What's the best system for range in gaming?

For ranges in combat? Measuring Starships? The degree of vocal skill of opera singers?

Yeah. What type of range are we talking about?

Assuming you mean combat range there's three different varieties for me:

1) Close combat: thrown weapons and bows. I like D&D for this, or pretty much anything that uses a battle mat and counts squares.

2) Long range: firearms. Generally our fights in these systems happen so close up, and the ranges of the weapons are so long, that we tend to ignore range. Only if the GM decides that someone is really far away to we bother trying to guesstimate a range penalty. So for this instance, really any system will work because we're going to forget about it the majority of the time.

3) Stellar ranges: intership combat. I really like the way the 2nd edition of the Babylon 5 game handled this. Rather than bother with trying to determine how many parsec you are and whether your photon torpedos can go that far, every battle was based around a central objective. This might be te planet or cargo ship you're defending, the merchant ship you're trying to pirate, or anything else that can act as a focal point. Ranges are then determined based on your distance from that focal point, in bands that work outwards. I'm probably explaining it poorly, but basically if you and someone else were in the same band you were considered close to each other. More bands between you meant more distance. Moving between bands was a function of your engines and your orders (i.e. firing the afterburners).

I love ranges in 40k.  

In the far future, all supertech guns will only shoot three times as far as an average dude can run in the time it takes to fire said gun.  

Why?  Because muthafucking chainswords rock and we all want to mosh it up with the Tyranids.

Fuck range, let's mosh.

sorry i mean range in regular ground combat.

Boot Hill.

Makes me want to build a home there.

I rather like Marvel Superheroes "areas" which are mostly context derived--indoors its usually the nearest barrier. Outdoors its 44 yards, though up or down it varies. (15' or so.)

I also love Marvel Saga's though I can't recall them all right now.

It depends on what the rest of the system is trying to achieve.  Personally I like the way WFRP3 handles it you have Engaged, Close, Medium, Long and Extreme.  What those distances are, are pretty loose.  Engaged is in HtH combat range, Close is about normal conversation range, Medium you'd have to talk loudly, Long you'd have to yell and Extreme would be like yelling across a foot ball field.   It's all loose but works perfectly well with the system and means I don't really have to care if the opponent is 50 or 51 feet away.

But if you were going for a more tactical system then I'd want a range system that allows me to differentiate between a weapon that can shoot to 50' vs one that can hit 51'

Quote from: kryyst;386876It depends on what the rest of the system is trying to achieve.  Personally I like the way WFRP3 handles it you have Engaged, Close, Medium, Long and Extreme.  What those distances are, are pretty loose.  Engaged is in HtH combat range, Close is about normal conversation range, Medium you'd have to talk loudly, Long you'd have to yell and Extreme would be like yelling across a foot ball field.   It's all loose but works perfectly well with the system and means I don't really have to care if the opponent is 50 or 51 feet away.

But if you were going for a more tactical system then I'd want a range system that allows me to differentiate between a weapon that can shoot to 50' vs one that can hit 51'

That's very similar to how my StarCluster System uses personal combat ranges:

Point Blank - Within 2 meters. This is the range for all held weapons that must be used held in the hand, like most blades and melee weapons.
Short - Between 2 and 10 meters.
Medium - Between 10 and 50 meters.
Long - Between 50 and 250 meters.
Far - Between 250 and 1000 meters.
Very Far - Between 1000 and 2000 meters.

A weapon's range is the range at which it has no modifier. So a revolver would have a range of Medium. If you exceed it's range it has a large penalty for the next range step up, and cannot go further. If you use it at shorter range, it has a small bonus per range step closer.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;386895That's very similar to how my StarCluster System uses personal combat ranges:

Point Blank - Within 2 meters. This is the range for all held weapons that must be used held in the hand, like most blades and melee weapons.
Short - Between 2 and 10 meters.
Medium - Between 10 and 50 meters.
Long - Between 50 and 250 meters.
Far - Between 250 and 1000 meters.
Very Far - Between 1000 and 2000 meters.

A weapon's range is the range at which it has no modifier. So a revolver would have a range of Medium. If you exceed it's range it has a large penalty for the next range step up, and cannot go further. If you use it at shorter range, it has a small bonus per range step closer.

-clash

I'm not trying to be argumentative but it's not really similar at all except some of the terms.  Your system defines distances where as the WFRP3 system doesn't specifically define a range increment.  It's more subjective.  Even when you movie you don't move 10' you just shift range categories and the larger the range category the more costly it is to shift.

What I've discovered I don't like about range increments specified in feet is that you can kind of get into that gamiest tactical battle where the targets stand 51' away from the guy with the revolver.  Now yes I know 'your' players don't ever do that and 'my players' don't ever do that either.  But those other guys players will.

So without specifying actual distances someone is just at medium range to the guy with the revolver and close distance to his buddy and extreme range from the guy with the rocket launcher.  That's all you need to know.  Which in a real life situation is more believable.  You don't look at a guy with a gun and think you are 51' away that's a hard shot.  Instead you just figure you are pretty far away that's going to be a hard shot, even harder if I'm hiding behind this rock.  Then when I have a chance I'm going to run out from behind here and get in closer, where I'll have an easier shot.

Just saying.

I think that the EABA system, using the rules from Stuff, has a great range system.

Weapons mostly lose damage over range, and the ranges at which weapons lose damage can be modified. Also, the further away one gets the less that the same range affects the difficulty to hit. An example would be adding 10 meters to a target's range that started out at 5 meters distant would be a notable increase in difficulty to hit, but adding 10 meters to a target's rage when it starts out 100 meters away has less effect.

Quote from: kryyst;386963I'm not trying to be argumentative but it's not really similar at all except some of the terms.  Your system defines distances where as the WFRP3 system doesn't specifically define a range increment.  It's more subjective.  Even when you movie you don't move 10' you just shift range categories and the larger the range category the more costly it is to shift.

What I've discovered I don't like about range increments specified in feet is that you can kind of get into that gamiest tactical battle where the targets stand 51' away from the guy with the revolver.  Now yes I know 'your' players don't ever do that and 'my players' don't ever do that either.  But those other guys players will.

So without specifying actual distances someone is just at medium range to the guy with the revolver and close distance to his buddy and extreme range from the guy with the rocket launcher.  That's all you need to know.  Which in a real life situation is more believable.  You don't look at a guy with a gun and think you are 51' away that's a hard shot.  Instead you just figure you are pretty far away that's going to be a hard shot, even harder if I'm hiding behind this rock.  Then when I have a chance I'm going to run out from behind here and get in closer, where I'll have an easier shot.

Just saying.

This never happens when the GM says "He's at Medium Range" instead of "He's 35 yards away".

Just saying.

-clash

I like utterly abstract range systems, that say things like "he's 2 zones away".

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