ME Second Edition Idea

[jerry.mellerick]

Guys

change the name of timber to building materials. Have these found where
wood is at present and also in the mountains. Simple change and no big deal
really

Jerry

···

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[mcgoldrick_b]

--- In mepbmlist@y..., jerry.mellerick@l... wrote:

Guys

change the name of timber to building materials. Have these found

where

wood is at present and also in the mountains. Simple change and no

big deal

really

Jerry

Yeah why not....that's easily the simpliest solution so far.

[Laurence_G_Tilley]

Jerry, I think you may have missed the original context. It's about the internal consistency "believeability" of the current agent order. If you imagine all the fortifications to be timber, as at Bree (which I'd say is archetypal for the way I'd imagined the smaller settlements of Eriador at least) then having agents wreck them with fire seems viable.

However, the bigger named fortifications (according to Tolkien) are ancient and of stone. One suggestion on the table is that mages might be able to affect such fortifications with spells.

So we'd need to have pops listed as: 2924 Minas Anor City Stone Citadel Port and 1409 Bree Town Timber Tower. Agents could sabotage the first, only spells could affect the second.

But would such a system improve the game enough to justify another fattening of the rule book? Would we get Minas Anor reduced to a Keep by spells, then built up again with timber - it's realistic, stone castles were all improved with timber galleries in time of war - but is it a real improvement?

Laurence G. Tilley

http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk

···

At 10:08 31/05/2002, Jerry wrote:

change the name of timber to building materials. Have these found where
wood is at present and also in the mountains. Simple change and no big deal
really

[Rodrigo_Manhaes]

"Laurence G. Tilley" wrote:

But would such a system improve the game enough to justify another
fattening of the rule book? Would we get Minas Anor reduced to a Keep by
spells, then built up again with timber - it's realistic, stone castles
were all improved with timber galleries in time of war - but is it a real
improvement?

Everyone's throwing in theis 2 cents, so here's mine...

I thik the whole concept of including both stone and wood fortifications
is very pleasing in terms of being more believeable, adding flavour to
imagining the "role-playing" of the game, but doesn't add to the game
itself. For the sake of playability, many game concepts already strech
"reality" a lot, so simplifying all fortifications under a single
category is just one more stretch (by far not the worst).

Think about it: in game terms, one guy handing his sword to a friend and
declining a challenge (not an action, but inaction actually) takes the
same time as another guy commanding the invasion of an enemy stronghold
then marching his troops for 14 days. It's unreal, but it's necessary
for playability's sake. Another example is a non-magical character being
able to cross half of Middle Earth in a month, while every travel
described by Tolkien takes months longer.

I'm not raising the "too complicated" flag, what I'm saying is that
fortifications being made solely of wood is unreal, but I consider it
just one more stretch of reality we have to endure.

Regards,
Rodrigo Manh�es

···

--
"I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I ever had"
Tears for Fears - "Mad World"

[Laurence_G_Tilley]

Yes Rodrigo, your observation is very valid - though I think the examples you use are not the best.

There'll always be some "stretching" to make a game playable, but I think the aims of the hypothetical 2nd Edition should be to remove some of the real howlers. In some cases, this can actually be done by REDUCING complexity. There is, for example, already a perfectly useable, and much more "internally consistent" movement system in the game as it is - one which DOES take account of terrain, and treat the distances more sensibly. It's the one used for armies, so why not just adapt that for characters? - fuller description on the site http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk/2nded.htm

As for your example of refusing challenge, I think that's another one which could be made MORE believable, if not WHOLLY realistic. In a world where "honour" and the tradition of single combat prevail, it seems "wrong" to me, that a Dunedain commander at the head of his troops, accepts challenge if liable to be offered by a little guy, but declines it when a big one shows up...

Perhaps a character's challenge acceptance could be switched on or off, for more than just a single turn. One order "Accept/Decline all challenges" which takes effect until given again. It's not good, but it may be better than the system we have at the moment. It does get boring when one's agent company gets moved around, and all the agents give StlGold and RfsPers every time.

