How Do You Run Space Combat?

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

How Do You Run Space Combat in your games?

Do you use a hexmap or grid?

Do you describe to your players what you see in your mind's eye and play without visual aids or maps?

Do you use Star Warriors?

Do you run many space battles?

[Urban Spaceman]

I have some Star Wars Micro Machines I use to represent approximate distances, with some counters used for height. I find it helps for the players (especially the pilot and gunner) to have an idea of relative positions as it can be difficult to describe things in such a way for us all to have a the same visualisation/spatial awareness.

I try to add narrative flair to help describe it all, rather than just move pieces on a board:
"You twist the controls sharply to the right, almost making the 180 degree turn you intended. The first 2 fighters are caught off guard and slam in to the side of the asteroid. The remaining TIE easily evades the ploy and lines up perfectly behind you" Moves ships to demonstrate

I don't tend to run too many space battles. Largely through fear of killing the entire party in a situation where they have little ability to act (aside from the pilot and gunner).
This means when it does happen the tension is heightened. and the pilot gets their chance to shine (without having to fear every game session will have the potential for her to kill the entire group by accident)
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"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

[Naaman]

We only use visual aids when it matters (the player asks, "what do I see" or some such). Other than that, it's pure narrative (other than dice rolling, of course).

[Kytross]

Depends on the group. I had one group a while back that couldn't follow my descriptions so we needed to use models. I broke out a gray Lego plate, make crude Lego facsimiles of the ships and put them on black one Lego cylinders to get the 3D effect. So every round I would change the board, adding or losing height, and repositioning the pieces so everyone could see where everything was.

My current group doesn't seem to need that level of detail. We've only done a bit of space combat, but they haven't needed me to draw anything out yet.

[garhkal]

[Whill]

I try to have a space combat sequence in almost every adventure because... Star Wars. (It can't always be the Empire so there are a lot of pirates in my SWU.) I usually don't use a hex map because space is three dimensional so a hex doesn't really represent it well. So it is usually described and somewhat abstract, but occasionally rough sketches are used here and there to assist.
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