"Turnless Game?" Topic

Let's say in a theoretical skirmish game driven by objectives and missions instead of points, there are two players each with a half-dozen or more squads and maybe a few vehicles. In real life squads do not stand around and wait to move one at a time, nor is there a great reset in the battlefield every five to fifteen minutes, and they certainly do not just sit there and watch the enemy do something for five to fifteen minutes before reacting. So how would a game avoid that and be as simultaneous as possible? My headache-ridden head came up with the idea that the players alternate squad activations and actions (player one activates a squad of choice, player two activates a squad of choice, player one activates a squad of choice, etc until objectives are met or a mission succeeds/fails), but would that create an enjoyable game? Should there be safeguards to prevent the same squad from being activated over and over again with the others not participating (like a spotter squad repeatedly calling in an off-map artillery bombardment)?

And for reference, an activated squad can shoot at a target; move towards something; make a partial move and shoot with penalty at a target; rally and remove suppression; charge with bayonet and grenade; or take a technical action like clip a section of wires from a barbed-wire fence or hook up a bogged vehicle to a towing vehicle or set up a demolition charge etc.

An activation could also include an overwatch function.

You could also have an order phase in which all squads get orders.

You can limit a squad to a single activation.

Some systems let you activate a unit until you fail your activation roll, at which point the initiative goes to the other player. So, you can take your chances using your FO multiple times, but it may not work out for you.

A lot of games have "alternate unit activation". Some do it randomly (like bolt action), or at the choice of a player or through the use of cards.

The turn however is vital (in my humble opinion) to have for some of the reasons you stated. In an alternating activation system of any kind, the game turn is measured when all units (in my experience) have completed an action. Then the game turn "resets" the activations and allows things such as a fresh round of shooting and moving as units are activated again.

This creates a more balanced game than say 40k where you move a force then the other force reacts (although I go, you go has advantages too) and at the same time creates a mini game in how players manage to activate their forces.

The easiest example (besides players choosing one at a time) is Bolt Action. In Bolt Action you have a coloured dice for every unit, both teams put their coloured die into a bag. A dice is pulled out of the bag and the team that dice belongs too gets to chose a unit to activate. During this activation they can move/shoot or run or go into over watch etc (the other HUGE benefit to activating units is allowing for unit reactions rather than force reactions). This continues until the dice bag is empty. Once the dice bag is empty the turn ends and everything is "reset" and the cycle continues.

There are many methods to doing this. Some more random than others.

But ultimately, a turn is somewhat important. This game turn moderates the use of weapons, abilities or effects to a certain time period (like pinned for 2 turns for example). The game turn keeps the game in order and is a book keeping tool in itself. Having unit activation still works well within the game turn.

Hope it helps mate.

The first snarky idea I had to make it as simultaneous as possible is to get more players…one per squad on each side. Then the two commanders step back and order the other players to make whatever moves they desire. The players then move the minis, roll the dice for firing, etc.

Then I thought, maybe not such a snarky idea after all. Probably not much fun either, though.

But ultimately, a turn is somewhat important. This game turn moderates the use of weapons, abilities or effects to a certain time period (like pinned for 2 turns for example). The game turn keeps the game in order and is a book keeping tool in itself. Having unit activation still works well within the game turn.

Damn, that is what I suspected.

I wouldn't worry though man, you can still use alternating activation.

One IDEA that may work… Off the top of my head…

Maybe give each unit activation points and "ability points".

Activation points are how many times a unit can do something (move and shoot etc) and ability points are for things such as artillery strikes or limited ammo weaponry.

Then you can abolish the turn, and activate whatever until you have run out of activations for a unit. When a unit is out of activations you can assume they are too tired/out of ammo to push on further and they simply dig in.

Then the players doing one unit at a time wont need turns at all, and can activate a unit until its useless.

I just thought of that, but if you want to take the idea further im sure there is lots you can do with it?