Perhaps we could develop from this to a "challenge status" for each character, which prevails until reset. He uses a "Set Challenge Status" order, and chooses from "Beserk; Heroic; Brave; Cautious; Never" with the following effects:

Beserk: Automatically challenges highest enemy character in hex each turn
Heroic: Accepts all challenges and offers challenge to random enemy character
Brave: Accepts and offers challenge to any equal or lesser enemy character
Cautious: Accepts and offers challenge to any enemy character of 2/3rds own rank
Never: Refuses all challenges

OK, that's just off the top of my head. It could be refined - but it's an example of a change which REPLACES an existing order, and (which I think) would reduce the "stretching" and add a lot of colour, for a relatively small complexity cost

Laurence G. Tilley

http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk

···

At 19:42 31/05/2002, Rodrigo wrote:

Think about it: in game terms, one guy handing his sword to a friend and
declining a challenge (not an action, but inaction actually) takes the
same time as another guy commanding the invasion of an enemy stronghold
then marching his troops for 14 days. It's unreal, but it's necessary
for playability's sake. Another example is a non-magical character being
able to cross half of Middle Earth in a month, while every travel
described by Tolkien takes months longer.

[Richard_DEVEREUX1]

--- In mepbmlist@y..., jerry.mellerick@l... wrote:
  >
  > Guys
  >
  > change the name of timber to building materials. Have these found
  where
  > wood is at present and also in the mountains. Simple change and no
  big deal
  > really
  >
  > Jerry

  Yeah why not....that's easily the simpliest solution so far.
  RD: Yeuk! Don't like it. I can visualise stone, I can visualise timber, but "building materials"?

  You might as well say that people living in riverine plains have access to clay, therefore they can make bricks, therefore they too can build fortifications.

  Seems to me there are two ways to go:
  1) the more complex way, which is listing and accounting for resources of timber, stone, brick (sun-dried or oven-fired?) etc.
  2) say that people build pops and fortifications from local materials (which historically, of course, they did, mass transport being unavailable); therefore the only resource needed is manpower and supplies (which I guess translates as gold).

  Pops fortified with brick or stone should of course be more difficult to demolish than those of timber.

  Richard.

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···

----- Original Message -----
  From: mcgoldrick_b
  To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
  Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 10:12 AM
  Subject: [mepbmlist] Re: ME Second Edition Idea

[Richard_DEVEREUX1]

Jerry, I think you may have missed the original context. It's about the
  internal consistency "believeability" of the current agent order. If you
  imagine all the fortifications to be timber, as at Bree (which I'd say is
  archetypal for the way I'd imagined the smaller settlements of Eriador at
  least) then having agents wreck them with fire seems viable.

  However, the bigger named fortifications (according to Tolkien) are ancient
  and of stone. One suggestion on the table is that mages might be able to
  affect such fortifications with spells.

  So we'd need to have pops listed as: 2924 Minas Anor City Stone Citadel
  Port and 1409 Bree Town Timber Tower. Agents could sabotage the first,
  only spells could affect the second.

  But would such a system improve the game enough to justify another
  fattening of the rule book? Would we get Minas Anor reduced to a Keep by
  spells, then built up again with timber - it's realistic, stone castles
  were all improved with timber galleries in time of war - but is it a real
  improvement?

  Laurence G. Tilley
  RD: In Serim Ral, you can build fortifications from either stone or timber, but stone fortifications have TWICE the defence value of timber ones. This is a fudge, but a workable one.

  IMO agents should NOT be able to sabotage stone fortifications, but mages in an army SHOULD be able to do so.

  I personally like the idea of drawing a distinction between stone and timber fortifications and am happy with the teeny bit of extra complexity that goes with it.

  If we don't want more complexity, compensate for the above by amalgamating the 400-420 recruit orders into one single recruit order, specifying type of troops if allowed, or determined by race, or some combination thereof.

  The same thing could be done with the transfer orders 340-357. Have ONE transfer order covering all eventualities. The Make orders also.... gosh the mind boggles at the thought of how many useful, imaginative, orders could be put in instead!

