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EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use

 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:08 pm 
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Glad to see someone else into using a task/bug/feature tracker even for 'simple' stuff. Person after my own heart there.

Going to suggest that an entry is make on your tracker but we back link it here in this thread as well.

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:18 pm 
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[Deleted, in favour of next post]

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Last edited by MeBrainBeDrained on Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:20 pm 
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jimmyzimms wrote:
Glad to see someone else into using a task/bug/feature tracker even for 'simple' stuff. Person after my own heart there.
:-)
jimmyzimms wrote:
Going to suggest that an entry is make on your tracker but we back link it here in this thread as well.
I have no objection to linking here as well — that can only be helpful, I just wouldn't rely on it 100%.

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 6:34 pm 
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no i don't think you're understanding the term. They'd enter the data on your issue tracker. They'd post a link here to the issue they entered..

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 7:05 pm 
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jimmyzimms wrote:
no i don't think you're understanding the term. They'd enter the data on your issue tracker. They'd post a link here to the issue they entered..

I did get it, and I'm favour - I was just sort of saying that people won't always remember to post a link here as well when it might be helpful, so you can't rely on that part 100%. But having the option to link to an issue (or use its ID as shorthand sometimes) and a more detailed description/discussion is a good thing. 8)

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 12:29 pm 
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On sniper, no your interpretation of the last one is not what I meant. Basically the attacker can always choose what to allocate a sniper hit to, as one would expect, but still can't choose what to allocate the non sniper hits to. Those can only be applied front to back (by the defender) as normal. Remember the rules for normal hits prevent you from allocating to a unit that has already been allocated one. The upshot being you can put your sniper hit on a unit that has already taken a normal hit, but you can't do it the other way round. If sniper were treated like macro as a separate round it would be simpler, but alas it is not (as the FAQ makes clear). It's really not as complex as it seems in practice though as usually it is possible to do what the attacker wants some way or another.

As to who gets to choose, I realise you were asking about choosing the order, but it seems to me pretty clear to me that allocation of sniper hits is down to the attacker entirely. Thus if there is to be any choice at all about the order applied I don't see any support in the rule to suggest it would be anyone other than the attacker making this choice. The FAQ is a further clarification of the part of the rule that explicitly describes the attacker choosing to allocate, not a general commentary about the allocation rules in general.

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:24 pm 
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Kyrt wrote:
On sniper, no your interpretation of the last one is not what I meant. Basically the attacker can always choose what to allocate a sniper hit to, as one would expect, but still can't choose what to allocate the non sniper hits to. Those can only be applied front to back (by the defender) as normal. Remember the rules for normal hits prevent you from allocating to a unit that has already been allocated one. The upshot being you can put your sniper hit on a unit that has already taken a normal hit, but you can't do it the other way round. If sniper were treated like macro as a separate round it would be simpler, but alas it is not (as the FAQ makes clear). It's really not as complex as it seems in practice though as usually it is possible to do what the attacker wants some way or another.

As to who gets to choose, I realise you were asking about choosing the order, but it seems to me pretty clear to me that allocation of sniper hits is down to the attacker entirely. Thus if there is to be any choice at all about the order applied I don't see any support in the rule to suggest it would be anyone other than the attacker making this choice. The FAQ is a further clarification of the part of the rule that explicitly describes the attacker choosing to allocate, not a general commentary about the allocation rules in general.


I found your example confusing, but I think I see what you're getting at now. However, I wonder whether you are actually over-complicating it. What I mean is this:
Yes, the FAQ says that Sniper hits can be allocated either before or after regular hits (presumably the Attacker's choice, as you say). But this doesn't have to mean that there is any difference in the outcome. We can just as easily take it to mean that it doesn't really matter which way around you do it (before or after), so long as you do it before saving throws and before MW hits.
'Before or after' only matters if you over-complicate things by saying Sniper hits can't double up with other hit allocations — which seems needlessly complicated and also seems to rule out the possibility of the attacking player putting all their Sniper hits onto a single stand, for example.

Part of what makes it confusing is this: Normally, the target player allocates hits, within certain restrictions. But Sniper is special in that, in effect, the attacking player 'pre-allocates' Sniper attacks (and thus, indirectly, hits) because he chooses specific targets — the target player doesn't do anything to allocate Sniper hits.

