Everyman is a World-Class Sprinter

[unclevlad]

Technically, SPD 4 is still within normal characteristic maxima.  That said...Bolt shouldn't have SPD 4, no.  Bruce Lee, maybe.  Running fast doesn't equate to fast reactions;  even the fast start is just Lightning Reflexes, more than it is high DEX...DEX carries other things along with it.  

 

23 hours ago, Steven Wayde said:

I think it’s fun to imagine how one or more of our characters for this game would stack up against a world class athlete. So, for instance, could a Daredevil or Batman type character compete at the Olympics? It’s an entertaining concept, I think.

 

It's mostly pointless due to the abstractions and artificial restraints of the game world, and how they *don't* reflect the real world with much accuracy.  I go the other way...Batman, in the decathlon?  BLOW THE DOORS OFF the world record, were he to train for the specialized events like pole vault.

[Gauntlet]

Of course if you were to take a person with maximum SPD of 4 and maximum Running of 20 then it would be as follows:

 

20 x 4 = 80 for Total Meters in a Turn

80 x 5 = 400 for Total Meters in a Minute

400 x 60 = 24,000 for Total Meters in an Hour

24,000 Meters = 14.91 Miles Per Hour for Combat Running

Or 29.83 Miles Per Hour for Non-Combat Running

 

[MrAgdesh]

17 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Of course if you were to take a person with maximum SPD of 4 and maximum Running of 20 then it would be as follows:

 

20 x 4 = 80 for Total Meters in a Turn

80 x 5 = 400 for Total Meters in a Minute

400 x 60 = 24,000 for Total Meters in an Hour

24,000 Meters = 14.91 Miles Per Hour for Combat Running

Or 29.83 Miles Per Hour for Non-Combat Running

 

Bolt covers 100m in 9.58 seconds so its 100/9.58 = 10.44m/sec.

 

10.44 x 60 = 626.4m per minute

626.4 x 60 = 37,584m per hour

 

37,584 / 1609 (km in a mile) = 23.4mph

 

So yeah. You're faster than Bolt (who, if he's Speed 3 has +9m running)

[unclevlad]

Right.  The top speed stuff is fine.  The kicker for this thread is the acceleration rules, and how long it'll take to get up to speed, the structure of acceleration/deceleration, instantaneous move on your phase versus continuous move......  

 

And we don't need to figure out MPH.

 

Meters per turn, or meters per second.  MPS, we get from the race time.  MPT is just non-combat velo x SPD.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I gotta figure most athletes are speed 2 or 3, max, and those only in sports like Hockey.  Speed 4+ is reserved for military types, combatants who learn how to react well and efficiently in combat.

[Hugh Neilson]

We tend to assign higher SPDs because the Supers games have conditioned us to "anyone remotely capable has at least SPD 4".  The difference between a "normal" 2 and a 3 is pretty significant.  We're probably too free with 15s, 18s and 20s as well.

[MrAgdesh]

11 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I gotta figure most athletes are speed 2 or 3, max, and those only in sports like Hockey.  Speed 4+ is reserved for military types, combatants who learn how to react well and efficiently in combat.

What about table tennis? I mean the reaction times of those guys is something else.

 

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, MrAgdesh said:

What about table tennis? I mean the reaction times of those guys is something else.

 

 

At high levels, sure, but SPD affects *everything*.  That's why it's broken to give it out so much.  How about table tennis players are executing a form of *block*?  That somehow counts as a non-terminating, half phase action.  It's the rigidity of the SPD chart that causes the real-world examples to fail.  The real world has much smoother action flow.

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

We tend to assign higher SPDs because the Supers games have conditioned us to "anyone remotely capable has at least SPD 4".  The difference between a "normal" 2 and a 3 is pretty significant.  We're probably too free with 15s, 18s and 20s as well.

 

I think the root is...SPD 2 means you have 6 full seconds between your actions.  That's a LONG!!! time;  in many sports, it's far too long.  We internalize the action sequence, tho...a boxer's punch, the shot of a table tennis (or tennis, for that matter, sometimes) player...those are 'terminating actions' and the ability to recover to do something else...well, that's a new phase, so they have to have SPD!  

 

Nope.  It just shows that the requirements of a playable game don't align with the real world very well.  

 

The 18s are, I think, tied to the very coarse granularity on skill rolls, and possibly another internalized aspect...don't buy up a ton of skill rolls, buy up the underlying characteristic...it's cheaper.  That argument, admittedly, doesn't apply to 15 or 20, but I'd respond:  we buy 18s for DEX and INT because those are driven by their skills impact.  PRE and STR, probably because we like whole dice.  Note, I'm talking strictly 6E here.  5E, the figureds drive the characteristic values we'd pick.  Well, in a sense, they still do...just with the specific translations to either skill rolls, or level of effect (for STR and PRE).

