[Rq-rules] Re: Combat Options

[Tom Cantine]

Wow. I remember thinking about doing the very same thing, way back in 
1981 or so, when my only RPG experience was Traveller.

On 25-May-06, at 2:57 PM, grogthing wrote:

> This was actually a published system called "Killer
> Crosshairs" by Biohazrad games, I believe.
>
> With the human sillouettes and transparencies.
>
>
> Greg
>
>
> --- Styopa <styopa1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I once toyed with a system that I thought showed
>> promise (but never really
>> had a chance to implement, as my 'regular gaming'
>> days were behind me, I
>> just didn't realize it yet...):
>>
>> The basic premise is that EVERYONE aims - all the
>> time.  Nobody just "swings
>> blindly" at a combat opponent, or "shoots blindly"
>> at a target.  My goal was
>> to resolve a hit in one roll (of multiple dice,
>> perhaps).
>>
>> So I started with single sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper,
>> with an outline drawing
>> of a standing humanoid figure on the front, side
>> view on the back.  Then two
>> more sheets of "crouching" front/side, and prone
>> front/side.  I then used a
>> transparent overlay and drew concentric circles, as
>> well as 12 radiant
>> lines.  The player would place the overlay on the
>> representative target,
>> showing his intended point of aim.  How well the
>> player succeeded in
>> 'beating' his skill roll, determined how closely to
>> the center point his
>> strike landed, with the radial deviation just a
>> random d12 roll.
>> (Eventually I settled on a separate asymmetric
>> overlay for slashing/blunt
>> weapons as well.  The "circular" template would be
>> used for missile weapons
>> and thrusting attacks only.)  Other considered
>> tweaks were that the lighter,
>> more nimble weapons would have a 'finer' grain of
>> deviation, while larger,
>> heavier, bulkier weapons would use a coarser grid.
>>
>> For missile fire, it worked better as you could use
>> 2/3, half, quarter, even
>> 1/8 scale outline pictures with the same grid, and
>> rather than arbitrarily
>> reducing the shooter's 'chance to succeed' by range,
>> just using the smaller
>> target sheeets made it NATURALLY harder to hit
>> distant foes.
>>
>> Irregular cover/concealment was even simpler - you
>> could just lay whatever
>> represented cover over the target sheet, and
>> depending on where the
>> character's shot landed, either cause damage,
>> resolve penetrating the (soft
>> cover/concealment) barrier, or declare it a 'miss'.
>>
>> It made shooting into melee MUCH riskier - with
>> transparent-enough paper,
>> you could stack 4, 5, even 6 sheets and still see
>> the outlines, and just let
>> the arrow hit whomever it hits.
>>
>> Recognizing that there were a bulk of problems
>> unresolved (like non humanoid
>> targets for one), I set it aside uncompleted but I
>> always wondered how well
>> it would have worked in practice.  Probably too much
>> sheet-switching (ala
>> Rolemaster) and ultimately too complex but now, with
>> computers that could
>> resolve the apparent size of the target, and the
>> aimpoint/landing point
>> discrepancy instantly...
>>
>> On 5/25/06, Simon Phipp <soltakss at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Steve Perrin:
>>>> Our playtests of the previous MRQ system showed
>> that allowing any chance
>>> to avoid armor was disastrous for > the target.
>> Pick location, yes, do extra
>>> damage, yes, but not ignore armor.
>>> Yes, I'm coming to that conclusion. I think I'll
>> have some trollkin do a
>>> mass sling/multimissile barrage against one of the
>> PCs, I'll give them 40%
>>> to hit, 20% ignoring armour and see how the PCs
>> like it. They'll soon agree
>>> to take that combat option out.
>>>
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>>
>
>
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