121 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 109

[Aquillion]

I don't think the game needs to encompass the off-turn stuff. Think cut scenes.

Why not? Important things can happen in those parts. It's clearly possible for prisoners to escape, for instance, or to croak some of their captors (Wanda notes this when taking Jillian's chopsticks.) It was possible for Parson to do something that endangered the link of Gobwin Knob's casters during the night. Wanda's entire interrogation of Jillian took place off-turn, during the night (because their turn started at the end of it.) Gobwin Knob's leaders were able to use magic items to send orders to their units several hexes away, outside of their turn.

Erfworld's rules are much less constraining than many people seem to think they are. The turn rules / movement rules only slap down magic forcefields between hex edges; aside from those, and a few additional rules that govern who you can attack and unit strength, we've had every indication that Erfworld behaves more-or-less like the real world.

In other words, yeah, "cutscenes" -- but combat is also cutscenes in Erfworld. All of it. A unit's stats influence how it does, but you can (say) seize the higher ground within a hex, or fill a hex with poison gas, or drop rocks on your enemy, or use any one of a million other real-world tactics with no regard for game mechanics. Once you're inside a hex, while your stats might determine how strong your arm is or how good you are at combat, you still have to physically run up and swing your sword in a real-world fashion to kill someone -- it doesn't happen automagically.