naval speculation

[contracycle]

I'm raising this thread somewhat tentatively as an invitation to discuss abstract movement and combat systems for naval actions.

I would hope the discusison would be fruitful because addressing such movement systems is very hard given the limits imposed by the table top environment, and the need to accomodate character action to varying degrees.

So this is essentially a call for wild-assed specualtion as to how a system for naval movement could be designed such that it is usable at the tabletop.  I would like not to get involved in space settings at the moment.

The bits that I think would need to disapear that are found in tabeltop wargames are the map - grid or hex.  I don't want to rule out some sort of table top prop, but I think map based movement is sort of a non starter, as it replaces narration.  Unless, that is, it can be formulated in a particularly cunning way.

So, any thoughts?

[Nathan P.]

Sheer speculation:

Make a grid of all the ships involved crossreferenced with each other. In each space, mark the distance and heading between each ship. Combat tactices are relevent to changing these values.

F'rex, Frigate A and B are sparring. They're, say 12 units (knots? leagues? I sure don't know) apart, and at a...um...25 degree angle to each other. A wants to "broadside", which has a certain amount of effect when the target is 5, 10 and 15 units away, and decreases as the angle (heading) between them increases. The player (controller?) of A decides to do a manouver that decreases the distance by 2 and the angle by 10, or something. B counters with a manouver that decreases the distance, but increases the angle by a large amount because it wants to ram A.

Or something.

Perhaps character actions come into play by, via certain character accomplishments, different combat manouvers become possible for the ships involved.

The problem with this is that the complexity of the relationships increases exponentially with number of ships, and handling time would just skyrocket (if A moves 10 closer to B, then its 2 father away from C, and its angle with both D and C changes...etc). Some way of handling this would have to be developed.

I'll see if I think of anything else...

[komradebob]

Were you interested in tactical or strategic movement?
Was there a particular time period you were thinking of?

[lumpley]

1. Establish what's at stake. Range, position relative to the wind, speed, bearing of guns, exposure to return fire. "I want to cut behind the big bastard without taking a broadside." You could build a simple little list: you have to close before you can establish range, you have to establish range before you can (effectively) open fire, you only get to fire as many times as how slow you're going...

2. Establish what resources you can bring to bear. "Let's see, that's a die for the wind, two for my ship's speediness, three for my captain skill, two for my helmsman's helmsman skill..."

3. Roll! Maybe use Sorcerer's Free and Clear plus high roll goes first, etc.

In fact Sorcerer's carry-over success might work really well too. "I got 2 successes on my range-finding shots, so I get +2 to my barrage!"

4. If you don't roll well enough, you may have a chance to accept future disadvantages to make up for the loss. "I can do it, but only by ... [choosing from a list] ... putting myself on a near-collision course with a friendly ship. Well, I hope I don't screw up that roll. I do it!"

That's where I'd start.

-Vincent

[Valamir]

I've actually worked on this quite a bit from an age of sail perspective.  How to have a naval confrontation in an RPG without breaking out Wooden Ships and Iron Men to do it.

The first thing I recognized is that there are really only 2 pieces of data you need.  1) range, 2) can I bring my broadside to bear against this opponent.

Maps are important for wargames because its important to answer these items for a specific moment in time.  One needs to know where all of the positions of the ships are right now.

The trick I hit upon to make maps go away is to define a "round" of time as being long enough that we merely need to determine "can I bring my broadside to bear at some point during this round".  In otherwords, don't try to replicate every single "Bring her about 2 points into the wind, Mr Stevens" moment but rather understand that a whole series of those events are going on during the turn.


At this point you have some fairly broad range categories.  I used "Grappling, short (pivot guns and muskets), medium (carronades), Long (Long guns), Extreme, visual, distant visual, on the horizon, and contact lost.  The visual categories were relative to daylight and weather with "contact lost" occuring earlier in the sequence as necessary.

The primary purpose of range was simply to determine "If I can bring my broadside to bear, which guns can reach the enemy".


I then used crew quality as the number of different actions the ship could perform during a single turn.  Actions included:  Close Range, Open Range, Maintain Range, Raise Sail, Lower Sail, Offensive Maneuver, Defensive Maneuver, Load Broad side, etc.