  Richard.

  http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk

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···

----- Original Message -----
  From: Laurence G. Tilley
  To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
  Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 6:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [mepbmlist] Re: ME Second Edition Idea

  At 10:08 31/05/2002, Jerry wrote:
  >change the name of timber to building materials. Have these found where
  >wood is at present and also in the mountains. Simple change and no big deal
  >really

[Richard_DEVEREUX1]

"Laurence G. Tilley" wrote:

  > But would such a system improve the game enough to justify another
  > fattening of the rule book? Would we get Minas Anor reduced to a Keep by
  > spells, then built up again with timber - it's realistic, stone castles
  > were all improved with timber galleries in time of war - but is it a real
  > improvement?

  Everyone's throwing in theis 2 cents, so here's mine...

  I thik the whole concept of including both stone and wood fortifications
  is very pleasing in terms of being more believeable, adding flavour to
  imagining the "role-playing" of the game, but doesn't add to the game
  itself. For the sake of playability, many game concepts already strech
  "reality" a lot, so simplifying all fortifications under a single
  category is just one more stretch (by far not the worst).

  Think about it: in game terms, one guy handing his sword to a friend and
  declining a challenge (not an action, but inaction actually) takes the
  same time as another guy commanding the invasion of an enemy stronghold
  then marching his troops for 14 days. It's unreal, but it's necessary
  for playability's sake. Another example is a non-magical character being
  able to cross half of Middle Earth in a month, while every travel
  described by Tolkien takes months longer.

  I'm not raising the "too complicated" flag, what I'm saying is that
  fortifications being made solely of wood is unreal, but I consider it
  just one more stretch of reality we have to endure.

  Regards,
  Rodrigo Manhães
  RD: Firstly, the concept behind each character having 2 orders per turn is so that he can carry out one Primary and one secondary action per turn. The primary action is assumed to take the most time, the secondary action much less. An obvious example is an army commander moving and doing a recon; the move is the primary action and take most time (14days), then the commander climbs the nearest tree/hill/mountain and looks around for the enemy.

  Of course this concept falls down when you have a dual-classed character, or an army com who manouvres/moves army the same turn. It is also possible to waste turns by, as you suggested, refusing and transferring artifact. Of course, time-wasting is quite realistic - government employees (and others!) do it all the time, so no problem there!

  However you seem to be saying that whilst you like some of the ideas in 2nd ed, it's not worth pursuing them because they are never going to happen. That is a defeatist attitude. C'mon Rodrigo, if enough of us want to buy out GSI and bring out a 2nd edition of the game, we CAN make it happen!

  Richard.

···

----- Original Message -----
  From: Rodrigo Manhaes
  To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
  Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 7:42 PM
  Subject: [mepbmlist] Re: ME Second Edition Idea

  --
  "I find it kind of funny
  I find it kind of sad
  The dreams in which I'm dying
  Are the best I ever had"
  Tears for Fears - "Mad World"

  Middle Earth PBM - hit reply to send to everyone
  To Unsubscribe: http://www.yahoogroups.com
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[jasonab]

Laurence G. Tilley wrote:

Perhaps a character's challenge acceptance could be switched on or off, for more than just a single turn. One order "Accept/Decline all challenges" which takes effect until given again. It's not good, but it may be better than the system we have at the moment. It does get boring when one's agent company gets moved around, and all the agents give StlGold and RfsPers every time.

Let me address two points here: how much time orders take, and specifically about refusing challenge.

I think this rush toward "realism" in terms of order time totally ignores the gamr balance of having each order take the same amount of time. Sure, handing off an artifact doesn't take two weeks. Having the orders cost the same, though, makes balancing your artifacts non-trivial in terms of manpower. You can't just throw artifacts around constantly to suit the moment. Changing this could seriously change a lot of delicately balanced parts of the game.

This applies to the whole challenge concept as well. Currently, you have to pay a one order penalty to refuse challenge. This means you can't refuse, attack and move all on the same turn, and so have to make decisions about who is at risk and who is not. Changing this to a "realistic" switch would totally change the nature of army movement and combat, especially into Mordor. The DS couldn't delay the FP armies via challenge superiority (or vice versa).

While I agree that order costs are sometimes very annoying, there are some serious time-based balance issues that need to be thought about before we change that.

      jason

···

--
Jason Bennett, jasonab@acm.org
E pur si muove!

