I like the way these are explained in the book, but I had to elaborate a bit on them for my players because it seemed to be something that they wanted to dispute in order to get an advantage, or to ameliorate what they felt was a disadvantage. I consider the range categories to be abstract in nature, but also conforming to loose standards at times when it can help to describe a scene. I always consider range categories to be somewhat elastic, but I give them a median range description.

Example:any conversation that is accomplished using voice is almost always going to be at Engaged Range . That is fairly straight forward and I imagine most people would assume that, but for something like a tense stand off in a non-public (not crowded) place it could be at short range. Sitting next to someone in a speeder, playing a game of sabacc, standing near someone at a public terminal, talking to a bartender, or using a control on a wall are all obvious Engaged range situations.

Observing something requires getting close to it unless you have macrobinoculars or some other aid. Most beings with senses like human senses will move close to something to see details. If my players ask for details I will determine how close they need to be to the thing/person to see these details. Something like a personal vidscreen or a wall control box is definitely something you need to be at Engaged range to read if it has information on it that was meant to be read at say something like no more than 3ft. or a meter away. I won't usually prompt players who ask for details but instead I will describe them getting closer to the object as they observe details. If the object attacks or the area close to it otherwise becomes dangerous I know where the characters are in relation to it for the most part. When that happens one or more people will certainly explain that they were not near the thing, but I will weigh this against how they acted and whether or not they were interacting with the primary observer. Because this comes up, I will often ask for something like an old D&D marching order. I will ask them to describe the way the group is arranged, but I usually disguise it as wanting to know what equipment they have ready.

Grenades also brought this into consideration, as grenades do blast damage at Engaged range. I looked up the standard fragmentation grenade kill radius and it's listed at 5 meters, even though damage really should be possible at short range (up to 15m), and grenade fragments can travel as far as 230 m. So if you wanted to have engaged range be 15 m (45 ft.) there is certainly an argument for that to be the case. I figure that 5-15m is a good range for engaged range under most conditions. It takes one maneuver to close from Short to Engaged, so lets say a character is a good 20 meters from a target he wants to melee, it makes sense that some significant amount of movement would be required to close into melee or brawl range. It's not usually going to be a straight run in and hit type situation, the character will have to look for an opening, dodge or hide from other opponents, and make their way into a position to attack while defeating any parrying or dodging done by the target of their attack.

Short Range is going to be anything above easy walking range, or because of conditions, a dangerous space to cross. I use 15-30m as my guide, mainly because the two ranges on either side of Short are something I have more defined preconceptions of in describing. Short range is an easy pistol shot to my mind, and that's typically my frame of reference for it. It's also a good range for throwing things at a target. I have tried actually hitting things with a thrown weapon and to me 30m was a difficulty throw that required tossing the weapon up quite a bit to compensate for drop. Scoped weapons would have to use occluded eye for Short range as the scope is going to be a hindrance that close up, so I generally don't have them add bonuses for certain attachments at short/engaged. Sort is also the range I use for a standard wireless connection for datapads used in slicing. I don't allow long distance hacking of systems in order to keep the feel close to the movies.

Medium Range is the longest range for pistols I think (don't have the books in front of me) and so I'm thinking this should be a little further out. A .45 ACP round has a surprising maximum range of nearly 2000 yds if aimed at 24+ degrees. This means that pistol accuracy is more about the shooter than the bullet. But we could also assume that blaster bolts tend to lose coherency over distances of what are greater than what we typically see in the movies for non-vehicle blaster weapons. They seem to be some sort of plasma weapon so they could have a lot more energy to impart than a slug, but maybe they typically don't have the range of bullets because the bolt begins to be pulled apart by the environment if it continues to travel and doesn't hit anything. The shorter frame of pistols combined with standard firing positions and including the reaction of the shooter under combat stress make for harder shots than is optimal. Average max range for lethal shots for a shooter is 30 m. So to me given a weapon with plain old iron sights the medium range mark is going to be about there, say 30-50 meters. With a scope or futuristic targeting aids, a steady brace, a skilled shooter could be hitting at 200m if the target is visible and exposed, and not moving very fast or erratically. Because the Pistol and some Carbines have Medium as their maximum, I would say that having a high accuracy set of conditions would actually expand the Range Category for them in that situation giving the capacity for a shot at longer range.