An exhaustion system would be essential, I never would have even thought of it. And perhaps a FO having to use an activation to call in a target; an artillery piece using an activation to aim or reload; and ammunition limits for off-map artillery and on-map heavy weapons. Perhaps working exhaustion into suppression and pinning, and requiring a few rally-action activations for the squad to catch its breath and regain new activations. Otherwise I could imagine two squads using up their activation points sniping at each other at maximum distance without any damage, which wouldn't be fun and would easily lead to draws if the players aren't careful enough to hold their fire.

Wouldn't that be part of the tactics involved though?

If a player wants to waste his activations firing from a distance, then you could use that to your advantage?

Maybe to counter this, you could have a "activations pool" not tied to a unit. So if you are in desperate need of a unit, out of activations, to do something then you can use the activation pool? O rmayber you need to activate 2 units at once? You could then dip into your activation pool.

I dont know. As I said I think it is an idea that would need some work and testing. But it could be a fair alternative to having no turns.

Are you making a game?

Are you making a game?

Re-making it, actually, but yeah.

I see, honestly, I would look at the Bolt Action rules for activating units. Honestly one of the more enjoyable ways.

Or look into creating a system with inbuilt unit limits for a turn less game.

Good luck man

Wargods of Aegyptus has a system where at the start of each turn, each unit/individual character is given a hidden order (advance, turn left, fire, charge etc) then you roll for 'edge' (which is modified by the leadership of each opposing leader).

The winner gets the edge and the first (or first two or three if they roll well enough) activation.

They can pick any unit to activate on either side and they must then try and execute their order. This may lead them to firing when there is no valid target, charging when there is nothing to charge or advancing into range of someone else's charge or fire.

There is a lot of subtlety in the orders and picking what to activate.

Another alternative is Sword and Spear. For that, like bolt action, you need a die for each unit of maneuver. They are mixed in a bag and drawn out 7 at a time. (or however many you have left in the bag)

The side with more dice drawn that impulse has initiative. The dice are rolled and you match them up with units you want to activate. Each unit has an activation number based on it's quality, drill/discipline level and modified by what you want to do with it (marching straight ahead requires a lower number than maneuvering) and whether there is a general with it.

It means that not all units will get to activate and you cannot guarantee you'll get to activate a specific unit at a specific time.

Then there's Chain of Command which to me gives a good modelling of the flow of combat: roll typically 5 dice, 1 activates a team, 2 activates a squad, 3 activates a junior leader or AFV, 4 activates a senior leader, 5 gives you a chain of command point which accumulates and lets you do interesting things and 6s control next player and turn end.

It is rare that you will be able to activate everything, so you have to make hard choices on what you activate.

You will usually be alternating activation phases but if you roll 2 or more 6s you will get a second phase (albeit small as two or more of your potential activations are taken up getting the next phase)

In all three cases, you have a good 'fog of war' aspect: You have to take risks and work with limited command resources to motivate your men and keep them moving forward.

Rebelyell,

Just some ideas for your consideration…

I think you could do an "endless turn" like this. Use a chit/token that is specific for each squad/vehicle and leader. If you wanted to have unit/leader quality be a factor, maybe use three chits for an elite unit/leader, two for an average unit/leader, and only one for a poor unit/leader. Put each side's chits in a separate bag/cup. Alternate drawing a chit for each side. Activate the unit/leader whose chit is drawn. For leader chits, activate the leader and any one unit or entire platoon (if a company leader) under his command and within LOS/command distance/etc. Afterwards, put the chit back into the cup so that it may, potentially, be immediately drawn again.

I think the overwatch suggestion is a good one. Also, you may want to allow units that are fired upon to return fire before the next chit is drawn. I think it is important for the passive side to be able to react to the active side if you're using a system where a unit can potentially activate several times in a row.

For things like pinned effects, just resolve them when the effected unit has activated the required number of times.

This kind of system is best for two player games, though. In multi-player games it can sometimes get pretty old waiting for one of your units to get a chance to do something. I guess you could put each player's chits in separate bags/cups and have all the players on one side draw a chit at the same time.

Craig

I'm not sure that you can ever actually get rid of turns. You can call things different names, but ultimately you end up with what is in effect a turn.

The passage of time needs to be measured somehow, so that reinforcements can be brought in and admin functions such as smoke removal or re-setting whether or not a unit has been 'used' can be managed.

