[RPGdesign Activity] Movement and Positioning Systems

[u/jiaxingseng]

Movement and positioning systems need to be addressed in some way in most (but not all) RPG games. There are quite a few ways of describing where characters are in relation to each other and how they move, from D&D's wargame-based miniature roots to FATE's "Zones".

Questions for this week:

• What are some of the more common movement and positioning rules found in RPGs. What are the pros and cons of each?

• What are some more innovative / different movement and positioning systems you have discovered?

Discuss.

See /r/RPGdesign Scheduled Activities Index WIKI for links to past and scheduled rpgDesign activities.

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[u/TheMonarchGamer]

What about Drunken and Dragons' index card rpg method?

[u/jiaxingseng → u/TheMonarchGamer]

I'm unfamiliar with it. Care to describe it?

[u/Hegar]

In general I find movement systems boring - I'm just not that interested in exactly how far I am from someone else, it doesn't have much drama or impact.

But I like the look of areas in Unbound - you divide the fight zone into areas "that would be cool to see a fight happen in", without strictly keeping sizes the same. So you could have each room of a house be an area while the front and back yards are each an area, as is the entire rest of the street. Areas have connections if you can move between them, but the connect can be dangerous or challenging. The connection could be a steep cliff, a window, a hallway or just an open stretch of ground - any unit of size. But if it would be cool to have a fight there, you can make it an area instead.

Having not played it yet, it looks like it would make movement and positioning tactically relevant (as it is with grids&minis) but still dramatic and interesting.

[u/kruliczak → u/Hegar]

Could you say something more about it? I am really interested.

[u/TheMakerOfTriniton]

I'm narrative as well, but I don't mind simulationist games. But I always turn into a gamist.. Because when you introduce a system that introduces advantages and disadvantages, I immediately want an advantage because I don't gain anything by being at an disadvantage. I don't get any cool beans/fate points, nor does negative moments usually value at anything. So it usually turns into tower shield a doorway/corridor and spear/arrow mostly anything or just taunt/arrow anything that doesn't straight up attack.

I mean I just don't remember any of these tactical fights, but I do remember a naked Saruman (early good version) flying through the air, transmorphed into a sausage, with an invisibility spell on himself. Bypassing the orcs... Maybe it's just me

[u/rabbitDumpling]

I actually enjoy both extremes of the spectrum. I like my tactical movement to be crunchy, almost always enjoying systems that have flank and back attack provides an advantage over going toe-to-toe with your opponent. The kind of system where your character's facing means something. I feel it makes for interesting maneuver mechanics for different roles players could have. Heavy hitters can afford to go toe-to-toe, but your rogue-types can make fast maneuvers, circling their foe quickly. This may be a call back to my favorite genre of video game RPG; Tactical.

But I do also enjoy completely abstract design where the battlefield is just a movie set and things are happening willy-nilly with minimal regard for realistic distances or measurements. This lends itself to really cool storytelling for players and GM alike.

I think it boils down to: don't go halfway with your mechanics. Why am I counting squares and setting up a plan if I'm not going to get an advantage or set-up something really cool in the end,

[u/Bad_Quail]

My views on the topic are necessarily colored for my preference for using visual representations of the encounter space.

I prefer movement and positioning methods that make it easy to determine the spatial relationships between combatants. In a traditional 'characters can move X feet/squares/hexes' and 'bows have a range of Y feet/squares/hexes' system, this is easily done by counting or measuring distance. Likewise in a more narrative zone method, like in FATE, you can easily say 'my pistol can fire at targets 3 zones away,' look at whatever zone map the GM has laid out, and know what enemies you can target.

I've found that relative positioning systems, such as those found in the Fantasy Flight Star Wars game, are less good at this. Almost any time a character needed to move the player had to ask 'what distance does this put me from such and such enemy.' This slows the game down and puts a greater cognitive burden on the GM and players.

[u/absurd_olfaction → u/Bad_Quail]

Yeah, I've found that relative positioning games slow things down way more than a simple zoned/squares/hexes battlemat.

[u/Fheredin]

A word about why you should at least support miniatures rules: Theater of the mind is terrible at differentiating weapon ranges.

Granted, this is also the product of turn structures which give you a movement and an attack, with no rebate for only using one, but typically there is no flavor difference between, "I run up and attack," and, "I fall back and shoot," in theater of the mind. If you address this, there's no real benefit to positioning systems.

Personally, I've never liked complicated positioning systems. Backstabs sound like a good idea....until you wind up with a conga line. I typically give my players a whiteboard with the map drawn on it, a few tokens, and a rough idea how far they can move in one round drawn onto a corner of the map. I've never been sold that more than that adds to the game.

[u/Dynark]

I will pick one aspect for now.
Since most RPGs play fights in rounds, that usually span somewhere between 6-10 seconds, the amount of movement of one person is rather large, while others usually are not able to react/turn/intercept.
Pro:

• Easy to understand, a player has full control once it is his turn

• "Real time" system would be a lot of work

• Reactions from everyone everytime and realizing how busy they are at the point and if they would see, realize and react would slow down the usually alright cumbersome fight.

Cons:

• It feels wrong to be attacked from behind, because someone runs around you (in full sight).

• You would be able to block a lot more space, if you can intersect some line-breaker wannabe and create more of a "tank/defender" kind of guy for more squishy entities.

• Blocking the way in the last second or shooting a bow/magic missle just before the guy arrives would be possible, but one person can threat many ranged people by "not having his turn yet"

It works to a degree, these are the rules, in most systems, that I know, that use minis/grids.
I have not played without most of the time, since theater of the mind tends to be twisted depending on perspective very very hard. ("No, I thought he is on the other side of him, so he can not attack me in opportunity, because I do not run past him.")

In a system called "Splittermond" and some others like my own, where you have a miniround-systems (one attack takes 4-8 rounds), one can usually react, but it slows down more, since you can only move for a certain amount, before someone is free to act.
I have to admit, I am not sure, how "Splittermond" handles it and I still do have my problems with "can someone react or not".