It seems to me that the simplest explanation is this — do the following steps, but choose either step 3 (option A) or step 5 (option B), not both:

  1. Attacking player rolls to hit for all 'regular' shooting attacks.
  2. Attacking player rolls to hit for all MW attacks.
  3. Option A: Attacking player declares which units he will target for Sniper attacks, and rolls to hit for each individually. These attacks may 'double up' with other Sniper attacks and thus may cause multiple hits on the same target unit.
  4. Target player allocates regular hits in the usual way (for simplicity, ignore the fact that some units may already have Sniper hits allocated to them — after all, Sniper is a special rule that overrides the basic rules and another FAQ does say "Can a Sniper hit be allocated to a unit that has already been allocated a regular hit? A. Yes").
  5. Option B: Attacking player declares which units he will target for Sniper attacks, and rolls to hit for each individually. These attacks may 'double up' with other Sniper attacks, and may double up on units that already have regular hits allocated to them.
  6. Target player makes saving throws for all regular and Sniper hits and removes casualties.
  7. Target player allocates MW hits, makes any Reinforced Armour saving throws where appropriate, and removes casualties.

Note that option A and option B work in exactly the same way — the difference is that with option B the attacking player gets to see how regular hits are allocated before he picks his targets for Sniper attacks. So in practice you'd always favour option B as you have more information that way around and there is nothing to else to gain with option A.

You can make other interpretations, but I think this may be the simplest and thus in line with the general ethos of Epic. So unless anyone sees a flaw, I'm inclined to remove my inline comments and put in something like the above as a 'house rule' box so that at least people have a clear option next to the ambiguous source text.

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:13 pm 
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I don't believe inserting house rules, no matter how clearly labeled, is within the scope of what this project was initially advertised as tackling.


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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:30 am 
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Considering that the author clearly stated that they were doing this for personal interest (and in the context of a local group), and that they were just putting it up on these boards because they thought people might simply be interested to see what they had done, I don’t think it’s meaningful to say

Doomkitten wrote:
I don't believe inserting house rules, no matter how clearly labeled, is within the scope of what this project was initially advertised as tackling.


@MeBrainBeDrained can speak for themselves, of course, but I don’t think this was ever intended to be some kind of official, community-collaborative project to create the next edition of Epic Armageddon. There was no ‘scope’ ‘advertised’. The fact that people are actually willing to think of it like that is perhaps a bit exciting for those who want to do such a thing, but not really relevant to the discussion here.

I think it’s better to consider MeBrainBeDrained’s efforts as more like an alternative translation of the rules—they’re not supposed to be substantially different in spirit, and they’re necessarily embedded in their own context (which leads to certain choices in translation).

Personally, I think the idea is pretty cool, and MeBrainBeDrained’s efforts can be a useful inspiration for further, independent work. Would I prefer a minimum of local house rule insertion? Definitely, because I see a lot of value in preserving the original rules as well as possible. But where changes are noted and necessary, as the case seems to be here, I can easily see deviations and think through them myself, so I’m happy. I suppose I am also not as wedded to the original rules as others might be, which gives me a different perspective on such things and makes me less leery of changes to the rules in the first place (if they improve some aspect).


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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:24 am 
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Thinking Stone wrote:
Considering that the author clearly stated that they were doing this for personal interest (and in the context of a local group), and that they were just putting it up on these boards because they thought people might simply be interested to see what they had done, I don’t think it’s meaningful to say

Doomkitten wrote:
I don't believe inserting house rules, no matter how clearly labeled, is within the scope of what this project was initially advertised as tackling.


@MeBrainBeDrained can speak for themselves, of course, but I don’t think this was ever intended to be some kind of official, community-collaborative project to create the next edition of Epic Armageddon. There was no ‘scope’ ‘advertised’. The fact that people are actually willing to think of it like that is perhaps a bit exciting for those who want to do such a thing, but not really relevant to the discussion here.

I think it’s better to consider MeBrainBeDrained’s efforts as more like an alternative translation of the rules—they’re not supposed to be substantially different in spirit, and they’re necessarily embedded in their own context (which leads to certain choices in translation).

Personally, I think the idea is pretty cool, and MeBrainBeDrained’s efforts can be a useful inspiration for further, independent work. Would I prefer a minimum of local house rule insertion? Definitely, because I see a lot of value in preserving the original rules as well as possible. But where changes are noted and necessary, as the case seems to be here, I can easily see deviations and think through them myself, so I’m happy. I suppose I am also not as wedded to the original rules as others might be, which gives me a different perspective on such things and makes me less leery of changes to the rules in the first place (if they improve some aspect).