Long Range to me is outside of casual shot range, this is a shot that has to be made using sights and scopes and with the shooter trying to stabilize the weapon as much as possible. I use 50m as the starting point for Long Range, but the median is 60-100m to me, because I think I figured out that the average hangar bay like the one in ANH would be about this wide. Long is the rifle range, so my inclination is to make it extend out to 400 m. This gives a good long range for shots, but it isn't so far as to make it ultra-long distance kill territory. It's also a good range for anti-vehicle weapons because it's not suicidal as a distance from the target for Anti-Vehicle Infantry.

Extreme Range is anything beyond a hard rifle shot out to the maximum effective range of the weapon. A missile tube could conceivably have a maximum range of 4 km easy given futuristic technology and propellants, which would put it's targets very far out of detail range of normal sight given standard vision. If you are shooting at airborne targets then such a weapon would probably go into Planetary Scale, but for ground targets most of the time its probably going to be something in the immediate battlefield area.

Would love to hear any tips about how you use the Range categories, from the ultra fast and dirty, to the crunchy and complicated. Thanks for any responses

Regardless of Blast issues, I generally top Engaged out at 2-3 meters as this is the "melee range band" of the line. Lots of small circles of Engaged can happen within a Short range area.

Someone once used speaking as an example that I tend to stick by:

Engaged : You can whisper or hold a conversation in low tones

Short : You could hold a normal conversation without having to raise your voice

Medium : You might have to raise your voices to converse

Long : You'd definitely be yelling to be heard

Extreme : You might be able to tell someone is yelling, but chances are you're not going to hear it.

I like to, on occasion, guesstimate ranges in this system as I view the world around me - such a winner I am! For example, my neighbor's truck is long range to me right now, my dog is engaged, and my wife is short range. The chopper overhead is Extreme. My barn/garage is medium.

I too struggled with an ephemeral categorization of ranges so it took a bit of practice in the real world to make it click in my head and thus be able to accurately apply it at the table.

Ars Màgica us es something similar when it comes to ranges for spells. It works. Is flexible and still clear

2 hours ago, themensch said:

Someone once used speaking as an example that I tend to stick by:

Engaged : You can whisper or hold a conversation in low tones

Short : You could hold a normal conversation without having to raise your voice

Medium : You might have to raise your voices to converse

Long : You'd definitely be yelling to be heard

Extreme : You might be able to tell someone is yelling, but chances are you're not going to hear it.

I like to, on occasion, guesstimate ranges in this system as I view the world around me - such a winner I am! For example, my neighbor's truck is long range to me right now, my dog is engaged, and my wife is short range. The chopper overhead is Extreme. My barn/garage is medium.

I too struggled with an ephemeral categorization of ranges so it took a bit of practice in the real world to make it click in my head and thus be able to accurately apply it at the table.

I think for most of the categories this is a pretty good measurement. It's not much good as far as delineating combat engagement distances, but for everything else I think its awesome. I could see this somehow applied to social combat situations in a room. Thanks for posting.

2 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Regardless of Blast issues, I generally top Engaged out at 2-3 meters as this is the "melee range band" of the line. Lots of small circles of Engaged can happen within a Short range area.

I see what you mean. So how do you handle Blast? Is it just an abstract description so it never really comes up as an issue?

Engaged is a boxing ring for me, since people box in them that seems about right.

