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Post by Falconer on Jan 16, 2022 20:12:56 GMT -5
I noticed on Carl’s blog when he made a character for WNMHGB, the character sheet has a field for personal weapons ranges: Carl, you noted that these ranges are not provided in the rulebook. You have a picture of the “graphic-enhanced redesign of the Core Rules by T. Daniel Brown,” a.k.a. WNMHGB 2.1. But if you grab the regular “Core Rules,” a.k.a. WNMHGB 2.0, you will find a section dealing with ranges: If you just want a simple number, the even earlier (d20) version, a.k.a. WNMHGB 1.0, is perhaps even more straight forward on this:
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TardisCaptain
Lieutenant
Creating a new website for gaming purposes.
Posts: 82
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Post by TardisCaptain on Jan 19, 2022 12:36:14 GMT -5
I noticed on Carl’s blog when he made a character for WNMHGB, the character sheet has a field for personal weapons ranges: Carl, you noted that these ranges are not provided in the rulebook. You have a picture of the “graphic-enhanced redesign of the Core Rules by T. Daniel Brown,” a.k.a. WNMHGB 2.1. But if you grab the regular “Core Rules,” a.k.a. WNMHGB 2.0, you will find a section dealing with ranges: If you just want a simple number, the even earlier (d20) version, a.k.a. WNMHGB 1.0, is perhaps even more straight forward on this:
Thanks, I'll have to check out the information from WNMHGB 1.0.For some reason the images didn't show up. I don't know why.
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Post by Falconer on Jan 19, 2022 13:24:20 GMT -5
Okay, here, I’ll paste in the text.
WNMHGB 2.0:Ranged weapons have a range increment. For every increment past the first, the attach suffers a cumulative -2 to hit. The maximum range of a weapon is at 5 increment (for a -10 penalty, total). Weapon | Increment | Max Range | Phaser I | 20' | 100' | Phaser II/Disruptor | 40' | 200' | Phaser Rifle | 60' | 300' |
WNMHGB 1.0:Weapon | Range Increment | Mark I | 80 ft
| Mark II
| 120 ft
| Rifle | 200 ft
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Post by Falconer on Jan 19, 2022 13:35:15 GMT -5
This might also be of interest, from the fan handbook Starfleet Hand Weapon Familiarization Handbook (c. 1980): Hand Phaser-Type IHand Phaser-Type IIPhaser RifleKlingon Sonic DisrupterRomulan DisrupterYou could, of course, also mine STAGFF or FASA or any of a dozen more sources, but if you’re in the less gritty mindset of WNMHGB, I’d guess just a single “range” number is going to be more than sufficient. I think the WNMHGB 2.0 max ranges look fine (better than 1.0).
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Post by starcruiser on Jan 19, 2022 21:32:01 GMT -5
Ya know - knowing history like I do - I take serious issue with those ranges. "Pistol Shot" range in the Napoleonic era was viewed as up to maybe 25 yards (that's 75 feet - almost 23 meters). So, you're telling me that a type I hand phaser can't really outrange a smooth bore .69 (or thereabouts) caliber flintlock pistol?!?
Musket range was usually between 50-100 yards in those days. Rifles of the era could be expected to be accurate to 200-300 yards with a good marksman - and that's with the crap sights they had to use.
Don't even both to bring up the heavy iron of the era - 12 pounder field guns? A whole bunch o' Red Shirts (TM) would get wiped out by a 'whiff of grapeshot' from one of those - at a couple hundred yards...
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Post by Falconer on Jan 20, 2022 0:12:34 GMT -5
Ooh, interesting. So what would be more reasonable ranges, in your view?
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Stan
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Post by Stan on Jan 20, 2022 7:07:09 GMT -5
I've designed several RPGs and wargames, and one thing I've concluded (and most RPG companys who design games have concluded) is you generally want to optimize weapon ranges for tabletop battlemat constraints, not real life. So weapon ranges are more of a relative, non-realistic number meant to differentiate between weapon types given the 24x36" or so battlemat size used in most tabletop RPGs.
So common short range weapons are going to be in the 6 to 18" range (i.e. 30' to 90', assuming 5' (1.5m) squares), medium range weapons maybe 24", and long range weapons will hit anywhere on the battlemat (with long range weapons usually rated as 36 or 48").