Captain and Officer Skill were a pool of points that could be divided among each action, so if a player wanted to close the range and maneuver for a shot, they'd have to decide which the wanted to do more and allocate the officer skill accordingly.

Range issues were handled first.  These were recorded on a simple matrix that related each ship's range (or formation of ships) to each other ship.  I was unconcerned in my abstract game as to whether it was geometrically possible to have those ships in those ranges related to each other simultaneously, because of the base assumption that "at some point" during the turn they were in the given ranges.  Ships that were both trying to close would close a range band automatically.  Otherwise there was an opposed roll of Sailing Quality vs. Sailing Quality as modified by Officer

Firing Solutions were also handled by opposed rolls.  I added the further quirk of a Strategy Pool.  The Strategy Pool could be borrowed from to give a better chance of achieving a broadside this turn, but had to be paid back the next.  This represented a captain taking his ship out of position (perhaps entering an unfavorable wind position) in order to force a shot).  Or it could be leant to...by making it less likely to get a good shot this turn you could increase your chance of getting a good shot on a future turn (representing working the winds to your advantage.

There were 4 possible results of the Firing Solution roll.  Either you wound up being able to get a Full Broadside, Half Broadside, No Broadside, or were Vulnerable.  Vulnerable meaning anyone shooting at you would be getting a Raking shot.  This was a rough gauge of bearing to target.  If both ships were making Offensive Maneuvers they may both wind up able to shoot at each other.  If one made Defensive Maneuvers that would serve to reduce the success of the opponent.  A ship with a high enough quality crew could conceivably, Close the Range, Make Defensive Maneuvers, Make Offensive Maneuvers, Load, and Make Offensive Maneuvers again.

When I moved on from the project I was attempting to come up with a simple matrix that cross referenced all of the possible actions with each other to determine if there were some actions that would make other actions more difficult (like closing the range on the same turn as you raise sail) and so forth.

[contracycle]

Hi all, thanks for the responses.

Nathan P., it seems yuou and I and Valamir have all thought of grid ideas.  My own concept was to have a grid of ships on side A along the top, side B along the horizontal, and a tile laid in each cell that shows a simple graphic of their relative facings.  This effectvely ignores range though.

komradebob, I'm mostly thinking of 15th to 17th century shipping mostly because its more relevant to fantasy RPG generally, to renaissance RPG specifically (of which there are now a number), and would hopefully provide some groundwork for approaching space movement too.  I think all these environments have a couple of specific chraacteristics that differ from normal combat mechanisms, in that unlike humans on foot, ships have a hard time stopping and starting motion, or changing facing, and there is often a single important vector, be that gravity or wind.  A solution to the general case should apply quite broadly.

Vincent, yes I think that sort of abstraction is the way to go, and your idea of benefit now for cost in the future seems to tally with Valamirs strategy pool.  I also think that things like TROS' terrain rolls, such that success indicates you can be attacked by only one opponent, may be worth borrowing.

Valamir, thanks for that comprehensive response.  I agree with refining the question down to something like "can I bring my broadside to bear"; the only modification I would propose to that is that perhaps the system can be built on the presumption of an exchange of broadsides such that it tends to be inherently attritional.  The value of success then would be the ability to manouevre such that you can fire without receiving fire in return.  There is an intensity concern here too, in that you can of course be much more effective if you can fire both broadsides (usually at seperate targets) but that may expose you to being bracketed and receiving two broadsides in exchange.  The most perfect possible situation would be to fire both broadsides with near impunity while crossing two T's, and this must have occurred in line-of-battle combat as the lines started to cut through each other.  

Another candidate for affecting the outcome would be reload times and the like.  This is where I really like the idea of a consequences system, in that if I cross the T and fire a broadside, I'm very likely to expose myself to the targets own broadside as we both move.  But that danger is mitigated if I can stall that eventuality long enough to reload, so that we are back to the parity of a broadside exchange.

Anmyway, thansk for the responses, any more thoughts no matter how unconventional are welcome.