Seems like the ranged weapons don't really have much pull for you guys as far as the range categories. Anyone here have substantial trigger time? You guys are making me think a lot about melee range as it applies to a combined fight. I remember that the fight coordinator for the original films was a bit flummoxed as to how to do heroes with melee weapons and bad guys with guns. There is a reason that guns are more popular than swords and spears lol. No melee guy who isn't a Jedi should be moving through a field of fire of anything bigger than 2P51's boxing ring in direct view of shooting combatants. I know that R2 and 3P0 do that in ANH, but it's funny because it is crazy, not because its a good idea lol.

5 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I think for most of the categories this is a pretty good measurement. It's not much good as far as delineating combat engagement distances, but for everything else I think its awesome. I could see this somehow applied to social combat situations in a room. Thanks for posting.

I don't see why these ranges don't apply to combat, or why they'd be confined to a room. They work perfectly well outside and in combat.

2 minutes ago, themensch said:

I don't see why these ranges don't apply to combat, or why they'd be confined to a room. They work perfectly well outside and in combat.

Try talking to someone at those distances if there is any ambient noise at all outside, and even a slight breeze. Also those ranges don't have any bearing on distances for shooting. Even if we are to assume Old West sound stage type shooting, the ranges won't work for anything larger than say a 30m distance. If you make medium "might have to raise your voices" then that puts maximum pistol range at about 10-15m

15 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Anyone here have substantial trigger time?

Well...do you want your game to be real, or do you want it to be fun? To each their own, but if we're going to worry about technical realities of space wizards with plasma swords then we're missing the point. I don't think anyone watches a Star Wars battle scene and really finds tactics to be the most preposterous thing on the screen.

That said, of course I encourage you to run your game however you see fit.

Just now, Archlyte said:

Try talking to someone at those distances if there is any ambient noise at all outside, and even a slight breeze. Also those ranges don't have any bearing on distances for shooting. Even if we are to assume Old West sound stage type shooting, the ranges won't work for anything larger than say a 30m distance. If you make medium "might have to raise your voices" then that puts maximum pistol range at about 10-15m

So I uh...I do that all the time. Just to talk to my nearest neighbor it's long range. There's always a tractor or a mower or gunshots or what have you.

I can appreciate the desire for complete accuracy but it feels like getting bogged down in the minutiae. This isn't really a tactical game, distances and times are nebulous to suit the story.

13 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Even if we are to assume Old West sound stage type shooting, the ranges won't work for anything larger than say a 30m distance. If you make medium "might have to raise your voices" then that puts maximum pistol range at about 10-15m

I didn't take a stab at the numbers but I must be a very loud individual, since I consider medium range to be 20-30m perhaps, maybe 40m. 50+m is a guesstimate at long, and from maybe 70+ is extreme. Short is 5-20m, engaged is 5m or less. But that's my reckoning. It's loose enough to be adapted to whatever you feel is right.

pg. 151 of the Force & Destiny core rulebook seem to be about en par with this.

10 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Seems like the ranged weapons don't really have much pull for you guys as far as the range categories. Anyone here have substantial trigger time? You guys are making me think a lot about melee range as it applies to a combined fight. I remember that the fight coordinator for the original films was a bit flummoxed as to how to do heroes with melee weapons and bad guys with guns. There is a reason that guns are more popular than swords and spears lol. No melee guy who isn't a Jedi should be moving through a field of fire of anything bigger than 2P51's boxing ring in direct view of shooting combatants. I know that R2 and 3P0 do that in ANH, but it's funny because it is crazy, not because its a good idea lol.

A .45ACP may go 2000 yds but the only thing you'll hit reliably is the ground.

I don't have any issues with the ranges, they all struck me as reasonable. I was never a fan of the default Short range for a thrown object, but I started to just think of it in terms of tossing a grenade through a small window as opposed to how far I could throw it and it bugged me less.

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Try talking to someone at those distances if there is any ambient noise at all outside, and even a slight breeze. Also those ranges don't have any bearing on distances for shooting. Even if we are to assume Old West sound stage type shooting, the ranges won't work for anything larger than say a 30m distance. If you make medium "might have to raise your voices" then that puts maximum pistol range at about 10-15m

That seems to accurately resemble how most engagements work in the movies.

