2018
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
* have shields actually block attacks entirely, rather than reducing damage by 1-3 points
This is a specific TFT concept which I have gone through a complete evolution with.

It was the very first concept which dawned on us as new TFT players back in '77 - thought iirc it didn't actually dawn on us until some time in late '78 - which we then decided to change - all in an effort to allow armor to absorb damage, and let shields block attacks.

However, after years of playing our so-called: "advanced" house-ruled shields, I came to the personal conclusion and opinion that: what happened to the *figures* after their battle with the "big bad" - and the final condition they found themselves in - was more important to the overall on-going adventure story, and the general story of the specific battle, then the blow-by-blow details of how the figures came to be in that condition.

And therefore, I came to my currently-held philosophy that the original TFT Shield Rule served us better as *the amalgamated effect of a figure possessing and using a shield in battle, as opposed being reflective of *how the shield was actually used by a figure in a battle*.

And at that point, I was once again at peace with the original TFT Shield Rule, and could focus more deeply on world-building and writing.

So, I have been through both sides of the question of: Shields in TFT, and have seen equal merit for both cases.

JK
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Old 06-18-2018, 01:09 PM   #7
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

I'd be perfectly happy to have TFT treat shields in a way similar to GURPS (or some equivalent mechanism for making the bearer harder to hurt). But any new rule like that would have to be super careful not to get outside of the 'trade space' that is core to Melee's rules. I.e., when I take as shield I'm effectively sacrificing either 1 point of damage per successful hit (because I am not using a 2-handed weapon), or reducing my adjDX by 1. This maps onto the basic trade space where ST buys you damage but 'costs' you DX (because that ST point could have gone to DX), armor protects you from damage but costs you DX, etc. You'd have to make sure that the protective qualities of your shield were worth about the same thing as 1 point of protection. The expected value of damage done per attack is a good metric to track for this sort of calculation. Probably the right round numbers would be that a buckler imposes a -1 DX penalty on people attacking you, a lg shield -2 and a tower shield -3. But there would be cases where this seemed better or worse than the standard rules. i.e., if someone with adj. DX 9 attacks me, my tower shield would drop their expected value for damage done by a factor of 4. If someone with adj. DX 18 attacks me, my tower shield would have no effect at all on their expected value for damage done.
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Old 06-18-2018, 02:13 PM   #8
JLV
 
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Location: Arizona
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

We went through the same process for a few years, only to finally realize that GURPS and TFT simply weren't the same, even though they superficially look the same.

I just keep remembering that the Man-to-Man (GURPS) rules were written for 1 second Game-Turns where individual strokes and specific attacks and defenses can be adequately represented, and the rules for Melee were written for five second turns, which represent a series of attacks and defenses, with the Melee results representing an "average" outcome amalgamating the results of several 1 second turns into one final result.

In effect, at the end of the Melee turn, you're seeing the results of a series of moves, whereas in GURPS you're dealing with each individual move separately. If that is true, then trying to cross-breed the rules effectively multiplies the rules you bring across from GURPS, increasing their efficiency by 500%. To me, that doesn't seem quite right...
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Old 06-18-2018, 02:57 PM   #9
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
I'd be perfectly happy to have TFT treat shields in a way similar to GURPS (or some equivalent mechanism for making the bearer harder to hurt). ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
We went through the same process for a few years, only to finally realize that GURPS and TFT simply weren't the same, even though they superficially look the same.

I just keep remembering that the Man-to-Man (GURPS) rules were written for 1 second Game-Turns ...
Hi Everyone, Larsdangly, JLV.
I agree with both of you here.

In my campaign, I made new talents like Sword ii, Sword iii, Bow ii, etc. But what about Shield ii and Shield iii?

I think Shields are hugely important, far more that just stopping an extra point or two of damage. After fooling around for a long time, I said that the higher levels of shield talents would make you -2 DX harder to hit with melee weapons thru your front hexes and that they could stop an extra two hits thru your front hexes.

***
This has worked well for me. Higher levels of shields are tied to higher skill levels of the fighters. No new mechanics were required. Shields became more important.

(Note, I also upped the damage of 2 handed weapons to represent the large increase in leverage by using two hands for the swing.)

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 06-18-2018, 11:19 PM   #10
Steve Jackson
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Default Re: More choice for "Engaged" figures?

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Originally Posted by ecz View Post
in my opinion combat works perfectly per RAW.
We need only a few clarifications about dodge/defend (does it affect attacks coming from characters with higher DX, and thus acting before the defending figure)?
Dodge/defend protects regardless of DX of attacks. Is there someting that needs improving with the wording?
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