Space & Time or Hexs & Phases

[HewhoisMatt]

My two questions bothering me (they are small so I doubled them up) are on space and time, or rather hexs and Segments. Lets begin.........

Space/Hexs I have found that there are alot of premade maps out there of buildings, towns, landscape etc etc etc. The problem is they are mostly all done with squares instead of hexs and I was wondering if anyone tried running their game on square maps and how they liked it.

Time/Segment I just can not get behind the idea of a Segment being one second with all the things the game allows us to do in a single Segment "example- Load and fire a crossbow" , it's just that even with normal human limits the things we can do in one round seems insane. I think 1 Segment should = at least 5 seconds. Has anyone tried different time rules in their games and if so how did it work out.


Well those are my two questions to ponder. What do you think?

[ghost-angel]

Space: we've used squares ... little issue has arisen from it. Hexes are just easier to deal with when trying to figure out exact facing. We've also used a whiteboard set on the table with no grid at all equally well - probably the best option we've found - using a ruler.

Time: Never really bothered us to be honest ... sometimes we fudge the whole time aspect .. if a battle took nine phases and we feel 38 seconds should have passed, then 38 seconds have passed. Mostly we just got to 1 phase = 1 second and suspension of disbelief is still there. Of course, we run combat-light games so it's rarely much of an issue for us.

[Hyper-Man]

...snip...
Time/Phases I just can not get behind the idea of a phase being one second with all the things the game allows us to do in a single phase "example- Load and fire a crossbow" , it's just that even with normal human limits the things we can do in one round seems insane. I think 1 phase should = at least 5 seconds. Has anyone tried different time rules in their games and if so how did it work out. ...snip...

• 1 segment=1 second.
• A phase represents X# of actions/12 seconds a character gets where X=the character's SPD.
• 1 phase=1 second ONLY if the character has a 12 SPD.

HM

[HewhoisMatt]

• 1 segment=1 second.
• A phase represents X# of actions/12 seconds a character gets where X=the character's SPD.
• 1 phase=1 second ONLY if the character has a 12 SPD.

HM

Okay that did not really help but thanks for pointing out my mis-post. I will correct it.

[Hyper-Man]

Time: Never really bothered us to be honest ... sometimes we fudge the whole time aspect .. if a battle took nine phases and we feel 38 seconds should have passed, then 38 seconds have passed. Mostly we just got to 1 phase = 1 second and suspension of disbelief is still there. Of course, we run combat-light games so it's rarely much of an issue for us.

Depending on the SPD of the character's involved this is perfectly fine.

A normal with a 2 SPD has phases that represent 6 segments or seconds. The rules for Aborting to defensive actions before your normal phase just mean that a SPD 2 character has an opportunity to Dodge on phase 1 vs. a SPD 12 character and keep the benefits to DCV for that Dodge until his DEX on phase 12. The only exception is if the SPD 2 character decides to Abort his phase 12 action early (phases 7-11+phase 12 before his DEX acts) to something different like Dive For Cover (usable vs. an AOE attack).

HM

[Champsguy]

Segments are 1 second long. You don't use segments to act, you use phases.
Phases are a representation of a period of time. If I'm Spd 4, then my phases are about 3 seconds long.
Segments are the times that your phases are considered to "happen".

Thus, if I'm a Spd 4 character, and I shoot my crossbow on segment 3, and intend to fire it again on segment 6, then I'm basically considered to be loading it and preparing to fire in the meantime. But it doesn't take effect until segment 6. Segment 6 is considered to be when I load and fire it for purposes of the "timing" of the fight. It's an abstraction. Make sense?

[HewhoisMatt]

Okay guys it is not that I don't understand, it is that it is to fast.

Would it help if I said I think 1 round should equal 1 minute.

[Hyper-Man]

Okay guys it is not that I don't understand, it is that it is to fast.

Would it help if I said I think 1 round should equal 1 minute.

Are you speaking of the 1 minute round that Gygax was talking about on page 61 of the 1st edition AD&D DMG?

Combat is divided into 1 minute period melee rounds, or simply rounds, in order to have reasonably manageable combat. "Manageable" applies both to the actions of the combatants and to the actual refereein of such melees. It would be no great task to devise an elaborate set of rules for highly complex individual combats with rounds of but a few seconds length. It is not in the best interests of an adventure game, however, to delve too deeply into cut and thrust, parry and riposte. The location of a hit or wound, the sort of damage done, sprains, breaks, and dislocations are not the stuff of heroic fantasy. The reasons for this are manifold.

As has been detailed, hit points are not actually a measure of physical damage, by and large, as far as characters (and some other creatures as well) are concerned. ...see book for more.

Sounds like you just want HERO to be more like D&D20.


HM

[prestidigitator]

Okay guys it is not that I don't understand, it is that it is to fast.

Would it help if I said I think 1 round should equal 1 minute.

Dude! Do you have any idea how long one minute is in a combat? D&D 2nd. used a minute for a combat Round, with shaky explanations about an attack really being the final good opening you get after a bunch of fainting and dodging and such. Everyone I know House Ruled the Round to far less than that; usually 6-10 seconds. Even that is a little slow. When the adrenaline gets pumping, a whole lot can happen in a very short time.