[Doc Democracy]

So, I reckon those actions are actions that matter.  In a table tennis game, I would have an opposed roll for the serve, the ball then pings back and forth every second or so, and in an action phase you get the chance to do something exciting to win the point.

 

It would be interesting to have a baseline difficulty.  You choose a baseline and serve against that.  Success means that is the difficulty other actions work against. Your action might seek to win the point, or up the difficulty level. If you try to win the point, and fail, your opponent gets a bonus to win on their next action.

 

Manoeuvres, like Smash, will alter difficulty level for your opponent's next turn.  You might abort your next action to counter a successful smash etc.

 

All the time the ball flies back and forth, the SFX of the difficulty level.

 

😁

[rjcurrie]

On 10/20/2023 at 1:21 PM, Doc Democracy said:

So, I reckon those actions are actions that matter.  In a table tennis game, I would have an opposed roll for the serve, the ball then pings back and forth every second or so, and in an action phase you get the chance to do something exciting to win the point.

 

It would be interesting to have a baseline difficulty.  You choose a baseline and serve against that.  Success means that is the difficulty other actions work against. Your action might seek to win the point, or up the difficulty level. If you try to win the point, and fail, your opponent gets a bonus to win on their next action.

 

Manoeuvres, like Smash, will alter difficulty level for your opponent's next turn.  You might abort your next action to counter a successful smash etc.

 

All the time the ball flies back and forth, the SFX of the difficulty level.

 

😁

Should non-combat sports be resolved using the combat system or by using Professional Skills?

 

Actually, perhaps even combat sports like boxing and fencing should be resolved with Professional Skills, since boxing or fencing to score a point can be different from boxing or fencing in a real combat.

 

[Doc Democracy]

1 hour ago, rjcurrie said:

Should non-combat sports be resolved using the combat system or by using Professional Skills?

 

Actually, perhaps even combat sports like boxing and fencing should be resolved with Professional Skills, since boxing or fencing to score a point can be different from boxing or fencing in a real combat.

 

 

It would be odd if your CV did not impact on your ability to fence competitively as well as in deadly combat.  Maybe not the start and finish but it should definitely contribute - possibly as an adder to your PS?  Or the base for adders depending on the manouevre being used - or the "damage" inflicted by a successful engagement with an opponent.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, rjcurrie said:

Should non-combat sports be resolved using the combat system or by using Professional Skills?

 

Actually, perhaps even combat sports like boxing and fencing should be resolved with Professional Skills, since boxing or fencing to score a point can be different from boxing or fencing in a real combat.

 

 

To me, this depends on the campaign focus.  For most games, resolving athletics (or medicine, or law, or research, or investigation, or social interaction) is not the primary source of success or failure - combat is the focus.  That makes a more robust resolution system for combat, and a less robust resolution system for other matters (the skill rolls) appropriate.

 

But if the desire is a game focused on something other than combat, then perhaps we need to toggle the switches and expand that focus area to a more robust system for determining success or failure in a manner that's more granular, like combat is now.  That may even be accompanied by making physical combat resolution less robust.  We're going to focus on athletic competition, so perhaps physical combat is resolved by opposed "Brawling" skill rolls.  Maybe weapon proficiencies get expanded to add 3 point full skills and that replaces the more granular combat system - a fight is resolved quickly with skill rolls so we can get back to the focus of the campaign, whatever it may be.  I could see having more than one robust resolution area in a game, and I could even see adopting one temporarily (those Sci Fi show episodes where a mysterious illness puts the focus on the doctor character, for example).

[LoneWolf]

One thing to keep in mind about combat sports is that they often have rules about what you can and cannot do in a match.  Often things you would do in a fight may get you disqualified in a match.  In a Robert Aspin Phule novel there was a fencing match that the marine was trained in a different martial art.   He lost the match because he did not know the rules of fencing and used maneuvers that disqualified him.  In a real combat he would have won, but lost the match due to a technicality.    The use of the professional skill to determine a match works fairly well to simulate this type of thing.  

[Pattern Ghost]

On 10/23/2023 at 4:46 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

We're going to focus on athletic competition, so perhaps physical combat is resolved by opposed "Brawling" skill rolls.  Maybe weapon proficiencies get expanded to add 3 point full skills and that replaces the more granular combat system - a fight is resolved quickly with skill rolls so we can get back to the focus of the campaign, whatever it may be.

 

This is sort of the approach the first edition of Ars Magica used. The physical combat system was very simplified and brutal. It made combat something to avoid, and pushed the focus onto the magic system and RPing mage life. The troupe system (interesting, but I haven't met anyone who really buys into it) has one player run a whole group of Grog NPCs, who are basically presented as cannon fodder, mechanically. This kind of approach has its pros and cons (cool, detailed magic system vs nobody wanting to run multiple cannon fodder instead of their mage or companion character). 