Exactly right. Thank you.

Also, let's not get too hung up on the words 'house rule'. 'House rules', 'optional interpretations', and so on are overlapping concepts. While I originally had 'local' house rules in mind, I've used the same visual device where I want to create an aside to give a consistent interpretation next to source text that is simply too ambiguous/vague to support a single definite interpretation. It gets the job done and I don't want to debate it forever, but I'm open to suggestions if people favour a different term.

If you don't like my 'house rule' boxes then just ignore them. I separated them out precisely so that you can easily identify and 'trust' the main body of the rules that are true to the source texts, as distinct from additions that give you a convenient reference interpretation to consult where the rules are poorly defined in the source texts.

Finally, I would just say that apart from rare exceptions I identify (as in 'house rules' and some 'tips'), I don't view this as an 'alternative' translation. I view it as a 'direct' translation. Outside of the exceptions I mention, you'll be hard pushed to find anything that doesn't match the original intent as evidenced by actual wording somewhere in the original source texts — I've 'just' made it easier to digest and use.

(That said, I don't claim to be infallible, and I have provided instructions and channels for you to help me correct mistakes or make other improvements.)

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:09 pm 
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It was quite clear and emphasized that the rules would be the very same rules with no interpretation or house ruling in place, but a clarification of exactly what they have always said in an easier to understand, easier to follow way. It's even re-emphasized as such right above this post. So that it's then said
Quote:
There was no ‘scope’ ‘advertised’.
makes me wonder if we're even talking the same language. Actually I think it's rather insulting and demeaning of Thinking Stone to have the temerity to suggest that politely worded and helpfully intended opinion isn't meaningful to any would-be writer of any document.

Any document, when intended to improve clarity of an existing work, even for personal use, that then adds personal house rules, interpretations and other commentary that isn't wholly based on the whys of how the conclusions and interpretations were reached would only muddy the document and the claim, however accurate, of the rules being wholly unchanged and thus the integrity of the work. Wanting the document to be viable and speak with some reasonable validity to help more people play more epic should be the goal of anyone commenting, because that's what we're all doing here, isn't it?

I think a companion document with such commentary would be great, and both very insightful and very useful for anyone that comes after, but if the rules have even the slightest taint of house-rulery, then their strength in being a great learning tool for the better comprehension of an already existing ruleset is diluted. That would be a shame. That's my opinion, and it's far from meaningless.


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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 4:40 pm 
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Doomkitten wrote:
I think a companion document with such commentary would be great

To me this seems like a strange wish. I mean, why take information away from the point of need and put it somewhere else that means you now have another document to switch back and forth with? Conceptually, what I'm doing is much like the 'Design notes' boxes that exist in the original rulebook (but clearly 'unofficial' and optional).

Also note that, in the HTML versions (website and Android app) there is another way to tackle this that puts more control in the hands of the reader (yet another benefit of HTML over PDF, when done right) — expandable content. If you're not interested in such a bit of content right now, you skip over the 'teaser' and don't expand the rest of it. I could apply this to 'house rule' boxes and such, more than I have already. To explain:

You may already have noticed that some content in the HTML versions is 'collapsed' by default and you can 'expand' it with a tap/click if you want to.
This approach reduces visual clutter so that it is easier to get an overview of a page.
It is also an effective way to downplay content that we want at the point of need but not always in our faces because it is a) something we'll only read once/rarely, b) something advanced that we don't want to bother with while we're learning, or c) an optional extra/interpretation/house rule that we are not interested in (though other people might be).

Such dynamic features are irrelevant for PDF/print of course, but that is so last century anyway... ;-) Besides, 'house rules' (or whatever we call this) are clearly set aside and clearly optional so I don't see hpw this muddies anything, no matter the format or technical tricks.

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:43 am 
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New release: EA Rules Revamp, version 1.1.0. Has a number of improvements: https://thehobby.zone/resources/ea-rules-revamp/Content/Frontmatter/WhatsNew.htm

If you looked at a previous version you may need to refresh your browser cache (CTRL+F5) before you can see the latest. Enjoy!

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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2018 2:53 pm 
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Firstly, @Doomkitten, I want to sincerely apologise for any impression I gave of insult. It was not my intention at all.

