Hi all.

I was hoping people could give me some examples of Movement between range bands, or even how they keep track of it all during play.

My current dilemma is thus:

The Storm Trooper sidebar example on p208 says that 2 groups of Storm Troopers come in from opposite ends to the PCs. Each group is at Medium Range to the PCs. The player group splits in half with each half moving 1 maneuver toward their respective chosen Trooper group. Now, each PC group is within Short range of their chosen NPC targets, but are at Medium range from each other.

So, each PC group has made 1 Maneuver away from their starting point in opposite directions, yet for one group to then rejoin the other group they would only need to use 1 maneuver... huh? My brain is beginning to cry.

It gets even stranger once Long and Extreme range bands are used:

A PC is at Short range from point X and wishes to reach within Short range of point Y which is currently at Extreme range (5 maneuvers away). He walks away from point X toward point Y on Round 1 using 1 maneuver. He is now at Medium Range from point X...

My question is, as he has moved one range band away from X, is he now (a) 1 Range band closer to Y which is effectively Long Range, or (b) is he STILL at Extreme range from Y?

If the answer is (a) then he is now only 3 maneuvers away from Y which is weird as he has theoretically covered 2 maneuvers with just 1! But if the answer is (b) then he is still 5 maneuvers away from Y... either way this strange space-time event confuses the heck outta me. It now appears that my brain has melted and is dripping from my ears...

Can anyone shed some light on how they keep track of it all when there are 2, 3 or even more parties involved without getting totally confused?

Do you keep track of the number of Range bands, or simply the number of Maneuvers needed/apart?

Much appreciated!

I'd keep track of the number of maneuvers. If it takes 5 maneuvers to get from his starting point X to the finish line Y, he needs to make 5 maneuvers. I suggest you do it in the way that requires the least amount of thinking and calculation, and if you loose track just make a judgement call. The game is meant to be fast-flowing and fun, not minute calculation of movement distances. Keep an open mind, be flexible, make a judgement call and move the action along.Don't sweat the small stuff.

I had tried lots of fancy charts and whatnot, but I kept messing up or we all ended up confused. Since my group has a lot of wargamers in it, they really like tactical play so, despite this system being abstracted and narrative, I am planning on trying the following:

I will be using my gridded playmat to draw the maps on, and I think the book says that short range is around 32m,so for simplicity I will use something like, 1sq = 10m and anything within 3 squares is short range. That means medium range starts at 4 squares, and since it takes 1 maneuver to go from short to medium, I am going to use a movement rate of 4 squares. Since it takes 2 maneuvers to go from medium to short, that means long range is 12 squares and similarly, extreme is 20. If someone wants to engage they have to move next to the target and then spend a maneuver to enter the square. Likewise, to use cover they must move next to it and then spend a maneuver to move into the square showing the cover which indicates they are in cover.

I feel that this will be more fun for my tactical minded players and take away a lot of the confusion and tracking while staying as close to the intent of the rules as possible.

Prior to this I had a chart with range bands on it and I moved markers representing the PCs and NPCs about on it so we could track where everyone was. Worked fine if everyone stuck together so everyone had the same reference point, but the players still wanted a map to help with visualization so I needed two sets of markers for everything and had to track which was which, and if the wookie charged to engage while some moved up to short range while others were at medium it got confusing again

You and your players have every right to play the game exactly as you like. That being said, I'd suggest you might get more pleasure out of a game that supports that level of detail, like Pathfinder or some other D20 based system. The whole point of EotE is that it doesn't aim for tactical exactness. The fluid nature of the system, the involvement of players in the narrative through multi-layered dice rolls and the reliance on quick GM decisions to move things along was what attracted me to it in the first place.

I don't in any way intend this as a critizism of your gaming style. You should do exactly what you want.

