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Phoenix, if you dislike uncertainty in a game, do not, whatever you do, play Up Front from Avalon Hill. It is a major psychic shock to conventional wargamers.

Mannahnin wrote:

But dice average out. In the example you gave, your unit of Stealers has three rolls; not just one, and thus the odds are lower that one bad roll will screw you. Unless, of course, you're starting the whole thing 16"-18" away from your target, in which case your odds are low. I actually DO like this, and don't find it AT ALL incompatible with tactical play.

Amen. Bring back guess range.

Guess Range isn't random. It just gives an advantage to people who train themselves to estimate distances accurately. That takes wargaming back to the Little Wars approach, which can be fun, however it's not what most people are looking for.

If you have an enemy 8 inches away and your force can move 7 inches plus/minus some random factor of up to 2 inches averaging to 0 extra, you have an interesting choice about what to do.

Mannahnin wrote:
But dice average out.

While dice do average out over time, they do not when you only have a small sample to work with. Look at how many difficult terrain rolls you make during a game. Now look again and see how many of them would you describe as "critical". The answer is probably only a few. And the thing is that those few rolls often times are what decides the game. On the flip side, look at shooting or hand to hand. Both often involve rolling buckets of dice, so they average out. Even in critical situations you are still rolling many dice for these things so while they do have some randomness, averages are much more likely to emerge than in the single difficult terrain roll. If difficult terrain rolls involved rolling a die for each squad member and taking the average, it would be a much more reliable system (although totally unplayable due to the math involved and the issues you run into with small squads). So in the end, the difficult terrain rolls will average out over the course of many games, but in a single game, it still often comes down to one difficult terrain roll that decides games.

Phoenix wrote:Having set movement rates doesn't turn the game into pattern matching, it turns things into real choices with results and consequences rather than just a random chance to have an effect that may or may not be good enough to accomplish what you want / need.

I completely disagree. The choice is equally "real" whether the odds of success are guaranteed or uncertain. Would you say it's dumb to resolve combats with dice? Why shouldn't the genestealers just automatically kill the unit they assault when they make contact, like in Chess?

When I said "real choices" I meant difficult ones with significant consiquenses. I did not mean choices that were realistic. My appologies for being unclear. I am significantly less concerned with the game being realistic as I am with it being fun and involving thought and tactics (which I find fun). Perhaps I just need to switch to fantasy *shrug*. Regardless, the previous paragraph covers why I don't mind dice in shooting and close combat.

Phoenix wrote:I would really like to see difficult terrain cut movement down to 4" (3" would work too, but 2d6 take the highest seems to favor higher rates of movement than just half).

How does the lower movement rate work if you start outside the terrain?

Phoenix wrote:I'd also like to see running get set at a flat 3" and maybe fleet change run to 6" instead of just allowing you to assault in the assault phase.

Hmm... that sounds familiar...



BYE

Boss_Salvage wrote:

stonefox wrote:Poor Sgt. Centurius is too scared to go into the deep woods.

Reminds me of the Spooked! rule from the old catachan codex. Man, I loved the crap out of that one, marines blazing away at ghost images in the auspex, nids stopping to smell the exotic local flora, orks razing the jungle because they can, etc

- Salvage

Yep, I remember the stories my cousin used to tell me about this stuff. This was back in '98 and he was playing 2nd ed when he was 8 years old.

Balance wrote:Silhouette is the core uber-system that Dream Pod 9's games use. Heavy Gear,

In practice I like it, and I think it's pretty elegant. before the most recent release, Heavy Gear Blitz, it had an issue that there were a LOT of modifiers to resemble.

The idea that HG Blitz can be described as "elegant" is kinda crazy to me. I've played Blitz and it is *not* doable without multiple markers per model to track state.

40k is *much* faster than Blitz, precisely because you're simply watching for basic tests that usually only involve a basic d6 roll. If HG moved to a 40k / FoW d666 set of mechanics, it would clearly play faster.

Yup, Heavy Gear Blitz is elegant in the precise definition of that term: it does a lot with a singe opposed roll. More with less is elegance. The game isn't as fast, but then interesting stuff actually happens so it goes somewhere at a reasonable speed rather than nowhere much as fast as you can roll dice.

I'm going to start with a definition of the term "Elegant": scientific precision, neatness, and simplicity .