It may not be an accurate physics simulator, but it is what 'feels right' at the table. A game that does simulate the actual physics where (if you're using minis) a pistol, shotgun, and sniper rifle can all hit anywhere with equal accuracy on the battlemat doesn't feel right in play.
This all assumes you have a game that may sometimes use miniatures. When you're running things with theater of the mind, ranges tend to not matter as much.
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Post by Falconer on Jan 20, 2022 13:28:18 GMT -5
Interesting perspective, thanks. I am not experienced with battlemats. But it seems like a sensible way to organize your game. So forgive my ignorance, but could you not make the squares or hexes equal to 5 meters rather than 5 feet, if that would allow for more “realistic” ranges? This all reminds me of the gunfight at the beginning of Arena, when the Gorns are offscreen the whole time. Those Starfleet guys can really run, too. My other gut thought here is, it seems to me you can limit Phaser I as much as you want because it seems to me it’s designed to be kind of a pocket tool more than anything. Phaser II should probably have “effectively unlimited” range as should the rifle, but the Phaser Rifle maybe would just have more raw power. Those are just for fighting gods, after all.
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Stan
Lieutenant
Posts: 85
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Post by Stan on Jan 20, 2022 16:43:12 GMT -5
1” squares/hexes equating to 5’ is pretty standard in all modern RPGs that accommodate miniatures that use distances, battlemats, and terrain. D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder, Savage Worlds, etc. all use this convention. For games that use meters, they usually say 1” equals 1.5 meters, but in practice most people just say 1” = 1 meter for convenience. This is assuming 28 to 32mm sized miniatures. For 15mm miniatures, people usually use 1cm instead of 1inch to represent 5’ / 1.5m. 1"=5' lets you do a game like the below (picture of a Star Trek game I ran 6 months ago) and have everything look right proportionally. If you want to be more abstract, there are systems like Fate RPG’s ‘zones’ or 13th Age range bands, which lets you skip the rulers but still use miniatures for relative positioning if you like. If I wanted to say 1” = 25’ or something, then I wouldn’t use miniatures, since that would throw off any map, terrain, or battlemat sizing you would normally use. The ranges I have used when using Star Trek minis have varied based on the system I'm using (aiming to be consistent with how they stat out other weapons in that system). So in Savage Worlds, d100, and OpenD6 games, I've used these ranges: - Phase Type I -- 12" (60')
- Phase Type II -- 24" (120")
- Phase Type III -- 48" (240")
In Traveller, which uses meters, to be consistent with their lasers and other similar weapons, I've used these stats: - Phase Type I -- 20m
- Phase Type II -- 300m
- Phase Type III -- 1000m
In Traveller (Mongoose 2e version anyway), the range increment above just means 'fire at no penalty up to this range' and then you get a penalty for each multiple of that range, but you can shoot at very, very long ranges, just with huge penalties. Wargames also usually do something similar, with most weapons being 6-12” for short range weapons, 18-24” for medium range, and 36”+ for long range. If you get some WWII tanks on the board, purists will tell you “A tank will shoot WAY farther than that”, which is totally true, but wargames and RPGs generally optimize around a good ‘game’ experience that accommodates the constraints of the tabletop and scales things down to differentiate weapon types.
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Post by starcruiser on Jan 20, 2022 21:15:17 GMT -5
Yea - that's true - in gaming it's often more of an effort to give a feel. Though historical wargames can go way further towards true ranges - often with much smaller minis involved.
I suppose if you do use such short ranges, might be better for flavor to just use spaces/hexes as the range indicator and make sure that some of the far less advanced stuff has an disadvantage (in some ways) to the more advanced.
As shown in Star Trek: First Contact... a Tommy Gun is still a Tommy Gun and it's gonna hurt!
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Post by starcruiser on Jun 12, 2022 10:18:11 GMT -5
Ooh, interesting. So what would be more reasonable ranges, in your view? Sorry - haven't been paying that much attention lately... I would personally suspect the little "hand phaser" would be practical at ranges of over 50 meters - that little flip up sight is almost certainly electronic in nature and we do see it used at a fair range in "Errand of Mercy". The pistol - aka. Type 2 - probably at LEAST 300 meters or better. Line of sight would still be a major limiter but, that's to be expected.
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