What seems to be mostly being described here are just ways to break down the strict IgoUgo turn systems of yesteryear. Highly inter-active systems are more interesting, but typically still have terminology for units such as used or spent or overwatch and all of this goes on in an action phase that has its place within a turn – even if that phase can end prematurely by 'end of turn' chit pull.

Chain of Command has 'phases' and 'turns'. In a phase, players can activate sections or teams depending upon their command roll; occasionally a player will get a run of two or more phases with no enemy intervention. In a given phase you won't necessarily get to activate all your units. Turns can end randomly or by a player using a 'Chain of Command' die to choose when it occurs, at which point turn end effects can occur – units rout, become unpinned, barrages end – or be changed by the exepditure of another Chain of Command die.

The old RPG Feng Shui had an ingenious way of tracking actions. Every action had a speed, ranging from 1 for really fast things like dropping a gun or a quick jab, up to 6 or 7 for really complicated things like hacking a computer or casting a complicated spell.

Each player and enemy of group of enemies tracked their current action point on a simple 30-place chart.

Everybody started off on the number that was their initiative – so someone with fast reflexes started on 1, a slowcoach on maybe 4 or 5.

The action counter then started on 1, allowing anybody with an action on 1 to do something. After they have done it, they move up the action chart a number of places equal to the cost of the action. The action counter then moves to 2 and anybody with an action on 2 to act, then 3 and then 4, where our first unit gets to act again and then move themselves up the action chart a number of places depending on what action they perform.

So, if you start on 1 and do a medium speed action with a cost of, say, 3, your next action is on (1+3) 4. Every action pushes you further up the action chart until you fall off the end and start back at the beginning again.

It strikes me that this could be implemented for games with a smaller number of units/stands on each side. Allocate an action cost to activities such as move, change formation, charge, fire and so on. Slow units such as artillery of heavy infantry have correspondingly longer action times and nimble units shorter action times. Rapid fire weapons might have action times of just a single turn.

Feng Shui was a Hong Kong action movie game, so had perks called Rapid Reload and Carnival of Carnage which allowed a suitably equipped character to fire for 1 action and reload for just 1 action too – very cinematic.

There are various different activation systems available which also incoporate some form of reaction and 'simultinaity'.

Obvious ones being Crossfire (with no turns at all, entirely initiative driven) and its more modern relations, Fireball Forward and the various 5Core games. Two of these let you activate the same squad over and over, one doesn't. They all work as games.

What works as a game partly depends on the preferences of your players, some prefer greater control, some don't and what works for some, others will absolutely hate (Piquet anyone?).

"In real life squads do not stand around and wait to move one at a time, nor is there a great reset in the battlefield every five to fifteen minutes, and they certainly do not just sit there and watch the enemy do something for five to fifteen minutes before reacting."

What actually happens in tactical combat is a great mystery, personal accounts are skewed by the effects of adrenaline and stress (see e.g. 'Brains and Bullets') and the closest we have ever come is by analysing helmet cam footage from combat and personal tracker info from tactical excercises.

Yes, squads do sit around doing nothing for enormous periods of time or they act with huge energy and roll up entire enemy positions unsupported. They gun down every enemy who moves into view, or they let the enemy march up and set heavy weapons up within effective range before they take any notice at all. They overrun machinegun positions with frontal assaults and no supporting fire or they conduct 14 hour long firefights with no casualties. They open fire too early, too late, or choose defensive positions which provide great cover but don't actually cover their arcs. They get lost.

In short, it is wild, woolly and very, very unpredictable. A series of small massacres, as someone once described it.

Making a good game out of this is really quite hard, and largely we end up making games of what we think tactical combat is like, rather than what it actually is like.

Predictability comes with larger numbers (company sized and up) and really once you are looking at battalion sized elements, modelling and predictability becomes quite good.

So really, any mechanism you choose is a good as any other, as long as they are mechanisms your players find enjoyable and believable. If you think the battlefield is a very controlled place (as presented in training manuals) then go with turns and WRG type systems, if not, then something a bit more chaotic may be appropriate.