Shadowrun is an elegant system: Roll some number of d6s against a target number.

D20 is an elegant system: Roll a single d20 and add a very limited number of simple modifiers against a target number.

TORG d20 is an elegant system: Roll a single d20 and apply some number of well-defined, fixed step modifiers against a defined target number

Blitz is NOT an elegant system, precisely because that single roll has so much complexity associated with it. You may roll a single die, but you have to do a lot of fiddling and figuring before and after the die roll. That means it is NOT elegant.

Note that you're comparing three RPG systems to a wargame system, which makes your example a bit odd.

D20 has quite a lot of potential modifiers and often-confused rolls on how they stack. Additionally, it doesn't use anything like he MoS concept except critcial hits, which require an additional roll.

I'm not familiar with Torg, but I agree Shadowrun is pretty elegant in its core mechanics... it suffers from lots of lookups in play as stuff is scattered over multiple books.

I don't quite agree with you. HGB is elegant, in my mind, because you should't need the book much during play after a couple games (the modifiers are listed on the data cards and.or intuitive) and the sheer quantity of rolls is kept to a minimum, but every roll matters..

Kilkrazy wrote:[I have always held the theory that GW knocked off the rules quickly and simply and were surprised by their success, then could not afford to revise them extensively. For all the editions, the core stat line and so on have barely changed.

It does seem logical doesn't it! The original WFB was a product of appealing to an audience who's primary focus was RPGs, so such things as statlines and detailed wargear rules are part of that heritage.

As GW patently could think outside of the box and come up with something more original if they wanted to, as they did with LotR, then personally I think the best route would be for them to punt 4th edition into the long grass (otherwise known as Specialist Games) where they can continue to sell to the existing fanboix and do some limited development, but bring out a completely reinvented, "modern", edition of the game that appeals to the modern audience and has some serious gamer cred again.

That way those who like the existing game wouldn't be cut off immediately, and they could dress it up however they liked so as to not lose their remaining fanbase, but they have to do something to bring back those of us who are walking away in droves. Surely?

Phoenix wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
But dice average out.

While dice do average out over time, they do not when you only have a small sample to work with. Look at how many difficult terrain rolls you make during a game. Now look again and see how many of them would you describe as "critical". The answer is probably only a few. And the thing is that those few rolls often times are what decides the game. On the flip side, look at shooting or hand to hand. Both often involve rolling buckets of dice, so they average out. Even in critical situations you are still rolling many dice for these things so while they do have some randomness, averages are much more likely to emerge than in the single difficult terrain roll. If difficult terrain rolls involved rolling a die for each squad member and taking the average, it would be a much more reliable system (although totally unplayable due to the math involved and the issues you run into with small squads). So in the end, the difficult terrain rolls will average out over the course of many games, but in a single game, it still often comes down to one difficult terrain roll that decides games.

Combat and shooting often come down to a small number of dice too. When you roll morale, or a single character makes his invulnerable save against a powerfist, or when the only two lascannons in your army are shooting at a Monolith, you’re also at the mercy of a few fickle dice. This stuff certainly DOES happen during the game.

But if you play well, you reduce the number of these situations you get into. Like I said before, if a Stealer unit is starting the turn 16”-18” away from the unit it needs to assault, and there is difficult terrain in the way, the Tyranid player is in a bad tactical situation. It’s not the randomness that’s screwing him. He’s either playing badly or his opponent is just playing better than him, to put him in that situation. With a single turn’s foresight, he could have moved + fleeted an average of 9.5” (assuming the first 6” weren’t the difficult ground). Then he’d be looking at needing to cover 7.5” – 9.5”, which is really easy with fleeting + assaulting stealers.

In the case of the army with only two lascannons against a Necron army with a Monolith, it may be bad army design, or it may just be bad tactics. The odds of dropping a Monolith with two Lascannons are poor. Maybe he’d have better odds if he assaulted. Or used those Lascannon shots against Destroyers. Or otherwise made a different tactical choice which didn’t rely on such long odds. Still, if he wants to try and shoot down the monolith, he still has a chance. He just has to get lucky.

