The idea seems cool. However, there's the issue of feasibility. If you declare your action in secret, then move and reveal, it's just plain easier to have your moves be on cards. This goes double for seeing if your move covers the right area - opening the book to page XX and rotating it around to visually check that you're hitting the right squares. I just don't see how you couldn't process the moves without having a set of cards that show what squares they have. An additional issue was brought up by my wife - weird targeting patterns can be difficult to process for many people even when you have them displayed on a card. Unless you have a clear sheet with a 1:1 scale pattern to hold over the board, there will be people who just plain can't process it. The games I know of that even come close, including Disgaea 3, get away with it through having a computer to highlight the squares.FrankTrollman wrote:Well, we have a system where you predeclare your moves in secret and we have a system where you move around on a 2 dimensional grid and your powers have a completely arbitrary targeting reticule. How arbitrary? Imagine that this is your area of effect for Vine Whip (B is for Bulbasaur):That is how arbitrary I am talking. Like actual chess pieces, except hundreds of them, so they are weird as fuck. Let's throw another one out there, a simple Fire Spin (V is for Vulpix):Code: Select all
X B XX X
And here's a Shadow Ball (S is for Sableye):Code: Select all
XXX X X X V X X X XXX
And it's not just areas of effect that look crazy like that. Even single target effects should look like the threatened area of a Shogi piece.Code: Select all
X X SX X X X
One could standardize the areas, but that essentially brings us back to 'vanilla' effects as we've seen in 3E - lines, radius attacks, cones, threatened spaces, etc. Is this complexity desirable, accepting the loss of a non-zero number of potential players; or is it better to simplify the areas and let the strategy emerge from the hidden moves, tactical positioning, and large number of different moves (even if the areas aren't that wild and crazy)?
ADDENDUM: Another thing I forgot about. How would one handle the third dimension with this targeting setups? Even outside of figuring out how high the edge of your vine whip can hit, the moment you have a flying pokemon with a longer range than its opponent it will auto-win against land-bound pokemon.