24 minutes ago, Deathseed said:

I'm the GM, if I rule it a fair shot, it's a fair shot.

My players and I don't bother with rocket surgery. We're narrative first, mechanics second. We use the mechanics we like and ignore the rest. We gravitate towards whatever (for us) streamlines the experience.

I'd say the system is relatively streamlined and very easily adaptable. From what I read very few people use the strict RAW. My point was more that if you use a grid system it'll be rare to ever see anything above a medium shot. It can enclose it a bit much and push you too frequently into close quarters combat. That's my experience.

38 minutes ago, Deathseed said:

My point was just that this isn't my first rodeo, and I don't need you telling me "the right and wrong ways to play".

There have been grid adaptations that could work if you need them, you'll probably find them in the EotE board or the GM sub board. The most workable one I recall used something like: Short = 4; Medium = 9; Long = 16; Extreme = 24...gives it a slight geometric curve in keeping with the extra Maneuvers required to get to Long and Extreme range. Tempting as it might be, I wouldn't change the movement amounts to be attribute-based, call it 4 or 5 and be done. It's really arbitrary anyway, as personal scale doesn't have any Speed associated with it, just Maneuvers, so everybody moves at the same rate. If you need a chase, use Athletics.

That said, I'm not sure why you have a bee in your bonnet about being told it's a poor idea. He's not wrong. Beyond using a map to get a general visual sense of where people are in relation to each other (which can frankly be more easily done on a whiteboard), it's definitely not a great idea. You said you like narrative first, mechanics second, but your solution adds a layer of unnecessary mechanical chaff.

On 11/25/2017 at 6:47 PM, satkaz said:

Hmm, going by DnD feet and squares for me, I'd say in a building:

Short's around 25 feet / 5 squares max

Medium's around 50 feet / 10 squares max

Long is 75 feet / 15 squares max

Extreme is 100 ft / 20 squares max.

For more outside places, maybe multiply by 5. And with really expansive places, multiply by 10?

Maybe meters could work out, too.

I wouldn't change distance between indoors and out. Essentially unless you are in a really large room, warehouse or hanger you're within Short Range, once you get past that room sized place your in Medium range (up too several dozen meters is 36m or around 120ft) there aren't going to be many interiors that are going to be bigger than that. So rather than go for an exact number of squares I'd do it by room when you are designing the encounter and just say everything in this room is Short until you get to a room large enough to seem like it's Medium then just have everyone within Short unless you are at the opposite sides of the room or whatever. The point is that this isn't the kind of system that does well when getting too picky with exact distances.

The most success I've had using this system with miniatures is to use "range chits" between miniatures and "terrain features of interest" (like WFRP 3rd edition) and a dry erase battlemap to draw the scenario as it plays out so you aren't locked in at a certain scale. Sometimes we also use terrain/props in this same vein. We stole the concept of terrain cards from WFRP 3rd edition, which are analogous to Fate "zone aspects" by combining narrative aspects/complications in "zones" with mechanics . We ignore the squares completely. This immensely helped my players who were struggling to keep track of the scene spatially. I understand this doesn't help answer the initial question regarding squares and range bands, but it does offer an alternative to attempting to shoehorn the abstract ranges in this game onto a grid.

^ This is essentially what I do as well.

On 2017-11-27 at 10:35 PM, Stan Fresh said:

This sounds like a letter to the editor written by a Victorian gentleman.

Balderdash! No true gentleman worth his salt would deign to admit attending such an uncouth, colonial spectacle such as a "rodeo".

I say good day to you sir! GOOD! DAY!

On 11/25/2017 at 5:47 PM, satkaz said:

Hmm, going by DnD feet and squares for me, I'd say in a building:

Short's around 25 feet / 5 squares max

Medium's around 50 feet / 10 squares max

Long is 75 feet / 15 squares max

Extreme is 100 ft / 20 squares max.

For more outside places, maybe multiply by 5. And with really expansive places, multiply by 10?

Maybe meters could work out, too.

The problem is engaged is what you can hit some one with a melee weapon. Which is about 30 feet of so

When it comes to stuff like this I tend to follow the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid). There are 2 potential solutions i would recommend; one with a grid and one without. With a grid i would just do...

Squares next to each other would be engaged. 1 square away would be short, 2 squares would be medium, 4 squares would be long, and 6 squares Extreme. Very simple and easily shows the relative position of everybody and how many maneuvers to reach somewhere.

The second, but potentially more complicated would be no grid. Bases touching as engaged, 1 inch as short range, 2 inches as medium, 4 inches as long, and 6 inches as extreme. This would basically just give you more freedom as to actual figure placement.