40k is full of these kind of situations. In movement, shooting, and assault. Places where a player could get lucky despite the odds, but where smart play gives you much better chances. Success is almost never guaranteed (you can always roll a 1 to wound with a lascannon against a grot, or 2 to penetrate with a meltabomb against a Rhino, or three ones for difficult terrain when assaulting a squad of marines who are exactly 2” away, and exactly at half strength, holding a quadrant, with your uber-character of death). The better players maximize their chances by making smart tactical decisions, and have the foresight to do so a turn or more in advance.

We could take the randomness out of movement, just as we could take it out of shooting, assault, or morale. But that would be a different game. And IMO, possibly a less fun and exciting one. There are perfectly fun and well-designed games with less randomness (Chess only has one random decision), but they give a different play experience from 40k, and I think are often less accessible for more casual players.

Phoenix wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
I completely disagree. The choice is equally "real" whether the odds of success are guaranteed or uncertain. Would you say it's dumb to resolve combats with dice? Why shouldn't the genestealers just automatically kill the unit they assault when they make contact, like in Chess?

When I said "real choices" I meant difficult ones with significant consiquenses. I did not mean choices that were realistic. My appologies for being unclear. I am significantly less concerned with the game being realistic as I am with it being fun and involving thought and tactics (which I find fun).

I think you’re misunderstanding my point. It had nothing to do with realism. A choice can be a difficult one and have significant consequences while still having an element of randomness/uncertainty to it. Many do (in real life, in games, and in books and movies). This doesn’t make them less tactical. It’s just a different (and IMO both more realistic and more dramatic) style.

Phoenix wrote:Perhaps I just need to switch to fantasy *shrug*.

Warhammer Fantasy’s an awesome game. My favorite wargame. The movement has less randomness, but judging by what you’ve posted so far, you’d have the same complaint about the Morale and Psychology systems in that game, and units panicking and running when you don’t want them to.

Phoenix wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:I would really like to see difficult terrain cut movement down to 4" (3" would work too, but 2d6 take the highest seems to favor higher rates of movement than just half).

How does the lower movement rate work if you start outside the terrain?

How about you move 4" or up to the point where you contact terrain, which ever is greater. So if you are 5" away from terrain, you move 5". If you are 2" away from terrain, you move 4". While we are at it, beasts and cavalry could charge 8" through difficult terrain.

That sounds pretty decent. Not bad.

You know, to add fuel to the "I hate randomness" of d6, I remember an RTT I was in way back when, and my landraider was destroyed in the first 3 games with the first shot fired at it every time. In 2 of those games, it was a missile that hit it.

Statistically, it shouldn't have happened. In real life however... not so much. That was just an unlucky land raider that day.

Balance wrote:Note that you're comparing three RPG systems to a wargame system, which makes your example a bit odd.

Considering the level of detail associated with HG, that is totally appropriate. Also, fundamentally, RPGs are skirmish battle systems first and foremost.

Nevertheless, out of all of them, HG has the least elegant mechanic of all 4 systems. The number and scope of modifiers, along with the MOS calculation itself makes it impossible to teach to a novice / newbie player. The fact that eventually it can be learned means very little - if you spend enough time, even Astrophysics can become second nature.

Mannahnin wrote:
But if you play well, you reduce the number of these situations you get into. Like I said before, if a Stealer unit is starting the turn 16”-18” away from the unit it needs to assault, and there is difficult terrain in the way, the Tyranid player is in a bad tactical situation. It’s not the randomness that’s screwing him. He’s either playing badly or his opponent is just playing better than him, to put him in that situation. With a single turn’s foresight, he could have moved + fleeted an average of 9.5” (assuming the first 6” weren’t the difficult ground). Then he’d be looking at needing to cover 7.5” – 9.5”, which is really easy with fleeting + assaulting stealers.

You are absolutely correct that if the stealers are 16” to 18” away from their target, they are in a bad tactical spot and their opponent has, in fact, out played them. They have little chance to make it to their target. However you are not looking at this from the right side. What I hate is what happens when the stealers player makes all those rolls and manages to get his troops to cover that 16-18” distance. The opponent who did a good job of “out maneuvering” the stealers and keeping them far away with difficult terrain in the way gets totally screwed and all his wonderful tactics, careful movement, and well laid plans are destroyed by one lucky movement roll. I hate it when luck takes away the fruits of skill's labors.

In my proposed game rules, if the stealers were 16” to 18” inches away from their target of choice and there was difficult terrain between them, they would have no chance at all of getting there. This would be a good example of their opponent out playing them and it would have been guaranteed.