Oh, I know and that's a lot of the problem - heavy background in d20 and Shadowrun influencing them (along with a lot of miniature wargaming). As I said I had tried other means of tracking range bands and it ended up a mess and since I was going to be using a map anyway using a fixed set of range bands seems like it would work *for my group*. They do like the narrative style of the game and all the other aspects of it, I was just getting confused as to where everyone was in relation to everyone else which was messing with their enjoyment of the combat (which they did like other than that). That fault lying squarely with me. I mean, when one of my players who is mostly a wargamer started giving descriptions of what his advantages and threat meant in combat I was ecstatic. It was just the - Am I medium or short range questions that I couldn't quickly answer that got to them (or worse, I answered using GM discretion that they disagreed with) , especially when you get to having to track where things are in the double maneuvers to change range bands. Again, that fault is with me and getting overwhelmed by not being organized and prepared enough. Fixed range bands will help my group with that

My group sits in my living room with my flatscreen TV as the "map" running a session of Roll20 (used to be MapTool, but I grudgingly switched). We don't display or use grid lines. We eyeball movement, which typically works to be about 1/4 of the screen is short range, half is medium, much beyond that is long. Edge to edge could be "extreme" but that's never really come up.

I try to create maps to look like something hastily drawn on a slate board, often monochromatic. I don't worry much about detail except for major points such as side corridors, doors, or very large internal room features. The rest we narrate as we go along. A PC can almost always find cover within short range if they look for it even if it's not represented on the map.

I personally prefer having a map to not having one, but I strongly prefer having gridless approximations over painstaking detail. The more detail there is, especially with the presence of grids, the more the battle feels like a tactical boardgame (like 4th edition D&D) and less like a fast and loose narrative-centric RPG. People worry too much about how many squares they can move, especially if they come up one short no matter how many routes they take, etc.

I could go with no map, but having 6-7 PC's means combats can get very large and hard for me to manage solely within the minds of the players (and my own).

Yeah, I would do something without squares, if I had a large enough surface that I could draw on and reuse. Since I already own a battlements and wet erase markers that was the obvious choice for me to use and asking these guys to ignore the grid is like asking them not to breathe. Maybe I will go buy a large enough whiteboard (but not too large) so I can draw on something without a grid

You might want to try using zones. Same zone is short range, 1-2 zones away is medium range, 3-4 zones away is long range, and 5-6 zones away is extreme range. It takes a maneuver to change zones.

Still keeps some abstractness but gives a visual way to track distances.

That's sort of what this is. Since my map has squares I am using 4 squares to represent a range band. I guess I will get a whiteboard so there aren't squares. My plan was to scrap this method if I felt like it was ruining the narrative flow of the game, but you have all convinced me to scrap it

I usually give my players a vague measurement of meters away... anything within 15 meters is considered short range, from that and up to about 60 meters is medium, from about there on up its usually long... extreme rarely comes into play, for now. Their new sniper blaster rifle has extreme range, so they might take advantage of that.

Also, I rarely have any encounters that go beyond medium range, since "several dozen meters" usually covers most indoor areas. I do sometimes use long outdoors.

I keep track of the maneuvers needed to close the distance. Easiest way of doing this is to place a d6 between each of the groups. But I only really do this if it's needed (i.e. if long and extreme ranges are in play).

The first example in the original post with two groups moving one maneuver apart each is a bit of a paradox I agree, but that's the price you have to pay for using an abstract (and quite approximate) range system. The player groups would be at medium distance from each other but each at short range from the respective stormtrooper group.

Thanks for all the responses!

I'd keep track of the number of maneuvers. If it takes 5 maneuvers to get from his starting point X to the finish line Y, he needs to make 5 maneuvers. I suggest you do it in the way that requires the least amount of thinking and calculation, and if you loose track just make a judgement call. The game is meant to be fast-flowing and fun, not minute calculation of movement distances. Keep an open mind, be flexible, make a judgement call and move the action along.Don't sweat the small stuff.

I don't like to sweat the small stuff, but I only have 2 players and one of them can be quite... OCD? The other doesn't give two hoots one way or the other as long as he's having fun.

I think I'll go with your suggestion of keeping track of the Maneuvers needed and see how it goes. Thanks!

A map isn't really practical with my current set-up. We play in the dining room and my table is quite long but also quite thin. As such once I have my core book, my notes for the evening, my dice app, the GM screen, both their character sheets and dice, drinks, nibbles, pencils and erasers on the table there isn't really much room for anything else

Thanks again!

Yeah, I am concerned that my current table is lacking in real estate to use the map again. I have a second folding table I used to use when we were playing D&D but that got bothersome bringing it in and out from the garage.

The Storm Trooper sidebar example on p208 says that 2 groups of Storm Troopers come in from opposite ends to the PCs. Each group is at Medium Range to the PCs. The player group splits in half with each half moving 1 maneuver toward their respective chosen Trooper group. Now, each PC group is within Short range of their chosen NPC targets, but are at Medium range from each other.