I thought a pistol could reach around 20m more or less acurately, up to 30 to hit an aproximate area. After that is extremely hard to hit anything.

No idea where I got that, though, since the nearest I have been to a real weapon is in a museum.

After first few sessions I waved goodbye for my desire of realism, and embraced range bands. I made a clear decision to keep them abstract, and not to think too much how many meters they are. Sometimes our engaged is within touching distance, sometimes it is within 5 meters. I have purposefully coached players away from tactical thinking, and encouraged them to cinematic (and often stupid) actions. Player started to embrace this after I stopped punishing them about tactical blunders. If they are really stupid, I won't save them, but they are the heroes of their story, and my job as GM is to make that story as enjoyable as possible. In this vein, I have also mostly stopped using maps, except in abstract sense. Or when I want to give players sense of surroundings, when I'm not planning any combat etc action. More than maps, I use images, since I have found them to be better at creating the atmosphere I want.

5 hours ago, MonCal said:

I thought a pistol could reach around 20m more or less acurately, up to 30 to hit an aproximate area. After that is extremely hard to hit anything.

No idea where I got that, though, since the nearest I have been to a real weapon is in a museum.

I read your post and did a little googling and came up with the same range - that was food for thought! I guess I'm not as terrible an archer as I thought.

According to the FBI, the average distance of a gun fight is 7m. For purposes of this game, it helps me to remind my players that a "real" fight is close up and brutal, and distances beyond that, while possible, generally don't happen.

So while you could hit a target at 30m on a range, a shooting range is not a gun fight.

1 hour ago, JRRP said:

According to the FBI, the average distance of a gun fight is 7m. For purposes of this game, it helps me to remind my players that a "real" fight is close up and brutal, and distances beyond that, while possible, generally don't happen.

So while you could hit a target at 30m on a range, a shooting range is not a gun fight.

Average is a bad number to look at. Mode would be better, because you have one gun fight at 100m and it makes that average misleading.

Bottom line if reality is actually what someone wants at their table, there are precious few shooters that can hit a mobile man sized target at 30m reliably. That is beyond a doubt a world class skill level hand gun shooter.

Pistols are status symbols and badges of office. They are back ups. They are a matter of convenience, necessity, and environment. I have put tens of thousands of rounds through various weapons in my pirating life and I would always go for a long gun over a pistol, even the stubbiest of carbines.

I've tried to cross reference some stuff every now and again to see how it stacks up. The book generally lists a rough length, weapons effective at the range, how audible something is, and a sense of movement for each band.

Engaged: No book length given, but I know it's bigger than the 2m squares of SWRPGs past. I agree with the boxing ring analogy; 5-6meters at most.

Short: Book says several meters, which I'd probably max out at 11-15. This seems to mesh with what I can find on handgun ranges which are further than Engaged (namely 7 and 15m). Note slugthrower pistols only have a range of short, even the 25 yard mark is only a few meters past the above length. Human speech is 60db (at 1 meter), so at 8-16 meters it drops to 42-36db; this mostly meets the book's requirement of "talking comfortably" since this is between 4 and 2 times louder than a whisper, respectively. A human can almost certainly cover this distance in 3 seconds or less.

Medium: Several dozen meters, if using the above for "several," could be up to 15x12=180 meters. I'm assuming they mean a lower number considering their minimum for long being "a few dozen" meters. I'd say 72-84 meters, or 6-7 dozen, meets what could be considered both "a few" as well as "several". Weapon-wise, this presents an issue with the slugthrower rifle only being able to shoot this far. "Talking loudly" I'd probably put at 69db (@1m), yielding 39db at 96m which I called understandable above. This is obviously a much larger distance than short range, but even closing from any of these ranges to 15m can probably be crossed in around a dozen seconds.