 

I think most RPGs focus more on combat than skills systems is because the stakes for combat are higher, and therefore more universally exciting. In an espionage game, though, hacking a computer or picking a lock can easily become a life or death situation. Top Secret SI put about the same weight on combat and skills, with both resolution systems having more significant overlap than in Hero, and now I'm wondering it this is the reason. (Of course, it could be the designers just wanted a streamlined resolution system as its own end. I remember it as fast to pick up and play, and pretty fun. The system tended to get out of the way of the game.)

Edited October 25, 2023 by Pattern Ghost

[unclevlad]

Combat is a situation where many/most of the players can contribute.  Detailed hacking can be just as involved...think Shadowrun...but only one player is typically active.  That'll often be true in social situations, altho...not always.  L5R blended those.

 

Another issue, tho, with "social combat" is...lots of players aren't that good at it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

He lost the match because he did not know the rules of fencing and used maneuvers that disqualified him.  In a real combat he would have won, but lost the match due to a technicality.  

 

Yeah I fenced a guy at a Ren fair once.  I grabbed his foil Rob Roy style and jabbed him in the heart.  That was objectively a win, he was completely unprepared for it.  But according to the rules, it was a loss; I "cheated."  To be fair, I was fighting for a pretty redhead, so it was a win either way in my book.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[Gauntlet]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

He lost the match because he did not know the rules of fencing and used maneuvers that disqualified him.  In a real combat he would have won, but lost the match due to a technicality.  

 

Yeah I fenced a guy at a Ren fair once.  I grabbed his foil Rob Roy style and jabbed him in the heart.  That was objectively a win, he was completely unprepared for it.  But according to the rules, it was a loss; I "cheated."  To be fair, I was fighting for a pretty redhead, so it was a win either way in my book.

 

And if that redhead reads this, you're a dead man, but hell, it still would be worth it!

[Hugh Neilson]

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Combat is a situation where many/most of the players can contribute.  Detailed hacking can be just as involved...think Shadowrun...but only one player is typically active.  That'll often be true in social situations, altho...not always.  L5R blended those.

 

I think there's a "chicken and the egg" issue here.  If the game is built around combat, players build combat-capable characters.  If the game were focused on athletics, social interaction or courtroom drama, players would build characters that can contribute to such areas.  I'm not sure track & field would make for a great game - single-person sports would not be conducive to a game group.  But fencing, judo and wrestling are "combat sports" we can better simulate with combat rules and we avoid one-on-one combats for the same reason.

 

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Another issue, tho, with "social combat" is...lots of players aren't that good at it.

 

The physical combat system does not require players to demonstrate exactly how they aim their bow, swing their sword or shoot fire from their eyes, nor how they will tough out that arrow in their shoulder, block that sharp metal with their shield or shrug off those flames. 

 

Most issues I see with social conflict "players aren't good at" comes from GM's who are fine with Big Barney, who needs two rest stops to haul his obese body up a flight of stairs, doing Kirk shoulder rolls as he nimby weaves through mook enemies to backflip over the Big Bad for an attack from behind with his rapier - stiletto combined attack, but insist on Walter Wallflower "role playing" his Casanova-level seduction skills in "social combat" with the Femme Fatale.  Once we accept that the characters have skills that the players do not, so we should not base success or failure on the player's skills, that issue goes away.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah the thing with role playing and social interaction is that you have to work with the best that person can do.  Don't penalize characters for what their players are incapable of.  This is why I don't like puzzles, riddles, etc in games unless you have players that are great at them or you don't have significant clues and assistance to get them through it.  We're playing a ROLE PLAYING game here, not some test of player abilities.

 

If you have a timid player who is awful at social graces and chatting up a lady, don't use his awkward confused and scared lines against him.  Use the roll and determine if this is a good effort from them as a player.  I am confident everyone here either knows, knew, or is that sort of person and we play these games to be better, stronger, more interesting and active people than we are in real life.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[Gauntlet]

Big thing to remember is that even in heroic games, overwhelmingly the characters are at movie style strengths. This means that they will practically always be better than real life in many of their skills and abilities.

[Hugh Neilson]

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

If you have a timid [player?] who is awful at social graces and chatting up a lady, don't use his awkward confused and scared lines against him.  Use the roll and determine if this is a good effort from them as a player.  I am confident everyone here either knows, knew, or is that sort of person and we play these games to be better, stronger, more interesting and active people than we are in real life.

 

By the same token, when a player who is playing a character with no social/interaction skills and low social characteristics (PRE, COM in some editions) and the player makes eloquent oratories, or charming comments, that does not override the character's lack of social graces.  Expecting player skill to overcome a lack of character skill is bad role playing.

[unclevlad]

But *at the table* it will matter, quite often.