[MikeSands]

I have some quite different ideas on this. I was thinking of these in the context of a game based on the naval adventure stories like Hornblower and Aubrey and also science fiction equivalents, like the Honor Harrington novels.

One thing that I notice when reading these books - and the thing I wanted to capture - is that the drama comes from the characters being confronted with various crises in the course of the engagement and dealing with those.

In order to make this happen, my idea was to throw any sort of tactical simulation out entirely and instead focus on creating interesting problems to solve for the characters. These would also allow them to be specific to the crew positions of the characters as well, so if nobody was playing a gunner, you would basically ignore your ship's gunnery.

My thinking hasn't gone any further than that, but I think that it's an idea that could work. One way to do it would be to have tables for various roles of things that can happen, although lists of suggestions might be better.

I wanted this to focus attention more on how the characters cope with the stresses of such a life than simply whether they win a battle, survive a storm, or whatever. My intention was to focus on "How does this character internally deal with this problem?" rather than "Do they solve the problem?". A good example is the scene in the film Master & Commander in which they have to cut loose a man holding on to wreckage that is endangering the ship. Saving the ship was pretty much a given, but how the men dealt with doing that was important.

Anyhow, I don't know that these ideas are going to be relevant to your particular needs, but I think that there's a core neat idea in there which can be brought out with a bit of work...

[Piers]

Pedantic discussion of naval combat and the weather-gage in particular, follows:

I think most of the ideas people are bringing to bear here are exactly on the right track, but if you want to produce a sailing based combat system the tactical effect of the wind in naval combat is really important, particularly because it is what controls the transition between the two sorts of conflict involved--the way chases turning into combat.

Having the 'weathergage'--being more or less directly upwind of your opponent--allows you to decide when and where the combat will take place.  If you want to engage, any action on the opponents part except fleeing directly downwind means that you will be on a heading where you will be comparatively faster, and all other things being equal, will probably win the chase.  Conversely, if you want to avoid combat you have a wide variety of options for headings (pretty much any beating tack round to wind on the beam) on which you more or less have the advantage.

In this context, pretty much all encounters began with the sighting of the enemy ship and then either devolved into a tacking duel for position ahead of the combat or moved directly into a chase where one side was trying to bring the other to bay.  In fact this later situation was almost always the case, as in almost every encounter if one side was sure enough of themselves that they wanted the confrontation, the other side probably wanted to avoid it.  And if the battle went wrong, the loser almost always tried to turn the combat back into a chase.

In view of this dynamic where attempts to chase shade out of and into combat, I'd suggest that the thing you need most is a system with a strong currency mechanic, and moreover, one (unlike say Sorceror) where if you have the advantage that advantage (though not its magnitude) is more or less preserved from round to round--whatever that means.  

Given that, you'd get a 'weather-gage advantage' number, a linked distance number, and (in those interesting situations where  there is a tactic goal--enter the harbour, get past the enemy, etc) a third number which indicates who has the controlling position relative to that place--all of which would interact.  

In this set-up, the distance number and weathergage number and their relations allows you to segue directly between chase and combat, and to work out on what terms the combat happens when it occurs.

The thing about weather-gage advantage is that you have to give it up in order to use it.  Thus:

a) weather gage would give a bonus to closing or holding open distance, but you would simulatneously trade one from the other.

b) weather gage allows you to force combat--but it would be limited by distance, so as you close, your advantage diminishes.

c) taking advantage of weather gage means that you are pointing towards or away from you opponent, which means you can't bring your broadside to bear.  Bringing round a broadside means that you lose position, but also means your broadside hits their stern or prow.

By combining a system where the players contest over changes in distance or weather gage with an abitility to trade advantage in weather gage for changes in distance, you should get something which allows the tactical situation to evolve in a nice way.

Anyway, in some ways all this brings back the prospect of those lengthy round by round d&d combats--'he has +11 weathergage and I can whittle it away at best at one point a round...'--so it would be nice if as well as having a detailed way of resolving round by round, you could also lump up a bunch of rounds together and just get them over at once--move directly from rolling one die to rolling several at once in order to get batches of events over at once.  

Beyond that it comes down to the details of the system--though I notice we haven't dealt with the additional original question of how we keep characters involved.

