Rethinking Smoke

[Blackcloud6]

Then the commander could figure out how and when he should use smoke and how to integrate it into his fire plan. 

Well, I had a long post all typed up in response to this and it simply disappeared as I was writing it.  There was an auto correct and I clicked on it and the browser simply closed.  That has never happened before.

The key here is "fire plan."   And, a smell test, may not always work.  Take that notion and then apply it to the rule writer's intent.  What is intended by this rule?  What kind of smoke mission is being replicated?  There are generally two types: Immediate Smoke and Deliberate Smoke.   The former is a quick mission called to quickly obscure a target.  The latter is well planned and time/ammunition consuming mission that takes planning and the right conditions.  If the designer intended it to be immediate smoke, then he should have written the rule to express the times a gun can fire "number of turns per gun/mortar."  However, if he wanted to replicate the deliberate mission, then limiting smoke to just a number of turns is a simple way of replicating the planning that goes into such missions.  If both, then we are back to "number of turns per gun/mortar" concept of the rule.   But without knowing the intent, we can only surmise.   Who wrote this rule and can he be contacted.

Personally, I like the "number of turns per gun/mortar" notion, but, the rule as written does not say that; the "per gun/mortar." portion is addition by players, not the designer.  Until we know more, we should play by the rules as written.

PG desperately needs a rules arbitrator, but AP is unwilling to do so.  I will say, my hat is off to Perry Cocke of Multiman Publishing who has been arbitrating ASL rules for a couple of decades.  ASL has had only minor revisions over the years and is an extremely stable rules-set.   PG rules are much smaller and should be relatively easier to arbitrate.   But...

If someone were to step up, they need to be disciplined to not use their authority to change the game to be what they want it to be.  This person would need to be able to keep rules decisions from being platforms for grudge rules, pet rules, perception rules and so on.  he/she must have the ability to contact designers and gleam their intent.

In my post that deleted itself, I was going to address optional and house rules but I'll do that in another thread.