It’s possible that it is just a personal preference thing. It seems to me that shooting should be random, hand to hand should be random, armor saves (and the like) should be random, and even morale should be random, but movement should be standard and reliable. It just seems to me that when movement is random, the game trends more and more towards just rolling a bunch of dice to see who wins since there becomes less and less that you can rely on, plan for, and react to. I find the fun of the game is working hard to get my units to where they need to be to do the job they need to do. I also find some of the randomness fun as well. Sometimes guys rock or suck at something that they are doing and that can be fun. The real issue is that with difficult terrain and movement in general, the effect of very few die rolls (2d6 per squad) has a significant impact on a unit. The only other place in the game where so few dice can have a similar effect is anti tank weaponry, which tends to have a low rate of fire. In all other situations you roll enough dice for the averages to work themselves out.

If by 'astrophysics' you mean 'basic arithmetic', sure...

See that's one reason I like fantasy. These guys move half speed through this terrain, and quarter speed through that. Done.

You don't have to worry about a bunch of dwarves crossing the Rhine with one swift leap. then subsequently charging your lines.

Though that'd be really funny to watch...


Of course you still get the convoluted situations where Elven Cavalry flee 3 inches and a bunch of stunty Dwarves run 11 inches over them, but you can't win them all.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Balance wrote:Note that you're comparing three RPG systems to a wargame system, which makes your example a bit odd.

Considering the level of detail associated with HG, that is totally appropriate. Also, fundamentally, RPGs are skirmish battle systems first and foremost.

Nevertheless, out of all of them, HG has the least elegant mechanic of all 4 systems. The number and scope of modifiers, along with the MOS calculation itself makes it impossible to teach to a novice / newbie player. The fact that eventually it can be learned means very little - if you spend enough time, even Astrophysics can become second nature.

Heavy Gear 1 & 2 and SilCore/3rd were designed as 'integrated' tactical and RPG systems. Heavy Gear Blitz dropped this as a requirement. It keeps the same base dice mechanics, and some people have had good luck using it in RPG play, but that's a modification, not a core design intent.

However, to compare to D20 (since you mentioned it), here's a basic attack resolved in both systems (And WH40k for comparison, since that's what the thread is about):

D20:
1. Roll d20 to hit. Add BAB and any addition modifiers. Note that you generally take the highest of any modifiers with the same name, unless it's one of the ones where you take all of them. Compare to target's armor class, which additionally has modifiers applied as above.
A 20 threatens a critical. Roll another d20 to confirm the crit, with the same modifiers from above.
(This assumes no feats that mess with things oddly.)
2. Assuming a hit, roll damage. Criticals add in a multiplier to damage. Note that there's some special rules for stacking multipliers.
3. Resolve damage. Basic subtraction, really.
Note that this is also assuming basic D&D style melee with a standard ablative hit point damage model.

Heavy Gear Blitz!
1. Attacker and Target make an attack and defense roll. This is a slightly complex roll, as you have to roll multiple dice and take the highest (generally 1-3 d6 dice) with the provision that additional sixes past the first add 1 to the total. Both sides apply modifiers based off current speed. MoS is calculated (basic subtraction).
2. Damage is calculated and applied.

Warhammer 40,000:
1. Roll to hit
2. Roll to wound
3. Defender rolls armor saves
4. Barring special rules, an attack removes one wound from the target.
Modifiers are, of course, considered evil.

As to the definition of elegant, I'd go with #5 and #6 from dictionary.com. I don't really see precision in there, but would agree with neatness and simplicity... Which Silhouette has, at it's core. It's the implementations that have at times confused the issue, such as HG 2nd Editions wealth of interesting but often overly complex books of add-ons such as the Tac Field Guide.

If you're going to definitively show relative neatness and simplicity you'd need to show it algebraically, but still that's a nice summary there Balance. Good work!

@Balance, you have totally glossed over the whole business of the HG modifiers, and that is the problem with HG.

Those die rolls modifiers are non-trivial. For example, the firer speed modifer and target speed modifer are NOT linear, nor identical (I have no idea why).

Tracking state is mandatory and always relevant. You have 2d6s for different statuses (mode/speed & defensive speed), a damage flag, and a counter tray that is orientation-sensitive (parallel vs perpendicular). D&D and 40k don't need this much state information to resolve an attack. D&D seems only to care about flanking. At best, 40k cares whether a unit is broken, or whether it moved at all that turn.