Use your Alternate Unit activation mechanic as you normally would.
Mark each figure or unit when they activate.
Give each side only a set number of markers, less than the number of units they have.
Once all the markers are deployed, a player may activate another unit, then takes the marker from another unit to mark them, thus leaving a previously marker unit as unmarked.

So, say you have five riflemen. You have three markers.
You activate Rifleman 1, 2, and 3, placing a marker each time. They can't be activated again if they have a marker. So you activate Rifleman 4, then take the marker off of Rifleman 1 and give it to 4. Rifleman 1 is now ready for action again.

You could number the markers, then rule that they need to be deployed and reassigned in order, but I doubt that would be required.

Doing it that way would result in a continuous flowing game without the hard stops of a turn.
Unless you need some point in time for "board effects", there's no reason or need for a standard Turn other than tracking which units can/have activated.
Using the reassigned markers idea I have here would eliminate that need.

I may give that a try this weekend.

Sounds like you are describing "Crossfire" as Martin noted. Both sides fight over objectives whether attack/defend or meeting engagement, etc. The side with initiative keeps moving/firing units until stopped by enemy fire or failure of their fire to pin down the enemy.

Everything Martin said (I regard him as one of the 'Good guys' here) PLUS its all about how we tell the narrative afterwards. In a way we are not playing a game, or simulating events, we are telling stories.

On Wednesday the Home Guard of Warminton on Sea prevented Fallschimjaeger from kidnapping Churchill – exactly how did they do that? Was that unit there actually composed of Great War snipers, meaning they were doing far better at pinning down a complete section? Were the men motivated by the fact they were defending Winnie and their homes, where deep down the Germans knew this was a suicide mission?

I think the closest you will get to simultaneous without a lot of hassle is a varient of TFL cards. Take out the Tea Break, and also split the card into 2 packs – each player goes alternately, one card at a time, with dead units acting as 'no go', and padding cards to make up any difference in pack sizes.

Piquet did some of that, with a die-roll off to create the "clock" and random action cards taking "time" off the clock, so to speak.

The Courier carried articles about an Unlimited Bound (my memory is a tad fuzzy about the exact title), where units continued to perform actions (or maybe it was the same action) unless some other unit's action interfered with the original action.

Wally Simon wrote a variety of articles on turn sequences in his PW Review newsletter, some of which are in the reprinted Secrets of Wargame Design series (full disclosure: I edited the series, now up to five volumes).

The backbone of any game, simulation or just about any procedure is what happens when. Basically, there has to be a method for 'keeping time' even if it isn't called that. "This happens, then this happens, etc." Without activation procedures, turns, phases, cards, dice or cards, you have a clock without numbers or hands. [Or even the digital equivalent]

There doesn't have to be turns per se, but that 'clock' has to be created somehow, whether rigidly or randomly. When you are talking about recreating battlefield reality to some extent, time, distance and battle effects relationshipscan't be ignored--they have to be monitored somehow. Within that design restriction there are any number of ways to do that.

Actually, my fuzzy memory came up with Variable Length Bound in the Courier. Series of articles.

George Jefferies' VLB basically substituted "Change of Situation" for turns.

Alternative activations are so good I wrote a set using it (Maneouver Group). MG has some limited ability to have a "flurry" of activity localy out of the traditional bound sequence. Its command and control system tend to further encourage more activity in a bound in the hot spot. This helps the feel of the game to be rush and rest.

BUT even as a devotee, its problem is it does not translate easily to games with multiple players a side, not an issue generaly for me. Where we have done it, its making the game basicaly several mini game but that is not suitable for new or unfamiliar players.

Random activation of units is to me, pandering to those more interested in gambling that pitting there wits against that of the enemy. There is enough confusion generated in our games not to need even more. Supprisingly ;-) this is not a universally held belief! It could be a way to do it for more players a side, by say having a card for each unit and drawing one for each player as you alternate friend and foe. Not tried it as multiple player games with inexpert players to me is not interesting and overtaxes a beginner or results in uninteresting implausible play. beter to give them a one to ne game.