Long: Further than medium range is the only listed distance suggestion. From what I've read about engagement ranges a max of 300m wouldn't be an unreasonable "long range" for a rifle. Yelling and shouting is what the book says for people to be heard; this would be around 80-90db at 1m from what I can tell, resulting in 32-38db at 256m. Without too much background noise this should be fine to be heard. From a theoretical 300m range a character would need to cover 200m at least to get to medium range, something which would take 45 seconds at least I figure.

Extreme: No book distance suggestion. From what I've read, 500-600m is the maximum range for a point target for rifles. The same 80-90db shout drops to 26-32db at 512m, which is the level of a whisper at best. With any background noise at all this could be missed, IMO qualifying for the "might not be able to hear each other" bit. We using these estimates, there's 200-300m a character would need to travel to get from extreme to long. This would take a similar amount of time as above, or slightly longer.

Thoughts: Things actually seem to line up pretty nicely from what I've seen. I think they made a mistake saying the default slugthrower rifle can only shoot medium range, but there are now plenty which go to long in supplements. As with moving to/from engaged range, I think the moving short range has an element of waiting for cover/an opening built into it to avoid being immediately gunned down by being exposed at that close range. Movement in the other range bands seems to imply being able to do 100m in 20-25seconds which is something I can do even though I haven't kept in shape at all. I also think half a click for the start of Close vehicle range is pretty reasonable too since less than 1000m was where tanks engaged from in WWII.

Overall, I like the system. I just wish they got a little crunchier in the range categories. I tend to prefer knowing I am 50 meters from a target, which is Long range for a pistol, but Medium for a rifle.

On ‎9‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 0:30 AM, MonCal said:

I thought a pistol could reach around 20m more or less acurately, up to 30 to hit an aproximate area. After that is extremely hard to hit anything.

No idea where I got that, though, since the nearest I have been to a real weapon is in a museum.

I personally have never shot anything with a pistol accurately over 60 yards, but I looked I up and guys can make shots out to 200 yds. with a reflex sight. Average gun fights are stupid close, as I also looked up the FBI data, but we also have to remember that Range categories need to be kind of elastic. This does point out a problem with that extra difficulty die at point blank (engaged ) range for pistols. Pistols really shouldn't be penalized at that range and would probably get a blue as well as being Easy. I imagine they did this to give melee guys a chance.

On ‎9‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 4:12 AM, kkuja said:

After first few sessions I waved goodbye for my desire of realism, and embraced range bands. I made a clear decision to keep them abstract, and not to think too much how many meters they are. Sometimes our engaged is within touching distance, sometimes it is within 5 meters. I have purposefully coached players away from tactical thinking, and encouraged them to cinematic (and often stupid) actions. Player started to embrace this after I stopped punishing them about tactical blunders. If they are really stupid, I won't save them, but they are the heroes of their story, and my job as GM is to make that story as enjoyable as possible. In this vein, I have also mostly stopped using maps, except in abstract sense. Or when I want to give players sense of surroundings, when I'm not planning any combat etc action. More than maps, I use images, since I have found them to be better at creating the atmosphere I want.

Yeah and I do realize that it's supposed to be abstract, it's just that every time I try to stick to it being purely an unspecified narrative they suck me in with some plan or action that requires knowing where things are precisely lol. On a side note Kkuja you are just awesome, had to say it. Always like your posts

On 9/23/2017 at 11:15 AM, Archlyte said:

I personally have never shot anything with a pistol accurately over 60 yards, but I looked I up and guys can make shots out to 200 yds. with a reflex sight. Average gun fights are stupid close, as I also looked up the FBI data, but we also have to remember that Range categories need to be kind of elastic. This does point out a problem with that extra difficulty die at point blank (engaged ) range for pistols. Pistols really shouldn't be penalized at that range and would probably get a blue as well as being Easy. I imagine they did this to give melee guys a chance.

Actually, having the extra difficulty die at engaged makes sense with the pistol. It represents your opponent hitting your weapon out of line. Anyone engaged with a pistol wielder had better be trying to hit or wrestle for the pistol, or they are begging to be shot. If the target isn't hitting your gun, chances are you are considered to be at short, not engaged.