As a longtime Battletech player, I know how you feel. A map really lays out the battlefield in a concise way for people to look at the scenario from a tactical standpoint, and that's damn handy. Especially since the setting utilizes tacnets… when I do get around to using maps, I often tell the players to imagine that this is what their tacnet is showing them. And for planetary scenarios, I would use them. When you are doing a mission on Mars or Titan, or even a reclamation mission on Earth, I say that battlemaps are often an excellent way to represent the field of play. I'd recommend going on a scale of 5 meters per hex... it's a bit big, but characters can move 20 meters per hex a full turn anyways. So it's no biggie. That said, many scenarios in Eclipse Phase will involve microgravity environments. And when dealing with microgravity, a battlemap is [b]more hellish than castration with rusty eating utensils[/b]. Microgravity rooms are often designed with furnishings on every wall in order to be maximally efficient, which means that all six sides of a cubical room will have obstacles to potentially track (for cover or other purposes). Not to mention the open air in the middle of the room, which is just as traversable as any of the sides. I tried to run a microgravity battle on a map during one of my first sessions, and threw it away during the third turn… [i]an hour and a half into the fight[/i]. So battlemaps are a mixed bag in Eclipse Phase.

I never use battle maps in Eclipse Phase due to the way I structure my adventures. If the entire party is involved in a firefight then it's generally going to be an extremely quick affair. When it's one or two members of the party things are simple enough that a map isn't required. Due to the exotic locals that game takes place in most often I don't ever find a map to be a good reflection of the situation. It's possible a scenario could warrant the use of a mat; I just generally design away from such events.

I've been using maps from day one in my campaign. I guess it's because I come from a strategy game background, so I enjoy the tactical detail that you get when everything is clearly sitting in front if you. I also spent a good bit of time playing D&D 3.5 and 4, and in those games the map is built into a lot of rules. That being said, I don't find it as important as I thought I would. For one, games like EP (and SR) have a lot more going on than combat. Our first live session we were all shocked that we played 4 hours with no combat. Our second session only resulted in one combat, and that ended in a truce. :P Second, combat in EP seems very short (not counting figuring out the rules, all the dice rolling, and the speed mechanics). Most of the combat we have seen in my game resolves quickly with just a few shots deciding the outcome. There's not the kind of attrition you see in D&D where you have to wear down the tanks and mop up a ton of minions. So if you can't decide, try both! If it's a quick shoot out or boxing match, you probably don't have to bother taking all the extra time to set up. But if it's an important battle with several combatants in a complex arena, you may want the map.

Decivre, you will certainly hate me... but I bet it is possible to came with a solution to that using a similar system to Ad Astra's Assault Tactical Vector and Saganami Island Simulator (I still have to understand the workings of the second one, mainly because of the Wedge factor: you need to know if the hit will get into a shielded side, unshielded aft or fore, or invulnerable top or bottom! XD). In those games, essentially, height hexes are represented with plastic, stackable cubes, and vertical inclination with two cut plastic boxes with 60º and 45º possibilities. And for depth, you place a black plastic on top :p

I tend to follow the ruling, if it helps the fun, it is good, if it doesn't, it is bad. I found, at least with the group I GM a lot with in another system, maps provoke people to think more logically, while Theater-of-mind increases creativity. I enjoy the creativity side more. It is mainly a right brain vs left brain style of thinking it provokes.

Xagroth wrote:

Decivre, you will certainly hate me... but I bet it is possible to came with a solution to that using a similar system to Ad Astra's Assault Tactical Vector and Saganami Island Simulator (I still have to understand the workings of the second one, mainly because of the Wedge factor: you need to know if the hit will get into a shielded side, unshielded aft or fore, or invulnerable top or bottom! XD). In those games, essentially, height hexes are represented with plastic, stackable cubes, and vertical inclination with two cut plastic boxes with 60º and 45º possibilities. And for depth, you place a black plastic on top :p

Space combat still works quite different. I play plenty of air and space combat wargames (like Aerospace), and it still isn't the same. Space is relatively empty. A microgravity habitat is not. Here, let me paint a scenario. Firefight breaks out. Combatant A leaps upward to a table on side 6, using it for cover. Combatant B, still standing on side 1 (think the sides of a die if you want to know frame of reference) traverses cover. The entire time, you have to figure out whether objects on side 6 still grant cover when fired on from a specific spot on side 1, and vice versa. So that already presents a crapload of factors to draw in (angle of attack based around cover, which is an even more complex version of traditional elevation vs cover calculations). Then comes the melee combat. Combatant A and Combatant B jump at each other and initiate a fist fight. All's fine and good until a hit actually occurs. Combatant A kicks Combatant B? Time to figure out drift… it happens in microgravity. This problem also carries over to the use of grenades, which no longer follow the gravity-based arcs they do in a standard combat scenario. They travel more like the projectile in pong, fairly straight and with the potential to be very bouncy. Not to mention that debris could potentially float (which might need to be tracked, at least in the context of where it is present), the potential for people to be used as cover (relatively easy when on a flat map, not an issue with space combat, considering distances; total nightmare in the 3d space of a confined room), and other factors I'm probably not even thinking of. It took us nearly a half-hour to figure out cover configurations on what was suppose to be a simple barfight in a microgravity hab, and each turn took us another half-hour. I'm used to 10-minute turns in Battletech, but Battletech is still a fairly organized game. This was just a messy hell.

EccentricOwl wrote:

For the people who always forgo maps and use abstractions... HOW do you get away with it? I avoid maps and use abstractions in games like Call of Cthulhu, Diaspora, A Song of Ice & Fire Roleplaying and whatnot... but with Eclipse Phase, doesn't it get confusing? People will be constantly trying to use things and activating nanoswarms and all that jazz with all these complex movement rates...

Just keep track of bare essentials. Track groups that move in unison together. Rather than tracking specific locations of people, track relative distances from one another and the context of cover. Don't get too specific; let people imagine the scenario in their own heads. Just tell them how things look in relation to their current position: "Two soldiers on the opposite side of the room with a minigun, one feeding ammunition. Shattered chunks of furniture float between you and them, obscuring your view a bit, but not enough to make it hard to hit them. Getting to your buddy is a straight shot, but will pass you through their suppression." This sort of description tells them what they are facing and how it looks from their position. Plus, it gives you and the players a chance to dynamically set out the scenario, whereas the tactical map prevents this to a degree. Gives more opportunity for the Rule of Cool to happen, which is always fun. GM: "You crack the door to the room, see two guards patrolling through. What now?" Player: "Is there some obstructive furniture in the room, between us and the guards?" GM: "Yes. A solid table is there, and you can hide behind it if you sit behind one of its large legs." Player: "Then I slip in and take cover behind it, hopefully staying stealthy." That exchange could not have happened had I set the scene completely from the get-go, without said table or with the table in a different location. It gives everyone a chance to help paint the scenario. That might not be what some GMs like to do, but I'm kinda fond of it.

Just treat it similar to teaching a new gaming system, it is a new system for handling battles in the end. Ease them into it, and they will probably have a lot of questions.