Good morning.

I've started running the system recently and came up to a little sticking point.

with ranges being as abstract as they are I was finding it hard to keep track of all the ranges each person is at to various figures and people move around and I was wondering how people keep track for themselves.

Thanking you in advance

Miniatures with tokens between them, basses touching is engaged, gap is close, 1 token is medium, 2-3 tokens is long, 4-5 tokens is extreme (its 2 each for long and extreme since that's how many maneuvers to cross that distance)

I Have put up a sketch to keeping Track of the heroes distance to them by penciled shortcuts

Looks a little like this

RANGE: ENG -------CLOSE-----MED------LONG-----------EXTR-----------Away...

/Enemy

VADER Luke R2 Han Leia/chewie

BOBA Luke/R2 Han /Leia/ Chewie

StTr.Minions(5) Luke R2/ Han Leia/Chewie

In this picture Vader is duelling Luke who is protecting the nearby R2 (who is slicing), Han as a fast runner just reach closed the Gap to be medium to him while Leia an Chewie a somewhat further away.

Boba is behind Vader still close enought to be close to R2 and so also in close reach of the even closer Luke. For Boba Han hasn´t reached the medium distance so he and the other two are on Long.

Of course where vader is there is his 501st... but they are really late arriving. Luke and vader are on medium to them, R2 is just out of that range and on long, the distance to Han who is further away is still long, but for leia and chewie I doubt the Stormies even saw them yet...

Now everybody does his Move Luke and vader hacking with their Sabers on each other, R2 doesn´t move since he is still slicing, Han Walks closer towards the duellist and fires, Leia uses her snipping skill and Chewie just runs on. Boba tries to cut of Luke and the others, the minions closing in and fire.

now my sheet looks like this

RANGE: ENG -------CLOSE-----------MED---------LONG-----------EXTR-----------Away...

/Enemy

VADER Luke R2/ Han Chewie Leia

BOBA Luke/R2/ Han Chewie Leia

StTr.Minions(5) Luke R2/ Han Chewie Leia

To be honest: if possible I try to avoid to much enemy movement an let the heroes move theire ways when ever possible. Because in an imaginary 3D terrain to let to many people move makes my head fuzzy to relatevated the distances of each and every participant...

A piece of paper with a very rough sketch of the scene, and letters with circles around them to represent where the PCs are located on the map, and letters without circles around them to represent the NPCs.

If anyone has any question about what the range is between any two individuals, then I make my best guess. If the player has an issue with that, we can have a discussion and if they can give me a convincing argument for what they think the range should be, then I’m generally fine with that.

In one of our combat moments, we agreed on, for narrative distances.... Engaged = hand to hand/melee (like DUR!!) within 5-10' of each other, clashing lightsabers, dodging fisticuffs, rolling away from combat and ducking back in with a left jab etc, Close 11-20'. Medium 21-35' Long 36-50. Extreme 51'+... I could be wrong and imagined/dreamed this conversation coz my memory is shot to pieces ever since I had 18 moths of stress, sleepless nights and health problems. I'm all better now though, the SW OT kept me sane.

TBH I'm AFB and can't even check with D&D 3.5/PFRPG guidelines on this,,, it is NARRATIVE so after ENGAGED you really can decide as a GM but it also needs to be agreed or you can get into a right pickle when Little Ronny Ruleslawyer says 'But last week close range was maxed out at 20', this week you saying it's 15'. NO FAIR WAAAAAH!!! MOMMY, HE AIN'T PLAYING NICE. Let me SEE THE RULES!!!!

EDIT.... back from book... page 208 - that's refreshed my knowledge.. I think I did dream it. I dreamt I shaved my head last night with my electric razor so there ya go

Not to re-hash previous conversations on this subject, but this game is very narrative, and fixed range bands with specific measurements in feet, miles, meters, or kilometers, just doesn’t work well in this game.

There are far too many other parts of the game that have been altered to work with the narrative range system that would then be horribly unbalanced, if you were to try to tack on fixed measurable range bands.

So, my strong suggestion is to give it a guess, and then work things out from there.

And don’t forget to get your players input — how close or far away do they want to be? The more input they have into the process, the immersive the game is, and the more likely they are to be satisfied with whatever the outcome might be.

I mean, they might not like how the dice rolled for them, but they chose how close or how far away they were, and it’s not their fault that the gun blew up in their hands, or whatever.

I'd like to tell you I have a cool system, but I kind of just... I make it up. I use Roll20 and its map system with the grid turned off, and I bull whatever I feel like might work as we all go (where it feels sketchy, I just add a question mark to the end of the statement to see if my players feel the ruling is ok), and it often works out. I found that a lot of stuff in this system can get really complex and confusing really fast, but if you collectively don't really care it makes a lot more sense. Just go with what feels right at the time, even if it isn't.

Stay cinematic, judge on a case by case.