One of the typical questions I see floating around is, “ What are some tips for a group moving from 5e to Mork Borg/Cy_Borg?” Facing this issue myself, I worked up some simple movement rules to make combat feel familiar while staying inside the rules-light spirit of the game.
Admittedly, the question is bigger than just combat, but there are a ton of articles and publications aimed at the conceptual differences, such as the often-cited Principia Apocrypha. And, outside of the mental blocks around checks/tests, combat is the biggest hurdle the people I have played with faced, feeling a want for more options and interaction inside of combat. So, in my mind, the challenge was introducing more decision-making without the weight of additional rules and too much definition.
So, first off, Cy_Borg has a number of optional mechanics on page 85 of the rulebook designed to add some additional crunch to the system. looking at my game and players, it felt obvious to me that they would find these rules more familiar and fun for the players. But the biggest thing missing in my mind was finding a way to use a gridded map with the system, which I think has become the hallmark of crunchy 5e combat. And in actuality, I think using a gridded helps make some of the optional rules quicker to play out at the table. For example, the cover rules are far quicker to rule on when movement distance is known without having to ask the GM if a character can reach the cover.
So what does it take?
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Gridded maps (or ungridded maps with a set scale).
Easy enough, there are tons on /r/battlemaps, or right here on this blog. -
Defined distances for movement and firing.
30' by default for character movement (enemies are up to you; I improvise them) and over 60' for “long-range” firing.
That’s it. That’s all I have done. Everything else is a ruling, but this change alone has made combat much quicker and far more familiar to my players. Now, they start the turn and know where their character is going and what it will do. Simple in practice and intuitive because I used the same default movement length as 5e, which is basically cemented in the players’ minds and has the benefit of aligning to the scale of the vast majority of maps freely available.
Bonus tips
I also like to watch how the players handle combat at the table and make little reminders of the differences when they start out. Some of the things that I have pointed out include:
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Opportunity attacks aren’t a thing
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Ranged weapons work at close range (autofire actually deals more damage)
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There aren’t prepared spells, but you can take aim or use suppressive fire in a turn where something else isn’t possible
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Defense isn’t a roll to hit; it’s a save to avoid damage like a spell save. For some reason, this one is the hardest to grasp because it seems backward to 5e players. I have found that it seems to click when described this way.