So, each PC group has made 1 Maneuver away from their starting point in opposite directions, yet for one group to then rejoin the other group they would only need to use 1 maneuver... huh? My brain is beginning to cry.

If the two groups are Medium range from each other, wouldn't it take one of the groups one maneuver to move into Short range and then one maneuver to move to Engaged range with each other?

Granted, I and my group don't have experience with tactical miniatures-based systems but we just plop down tokens either on a map or just on the table and eyeball it.

Using these visual aids helps me but mainly I'm keeping a list of references in my head--

"Minion group A is at short range from the PC group, Minion group B is medium range from the PCs and long range from Minion group A."

That kind of thing. It seems pretty flexible and easy to manage without thinking about it too much.

In your case you only have a couple of PCs, but all 5 of my PCs tended to run off in different directions (a couple might go after minion group A, one staying back to shoot and one to melee) and that's what was giving me fits . Old, slow, tired brain

The Storm Trooper sidebar example on p208 says that 2 groups of Storm Troopers come in from opposite ends to the PCs. Each group is at Medium Range to the PCs. The player group splits in half with each half moving 1 maneuver toward their respective chosen Trooper group. Now, each PC group is within Short range of their chosen NPC targets, but are at Medium range from each other.

So, each PC group has made 1 Maneuver away from their starting point in opposite directions, yet for one group to then rejoin the other group they would only need to use 1 maneuver... huh? My brain is beginning to cry.

If the two groups are Medium range from each other, wouldn't it take one of the groups one maneuver to move into Short range and then one maneuver to move to Engaged range with each other?

Yes, it would. But if for example we say that each half of the PC party was at Short range from each other then the problem presents itself. Each would move 1 maneauver away from the other so you would think they would be a total of 2 maneuvers away from each other. Yet as they are only classed as being at Medium range, one group would only need 1 maneuver to once again be within Short range of the other, which kinda screws with my head.

My main concern is that in real life not everything happens to work in 1 dimensional space. What if we're in a square area with one PC in one corner, another in another corner, and Storm Troopers both in the remaining 2 corners and the middle of the area. When everyone begins moving about this could be a small nightmare to keep track of. And this isn't even assuming 3 dimensional space. What if there is a further Trooper up on a ledge, or more than one ledge?

Brain Meltdown!!!

I'll have to see how it plays out, and if my player decides to get too detailed I'll just have to slap him and tell him to shut up

I think "small nightmare" might be overstating the case a bit.

I feel like you are overthinking it. Have you actually played it at all or are your concerns just based on the theory from the books?

One thing I did before I even ran a game was to sit down and play out several combat scenarios in various environments. I made a gundark nemesis and put 2 characters up against it, starting from different ranges to see how they'd fare. (When they started at long or medium range they did well, when it got the jump on the players at close range they didn't do so great )

You could take the Mos Schuuta map and play out some scenarios and just try to make it as simple to process as possible.

Just kinda keep in mind each group (usually there are only 2 or 3 different 'groups' in a combat) and their relative distances from each other.

I'd really recommend just trying it out a few times and see how it goes.

For example, in the game we played of Mos Schuuta, I had the 2 ST groups (one from medium and one from long range to the players' group), and there were alleyways the PCs were trying to escape down, and the STs were approaching from different ranges.

It really didn't end up being difficult to track at all.

If a ST is up on a ledge, use your judgment about whether the ledge is high enough to add a "range band" to their distance. If the ST is at short range from a player on the ground, and they move up to a second story window, maybe that's "medium" range... it doesn't have to be that complicated

Easiest thing you can do is take a piece of paper and freehand draw a map on a small scale (the lack of grids and scale is important while you teach them to be more abstract)

Now as the GM feel free to adjudicate range bands. This means if npc group A and B are in the same direction, if a PC moves towards either of them then sure they move closer to both. Using common sense with player movement but not getting into the grid style movement will allow your players to be a little more tactical but doesn't slow the game down at all.

I think "small nightmare" might be overstating the case a bit.

I feel like you are overthinking it. Have you actually played it at all or are your concerns just based on the theory from the books?

