Hero\Team Mobility

[Asperion]

I recently got wondering about how various characters and teams manage to get around. Obviously in many campaigns (especially super) characters often have powers that allow travel, but not all will possess such ability. In addition, it would be a good idea for the entire team to appear at the same place at the same time. This usually means that everyone needs to travel at the same minimum speed, which generally means together. If a superman is mixed with a Batman, then that makes similar travel difficult. Do GMs let teams have a team vehicle for free, purchase one (or more) with XP, or some other option?

[Lord Liaden]

It's been a long-standing tradition in Champions games for every member of a hero team to contribute Character Points forming a common pool to pay for a base, vehicles, and anything else the whole team regularly uses. While I personally have always favored that approach, of course a GM can give the heroes whatever freebies they think appropriate.

 

The super transport has long been an element of the genre, such as the Avengers Quinjet, X-Men's Blackbird, animated Justice League's Javelins, or Fantastic Four's Fantasticar and Pogo-Plane. The Justice League has also made extensive use of teleporters, especially when maintaining orbital or lunar bases. There's also the precedent of the Flight Ring issued to all members of the Legion of Superheroes. In that case it would be fair to charge the individual heroes CP for it since they'd always have access to it; although again, a GM might make it a team freebie.

[Duke Bushido]

Civilian-type vehicles can, at GM discretion, be had for free.  It doesn't have to be an '86 Honda CRX or anything like that, either: it can be a more-or-less bone-standard "fast car" or "motorcycle," even painted up in your hero's theme to serve as his personal Crime Mobile.  However, its a bone-standard thing.

 

He can buy a vehicle-- a complex crime-fighting machine of some sort-- with his character or experience points (check out the vehicle building rules for more details), and simple, one-purpose only vehicles can be called SFX for simple movement purchase like this:

 

Running ("Ground movement") 10". X10 NCM.  1 Fuel Charge lasting typically-appropriate time.  OAF: car.

 

There.  You have charged them for a car.  sort of.

 

 

Honestly, for most of my players over the years, they have gotten into the habit of dropping points into multiple multiples of NCM (reduced or no END on the multiples part of the price ).

 

 

I don't know if that helps, but perhaps it can get you started on something.

 

 

[Tjack]

    I GM’ed a team based out of Los Angeles (Let’s hear it for the Hollywood Knights!) that was supported by a mysterious billionaire, and I gave them a special mag-rail car that traveled the seldom used subway system and thru the drainage canals to get them where I needed them. 
   The look of the car was from those Planet Earth pilot movies Gene Roddenberry did in the late ‘70’s and the drainage canals were the type from the Terminator 2 motorcycle vs.truck chase scene.

  I as GM used them like Roddenberry did the Transporters in Star Trek. A fast way to get the characters wherever I needed them to be and if I wanted them to find another way “Oh well, the tram doesn’t go there.”

  If somebody wanted to pay EP’s for their very own Batmobile I wouldn’t have stopped them but I never encouraged it either.

  If you want or need for game mechanics to control the teams travel just make sure to have your alternative easy and fun for the players and they won’t want to spend their own points on something else.

[massey]

I played a Batman-type character once, and I gave him a Megascale Teleport, with enough distance to cover the campaign area (basically the city and surrounding areas).  It had a limitation, "only to arrive at the scene".  The idea was that my Batman guy knew more than the other characters, and he left earlier without telling any of them what was going on.  Either that, or I just happened to be in the neighborhood when the crime occurred.  So basically the rest of the group would show up, and I'd step out of an alleyway and be like "took you long enough..."

 

Other players really hated that power.

[Duke Bushido]

Now what I offered above was more for the "but it has to be on the character sheet!" set.  Typically, I'm more like TJack, in as much as some things just happen outside the panels.  This is also why I can be rules-light with regard to transport to and from the scene: why are we worrying about transport to and from the scene?  The scene doesn't start until the characters get there, right?

 

Sill, my earliest days, I hadn't really put that together, so we have the vestigial "move a long way really quickly" method somewhere on someone's sheet.  "Quickly, Z-Men!  To the Stanza!  Shotgun!"

 

 

[bluesguy]

In my Champions games every player gives up 5 XP with their character build for a base & vehicle.  I will sometimes supplement that XP if I think it is appropriate (small number of players).

 

In my Fantasy games this isn't a problem since they almost always are getting around on horses.  I limit flying and teleport in my Fantasy games.

[Duke Bushido]

Team vehicle seems like a pretty standard reply.

 

I can think of.... two?  times my players have ever done that.  Sure, it's part of the source material.  The problem is that for it to really make a difference, everyone has to live in the garage, or at least be equally-close (time-wise) to where it's located, and at all times.  While I see it (sort of) solving the "we show up at the same time" problem, all it's really doing is putting the "Get from A to B in a hurry" part of the equation at a different point, and making it effect everyone else in the team.

 

[assault]

A lot depends on the GM. If they want the team to be able to go to Tierra del Fuego, for example, they need to think about providing them with a way to do that.