 

The point is, the combat system *is* totally abstracted to do this.  It's expected.  Fundamentally, NONE of us are competent to do the whole chandelier-swing-multi-attack-with-rapier swashbuckler move...or even a simpler sword thrust.  Or snap-drawing a gun, and shooting...I've never held a gun.  (Oh...take that back.  Pump action pellet gun, once.  Hardly counts.)  And no one cares.

 

OTOH, if the player goes "I give an impassioned speech to talk the guards into ignoring us" because he's got the PRE for it?  That can devolve into nothing but ROLL playing.  

[Doc Democracy]

5 hours ago, unclevlad said:

OTOH, if the player goes "I give an impassioned speech to talk the guards into ignoring us" because he's got the PRE for it?  That can devolve into nothing but ROLL playing.

 

That might be preferable to a player with poor speaking skills being expected to orate in character or simply not be able to play face type characters. 

 

I say that as the player who often plays face type characters and am often deferred to in such situations even when my character is supposed to be a slow-thinking grunt.  My friends expect it of me, and not of others.  The game system should not reinforce this kind of stereotyping.  In the example above, I would seek a bit of additional information - what is he drawing on to persuade the guards, why should they look the other way, why should you be different.  I would not make the player orate (and potentially have them embarrassed at doing something they know they are not good - and perhaps not even competent at - in front of their friends).

[Gauntlet]

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

The point is, the combat system *is* totally abstracted to do this.  It's expected.  Fundamentally, NONE of us are competent to do the whole chandelier-swing-multi-attack-with-rapier swashbuckler move...or even a simpler sword thrust.  Or snap-drawing a gun, and shooting...I've never held a gun.  (Oh...take that back.  Pump action pellet gun, once.  Hardly counts.)  And no one cares.

 

But wait, I have a Black Belt in five different types of martial arts, all of them utilizing weapons (including a rapier) and I have been in multiple competitions and won a number of them. Plus I do Gymastics and have even been thought of for the Olympics. So how can you say that NONE of us are competent to do the whole chandelier-swing-multi-attack-with-rapier swashbuckler when my background absolutely states that I can?

 

I bet your only response will be that I am just lying!

 

Well I will have to tell you SIR...

 

That you are completely correct and I should shut-up now...

[Hugh Neilson]

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

But *at the table* it will matter, quite often.

 

The point is, the combat system *is* totally abstracted to do this.  It's expected.  Fundamentally, NONE of us are competent to do the whole chandelier-swing-multi-attack-with-rapier swashbuckler move...or even a simpler sword thrust.  Or snap-drawing a gun, and shooting...I've never held a gun.  (Oh...take that back.  Pump action pellet gun, once.  Hardly counts.)  And no one cares.

 

OTOH, if the player goes "I give an impassioned speech to talk the guards into ignoring us" because he's got the PRE for it?  That can devolve into nothing but ROLL playing.  

 

I can "make a half move and multi-attack with my rapier" or I can "spring forward, using the chandelier overhead to vault over the table, delivering a blinding flurry of strikes and ripostes against the miscreant - yield, false champion, or we will strike you down!".  It should not change my likelihood of success, but one makes for a far better game than the other.  As a GM, I may wish to encourage the latter, perhaps allowing a small bonus.

 

I can "give a speech to talk the guards into ignoring us" or I can "beseech the guards, who can see clearly that their liege is under the influence of an enchantress who seeks to lead the Barony into war and chaos, to simply allow us passage that we might prevent this horrific end".  It should not change my likelihood of success, but one makes for a far better game than the other.  As a GM, I may wish to encourage the latter, perhaps allowing a small bonus.

 

If, as a GM, I award no bonus for the in-combat role playing, and in a social setting, I penalize the first character with a -6 to his 15- skill roll, but give the second a +2 bonus to his Everman 8-, what message does that send?  If you want to adjudicate social interaction based on player skill, tell the players not to bother spending points on PRE or social skills, as you plan to just ignore them anyway.

 

11 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

That might be preferable to a player with poor speaking skills being expected to orate in character or simply not be able to play face type characters.

 

BINGO - denying the wallflower the choice of playing a glib con man or a Casanova is no better that telling a player "you can't play an agile rogue - you're too fat and klutzy".  We don't play these games to run our own skill set in a funny hat.

2 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

But wait, I have a Black Belt in five different types of martial arts, all of them utilizing weapons (including a rapier) and I have been in multiple competitions and won a number of them. Plus I do Gymastics and have even been thought of for the Olympics. So how can you say that NONE of us are competent to do the whole chandelier-swing-multi-attack-with-rapier swashbuckler when my background absolutely states that I can?

 

I bet your only response will be that I am just lying!

 

Well I will have to tell you SIR...

 

That you are completely correct and I should shut-up now...

 

But undoubtedly there are players who are more or less physically fit, and some who have firearms experience and expertise, while others may have fenced.  It does not mean they get free combat advantages over an asthmatic, obese couch potato.