Secondly, thank you for pointing out my insufficiency in defining ‘scope’ and ‘advertisement’. For clarity, by enclosing them in quotation marks, I meant a specific definition in the context of the wider point I was attempting to make about what I perceive to be the purpose of MeBrainBeDrained’s document.

In that context of purpose, what I meant was ‘scope for a publicly collaborative, official document’ and ‘advertisement about a publicly collaborative, official document’. I agree that my poor choice of wording otherwise suggested a notion that documents should have no scope in any sense of the word, which I also agree is generally a bad idea.

To me, it seems some disagreement arises from the perceived purpose of the document, the true purpose (setting aside other philosophy on this topic) which only MeBrainBeDrained can decide and know. My perception is that they have clearly stated their scope and purpose for this document as being a wholly personal work that aims to render the rules for EA in precise, well-defined language, but that also recognises that not all cases are well-enough defined in the source document for an unambiguous interpretation that prescribes a single course of action. Those cases seeming ambiguous to MeBrainBeDrained have been stated to be supplemented by additional material to guide the audience in a direction the author thinks is most in keeping with the logic of the whole work.

Now, I may have been mistaken in the objection to ‘house rules’ being more of an objection to the name than the idea of an explanatory note! But my suggestion was that (a) some additional notes from the author’s opinions seem to be within their original statements, and that (b) the author is able to interpret their purpose however they wish, independently of others, and can freely change their mind at any time. I do not mean to say your opinion, Doomkitten, or anyone else’s, is not meaningful as an opinion, but rather that the author clearly seems (to me) to have explained their position more than once on the issue, and is not really outside the bounds of what they originally stated, as I read it.

I’d like to explain my some of my unhappiness, to further increase understanding: many times on these boards, I have witnessed (and indeed, even participated in, myself) discussions on ideas for rules which depart from the original EA ruleset. Many times also I have seen fellow users post comments in these discussions that seem to misunderstand the goal of such discussions as being some attempt to cause widespread adoption of variations to the EA ruleset in common use—where often the users in the discussion merely want to have the chance to get other experienced gaming minds to help refine these rules ideas into the best they can be. I think it is not unhelpful for people to gently remind the ambitious once a thread that widespread adoption is unlikely, but so many times discussion is stymied or even destroyed by that point being made continuously. I find that behaviour frustrating because it is merely repeating a previous statement without adding anything new, it seems to severely misunderstand the point of the discussion, and it is so easy for people to simply refrain from posting again on a topic they do not seem to want to engage in, rather than trying to stop other people from continuing their discussion. Alas, it can often seem like ‘gatekeeping’, to use the inflammatory term, and it really does a lot to quash my enthusiasm for these discussion boards, and gaming in WH40K’s 6 mm universe. I apologise that this is a part of me that I can’t escape (as of yet, at least), and that I get so affected by it; but perhaps this wordy explanation might help others work around my weakness.

I’d like to end by recognising that these fora are a place primarily for discussing recreational games, and building a community around that discussion. Life is too short for insults and acrimonious battles over the easy misinterpretation of internet text, and it is my sincere wish that I never cause personal offence in the discussion of opinions that make up our existence in this online place. For our sake, @Doomkitten, I apologise that we so often seem to get on the wrong footing, and I will accept any advice you might have for improving our discourse together (if any, I suggest via PM, to avoid further cluttering MeBrainBeDrained’s thread). I want to occupy this place peaceably with everyone, and I have no stomach for grudges.

Lastly, sorry to @MeBrainBeDrained (and other interested followers) for polluting your thread with extraneous discussion.

PS: I am rather interested in the topic of translation, @MeBrainBeDrained, if you ever want to discuss the notion of ‘rules translations’ more!


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 Post subject: Re: EA Rules Revamp - same rules, but easier to use
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:49 pm 
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Let's cut each other a little slack - as Thinking Stone says, it is too easy to misunderstand each other in this medium. And he's not wrong that sometimes there is a little too much 'gatekeeping' - and sometimes a little too much 'I don't like it' without enough 'here's what I suggest instead, what does everyone else think'.

@ThinkingStone, I'm not sure what you mean in your postscript, but I'll PM you.

@DoomKitten - putting aside what you believe I advertised as being in or out of scope, is it some implication of the term 'house rule' that worries you? Or do you fundamentally object to the principle of adding asides that suggest workable ways to close gaps in the source material?

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