Piers

[Valamir]

Valamir, thanks for that comprehensive response. I agree with refining the question down to something like "can I bring my broadside to bear"; the only modification I would propose to that is that perhaps the system can be built on the presumption of an exchange of broadsides such that it tends to be inherently attritional. The value of success then would be the ability to manouevre such that you can fire without receiving fire in return. There is an intensity concern here too, in that you can of course be much more effective if you can fire both broadsides (usually at seperate targets) but that may expose you to being bracketed and receiving two broadsides in exchange. The most perfect possible situation would be to fire both broadsides with near impunity while crossing two T's, and this must have occurred in line-of-battle combat as the lines started to cut through each other.

Exactly.  That's exactly the effect I wanted to achieve with the "Offensive Maneuver" action and the degrees of success.  If you and I both get full successes on our Offensive Maneuver rolls, than we are able to both unload full broadsides at each other.  If I had enough ship actions to also be able to plot a Defensive maneuver (due to crew quality) while you did not or elected to perform another maneuver (like a second Offensive Maneuver for the other broadside)...then I could take my success with the defensive maneuver to reduce your offensive success at me.  Perhaps limiting your broadside to a partial instead of a full as a result.

The ability to fire both broadsides simultaneously depends on the length of time one makes the round.  In practice, the research I've been privy to indicates that broadsides were never fired at precisely the same time.  The heeling over of the ship from firing a broadside helped to absorb the recoil of the guns.  Fired in too close succession and the ship could do serious structural damage to itself.  Further, there was generally not enough room for the crew to man both broadsides simultaneously, after accounting for the distance of the recoil, and (after mounting casualties) usually not enough man power either.  It was more typical to fire one broadside, and then rush to the other side to fire the next...which would be possible if turns are kept long enough.

Piers, also raises good points about the wind, of course.  One can't get too fancy with Broad Beam Reaches and the like in an abstract system like the one I worked up, because one of the assumptions that allows it to work is that one is essentially handwaving away specifics about ship's headings (which are necessary to determine attitude to the wind with any precision).

What I did was basically give an advantage to closing range or opening range based on who held the wind guage, and an advantage to square sailed ships when moving with the wind and lateen or fore-aft rigged ships when moving against.  Very abstract.

Pier's notion of a "hit point" pool representing wind guage advantage could be an interesting route as well.

[Jules Morley]

First time poster, long time reader. :)

If the aim is to provide an abstract view of wind-powered naval combat, then Piers is correct - all you really need to worry about is who holds the Weather Gauge, and whether or not both sides decide to engage.

You really don't need to worry about the precise mechanics of the combat - things like who's 9 points to the wind, who's 20 degrees off the port bow, etc ... if that's the sort of thing you want in your naval combat, then just use a pre-built system like Wooden Ships, Iron Men.

If it's accuracy you're striving for, then you need to remember that most naval actions in the late 18th/early 19th century were long, involved many exchanges of fire, and unless you happen to have excellent knowledge of the period of naval combat (including a very firm grasp of seamanship) it'll be very hard to do them justice in a 'tactical' system.

Abstract, to me, means "Ship A, Captain X vs. Ship B, Captain Y. They fight. Who wins?" Once you get down to broadsides and action points you're no longer abstracting - it's wargaming. And there are systems for that already. :)

[Ben Lehman]

Jules!  Welcome to the Forge!

This post has no other content except to say, yeah, don't try to design a tactical simulation unless you are super-duper into the history involved.

yrs--
--Ben

[contracycle]

Abstract, to me, means "Ship A, Captain X vs. Ship B, Captain Y. They fight. Who wins?" Once you get down to broadsides and action points you're no longer abstracting - it's wargaming. And there are systems for that already. :)

No, abstract does not mean vague, it means abstract.  Ideally, its specifically an abstraction of the local phenomenon.

You see the effect of that level of abstraction is to move the action off screen.    And I don;t want to move it off screen, I want to keep the camera focussed on characters running around on deck and firing the guns and so forth.  