At my table we love using figures and visual aides. As GM i just keep track of range bands and don't use the figures to portray actual range. Just general layout of a scene.

1 hour ago, Noahjam325 said:

When it comes to stuff like this I tend to follow the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid). There are 2 potential solutions i would recommend; one with a grid and one without. With a grid i would just do...

Squares next to each other would be engaged. 1 square away would be short, 2 squares would be medium, 4 squares would be long, and 6 squares Extreme. Very simple and easily shows the relative position of everybody and how many maneuvers to reach somewhere.

The second, but potentially more complicated would be no grid. Bases touching as engaged, 1 inch as short range, 2 inches as medium, 4 inches as long, and 6 inches as extreme. This would basically just give you more freedom as to actual figure placement.

At my table we love using figures and visual aides. As GM i just keep track of range bands and don't use the figures to portray actual range. Just general layout of a scene.

That is going to be incredibly wonky. Which is why squares are bad in this system.

On 12/3/2017 at 10:56 PM, Noahjam325 said:

When it comes to stuff like this I tend to follow the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid). There are 2 potential solutions i would recommend; one with a grid and one without. With a grid i would just do...

Squares next to each other would be engaged. 1 square away would be short, 2 squares would be medium, 4 squares would be long, and 6 squares Extreme. Very simple and easily shows the relative position of everybody and how many maneuvers to reach somewhere.

The second, but potentially more complicated would be no grid. Bases touching as engaged, 1 inch as short range, 2 inches as medium, 4 inches as long, and 6 inches as extreme. This would basically just give you more freedom as to actual figure placement.

At my table we love using figures and visual aides. As GM i just keep track of range bands and don't use the figures to portray actual range. Just general layout of a scene.

On 12/3/2017 at 11:59 PM, Daeglan said:

That is going to be incredibly wonky. Which is why squares are bad in this system.

I agree with @Daeglan , here. Another reason why I don't see that working is that the distances between range bands essentially increase exponentially , not linearly . Thus, while having Engaged be two squares touching, Short could easily be for or five +squares long, Medium would be 20-30+ squares long,, Long would be over 100 squares long, etc.

If you wanted the "best" IMO approach to gridding you would use "large" hexes. All of the hex you're in would be short range. One and 2 hexes away would be medium, 3 and 4 hexes away would be long. Extreme range starts with 5 squares out and probably extends 4 hexes total. If you were to uses hexes 6 inches on a side that would probably be plenty of room for all of short range in a single hex. Then moving from 1 hex to an adjacent hex costs 1 maneuver moving within a hex costs 1 maneuver. You could cut 6 inch edge length hexes out of 11x17 sheets. The distance between opposite corners is 2xedgelength=12 inches (along the 17 inch direction), the perpendicular distance between opposite edges is sqrt (3)*edge length =10.39230... inches (along the 11 inch direction)

I wouldn't use anything with a grid or hexes. Since the range categories are amorphous and apply to the individual, you are gonna have to do a lot of "that's short range for you" type stuff if you want to preserve any of the narrative sense of this. To combat the hurt I would defer to the players as much as possible and be light about it, not being a hardass when you don't have to. There are so many different types of weapons and situations that you get a lot of room for judging things based on context. Good luck though, this won't be easy I'm thinking if you have detail oriented Players who want actual distances.

14 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I wouldn't use anything with a grid or hexes. Since the range categories are amorphous and apply to the individual, you are gonna have to do a lot of "that's short range for you" type stuff if you want to preserve any of the narrative sense of this. To combat the hurt I would defer to the players as much as possible and be light about it, not being a hardass when you don't have to. There are so many different types of weapons and situations that you get a lot of room for judging things based on context. Good luck though, this won't be easy I'm thinking if you have detail oriented Players who want actual distances.

In case you didn't catch this, I reverse engineered a hex grid system that is perfectly consistent with RAW, look up the RAW maneuver cost to move between range bands compare that to what I posted here (1 maneuver per hex). Hexes because they're the closest shape to a circle that packs.

On 12/5/2017 at 8:20 PM, EliasWindrider said:

If you wanted the "best" IMO approach to gridding you would use "large" hexes. All of the hex you're in would be short range. One and 2 hexes away would be medium, 3 and 4 hexes away would be long. Extreme range starts with 5 squares out and probably extends 4 hexes total. If you were to uses hexes 6 inches on a side that would probably be plenty of room for all of short range in a single hex. Then moving from 1 hex to an adjacent hex costs 1 maneuver moving within a hex costs 1 maneuver. You could cut 6 inch edge length hexes out of 11x17 sheets. The distance between opposite corners is 2xedgelength=12 inches (along the 17 inch direction), the perpendicular distance between opposite edges is sqrt (3)*edge length =10.39230... inches (along the 11 inch direction)

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 9:16 PM, EliasWindrider said:

In case you didn't catch this, I reverse engineered a hex grid system that is perfectly consistent with RAW, look up the RAW maneuver cost to move between range bands compare that to what I posted here (1 maneuver per hex). Hexes because they're the closest shape to a circle that packs.

