Often a game will seek to include something to emulate reality or the genre. The examples are of course countless, but for this let’s look at how a couple of games treated Hit Locations.
Back in the ‘day’ there was a game called Behind Enemy Lines, set in WWII. Like many games it used a random chart for hit locations (and was an interesting game all in all). It had this odd little thing however. If your character took hard cover, foes shooting at you would take a simple modifier to hit. If they hit they used a modified hit location chart that only targeted those locations not covered. Nice, simple and didn’t introduce new mechanics.
All was well… until you ran the numbers and realized that even with the modifier you greatly increased the chance of your character dying due to head shots and the like. The designers of the game even realized this and offered the tactical suggestion to never take hard cover- instead take soft cover (i.e. tall grass) which offered concealment modifiers without the special hit location chart.
If only the Army knew, they would abandon fox holes and bunkers for tall grass or maybe those dressing screens you see in Western era movies. Portable concealment for the win!
Another example of fun with Hit Locations is Dark Heresy. It decided to shortcut the need for a second die roll by the simple method of reversing your d100 roll to hit, and then cross-indexing the result on a chart. So a ‘to hit’ roll of 57 would also be a 75 on the Hit Location chart. A rather new method that is found in a number of games.
Removing a die roll for the ‘same’ result. Brilliant!
Except when you look a bit more closely. Let’s say your character is being fired at by some evil scum but the modifiers are such that it is the wildest of possible shots. Only an 01 will hit. But when it hits, it’s always in the same place- location 10 (head I think).
Things improve of course as the hit chance raises, and greatly improves after you hit 10%. But did you really want the most unlikely shots to be the most heavily focused from a Hit Location POV?
Did they not consider that by simply reversing the die they’ve constrained the range of possible results on the Hit Location table? Maybe they did, but decided that it was a small price to pay for removing the die roll. I hope the player who gets head shot (losing along the way the advantage the game gives for cover because that ‘always hit’ location wasn’t behind it) agrees.
The take away here for would be designers (and game buyers) is to consider what the cost is for your shortcut. It may be worth it to you, or not. And it may often be worth a laugh or two for the buyer…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
That's an interesting mechanic. I don't think I like it, but the again, I wouldn't mind the extra dice roll or a secondary way of cross-referencing.
I understand the desire to remove a die roll from combat, as it was one I shared when designing my own game.
However the limited I noted was too much for me to pay.
More important than the number of die rolls I think is what you gain by them. Each should reflect upon the choices of the character or player- otherwise it can just be abstracted away and forgotten.
In the case of Hit Location, that choice is reflected most often by the armor worn and the cover taken. A random roll to reflect that seems justified.
I removed the Initiative roll common to many games inside. To me, player choice over initiative often didn't exist and when it did- it could be handled without the die roll.
Post a Comment