ERRATA Playing Surface

[viziel]

Does ICAR use a grid, hex map....or what for moving things?

Could ICAR use tokens in the book like the ones I make for d20?

[Rob Lang]

I have a note to add a section on 'what the GM draws'. Icar uses description with hurriedly scrawled maps on paper. If you wish to use a grid, you may but it will slow the combat down and restrict the types of combat that occur. When you introduce a grid/hex then the players use that as boundaries to what is possible. You tend to end up with a lot of combats that are very similar because using miniatures on a hex map or grid is what is expected. It's a subconscious of using miniatures. If you take that away and scribble a map then you are forced to give a description and that tends to lead to PCs doing more interesting things in combat.

Also there are joint-combat events that would be too complicated to show in minis because of the scales involved. Quite often in my campaigns I will have one PC stamping on the head of a bad guy in an arboretum floor of a Mex building while another player is doing laps in a Grav car, while another one is providing covering fire from the back seat. How do you show that in minis? If the bionic PC flying the Grav car sticks it on autopilot and decides to leap into the close combat melee, how do you show that in minis? He'll be flying through the air for a turn.

I noticed this in the few games I've played at Cons. If you have a bit of scrawled paper, the things players want to do are much more imaginative. If you use a grid/hex map then the players rely upon that more and it becomes more like chess and less like an RPG. I once had a player at a con suggest to another that he pushes the bad guy over the railing as his turn - the player seemed surprised that he could do that.

Avoid using grids and hexes. Keep the combat fast and give the benefit of the doubt to the players.

[viziel]

Well thats true since you dont have allot of area effect or special attacks like a game of dnd where you have burst, blast, cone, line effects...where its you just gotta have a grid or your head will hurt and it will turn into arguments at the table (we still get disputes regardless).

Then I assume you use a meters ruler to move pieces?

I'm a tactical player, I enjoy having the grid it allows me to consider my options without measuring things during other players turns. As for throwing people over railings, the reason thats a surprise is most RPGs dont make that a feasible thing. Its more often easier to attack the guy than to A) Move into close combat, take an attack of opportunity from the defender B) Sucessfully grapple the defender using your strength (which if isn't high isn't a good idea) C) Then on your NEXT TURN, try to MAINTAIN the grapple and throw the guy over...

see? its a waste of time, thats why people dont do it...so many people play dnd they dont even consider these options.

And thats the players/GM fault, not the game system. If a combat element adds to the exitement of the game and the defender isn't required to be in the area and its OK to toss him, TOSS him! But we like rules, they give us structure and keep players from getting upset at a GM who they feel is a loose cannon.

[viziel]

Another note also,

If you make it easy to toss a person over a railing ( as an example), players will do it again or things like it. This may seem good, but in my games, what goes around...comes around and the same can be done to the players. Suddenly, they start asking questions like:

"How can he just run up to me and push me over, and I have no chance to defend myself??"

Now those d20 rules seem to make a little more sense.

just my 2p (for you UK types)

[Rob Lang]

In Icar, there is no ruler, no miniatures and no battlemap. Everything is descriptive. I would only draw a map to show the relationship of things - never to measure it. Ranges are approximate at the player gets the benefit of the doubt in marginal cases.

Common sense is the core ruling here, if a strong character has an NPC up against a railing and they want to push them off - make a Battle roll or a Meat one too, see if it works. Why not? People throw other people off railings, so why not here? To make use of the Close Combat rules in Icar, you would improvise a Hold and a Trip combo. The difference being that the trip is over a railing. Or perhaps on-the-fly invent a new 'Throw' manoeuvre that requires Battle and Meat to pass. You can do that with the Street Fighting Skill.

If you find that players repeat the same tactics each time and they keep working either your combat situations are not varied enough or the system is broken. I am pretty sure Icar isn't a broken combat system but it is there to support the imaginations of the players not restrict it. I believe in encouraging players to think outside of the statistics and the numbers on the weapon sheets.

If you like battlemaps then you can use them but there are much better systems than Icar out there for them. It's not for everyone but its how I like to play.