When my players question this, I like to answer that “the reality we want to simulate is, historically – or fantastically -, objectively absolute and subjectively relative, but our perception of the game is subjectively absolute and objectively relative, so the spacetime of the game cannot be proportional to reality!” (and yes I know it’s gibberish but it always gives me more time to play while they try to understand what it means )
Sure, but I’m actually asking what you really do mean by all that?
MN to CA is about 2,200 miles and can be traveled via the I-80 route in 2-3 days by car by a single driver. That is a large variance of a whole day. It can be accounted for based on how long you want to drive for and how closely you follow the speed limit. Presuming that you are willing to drive long hours (first day 13-14 hours with minimal stops) but stay within 10MPH of the speed limit then you can do it in 2 days, driving 6-8 hours you can do it in 3 days. These also requires that you hit a minimum number of delays due to traffic, accidents and construction. Reasonable defined as so few as the trip still completes in the time described without varying the speed more than described.
That isn’t hard to compute and I don’t think it is much different than march rates. I’ve read period accounts of a division taking up approximately 2.5-3 miles of a road and traveling at approximately 2.5-3MPH. That was written as a general expectation, not exceptional either high or low. Now, in December of 1806 Soult is supposed to march on Golymin I think it was and fails, he hardly gets out of the town he is camped in because the mud is so bad that he moves only a handful of miles the whole day. Just like I could leave MN and hit a huge backup on the highway due to a tanker truck crash and be unable exist to an alternative route. The result would be my 2-3 day estimate (whichever I’d planned for) would be shot.
That’s fine, both events are totally plausible. Now the question is, how commonly did they occur and is that relative likelihood of occurrence represented in-game?
I largely concur with Bill (McLaddie) that even the “slow” historical movements appear to be radically faster than a lot of what is allowed on the tabletop.
My problem in the past with using dice for movement is that you get such skewed results. If we are rolling 2D6 then most of the time I’ll move 6-8″ but sometimes I’ll move 2-3″. Does that make sense as a minimum? Say the ground scale is 1″ = 75 yards and the time scale is 20 minutes, those both lend to easy math.
Does it ever make sense that in 20 minutes a battalion could only progress 150-225 yards? I am going to stipulate that this is not under fire or in the presence of the enemy because if we are dicing for movement then this could occur both when those conditions are present and when they are not. The movement should make some sense in both cases.
My present thinking about rolling dice for movement is:
Can dicing for movement be a good solution provided there is a minimum movement allowed? If we tighten the range by adding some base movement does that help us any?
For instance: 3″ +2D6 will normally give about 9-11″ of movement. The adjusted minimum will be 5″ and the adjusted maximum will be 15″. Then we ask our question again: Does this jive with historical events? Is it reasonable that troops will sometimes only move 375 to 450 yards in 20 minutes and is the likelihood of that occurring mirrored by the roughly 8% chance of it occurring with 2D6?
If this is not correct…
Are there other factors that should adjust this minimum?
The first ones that come to mind are troop quality (training & discipline) and local commander skill.
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Here’s the thing: simulation isn’t about being absolute and it definitely requires lots of abstraction, it is fine if someone wants to say that they don’t feel such questions as these have any relevance because “it is only a game” but someday should a guy want to use BattleMechs with pulse lasers in the WW2 game you’re about to play, don’t begrudge him – it is, after all, only a game… 😉