For small unit and skirmish 1:1 type games I use a system where commands are given but are "executed" a certain number of turns later. This is not to be confused with random activation.

So if a tank wants to engage an enemy target he will take a certain amount of time to rotate the turret to get the gun on the target, the gunner to aim and the round to arrive. All other friendly and enemy units are performing the same or different actions in the same time period but the many variables (crew expertise, turret rotation, target range, aim type and time, etc) will have them actually executing their orders (normally firing) at a different time/turn in the future. So there are turns it's just the sequence they are carried out is determined by the actions and decisions the players take and the constraints of the weapon platform. Not by a turn sequence or random activation. Pretty much like a time and motion study. Seconds count.

Follow up shots take into account reload and aim time. There is always a small chance of a round getting stuck in the chamber, loader slipping or loading the wrong round type, misfire, etc. We are able to use historic turret rotation rates and gun rate of fire without having to abstract them to fit into a structured turn segment. Turret rotation rate does not effect accuracy. The game does create some suspense because you never know exactly when your opponent is going to get his shot off. It's not unusual for two tanks firing at each other at ranges over 1000 meters to have a round in the air at each other at the same time. It happens and is playable.

Crew differences are simulated where poor crews take longer to perform the same action so better crews can accomplish more in the same amount of time. If getting the shot off more quickly is more important than accuracy (like in a close range shootout) you can spend less time aiming and get the shot off more quickly.

After a set number of turns moving units are actually moved on the table, artillery arrives, etc. If a situation occurs where no enemy units are engaged you can speed up the game until an engagement occurs. There is also an admin segment for smoke, fire, bog checks, etc.

The concept of "Situational Awareness" is important in this system since there is no spotting phase. There is a chance you can notice enemy and friendly activity within your LOS out to max spotting range and react accordingly. The main factors are if you are buttoned or unbuttoned and which arc they are in. Noticing activity to your front and unbuttoned is best. Buttoned up and to your rear least likely. This is like an "interrupt" in other games where you can cancel your current activity and give a new order. So if you saw an enemy to your flanks rotating his turret towards you and you know he'll get a shot off before you move out and try to get out of his LOS or be a harder target to hit while evading. I guess you could say a successful Situational Awareness Check allows you to "interrupt" your move. When engaged and firing at a target you can only notice activity to your front 90 degrees. You are too busy engaging the enemy to see what else is happening. This gives a chance for infantry tank killer teams to sneak up in your blind spot and get off a shot.

The Situational Awareness rule works with Over Watch and Opportunity Fire. Any unit is basically on over watch in the direction it has its gun pointed as that is where crew are going to be focusing their attention. No special rules for that. When an enemy comes into your LOS you can take a Situational Awareness Check (roll a D20) and the result will be what arc around you to detect activity in your LOS out to maximum spotting range. A good roll would be 315 degrees (blind in 45 degrees to rear) and a poor roll might be only 45 degrees to the front (blind in rear 315 degrees). So if you have your gun pointed in the right direction expecting the enemy to appear (over watch) and are unbuttoned you have an excellent chance of noticing the enemy that just entered your LOS. You should be able to get the shot off pretty quickly (opportunity fire) and before he can respond even if you both detect each other at the same time. Sort of like an ambush or bore sighting. No special rules, interrupts or exceptions. An enemy that has a tactical advantage like appearing in your flanks will put you at a severe disadvantage.

As soon as one action is completed the next one is ordered, normally reload and shoot or move. Tank Commanders are always assumed to be observing. Other crews assumed to be performing their duties. No micro managing crew activities. There is always a slight chance a loader can slip, load the wrong round, gunner aim is off; commander cannot see results of shot, etc. Call if Fog of War or SNAFU.

You have the best chance of winning by using tactics which suit your weapon platform to get inside your enemies "Decision Loop" (see, decide, order, act). Players seem to pick it up pretty quickly because it simulates what you would logically do without artificial rule constraints and you carry out the same actions as a tank crew would. We've had new players command 4-8 tanks or guns in a game. The downside is there is some bookkeeping and it would not be good for large scale battles. This could probably work for other type of small unit engagement games.

Wolfhag