[Laurence_G_Tilley]

Yes, well observed, and I had meant to say that when I originally put the "challenge status" idea on the table. It's a simple change, but it would radically affect play. That in itself doesn't mean it's bad though, just that it would need buckets of play testing. A massive Free army arrives a hex short of Morannon, and is faced by 500 gobbos under Gothmog. It can't go any further, because the commander has to refuse challenge - does it sound right? We could do better. Now admittedly, this sort of thing may affect game balance - but then Morannon, has STONE walls now...

The 2nd Edition proposals, unbalance then rebalance. But of course it's all guesswork, only playtesting would answer all the questions raised.

Laurence G. Tilley

http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk

···

At 05:21 01/06/2002, Jason wrote:

Currently, you have
to pay a one order penalty to refuse challenge. This means you can't
refuse, attack and move all on the same turn, and so have to make
decisions about who is at risk and who is not. Changing this to a
"realistic" switch would totally change the nature of army movement and
combat, especially into Mordor. The DS couldn't delay the FP armies via
challenge superiority (or vice versa).

While I agree that order costs are sometimes very annoying, there are
some serious time-based balance issues that need to be thought about
before we change that.

[Rodrigo_Manhaes]

Richard DEVEREUX wrote:

  However you seem to be saying that whilst you like some of the ideas in 2nd ed, it's not worth pursuing them because they are never going to happen. That is a defeatist attitude. C'mon Rodrigo, if enough of us want to buy out GSI and bring out a 2nd edition of the game, we CAN make it happen!

No, please, it wasn't my idea to sound defeatist! I've only given a
general glance on Lawrence's page, but I liked what I saw, my "let it
be" comment was (at least in intention) specifically about the
stone/timber debate. Seems I rambled on and missed my own point in the
previous email...

Reading back, I believed it did sound "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
(stupid philosophy IMO), I'll try to make myself clearer next time...

Rodrigo

···

--
"I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I ever had"
Tears for Fears - "Mad World"

[Blackhawk]

If you were going to try some sort of time-balancing, then I suggest that each character should have four order points with various orders costing one, two or possibly three or four points. Possibilities include

Refuse challenge/transfer artifact/use artifact/sells/transports/cast spells? - 1 point
Other orders - 2 points

or

All skill orders + movement orders - 2 points
Misc orders - 1 point

or

Movement costs based on a proportion of the total movement available up to a maximum of 3 points (for an army using it's full movement, say)
Skill orders offering an increase in skill ranks cost 3 points
Other skill orders cost 2 points
Misc orders cost 1 point.

This can clearly be done in the hoped for second edition, but is it worth the extra complexity? I'm not convinced.

Richard

···

----- Original Message -----
  From: Jason Bennett
  To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
  Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 5:21 AM
  Subject: Re: [mepbmlist] ME Second Edition Ideas

  Laurence G. Tilley wrote:

  > Perhaps a character's challenge acceptance could be switched on or off, for
  > more than just a single turn. One order "Accept/Decline all challenges"
  > which takes effect until given again. It's not good, but it may be better
  > than the system we have at the moment. It does get boring when one's agent
  > company gets moved around, and all the agents give StlGold and RfsPers
  > every time.

  Let me address two points here: how much time orders take, and
  specifically about refusing challenge.

  I think this rush toward "realism" in terms of order time totally
  ignores the gamr balance of having each order take the same amount of
  time. Sure, handing off an artifact doesn't take two weeks. Having the
  orders cost the same, though, makes balancing your artifacts non-trivial
  in terms of manpower. You can't just throw artifacts around constantly
  to suit the moment. Changing this could seriously change a lot of
  delicately balanced parts of the game.

  This applies to the whole challenge concept as well. Currently, you have
  to pay a one order penalty to refuse challenge. This means you can't
  refuse, attack and move all on the same turn, and so have to make
  decisions about who is at risk and who is not. Changing this to a
  "realistic" switch would totally change the nature of army movement and
  combat, especially into Mordor. The DS couldn't delay the FP armies via
  challenge superiority (or vice versa).

  While I agree that order costs are sometimes very annoying, there are
  some serious time-based balance issues that need to be thought about
  before we change that.

                    jason

  --
  Jason Bennett, jasonab@acm.org
  E pur si muove!

  Middle Earth PBM - hit reply to send to everyone
  To Unsubscribe: http://www.yahoogroups.com
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