Similarly, the damage mechanic isn't simply linear or on/off. You need to calculate the difference and multiply by weapon power, and divide by armor. Compared the abstractions of subtracting a basic D&D die roll, much less 40k wounds, this is more complicated.

Compared with something simple like 40k, HG has a lot more in common with D&D.

There's nothing wrong with HG, but it all of the linkages and dependencies mean that "elegant" is not a valid descriptor.

Phoenix wrote:You are absolutely correct that if the stealers are 16” to 18” away from their target, they are in a bad tactical spot and their opponent has, in fact, out played them. They have little chance to make it to their target. However you are not looking at this from the right side. What I hate is what happens when the stealers player makes all those rolls and manages to get his troops to cover that 16-18” distance. The opponent who did a good job of “out maneuvering” the stealers and keeping them far away with difficult terrain in the way gets totally screwed and all his wonderful tactics, careful movement, and well laid plans are destroyed by one lucky movement roll. I hate it when luck takes away the fruits of skill's labors.

I think our views aren’t too divergent then. I don’t think either of us is looking at it from “the wrong side”. I think we’re just at different points along a continuum as far as our tolerance of randomness goes, and not that far apart. I get frustrated when that happens to me, too. The difference is, that I tell myself that if I had played better I would have made sure my unit was 18.5” or 19” away from the stealers. Tactics CAN beat the dice in the movement phase. In fact in a way, this actually enhances the role of skill in the game. A skillful player knows the odds are poor, will avoid getting into those situations, and will win more overall. An unskillful player who gets lucky once may not realize that he just got lucky, and will tend to keep putting himself in those bad tactical situations, in which he will usually lose.

Phoenix wrote:…to get my units to where they need to be to do the job they need to do. I also find some of the randomness fun as well. Sometimes guys rock or suck at something that they are doing and that can be fun. The real issue is that with difficult terrain and movement in general, the effect of very few die rolls (2d6 per squad) has a significant impact on a unit. The only other place in the game where so few dice can have a similar effect is anti tank weaponry, which tends to have a low rate of fire. In all other situations you roll enough dice for the averages to work themselves out.

I actually tend to find that low-ROF shooting is worse in this respect than difficult terrain is. With a lascannon shot against a monolith, either roll being bad = no love. With difficult terrain you’re always rolling multiple dice, which means a bell curve is always in effect, and since you get to take the best result, randomness is significantly mitigated.

Mannahnin wrote:An unskillful player who gets lucky once may not realize that he just got lucky, and will tend to keep putting himself in those bad tactical situations, in which he will usually lose.

After which they will come on a web-forum to brag about their prowess, and complain about how the game is broken and relies too much on dice/set-up/army-selection/etc.

JohnHwangDD: It seems like you're confusing elegance with simplicity. Heavy Gear isn't simple, but it accomplishes much more by comparison to Warhammer. One die roll to decide four states of damage is more elegant than three die rolls to decide two states of damage. 40k doesn't need as much state information but then it doesn't produce much state information either and doesn't require the same decision process or 'game' to decide such information. You could say that Blitz is finer grained than Warhammer 40k, and Blitz' elegance is not in being as simple as Warhammer 40k but in doing more with less. While I enjoy Warhammer 40k it's certainly a game where less is done with more (though at least the 100D6 tables for determining whether your Chaos Champion had the Chaos Gift: Big Ears are bygone).

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Balance, you have totally glossed over the whole business of the HG modifiers, and that is the problem with HG.

Those die rolls modifiers are non-trivial. For example, the firer speed modifer and target speed modifer are NOT linear, nor identical (I have no idea why).

Tracking state is mandatory and always relevant. You have 2d6s for different statuses (mode/speed & defensive speed), a damage flag, and a counter tray that is orientation-sensitive (parallel vs perpendicular). D&D and 40k don't need this much state information to resolve an attack. D&D seems only to care about flanking. At best, 40k cares whether a unit is broken, or whether it moved at all that turn.

Similarly, the damage mechanic isn't simply linear or on/off. You need to calculate the difference and multiply by weapon power, and divide by armor. Compared the abstractions of subtracting a basic D&D die roll, much less 40k wounds, this is more complicated.

