battlemaps/grids/etc & dfrpg/fate

[tetrasodium]

Has anyone already figured out a good system of merging zones with battlemaps and the like for situations where tactical is important for the situation?  everything I can think of either gets needlessly complicated,  leads to logical inconsistencies like the range on guns changing depending on where you are, or leads to glacial/super quick movement and defeats the purpose of using a grid/hexmap.

I'm thinking maybe allowing base athletics+2df  square(or hexes) as a supplemental action, defining a zone as whatever number of squares and allowing sprint to move zones instead of squares with difficult terrain imposing penalties of some sort.  Walking through sludge might be -N to walk or the action it was supplemental to, sprinting could be a might/alertness/athletics/etc check to avoid falling/stumbling/etc based on terrain. tactical movement becomes glacial at lower power levels

Adjusting zonesize based on terrain is a little less complex/arbitrary, but encounters problems when you do things like say a gun fires this far in a big sandtrap but that far in a nice smooth parking lot unless you make it even more complicated  by saying zonesize for movement is X, but Y for attacking.

The big problem is that tactical movement becomes glacial at lower power levels and higher power levels turns everything with a good athletics skill into the flash

[EdgeOfDreams]

I don't really have any advice on mapping or grids.  My groups have kept most of that in their heads or sketched out blob shapes for zones.

I do agree that the difference between the guy with Athletics 1 or 2 and the guy with Athletics 4 or 5 and Speed powers is a little too much in terms of being able to get around in combat.

I think a house-rule that spending your whole turn sprinting always gets you a minimum of 2 zones (assuming no zone boundaries) regardless of your athletics roll could help with the low end.  I'm not sure what can be done at the high end, though, as those players have clearly invested skill points and refresh in mobility.

[EldritchFire]

Fred Hicks has you covered!

Late last year, he blogged about just such a thing! Check it out here:

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2010/11/hack-use-your-grid-maps-with-fate/

-EF

[UmbraLux]

Has anyone already figured out a good system of merging zones with battlemaps and the like for situations where tactical is important for the situation?  everything I can think of either gets needlessly complicated,  leads to logical inconsistencies like the range on guns changing depending on where you are, or leads to glacial/super quick movement and defeats the purpose of using a grid/hexmap.

Don't really use much combat mapping for DFRPG myself but I'd suggest basing a zone off of the slowest character's movement.  Or some abstraction thereof.  Basically, if your slowest character can move 6 meters in an exchange, that's how big your zone is. 

That said, don't aspects (scene, maneuver, and declarations) tend to cover tactical movement?

[Haru]

I think that's what borders are for. A border around a zone does not have to be a literal border, a wall or a fence, but it represents the difficulty to move into another zone. This might be different for different skills. Walking over a parking lot with leaves scattered around might not impair your movement all that much, but it will definitely raise the difficulty of doing it quietly. Rocky Terrain, rain-slick asphalt, broken glass, can easily increase the borders of a zone for movement. Darkness, fog, bright sunlight could be borders for someone trying to shoot, although that should probably be done by declarations on the side of the defence roll.

The problem with zones in general is, that they are always of a somewhat arbitrary size, they will never be exact. But they don't need to be, they are only there to create a rough outline of the area the conflict takes place. A usual living space would probably have each room as a different zone (the small bathroom as well as the large living room). An opera hall would have to be cut into smaller pieces (stage, each aisle, different rows of chairs [which would have a rather high border, crossing those rows is not too easy]).
If the terrain is too big to be reasonably represented by zones (an open field could be laid out by let's say 10x10 or more identical zones, but that would be just insane), just don't. Instead, go for a cat and mouse game or something similar, so one character can force the other into an "arena", an area to fight in that can be represented by zones (from the field to the barn, where you are standing with your back to the wall or run inside). If the "prey" gets away, there will not be a conflict this time, if the hunter can chase him to the right place, it is on. If none of the characters are running, you only have 1 zone, the one they are in, and that will be all there is to it in that fight, unless someone changes the pace of the conflict.

I hope I'm not just mumbling nonsense right now, I will check again later.

And I am not sure though, what exactly you mean by battlemaps.

[tetrasodium]

Fred Hicks has you covered!

Late last year, he blogged about just such a thing! Check it out here:

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2010/11/hack-use-your-grid-maps-with-fate/

-EF

Nice & thanks, those rules look pretty good.  They also look to open some potentially interesting possibilities for AoO/harassing type things for getting nearish or things like allowing some small amount of movement within one's zone for free if someone ends their turn/movement within your zone.