I searched up quotes on distance with the emotion tag for week 5 and got 171 results on one webpage alone that mostly were some schmaltzy variant on “distance makes the heart grow fonder…” I’ve always found that only the case for those relatives whose absence makes them less onerous. Distance in relationships, from what I’ve seen, tends to diminish fondness. We’ve all heard the “Dear John” letter stories, and one of the guys in my unit in Bosnia received the a “Dear John” video — of her getting it on with her new boy toy. Possibly the most literal “f*** you” video you could get.

I’ve used distance as a theme in several games. I have a fondness for space opera, so the distance of light years is often one of the burdens that character face, if they have loved ones at home. It’s been a theme for one of the characters highlighted a few times in this year’s RPG a Day: the playboy Starfleet officer whose distance from his wife has led him to wander, creating more than a few problems for him in the course of the campaign.

Emotional distance is another factor that you sometimes see in a character — often an element of the player’s detachment (or lack of interest) in the game. During a Space: 1889 game in the ‘90s, I had a player who created a German inventor that was maximized for intelligence and strength. He either created stuff or beating things up. That was the extent of the character, such as it was. During the storylines, he was frequently “in his cabin” or room, inventing. Most of the time, he willingly sidelined himself until the fights happened. In his defense, he was an old school grognard for whom killing the monster and leveling was the extent of character development. He once ran a Shadowrun campaign where — as the GM, he would periodically go to grab and drink or hit the bathroom…then not show up for quite a while. He’s be found distracted by something and forgot he had people over. My understanding is he’s got dementia, now. That said, I’ve encountered this a few times, over the years.

A character with distance from each other is a good starting point or story arc. Maybe the character was traumatized by something in their past — or an adventure where something happened — and they are trying to come to grips with it by distancing themselves. We had an arc like this for a doctor character in an Alien campaign. He had gone full alcoholic over the loss of his wife, and over the course of the campaign, their android slowly coaxed him back to health until he was part of the crew, once more.

There is another aspect to distance — distance in an encounter. As a sergeant once told me, “Distance is time. Time is opportunity.” On the battlefield, distance to the enemy allows for the opportunity to maneuver, to hide and set up an ambush, to choose to close the gap if you are in strength, or withdraw if you are not. Many RPG scenarios eventually involve a fight. There are a few systems like Lex Arcana, that do a good job of showing this idea — that the ranged fighters get to go first, before the melee-ranged ones do. Even in D&D, unless you have a ranged weapon, the opposition at distance has the advantage. They can maneuver, they can more effectively withdraw, or if they have ranged weapons and you don’t…well, it’s gonna be an interesting day.

Taking away that opportunity is a center point of some martial arts forms. A trained boxer is a pretty effective opponent if they can utilize their strength; grappling forms stress getting in close and limiting that advantage. In a gross motor attack like a haymaker, getting inside the swing to block while delivering a shot to the jaw, neck, eyes can be very effective, as the aggressor is still engaged in their attack. 

Putting together a plan of attack in an RPG scenario isn’t much different — get the artillery out of range of the opposition and loosen them up from safety, while the powerhouses maneuver to contact. This has been a popular doctrine since the longbow won Agincourt. A good example of this was a recent D&D game where our magic user kept their distance with a decent melee type to guard, while our heavy hitter moved to engage the bad guys (orcs, in this case) at contact range. However, our trump card was our centaur, who would use maneuver as a hit & run tactic — charging the enemy, but not stopping to stay in the fight. Close, hit, disengage and get out of the way of the magic artillery. Let the other powerhouse keep the enemy busy, while the centaur swung around and did it again. It was stunningly effective because the enemy was armed solely with short range slings and hand weapons. Could the centaur, with its high hit points, have stayed in the fight? Yes, but every disengage gave the opportunity to see the battle and reengage where it was most effective. Distance is time. Time is opportunity.

A few years ago, I played in an Alien game at GenCon. The GM had run the same scenario four times. Two TPKs, and another with a sole survivor. I played the annoying corporal who was the rival to the sergeant. During play, we had to raid a secret base working with — what else? — the “xenomorph”. Instead of just rushing in, we used the doctrine we were taught when I was in the military. Soften up the long range defenses to open a hole to where we could get into the facility. Every time we saw a critter, we engaged from distance, if possible. As soon as we had a notion of what was going on, our plan was to retreat in good order and let the aliens come to us. However, using bounding overwatch and other techniques, we were able to identify and eliminate the bugs at the distance we chose. Distance was opportunity. In the end, only one of the characters died due to a series of crappy rolls — killed by probability, not mistake. We successfully completed the mission, killed all the opposition, and withdrew for evac. It was the only successful completion of the scenario he had for the entire con. (It was also an excellently run game with players who were totally invested by the end.)

So, distance…it’s a good thing. Unless it isn’t.