That said though any thoughts are welcome - I've been wanting to return to this thread but have not had anything else to contribute as yet.  I'm all up for saying we only need to identify these critical factors, but the key is devising a way to use them in in game action.

One thought I had though is a sort of multiple stage resolution system such that different departments of a ship had to each achieve success in sequence for a fire effect to occur.  The point would be to keep time moving through the system resolution as you did the multiple stages - hopefully that would increase the sense of corporate resolution with individuial responsibilities, and the actors necessarily being mutually dependant.

[komradebob]

The bits that I think would need to disapear that are found in tabeltop wargames are the map - grid or hex. I don't want to rule out some sort of table top prop, but I think map based movement is sort of a non starter, as it replaces narration.

Well one of the ironies I find is that with hex-n-chip type set ups is that really there is a lot of useless movement. I can't speak for age of sail games ( I played Wooden Ships and Iron Men exactly once), but I might compare it to the issues I found while playing FASA's Star Trek RPG.

Basically, the first stage comes down to the question: Does everyone want to fight?

If yes, there is really no reason not to simply skip ahead to the maximum range at which the opposing sides will start firing at one another.

If no, does one side give chase? Can they catch the other ship? If they can, skip to fire at maximum range as above.

Okay, as to combat itself, in terms of drama, are you really all that interested in slow, mechanical, attrition type combat, or are you going for a more "crisis after crisis" approach? For example, are you shooting for an approach where x points of engine damage are done, or where Scotty has to contain the Warp Core rupture?

( Sorry, I know you where looking for age of sail examples, please do a mental translation...).

I might just put together a list, probably on note cards, of every possible heinous thing that could result from combat. I wouldn't worry about system at all to start with- don't worry about character skills, or ship sizes, or gun ranges, or small arms vs. cannon fire- just figure out a whole bunch of crises. Ask your friends to come up with a bunch, too, and mail them to you. Once you have a real big stack, you can start to consider issues of severity, and possible responses to them.

As far as the rest of it goes, really, you're either out of range, at long range, at normal range, or about to collide/board. You don't really need too much more than that- well not in an Errol Flynn Pirate movie anyway, nor Star Trek.

Does that help any, or am I really severely off mark in what you're looking for?

[greedo1379]

I hope this doesn't come out sounding assholey...

What are you trying to do again?  

I think all these environments [spaceships and boats] have a couple of specific chraacteristics that differ from normal combat mechanisms, in that unlike humans on foot, ships have a hard time stopping and starting motion, or changing facing, and there is often a single important vector, be that gravity or wind. A solution to the general case should apply quite broadly.

What system are you using for your regular guy on foot combat?  I perfer to just tweak the regular combat rules to make it work in a different setting.

One thing I would recommend is checking out Wizards of the Coast's rules for Pirates of the Spanish Main.  They are really simple rules that abstract a lot of stuff but can be tossed in when you need something like this.  You could add requirements as you like (like requiring a Command Check from the Gunner's Mate to fire the cannons or some such) if you like but the basic mechanics are there.

I think for naval combat though you almost have to have a map and such since relative position is so important and a single broadside can end it.  So you end up with the two parties jockeying for position in a tactical setting.  A wargame.

Basically, the first stage comes down to the question: Does everyone want to fight?

If yes, there is really no reason not to simply skip ahead to the maximum range at which the opposing sides will start firing at one another.

I disagree with you...  Except where you have your ships meeting in the middle of a featureless ocean/space.  Depending on the goals of the players (a quick raid and then retreat? a protracted battle?) and if there is anything around to break line of sight and such there is a lot more that can be done before the first shot is fired.  Although now I am talking about wargames.

You see the effect of that level of abstraction is to move the action off screen. And I don;t want to move it off screen, I want to keep the camera focussed on characters running around on deck and firing the guns and so forth.

It sounds like you need a wargame with players stats taking the place of the wargame stats.  Which brings me back to the suggestion to adapt your current system's combat rules for ship combat.  For example, a ship has a BAB equal to your players' highest Cannoneer skill.  It has HP and AC defined abstractly relating to ship size (probably as HP goes up AC goes down)(I would also have AC change each turn depending on the movement of the target ship).  And so on (for D&D rules).