One thing I did before I even ran a game was to sit down and play out several combat scenarios in various environments. I made a gundark nemesis and put 2 characters up against it, starting from different ranges to see how they'd fare. (When they started at long or medium range they did well, when it got the jump on the players at close range they didn't do so great )

You could take the Mos Schuuta map and play out some scenarios and just try to make it as simple to process as possible.

Just kinda keep in mind each group (usually there are only 2 or 3 different 'groups' in a combat) and their relative distances from each other.

I'd really recommend just trying it out a few times and see how it goes.

To be honest I know I'm overthinking it too, but I know what my player can be like. My concerns are purely based on what I read in the book and my intricate knowledge of my players and their habits - I haven't yet started running the game as yet, just getting prepared.

For example, in the game we played of Mos Schuuta, I had the 2 ST groups (one from medium and one from long range to the players' group), and there were alleyways the PCs were trying to escape down, and the STs were approaching from different ranges.

It really didn't end up being difficult to track at all.

If a ST is up on a ledge, use your judgment about whether the ledge is high enough to add a "range band" to their distance. If the ST is at short range from a player on the ground, and they move up to a second story window, maybe that's "medium" range... it doesn't have to be that complicated

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a shot and see how it pans out!

Easiest thing you can do is take a piece of paper and freehand draw a map on a small scale (the lack of grids and scale is important while you teach them to be more abstract)

Now as the GM feel free to adjudicate range bands. This means if npc group A and B are in the same direction, if a PC moves towards either of them then sure they move closer to both. Using common sense with player movement but not getting into the grid style movement will allow your players to be a little more tactical but doesn't slow the game down at all.

I could give the "mini-map" a shot, too. Thanks Nash!

To be honest I know I'm overthinking it too, but I know what my player can be like. My concerns are purely based on what I read in the book and my intricate knowledge of my players and their habits - I haven't yet started running the game as yet, just getting prepared.

Don't even give "overthinking it" a second thought. There's definitely a large contingent who play this game all in their heads (probably even a majority), but the game supports map play pretty well. I play in one game as a player using a gridded map and run another game using a gridded map, and both work fine. The important thing for your players (especially if they are enamored with absolute distances and visual maps) is to be:

First, logical (i.e. match up your range bands with what feels right on the maps you play on)

Second, reasonable (because the system is freer-flowing, don't hesitate to say "ok, well, you're close to the short/medium range border, we'll call it short with a setback")

And third, consistent (- and this is probably the most important. If you make a set of conversions, stick with them from map to map. Maintain scale, and your tactical players will be able to fluidly follow along.)

You might want to try using zones. Same zone is short range, 1-2 zones away is medium range, 3-4 zones away is long range, and 5-6 zones away is extreme range. It takes a maneuver to change zones.

Still keeps some abstractness but gives a visual way to track distances.

This is what we do. My only addition would be that I make sure there is something in each zone, so you don't end up with these empty spaces.

Thanks for the advice, Maveritchell. Much appreciated.

Regarding the "zone" method, I am currently looking into this idea. I'll do a mock-up and play test it to see how it feels.

Thanks again everyone for some great suggestions!

Thanks for all the responses!

I'd keep track of the number of maneuvers. If it takes 5 maneuvers to get from his starting point X to the finish line Y, he needs to make 5 maneuvers. I suggest you do it in the way that requires the least amount of thinking and calculation, and if you loose track just make a judgement call. The game is meant to be fast-flowing and fun, not minute calculation of movement distances. Keep an open mind, be flexible, make a judgement call and move the action along.Don't sweat the small stuff.

I don't like to sweat the small stuff, but I only have 2 players and one of them can be quite... OCD? The other doesn't give two hoots one way or the other as long as he's having fun.

I think I'll go with your suggestion of keeping track of the Maneuvers needed and see how it goes. Thanks!

A map isn't really practical with my current set-up. We play in the dining room and my table is quite long but also quite thin. As such once I have my core book, my notes for the evening, my dice app, the GM screen, both their character sheets and dice, drinks, nibbles, pencils and erasers on the table there isn't really much room for anything else

Thanks again!

I had this problem when I started playing Warhammer Fantasy 3 with my group. My solution was to use a map with "zones" between which the PCs can move.

If you cannot use a map, you may count the Maneuvers as Krieger22 suggests. In this case, I would use tokens (any counters from a boardgame will do) to mark distance between minis (or whatever you use to represent the characters)... 1 counter=1 maneuver