Re: (TFT) Hirst Arts Melee/Wizard Arena

["maou_tsaou1@netzero.net" <maou_tsaou1@netzero.net>]

Someone give Mr. Gosset an M&M!

Long day and my desktop machine only sports 64megs ram currently.\
Poor to write on...

It was a long day today but here's this evenings museings...


Paper, scale and square hexes.

Drawing hexes on graph paper allows a few mapping procedures that I haven't really seen before.
A hex equals 1" by 1" or 4 by 4 squares on quarter inch graph the way I draw them.
This means that a BattleMap can be represented on graph paper as a 4 (wide e/w) by 5 (n/s) square box.
Why would you want to do something like that?
Because I can describe large areas on a single page for one thing.
A football field is 9 (n/s) by 5 (e/w) BattleMaps and a baseball field (old school 250' outfield, just a touch bigger than the area of the Colosseum) is 7 (n/s) by 8 (e/w) BMs with the infield requiring 4 (n/s) by 5 (e/w) BMs.
These are both just inside of a page.
(recall I arrange BM's in the same fashion as hexes, the six BM's surrounding a central BM are a mega-BM and so on...)
I use this scale for athletic speed, as TFT is OBVIOUSLY quite flawed there.
There are no footraces if everyone runs at MA 12.
A hex is about 4.3 feet across (around one running stride or two walking steeps) and a turn is 5 seconds.
3600 seconds in an hour and 5280 feet in a mile.
(I use ST = MA in hexes per turn, Running = 1.5 addition. I allow fST to "push" performance beyond normal effort, crit fails result in injury... more in athletics.)

Having a scale defined tells me how tall my Figures should be (relative to the hex) and how thick they should be.

Giant (12') = 8, 2 dot thick, 4 dot wide, standard height legos

Human (6') = 4, 2 dot wide, standard height legos

Halfling (3') = 2 1 dot, standard height legos

1/3rd height lego pieces (6" height) for adjustments for elves (5') and dwarfs (4')

It's not totally exact, but it's roughly ballpark.

The only reason I'm using legos as an example is it's a common object for all of us (I think).
I don't really care what gets used, but I honestly don't think some folks have ANY idea about the actual size of a TFT hex.

I don't think 1.3m was posteriorly extracted by Mr. Jackson.
It's a VERY body relative measure.
I mentioned stride already, but there's also issues of reach.
If'n you're a fairly normal size, (this works for me and I ain't a big fella) and assuming your standing over the hex center, then when holding out your arms, each of your hands will be in the next hex.
Not holding anything.
Not steeping toward a "target" either.
So for the 2d part of my Figures, I use bases consisting of 4 hexes representing the hex the Figure is occupying and the Figures front hexes.
Overlap implies engagement, and the Figure with the underbase position can be considered to have the advantage in blocking , sumo wrestling, etc.

Now I don't know the Heroscape stuff.
Are those models to Scale?
If so I would like the information.
If everybody at the model train club uses HO scale then all the top of the board guys stuff works together better than if each guy is doing their own thing.
 
By scaling things this way, I can model on the fly.
That's one of the reasons I babble lego so much.
I found a boat load of them at a garage sale several years ago and I've picked up more over time.
Because I work on graph paper I can take measured drawings or similar information and lay the thing out with relative ease.
Natonal Geographics issues can be a goldmine of information.
Just about ALL my post and beam housing comes from Places of Worship; 150 years of Latter-day Saint Architecture.
If some one wrote somewhere that a meeting was held in a barn somewhere, this guy has probably actually been to the spot it once stood on.
Denmark, Australia, Tonga, Samoa...
I've got other references but I find I rarely need anything but that one.
Building is not for GM's anyway.
Throw THAT task on the players.
Do it right and it'll be just like whitewashing a fence.

This kind of thing makes the tools work for me.
How many Joe Average Figures can you fit in a hex?
Put some legos together and find out.
How may legos to make a 20 foot wall?
Divide 20' by 1.5' (standard lego height)
When the tools start working empirically for me I start to think I may be on to something.

I used to play Space Hulks.
Fun little system, but those pieces don't do much more than give a pretty picture.
The height, base, thickness and etc. doesn't provide the GM or players with any actual information.
Instead of pretty pictures on a chit it's a pretty figure on a stand.
For all I know there are better ways of doing the stuff I'm doing with Figures, but I'm not willing to settle for less.


Think THAT'S bad?

I use a blown up hex (x4 the size or 16 by 16 squares sts) I call a Scale hex along with a "paper counter" I call The Visible Flexible Scale Man to resolve stuff like reach, or other issues requiring more detailed focus on a particular hex.
I glue graph paper to beer boxes, draw out scaled body segments, cut 'em out, fold the bits up and attach it all together with ruberbands.
His left side has the skeleton drawn out (to scale) and his right has the musculature and major arteries.
Guys who actually understand combat can show the rest of us what's going on.
Equipment can be scaled too, resolving the rather unclear pole weapon reach stuff.
Players can make one of these for their Figures and the GM can do so for major NPCs if they like.
Personalized Figures can have features like pot bellies, broad shoulders, what have you.
Draw the Figures pics and equipment on the thing instead of injury info.
You can even "paper doll" it.
I also represent players equipment as a kind of card game.
Actions like Ready Weapon or Drop Weapon let a player "play" an equipment card.
All my Places use manila folders windows style.
Thing's that can't be carried must stay in the appropriate folder.
Did you ever know somebody that gets their tapes/cds/dvds all mixed up, everything in the wrong case?
Straightening up a players folders is a Downtime action.
These cards add another "art" opportunity for those of you guys with talent at that kind of thing.

Another thing these "model light" things help with.
TFT is unclear on its ideas of "reach".
TFT AM pg. 13
A Javelin is too short too make a 2 hex jab.
1.5m is well over 3.5 feet long.
1.3m hex sts.
Give yourself a 3 foot sword.
I personally can get a two hex jab in with this assuming I only have to reach the hex center where Figures seem to be assumed to be standing.
At a 30" sword, my "thrust" tip come in at about 8 feet from my start position, about the edge of the 2nd hex.
Perhaps some of our resident fencers can check me on this, I'm no expert, but there are a number of weapons that change a bit via this kind of treatment.

I don't own a pike axe, but with this system I can draw one out and me and the players can get a clearer picture of the thing.
Remember the fight in the trailer in Raising Arizona?
This can do that.
More empirical uses as well, but this is probably enough for now.

One day I'll scare up that AD&D PH Weapon data chart.
It had speed factors if I recall...
Another thing I don't know a ton about.
I have a feeling that recovery time for a Morning Star might just mitigate Mr. Fhurman's results...

Does this give a better picture of what I'm trying to do?
I welcome questions on all this, and if someone has a better idea or information then please let me know.

I have some new "programmed" adventure stuff, but it involves stuff like economics and politics and war.
I found it necessary to strictly define (for a game) a number of concepts that had previously been left quite amorphous.
Natural Resource acquirement is known in economics as Primary Production.
Think harvesting wood in WarCraft as an example.
A sword comes from SOMEWHERE.
Yes, new swords are made, but it's a function of the number of swordsmiths available to the culture, both their own and through foreign trade.
Swords outta thin air screws economics.
Stuff like that...
Then I've got some ideas for using a bunch of old school games tied together with a front end to help the GM keep track of the Timeline (kept on register tape).

IMHO a GMs main function is as a Timekeeper.
Kinda like a soccer ref.



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