There's been a lot of Full Thrust activity lately, what with the beta test
release of the UNSC ships and weapon systems, and the proposed fighter
changes. To this, I say, "Why should the vacc heads have all the fun?"
So, with Jon's approval, I have posted some new material for Stargrunt II. On
my web site you'll find the public beta test material for the Phalons. This
information will soon be mirrored on the GZG store website. For now you can
find on the HyperBear SG2 pages. Here is the direct link:
http://home.att.net/~agoodall/sg2/sg2-bds.html
There are four files, but you only have to download one file. They are in Rich
Text Format and Adobe Acrobat format, one file of each for 8.5" by 11" paper
and one file each for A4 paper. Pick the file that best suits you.
Make sure to read the "Disclaimer and Warning" section at the beginning of the
document. These rules are in "beta test" format. In other words, they are not
necessarily what will eventually appear in
_Bugs Don't Surf_, the long anticipated SG2 supplement. Jon could
completely supplant every word in the document. These are beta test rules, and
they could turn out to have serious balance problems (though so far the
playtesting has been very positive). They are released so that we can get some
more playtesting from a wider audience, and so that the gropos will have some
"new toys" to play with, too!
I'm not going to pretend that we could limit discussion on the
various mailing lists, but if you have any comments -- positive or
negative (just try to keep them constructive) -- or questions, please
Hi Allan,
I'd just like to say "thanks very much" for the sneaky preview of your Phalon
ideas. I've only had time for a quick read so far but it looks like an
impressively comprehensive piece of work. I don't want to comment in any great
detail until I've had a chance to playtest but as an intuitive reaction I'd
just like to say:
I like the way you've essentially defined the Phalon's alien nature through
the mechanism of confidence and reaction without just making
them acid-drooling threshers whose idea of psychology is to eat it.
Pulsars look nasty but I think it's an alien essential that they're generally
more advanced than humanity in some important regard. Otherwise, why would we
be scared of them?
I appreciate the efforts you've made to trace your rules and background
back to the few Phalon clues so far revealed in the Tuffley-verse.
A couple of rules I can comment on because my group uses variations on the
theme:
Pulsars
Have you considered forcing all Pulsars to expend an action to change modes?
My group uses a couple of dual mode weapons and there's always a delicious
kind of agony attached to the decision of "Do I burn an action trying to
change to a better firing mode, or do I just carry on hoping for the best in
my current mode?"
Small Arms Impact Die
My group runs a variation of this rule which is simply "use the lowest impact
die when support weapons and small arms fire with one action". The main spur
with this rule in our games was the effect of Grenade Launchers. An AGL's
Firepower of D12 is meant to be balanced a little by its D8 Impact. But if
even one advanced assault rifle fired alongside then Impact was hiked to D10
and beyond.
We erred on the side of lowest rather than most prevalent impact because we
wanted to encourage players to think about firing support weapons separately
from small arms rather than just throwing everything in at once to rack up
kills. Also it's highly unlikely that SAWs will outnumber small arms with our
squad configurations. Anyway, just thought I'd share...
Cross-Training
Aha. We also dabble in this with some key variations. We introduced this rule
partly to bail out squads who lost their support weapon to an early, lucky
shot and partly to encourage squads to reorganise more (rather than just
follow standard procedure of using their own gunfire to drown out the screams
of the wounded). Therefore we allow squads to check wounded and recover their
support weapon in the same reorganise action.
However the chances of recovering a support weapon in good condition are
considerably slimmer in my world. We started off requiring a 3+ to
reclaim and these days it's a 4+ (on D6). Otherwise, the attacker finds
it very difficult to get rid of the blasted things.
Cheers, Mark
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> There's been a lot of Full Thrust activity lately, what with the beta
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Hi, Mark.
> I'd just like to say "thanks very much" for the sneaky preview of your
Thank you very much! I hope you find them as much fun to play as to read.
> I like the way you've essentially defined the Phalon's alien nature
Thank you again! That was the plan. Jon has read through them, quickly, and he
thought they looked pretty good. I don't know what will happen when he
playtests them himself, but I suspect that they will go into
_Bugs Don't Surf_ more-or-less intact.
> Pulsars
I thought of that, I really did. I ended up rejecting it for a few reasons.
First, there's the bookkeeping issue. You'd need to have a counter for each
squad indicating what mode the pulsers were in. You could say that a squad
without a counter uses the default setting, but you'd need a counter the
moment a squad changed settings. You'd also need counters for support pulsers.
SG2 is already counter heavy, and
even _more_ counters just detracted from the game. (Yes, you can go with
written squad status sheets, but some people hate writing down things in mid
game.) When I proposed the idea that playtest list members create alien rules,
Jon was supportive but he had some strict requirements for alien rule
creation. One requirement was that the number of additional counters be kept
to a minimum, with the ideal being that the aliens not
require _any_ new counters.
Second, a turn is nominally between 3 and 5 minutes. Eating up a whole action
to change settings seemed a bit long. I couldn't imagine a firefight where
soldiers would bother taking up a couple of minutes changing weapon settings.