 

At that point, however, the issue is one of convenience for the GM. That's not something PCs need to pay points for.

 

So, zero points for that ability.

If the PCs start abusing such privileges, zero point equipment can be taken away at the GM's discretion.

 

And yes, a Batmobile, Batplane, or even Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane can cost zero points. Also, BOOM!

[Duke Bushido]

15 hours ago, assault said:

 Also, BOOM!

 

 

The expression we use comes from an old episode of the Simpsons:

 

"You arrive in the vast cornfields of X"  where X is wherever it is they are going: the vast cornfields of Iowa, the vast cornfields of Manhattan, the vast cornfields of Atlantis- wherever it is they are going.  

 

We did "travel by map" when one of my co-GMs picked it up from I-know-not-where, but it quickly devolved into "you slide across the map and arrive in the vast cornfields of...."  and eventually disappeared all together.

 

But I agree in general: in the early days, I would enforce "you have to have a way to get there!", which I described above, and we still see some vestigial results from that.

 

Some years later, I realized that the entire problem is the GM's fault from the get-go:

 

The GM wrote the outline and set the locations for the adventure.  The GM needs to ensure that he has at least some alternate device by which the characters can participate, either close-to-home tasks to keep the walking heroes busy and important, or alternate transportation, even if its just a conveniently-passing-by news chopper.

 

Alternatively, he ca reset the adventure closer to home.  It is not the player's fault that a GM-approved character suddenly can't attend the GM-approved (or even constructed) adventure.  The GM did that to them, and they shouldn't be penalized for it.

[archer]

No matter how slowly the heroes get there, they will always arrive just in the nick of time. That's very genre as well.

 

Before the action starts, it's more important to describe how the heroes get there than it is to figure out exactly how fast they arrive. Faster team members carry slower team members. People drive their car or take a taxi or the subway.

 

As a GM, sometimes I'd stagger their arrival times and direction of arrival if I wanted to give them some decisions to make or if the opposition was significantly weaker than the assembled team. Let the first team member decide whether to jump into the action without knowing just how long it'll take everyone else to arrive or whether to hang back, assess the situation, and wait for backup.

 

As a player, my characters are generally of the type who are mobile enough to arrive first and proactive enough to jump in and try to take out one of the weaker opponents or two before the element of surprise is lost...at least against opponents who aren't known casual killers. VIPER agents, yes. C.L.O.W.N., yes. Eurostar, no.

 

I try to encourage team communications gear, team vehicles, and a real base of some sort rather than operating out of someone's living room. As both player and GM in Champions, I want to encourage a feel that they're a superhero team rather than a bunch of murder hobos*. And I personally think such things encourage a sense of professionalism and pride in the team.

 

If they repaint one of the character's Toyota Camry and call that a team vehicle, they don't pay for it. They do pay points if it is an extraordinary vehicle (even if one of the PC's is a billionaire and could afford to buy an extraordinary vehicle).

 

 

*Apologies to murder hobos everywhere.

[Duke Bushido]

Okay, I-- and a couple of others-- have been giving answers that could be interpreted as "it's not important; just work it out 'good enough'" or "the GM should have thought about the characters when he designed the adventure (ever notice Spiderman doesn't typically have to jet his butt off to Kilimanjaro?  His adversaries all seem to be close to hand....)"

 

And frankly, I agree with this approach, though it did take me some time to realize that this was easier and simpler on everyone involved.  But regardless of that-- or more accurately, _because of the reasoning behind that conclusion_, I wanted to point out that things like this:

 

20 hours ago, bluesguy said:

In my Champions games every player gives up 5 XP with their character build for a base & vehicle. 

 

 

are just as solid a plan to me.

 

Why?

 

Because this is a GM who knows up-front that he is going to run a travel-heavy universe.  Because of that, he requires this small sacrifice for a character to become GM-approved.  As I mentioned before, a GM-approved character should never be penalized or miss out when he's participating in a GM-approved adventure.  Running a game this way ensures that won't happen, at least with regard to getting where you have to go.  At least, as long as characters aren't being penalized for not having the correct combination of abilities to arrive at the team vehicle all at that same time, I mean.

 

 

[archer]

IMHO, you're paying points for either traveling in style or you are having to impose on other people for travel.

 

There's nothing wrong with imposing on other people for travel. UNTIL is probably more than happy to jet you off to the other side of the world so you can save the world. 

 

But eventually, they're going to want you to return the favor (not Favor) by having you do something which isn't necessarily a pleasant job.

 

Or if you want great relationships with the police, you probably shouldn't have to bum rides in the police helicopter all the freaking time. Eventually, you're going to get snide comments. Then you're going to get pointed comments. Then you're eventually going to get turned down and have to schlep over there without getting a ride in a police helicopter. And eventually you're going to have to burn a real Favor in order to get a ride.

 

It's probably a great idea for the GM to point out after character building that the character doesn't have a way to be mobile and that the campaign at some points is going to expect him to get from point A to point B. But if a player turns me down on the idea of a slight re-write, I don't have a problem with him playing that character and struggling. Or paying points to get mobility later.