Compared with something simple like 40k, HG has a lot more in common with D&D.

There's nothing wrong with HG, but it all of the linkages and dependencies mean that "elegant" is not a valid descriptor.

I would disagree... I feel elegance is achieving a balance between multiple things. The balance point is different for different goals and, of course, is very subjective. Elegant games strike a balance between complexity, realism, and fun.

Note that the HGB modifiers are all ont he cards and are 'compiled' to reduce unneeded addition that was present in 2nd edition (You don't have to figure in speed and maneuver any more: it's all one number off a little chart in the corner of the datacard.)

Tracking speed is, in my opinion, an acceptable onus because it adds to the game. It makes turtling less desirable (Which cascades into making 'overwatch' more playable, which is a feature many gamers like the idea, if not the implementation, of) and adds a feel of realism... After all, fast things tend to be harder to hit in the real world.

OTOH, tracking wind conditions would be undesirable complexity in many games. (It might make perfect sense in a flight or sail-based game, though) To use HG in a negative example, i think there were optional fire rules for 2nd edition HG Tac (the hex-based version) that simulated fire spreading. From reading it (never used it, as it seemed far too complicated) it provided realistic results as fire would sweep the board. However, a ten-minute phase to calculate how fire spreads each turn wasn't that fun in practice, despite being both realistic and based on an elegant core mechanic.

A computer game can simulate a lot of things that would be tedious in a tabletop game, although designers still need to be aware that too much complexity tends to be player-hostile.

Damage models are an interesting thing. One of my personal frustrations with 40k is that the 'model' and 'vehicle' system are only passingly related. At times, the vehicle rules and infantry rules seem as linked as the WH40k and WHFB rules... They share a common design philosophy and base, but are different implementations.

On the other hand, I don't think I or many others would be happy in the long run of vehicles moved to (essentially) multi-wound MCs as some have suggested. It's a neat idea and removes some complexity of dubious value, but I feel a lot of players like that vehicles may lose components or speed, or may explode with one lucky shot.

Vehicles that used a simple hit-point system would definitely feel weird... I think the players expect them to get worse. I should note that the 'complicated' HG system does a lot with the core mechanics. The current version requires no chart lookups and still gets a wide range of results without additional rolls.

Moving it back to 40k, I'd say the core mechanics are definitely player-hostile, especially to new players. As mentioned by others, the BS and WS scores are both weird. BS requires a very simple and pointless lookup/calculation that could be done in advance at the expense of consistency (making one stat desirable to be low). WS requires a table that many players memorize or extrapolate, as it usually comes down to 3+ or 4+ depending on if the attacker or defender is better.

The damage model uses three stats (T, W, AS) that aren't linked. This is fine, as it provides a bit of design space (Someone can say "OK, what would a low T, High W, Low AS creature be?) however in practice it has some faults. First, that consistency I talked about earlier is blown as AS is something you want to be low. Additionally Armor Saves are for some reason often modified or supplemented by rules and wargear, so you have to just kind of know that a save is invulnerable, or there's an additional save. A simple cleanup would be to adopt the '3+/2+' notation as standard (normal/invulnerable) and use it at all times (You can always put - in for a nonexistent save). Requiring players to memorize every rule for every unit in their army when there is a better alternative definitely pushes players towards 'simple' armies with repetitive, basic structures.

Warhammer 40k has the luxury of essentially creating it's own genre. As it liberally borrows from science fiction, fantasty, and real worlds it really doesn't have to give any particular genre more than the merest lip service. I think GW could do a better game and keep most armies 'playable' if not tweaked out, but they show little desire to do so.

When you look at Flames of War and 40k, the question is whether you can achieve similar results in playablity and believability with a cleaner, simpler mechanic. As BF and GW have clearly demonstrated, the answer is a resounding "YES!".

40k or even FOW can easily be grasped and played by a grade-schooler after a few minutes introduction. The same simply cannot be said of HG.

While the *concept* of a single roll is very nice. The execution, not so much. HG has far more fiddly bits and disparate mechanics. Therefore, taken as a whole, HG is, by comparision, inelegant.

Nurglitch wrote:JohnHwangDD: It seems like you're confusing elegance with simplicity.

Nurglitch: Elegance is rooted in simplicity. It is not possible to have any sort of elegance when you tack on any type of unnecessary complexity. HG simply has too many things going on for it to be considered elegant.