Action movies probably go a little fast on average, due to the choreography, cuts, and post-shoot speeding up they do, but they aren't too far off. Watch a scene. Or, better yet, watch some real Martial Arts sparring. Count out twelve full seconds, and watch how much happens during that period when things get intense.

The World of Darkness systems actually used (as little as) three seconds per Turn. A character could do multiple actions in a Turn (although they would each be less effective). I actually really liked this timing. If anything, I think Hero is a tiny bit on the slow side, but I'm pretty comfortable with it all the same.

[Hyper-Man]

Dude! Do you have any idea how long one minute is in a combat? D&D 2nd. used a minute for a combat Round, with shaky explanations about an attack really being the final good opening you get after a bunch of fainting and dodging and such. Everyone I know House Ruled the Round to far less than that; usually 6-10 seconds. Even that is a little slow. When the adrenaline gets pumping, a whole lot can happen in a very short time.

Action movies probably go a little fast on average, due to the choreography, cuts, and post-shoot speeding up they do, but they aren't too far off. Watch a scene. Or, better yet, watch some real Martial Arts sparring. Count out twelve full seconds, and watch how much happens during that period when things get intense.

The World of Darkness systems actually used (as little as) three seconds per Turn. A character could do multiple actions in a Turn (although they would each be less effective). I actually really liked this timing. If anything, I think Hero is a tiny bit on the slow side, but I'm pretty comfortable with it all the same.

Actually, I have seen behind the scene stuff from Bruce Lee's old movies and he consistently had to SLOW down many of his moves for the camera!

HM

[prestidigitator]

Space/Hexs I have found that there are alot of premade maps out there of buildings, towns, landscape etc etc etc. The problem is they are mostly all done with squares instead of hexs and I was wondering if anyone tried running their game on square maps and how they liked it.

I haven't used squares for Hero, but I have used hexes for D&D, which uses squares as its basic mechanics (they have specific rules for hexes, but I never had the need to read them). There really doesn't tend to be a big problem converting between the two. Straight lines at odd angles are a pain in both, circles are a bit more of a pain with squares, etc.

Actually, if the premade maps are the only problem you are having, drawing out a premade map measuring in squares is not all that bad on a hex map. Measure one "square" worth of distance in one direction as the distance between opposite parallel sides of a hex, and in the other direction measure it as alternating between a hex edge and a hex diagonal (that is, the line between opposite points on a hex; this all makes sense if you are actually looking at a hex grid). This isn't an exactly square arrangement, and the aspect ratio of your map will be distorted somewhat, but it isn't that big of a deal.

[prestidigitator]

Actually, I have seen behind the scene stuff from Bruce Lee's old movies and he consistently had to SLOW down many of his moves for the camera!

True, though Bruce Lee was a bit exceptional. I have become a little disgusted with the way they have mucked with film speed in the last few years. It is so obvious most of the time, and really tends to detract from the viewing quality IMHO.

EDIT: Sorry. That was a bit of a run-on post. The two statements weren't necessarily meant to correlate.

[sinanju]

Dude! Do you have any idea how long one minute is in a combat? ... [snippety-snip-snip]...

Action movies probably go a little fast on average, due to the choreography, cuts, and post-shoot speeding up they do, but they aren't too far off. Watch a scene. Or, better yet, watch some real Martial Arts sparring. Count out twelve full seconds, and watch how much happens during that period when things get intense.

A friend of mine is a) a martial artist, b) a sheriff's deputy in the county prison system, c) an instructor for the SWAT team there. He's got plenty of experience in fights and plenty more eyewitness experience. It's amazing--and a little appalling--to learn just how FAST violence can happen. The Hero system, like virtually every other combat system in a game, is way too neat and orderly to accurately represent the reality.

Real combat--where people are seriously trying to hurt one another--is shockingly swift, brutal and brief. A trained or experienced attacker can punch you faster than once a second, and--especially in prison fights--usually the loser doesn't know he's in a fight until afterward, and by then he's lost.

Personally, I'm happy with a more abstract and orderly combat system--but I don't think the problem with the Hero system is that the characters are moving too slowly.

[Warp9]

Time/Segment I just can not get behind the idea of a Segment being one second with all the things the game allows us to do in a single Segment "example- Load and fire a crossbow" , it's just that even with normal human limits the things we can do in one round seems insane. I think 1 Segment should = at least 5 seconds.

How long do you think it should take to throw a punch or pull the trigger on a gun?

If you follow the idea that "1 segment = 5 seconds" it would be 30 seconds. Many human runners can run 1/8 of a mile in that time (that would be the same pace of a 4 minute mile).

I actually think that 6 seconds (which is how long HERO make a normal person take to fire a modern pistol) is too long. IMO an average person could pull a trigger, or throw a punch in about 1 second (or less).

[Hugh Neilson]

As far as hex p[roblems go, you could also copy a hex grid onto a series of overhead transparencies, and overlay these over your "squares" map.