[Ogre] The AP Problem

[Bill Kohler]

Hello All,

	I've played Ogre/GEV off and on for many years. I think it's a great
game: simple mechanics and fun. I don't have a problem with the premise
behind the game (although people could argue with various points of it), but
I do have a minor problem with two of the mechanics. (Call them
self-consistency problems, if you will.) So I'll address these in the vein
of the "Adding Fear and Loathing to GEV" article from the Ogre Book.

	One of my problems has to do with APs, the other with
Overruns/Ramming. I'll save the second for another e-mail, but I'd like to
discuss a possible optional/house rule to address what I perceive as the "AP
problem".

	In a nutshell, it's this: at the end of the game, you frequently
have a smoking, immobilized Ogre hulk that everyone has been shooting all of
their weapons at, and which is devoid of all working treads and all
functional weapons EXCEPT for the more fragile (Def 1) weapon, the APs! This
just feels wrong. (As everyone who has ever had a walkie-talkie as a child
knows, the antenna is always the first thing to go.)

	It seems to me that with all of the "misses" against the larger
weapons, some of those shots should be hitting the fragile AP weapon sites
located close by. If this did happen, then a couple of beneficial side
effects occur: if many of the APs are gone, it just might be worthwhile
taking out the remaining ones so that Infantry will be less vulnerable (thus
adding another tactical option, always a good thing for a game). Secondly,
at the end of the game, a dead ogre will more often be completely lifeless
(appealing to the aesthetics of the game). And thirdly, it lessens a little
bit the need for the current Overruns mechanics (which I intend to address
later).

	What I propose is an "AP Spillover rule": whenever anyone _fires_ at
an Ogre _weapon_ and misses by one die roll, then an AP will be hit and
destroyed instead. If the number of remaining APs is 6 or less, then the
attacker needs to make another die roll and roll less than the remaining
number of APs in order to destroy an AP. (One could waive this rule during
Overruns where, perhaps fire is more accurate, but I don't believe that will
be a necessary refinement.)

	Ideas like this may have been discussed before, but I thought I'd
toss it out on the table and see what others think...

		--Bill K.
		  ...the tinkerer...