I think your solution is great. I just like to have Range Bands not be a set distance and be situational, which is easier to represent I think without range shapes on the board. Yeah but if I was using definite Range bands I would totally use your system.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

I think your solution is great. I just like to have Range Bands not be a set distance and be situational, which is easier to represent I think without range shapes on the board. Yeah but if I was using definite Range bands I would totally use your system.

I feel you, but i don'the think that rules out my system, the point is it doesn't use units more specific than "short range" and "effort (in maneuvers) to move between relative position." Just because the effort to travel in 2 "large hexes" is the same doesn't mean that those 2 hexes are the same size. Other than helping to define relative positions/directions it isn't any more-specific/less-abstract than the RAW range bands to maneuver cost conversion. A large dry erase map with big hexes on it would work great for an abstract implementation of this. if a particular GM wanted to define each hex as a fixed distance, they could, but it's not required.

Throw off the yoke of oppression and embrace narrative combat. I still get out the minis, they are fun, after all, but ffg has liberated us

1 hour ago, Orjo Creld said:

Throw off the yoke of oppression and embrace narrative combat. I still get out the minis, they are fun, after all, but ffg has liberated us

I see maps and minis as a communication aid. Since my son was born a former player took over the gaming duties but we 3 out of 4 players in the current game have custom minis that @Tramp Graphics modified for me (I generally pay him $20 including shipping to modify the minis for me, I'll buy them online and have them shipped to him, he customizes them emails me pictures, I pay him with pay pal and he ships them to me. So we all have minis that actually look like our characters, the fourth player is playing a togruta sentinel shadow so the shak ti (sp?) Mini wearing the Jedi robes actually works pretty well out of the proverbial box. Tramp has been customize minis for me for a decade now. Counting squares like in SAGA and RCR d20 star wars style tactical movement is not something i want to go back to, but I've found that as a general rule if you don't use minis and a map everyone will have a different idea about where they and stuff I described were/was.

On 26/11/2017 at 2:26 AM, Deathseed said:

A not unexpected bit of arrogance, sarcasm, and presumption on your part. It was inevitable that someone would demonstrate your particular bias. You managed to do it with conceited aplomb. The Sith in me is almost impressed.

However, never presume to tell me what I can or can not accomplish. If you've nothing positive, helpful, and good spirited to contribute, you're welcome to hold your tongue.

That escalated quickly.

On 12/11/2017 at 7:06 AM, edwardavern said:

That escalated quickly.

I am 92% rage, 8% bacon.

1 hour ago, Deathseed said:

I am 92% rage, 8% bacon.

So, what I'm getting out of this is. . . the Dark Side no longer has cookies, but does have bacon. Even trade.

8 hours ago, ErikModi said:

So, what I'm getting out of this is. . . the Dark Side no longer has cookies, but does have bacon. Even trade.

You are wise. A powerful (and fat) Sith you will become.

On 12/13/2017 at 5:15 AM, ErikModi said:

So, what I'm getting out of this is. . . the Dark Side no longer has cookies, but does have bacon. Even trade.

Why not bacon chocolate chip cookies?

3 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Why not bacon chocolate chip cookies?

The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many flavors some consider to be unnatural.

I Use minis and the piazo grid mats for my game. It works fine, I just recommend staying away from ranges being a certain number of squares. I just draw my setting, point to two spots, and say "this is medium range" and short would be half of that. Short range should be about as far as you can justify someone running in their turn. Remember, an average person can run 50 yards in about 6 or 7 seconds, and can cover about 12ft in the time it takes to draw aim and fire a gun.

you can make it work really easily as long as you don't get too hung up on ranges being a specific distance.

We like to use a white board for the map. Like dgamal said, I just draw the setting and let my players know what the scale of the area is. This keeps from players misinterpreting the scale for each encounter after. No need for a grid in my experience so far, but I can see it working. Just be clear with the group that a square one encounter may be 5 feet, but for another encounter it could be 20 feet..

To avoid a board or minis entirely due to it being a narrative system, just isn't our style. Minis AND great narrative make for flavor in the game that makes players feel more engaged.. At least with my group.