They'd be more likely to enter the battle with a single setting. This was an
option, too; have the player set the weapons for a particular scenario. I
figured that people would probably just use the default setting in that case,
which basically made them assault rifles (FP2 Imp D10). The default setting of
the pulser is already underpowered compared to the standard AAR of most human
units (FP3 Imp D10). By giving the pulser the option of changing settings, it
took a weapon that's underpowered in comparison to its primary opponents' and
made it more powerful. I thought requiring an action to change settings, or
require it be set before the game began, would throw out the balance again and
make the weapon less useful (as players would then just use t! he default
setting most of the time). SG2 doesn't require an action to
reload weapons, and I figured that pulsers would have quick-swap lenses,
or an internal setting, or some other PSB that allowed quick changing (say 30
seconds to change over, maximum).
Third, requiring an action to change settings would slow down the
Phalons. I wanted them to be _more_ mobile, particularly in swampy
conditions, not less mobile. Requiring an action to change weapons essentially
slows them down, because they would have one less action to do suppression
removal, move, reorganise, etc.
Finally, it's a lot simpler to declare the pulser setting at the time it is
used. Since the Phalons already have a number of rules changes, declaring
settings at the time of combat makes them a little easier to play. I had to
look at the weapon rules as part of the whole Phalon rule subset.
That having been said, I did like the idea of requiring an action to change
settings, and that was the original plan until pretty late in the rule writing
(hence the reason there's mention of a "default setting"). In the end, after
some playtesting, I rejected it, but not without some reservations. The big
reason was Jon's "no new counters" stipulation.
> We erred on the side of lowest rather than most prevalent impact
The test list went round and round on this. The "lowest die" is definitely an
option that was looked at. (One member suggested that we use the most
prevalent impact die, not the most prevalent weapon type!) The reason we went
with "most prevalent weapon" is that there was objection to rolling a D8 for a
squad with a single SAW with D8 impact and 9 guys with D10 Impact AARs. Or,
taking the other extreme, if you have a squad with two D8 SAWs and a squad
leader with a pistol it seemed silly that the pistol (which has the lowest
impact) would have the greatest effect on impact, and not the SAWs.
The "most prevalent" rule is the only rule that doesn't break the Rules As
Written (RAW). Take that squad I mentioned above with 8 guys with Impact D10
AARs and one Impact D8 SAW. According to the SG2 rule book, the D10 AAR impact
is used. If using the lowest die, the D8 SAW impact
is used. Another one of Jon's requirements is that we not re-write the
RAW unless there was a really good reason. The RAW essentially uses the "most
prevalent weapon" rule already, it just doesn't take into account what happens
when there are casualties and a squad ends up with more support weapons than
small arms. The "most prevalent weapon" is then just a special case of the
RAW. Using the "lowest die" means that some
people would complain that their favourite squads -- which they may have
been using for years -- were now less powerful because of this new rule.
Then you'd have people arguing, "No, stick with the rule in the SG2 rules,"
and others arguing, "Let's use the new rule that came with t! he Phalons."
Note that your rule of using the "lowest die" is actually the most common one
out there! So you're not alone. If you prefer the lowest die, then use that. I
don't think it will make a huge amount of difference. Just be aware that it's
not likely to be the "official" rule.
> However the chances of recovering a support weapon in good condition
This was something I felt really needed playtesting beyond my small group. The
fact that you've actually done the playtesting is cool! My
original rules had _zero_ chance of losing the weapon, but most players
found that wasn't right, so I changed it to a 1 in 6 chance. That's
probably still not steep enough. I think a 4+ is perhaps a little too
steep, so I'm leaning towards a compromise of 3+, which is what you used
at first. 4+ seems a little high only because you already have to burn
two actions before you can use the support weapon again (1 to remove the
suppression, 1 to reorganise). If the chance is 50:50, I suspect a number of
players wouldn't bother spending the Reorganise action.
But I could be wrong about that, as you already have it at 50:50 and find that
it works well with your group. I'll post this to the playtest list and see
what they say.
Thank you for the input!
All the best,
> --- Mark Donald <mark.donald@futurenet.co.uk> wrote:
Will you enlighten me as to what 'burn an action' means in your house rules?
Bye for now,
> --- Mark Donald <mark.donald@futurenet.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
> the decision of
> John Leary wrote:
"Use an action". The choice is, do you use an action to change your weapon
setting, or do you go ahead and shoot with what you've got (and presumably use
your other action to go IP, or move, or call artillery, or whatever).
> Laserlight wrote:
> > --- Mark Donald <mark.donald@futurenet.co.uk> wrote:
That's right. "Burn an action" is just a turn of phrase to indicate that
actions used in this way aren't viewed as positively as more direct action
like firing. Once the enemy is engaged, many of my group's players find it
hard to do anything other than fire. Using actions for
longer-term objectives like enhancing your position or upgrading your
weapon setting or calling in fire missions are viewed as an article of faith.
You've got to believe you can risk taking the heat off the enemy and that, if
you do so, you'll still be around to enjoy the consequences.
Mark
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> --- Mark Donald <mark.donald@futurenet.co.uk> wrote:
...> That's right. "Burn an action" is just a turn of
> phrase to indicate that
...
Thank you, I feel 'enlightened', somewhat foolish, but
enlightened. :-)
Bye for now,