Getting back to Balances dictionary.com, I would agree with #6:

(of scientific, technical, or mathematical theories, solutions, etc.) gracefully concise and simple; admirably succinct.

And following back to 40k, when you look at the new Codices, there is a clear trend towards simplification and standardization. Exceptions are fewer, and more easily remembered.

You're still arguing from your special definition. Simplicity is constitutive of elegance, not the be all and end all of it. Power is also constitutive of elegance, yet mere effectiveness does not make something elegant - of course you can move the Earth with a big enough lever, elegance is using a complex of levers and gears about 1m across.

Of course you're going to lose elegance if you add un-necessary complexity, that's a tautology. Necessary complexity, on the other hand, is irrelevant to elegance. Incredibly complex things can be quite elegant, so long as that complexity yields efficiency and efficacy. Heavy Gear Blitz is quite elegant since it accomplishes lots with relatively little, and Warhammer 40k is not because it accomplishes little using lots of rules and operations.

Mannahnin wrote:I think our views aren’t too divergent then. I don’t think either of us is looking at it from “the wrong side”. I think we’re just at different points along a continuum as far as our tolerance of randomness goes, and not that far apart. I get frustrated when that happens to me, too. The difference is, that I tell myself that if I had played better I would have made sure my unit was 18.5” or 19” away from the stealers. Tactics CAN beat the dice in the movement phase.

True enough. The thing that upsets me about taking that sort of stance is that to do it, I have to ignore the difficult terrain (or make the assumption that my opponent will do so due to rolls). Hummm... I may have hit on something here. Perhaps what the real underlying issue I have with the random effects of difficult terrain is that there is a decent chance to ignore it (by rolling a 6 on either of 2 dice... 1/3 chance). Perhaps I would be less upset about the random nature of difficult terrain if it was gaurenteed to always slow you down. Maybe something like moveing 1d3+1 inches though it or something like that...or (2d3 take the highest)+1. That way movement would still be random but could never be as fast as on open ground.

Yeah, it's less frustrating when you look at the math and realize that it's almost a 1/3 chance to get the 6", and around 54% chance of getting a 5 or better. When you're talking about an IC or a Tyranid (three dice), the odds get even better, and you might was well just assume they're going to get the 6.

I like your alternate idea about terrain always slowing you down. That would be a nice compromise between what we have now and a static 1/2 formula. You need to be careful that it's not too slow, though, or lightly-armored troops will always lose vs Rapidfire.

The problems w/40k go even deeper than its random element.

The magic force field erected in front of enemy units at 24" (or whatever range) seems to defy the laws of physics and offend common sense.

Why don't the troops on our little toy battlefields know about how far they are from the enemy, when every single front-line soldier is taught how to figure this out as a matter of course early in their training. In other words, the game rewards players skilled in carpentry not skilled in command.

The fact that a dude carrying a flamer can't hoof it to the front of a unit after hanging back until getting into position goes against every single squad tactics drill I've ever seen or heard of.

Units fighting to the last man, armies fighting to the last man NEVER happens unless they're trapped ... units & armies fighting past 75% casualty rates NEVER happens unless one or both of the commanders in the battle are mad men ... units & armies prefer to not fight to 50% casualty rates and will generally withdraw soon thereafter

I could go on at length about other non-random elements of 40k that are wrong.

I will inevitably be met w/responses of "it's not supposed to be realistic" ... "it's a sci-fi simulation" ... "it's supposed to give you an approximate battle outcome" blah ... blah ... blah

To these retorts, I'll preemptively answer: Well if it's not supposed to be realistic & it's supposed to be a simulation ... stop arguing when a dude's Banshee Exarch is a nut-hair away from B2B.

Tetchy wrote:Random dice rolling, irrational constraints on how far troops move.

Tetchy wrote:So one turn you move 1", another you might move 6". Because yeah, running is like that.

Tetchy wrote:This is time consuming, and again, makes no rational sense.

Tetchy wrote:And I see that difficult terrain still causes a wound that armour cannot save. Doesn't matter if you are a Bloodthirster, a Terminator or just a lowly human, it is an automatic wound (on a failed dice roll). So the terrain scales up in danger depending on who is running through it? Right ...

Words to live by, my friend: Never argue logic with the rules.



Ghidorah