"An interesting activation mechanic " Topic

Play testing some new rules last night and I thought this unit activation mechanic was very interesting. Units are squads, players command a platoon + 1 or 2 weapons (HMG, Mortar, etc.)

Each unit is identified by a playing card. At the beginning of the turn check which units – by command radius – are in command. Keep those units' cards. The rest from all players go into a pile, then shuffled. Now sort your "in command" cards in the order in which you want to activate those units.

Each side rolls 2D10, high die wins initiative. Each player on the winning side turns over their top "in command" card and activates – moving, shooting, etc. After those units move, 2 cards are drawn from the pile of out of command units and then those units activate. These might be enemy or friendly.

Repeat until you roll a tie on initiative, or all units are activated.

Makes for a nice blend of planned and random action. And since we had 3 players/side each player was moving simultaneously. So you rarely stood around waiting for something to finish up at the other end of the table.

The "in command" mechanic is really elegant I think.

Sounds good to me, only drawback is allowing players to sort their "in command" cards. Making choices slows things down to a degree. I would suggest leaving the "in command" stack as random or in the order they were pulled for and rolled to reduce the decision time.

Or just do the "in command" roll when the card comes up . . . but that is probably too far from what your design intent.

And of course if time is not a prime consideration, then go with what you got and see how it plays.

It certainly sounds interesting. I'd have to play it a few times to get a better opinion. One of my concern with card games is "dead time" or time in which a player sits and watches everyone else play. What is the longest amount of dead time that you had?

No more than a minute or three. I too hate dead time but it was pretty reasonable with this system.

@Kelly: Not letting them sort the in-command pretty much moves you to a straight card draw. The ability to prioritize a unit it the whole point of staying in command. In any case, it doesn't take too long to sort 3 or 4 cards.

I like this idea. It also might be usable to modify armies for training and capability. A conscript army might lose one card per turn on the random draw, etc.

Very cool idea, except the part about "Repeat until you roll a tie on initiative". Games where random events mildly disrupt plans can be a lot of fun, but games where random events completely nullify or steer the player decision cycle are very frustrating. I think it would be more reasonable to go until all cards are used up.

Sounds good to me, only drawback is allowing players to sort their "in command" cards. Making choices slows things down to a degree. I would suggest leaving the "in command" stack as random or in the order they were pulled for and rolled to reduce the decision time.

I completely disagree. Nothing personal, I argue about this a lot.

I fail to see how removing player decisions from the course of events improves the gaming experience. Random events reduce player involvement, and therefore reduce engagement in the game. There are other ways to solve analysis paralysis besides turning the players into robots for the game system.

I think the "pick some, pull some" system sounds like an excellent compromise between player involvement and disruptive random events, especially when the cards available to be picked also come down to player decisions (i.e. command radius) and therefore tactical prowess. Risk management is what warfighting command decisions are all about. I may give this a try with FOB.

The real problem I foresee is that this is still a "one player goes, everybody watches" system. Games like that don't usually scale up very well because more players means more people just waiting around for their turn, unless there are a lot of out-of-cycle decisions (e.g. opportunity fire, opportunity charges, etc.).

- Ix

a "one player goes, everybody watches" system

Not true! When your side wins initiative, EVERY player on your side turns over their top card and takes a turn. Now, if you don't have any you wait, but we had 3 players moving at a time for most of the game….

Remember – initiative is 2D10…ties are not that common….

I agree with Yellow Admiral (and I argue a lot too).

This is abuse…argument's down the hall… :)

I once tried a card-driven system maybe 20 years ago where three cards were dealt at random to each player. They picked a card to play (face down).

At the start of the turn, each player flipped over his card. The card did two things: told the number of units a player could activate that turn (# = #, J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14, Joker = All (20), and, all cards on a side were added together -- high total had the initiative to move first.

Everybody wants high cards, of course, but knowing when to cede initiative and when to claim it was part of the decision-making process.

If players were happy with their set-up, for example, on defense, they play low cards early and save high cards for later…unless that have considerable artillery that they wish to use against advancing forces. Attackers want high cards to get the offensive going.

At the end of the turn, players drew a new card to bring their hand up to three cards. There was one deck in use for everybody (usually 3 or 4 players per side). The C-in-C usually had the reserve, and thus three cards, but would get a fourth card that he could use INSTEAD of playing one of his cards to "trade" with one of his players -- thus maybe giving a little more oomph to a faltering attacker or defense.

Like bad die rolls, some players got all low cards while others got all high cards. But that's the way it goes.

I don't like to argue. I like to experience and test and try things. It's all very subjective so why argue. . . just recommend, critique, and play the game and adjust. Plan--Do--Check--Act. Repeat. No need for arguing, big need for testing.

a "one player goes, everybody watches" system

Not true! When your side wins initiative, EVERY player on your side turns over their top card and takes a turn. Now, if you don't have any you wait, but we had 3 players moving at a time for most of the game….

Sorry, I misunderstood. That's even better.

- Ix