Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

[bigdamnhero]

This started as a discussion about Firefly, but has I think digressed enough to justify it's own thread.

 

But as a gamer' date=' I like to have a little more detail so the players understand WHY they can/can't get to Persephone in time. Especially since I tend to game with a lot of engineers who want hard answers to things (especially in sci-fi, as opposed to fantasy or supers) and don't like being told "because I said so, that's why." [/quote']

 

For me it wouldn't be "because i said so" but also wouldn't need hard defined astrophysics either.

 

If i were gonna script a "too long to get there" scenario, it would be more likely to hinge on getting to a place already defined as "too far" by previous timing sequences or to a place so far undetermined, so i don't really need an excuse.

 

If i did decide to make it to one they have reason to expect, from previous episodes, is within travel time, then there are a multitude of reasons, even some in show, for a longer trip now. Examples include:

Wanting to avoid alliance ships makes it take a long time.

Alliance ships "on maneuvers" have restricted access and you HAVE TO "go around".

Alliance has setup an "amber alert" beacon for reasons unknown and they are very active so sneaking thru is dubious and too slow.

Ship damage or low fuel status means you cannot make normal good speed.

etc...

 

Most of these could be placed on the mantle and shown ahead of time, before a time question comes up abd becomes a plot issue. others could be surprises like a pirate raid which causes some damage or just a broken part on an old ship after a few days at top burn (tho even that can be foreshadowed too.)

 

So it boils down to being able to provide good story reasons for "why not this time" without needing the astrophysics of celestial bodies and orbits.

 

Which is , for me, much more interesting than the latter.

 

Very well-stated, and I can’t disagree with any of it. But on the other hand, if the story is the only thing that matters, why do we have mechanics at all? [Player: “I shoot him.†GM: “Sorry, the plot requires you to miss.â€] Obviously I’m exaggerating to make a point here. My question for the group is at what point do you cross the line between “serving the needs of the story†and “excessive hand-wavingâ€? Of course there’s no one “right†answer, but I’m curious to hear other people’s thoughts on the matter.

 

To me, it’s a question of letting the players feel like they’re in control of their own actions, even if I really am railroading them into a plot point. (Heck, especially if I’m railroading them into a plot point!) If I know that it’ll take the players “x†hours to get from A to B, and I want them to get there just in the nick of time, then it’s fairly simple to write the scenario so they have just-about-exactly “x†hours to get there. If the players are on the ball and hustle, they’ll make it – if they take too much time, they might be too late. I can always fudge the edges a little if need be, but it feels more urgent to them (and me) if the travel time is “x†hours rather than “as much time as I want it to take.â€

 

Complications like the ones you listed can still be used, but to me they are more effective as adders to a set time, rather than hand-waves:

“Stop worrying. Things don’t start for six hours and we’ll be there in four.â€

“Uh-oh, looks like we’re going to have to detour around some Alliance traffic. That’ll add at least two hours to our flight-time, even if we burn hot.â€

“Okay, you can start worrying again.â€

 

• Doing the work to establish travel times between worlds: $2.50

• Writing the scenario around those travel times: $0.25

• Seeing the look on your players faces when they check the star chart and realize they have EXACTLY TEN MINUTES to get back to the ship and lift off if they’re going to make it to McGuffin’s Moon in time to stop Ming’s evil plot: Priceless.

 

 

 

bigdamnhero

“Wow!†He can say it backwards: “Wow!â€

[Nyrath]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

Travel times can come in handy if one's RPG is shading a bit into wargaming territory. Say if your gaming group of free traders is using interstellar trade game rules and a starmap to figure the most profitable trade route.

 

Naturally if one's GM style is more pure narativist RPG, travel times can be reduced to "speed-of-the-plot"

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

I'm just thinking of it in terms of a different scale right now. In Champions, when there's a bank robbery on the other side of town, does your GM sit down and calculate out exactly how many turns it'll take each character to get to the scene? Or does he just have each character arrive relative to his or her speed at getting to the scene? Or does he just pick the most plot-convenient explanation and run with it?

 

For me, GMs have always run it the second way (the heroes arrive in time, with the faster characters getting there a phase or 3 ahead of the other members of the party), and when they want it to take a REALLY long time, they put our adventure in another dimension, another country, another state. How far away they place our destination is proportional to how long they want it to take us. Only twice have I bothered to calculate how long it would take a character to fly from point A to point B, and neither were particularly plot-pertinent.

[Jaxom]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

This is gonna depend on your players in my book. It'll also depend on your system.

 

If you're playing Champions or Pulp then most players will agree on what methods of transport are available and when the GM tells players how they show up they can argue if they want with reasonably sound questions.

 

When you're talking StarHero a lot is going to depend on how you've defined travel in your universe. It's one of the reasons that writing good sci-fi is so bloody hard.

 

If your version of FTL travel is popping out of the universe and then back in, ships in the way doesn't mean anything. Unless you can have encounters in hyperspace... Then you have to answer a whole different set of questions. Maybe hyperspace is just a parallel universe where all imensions shrink by a factor or 3 time 10 ^ 12 (i.e. 1 light year is reduced to one km effectively) and all other physics holds.

 

I game with a couple of astrophysicists (myself being one) and a couple of engineers. When we play sci-fi campaigns the GM usually sits down ahead of time and defines the physics for the campaign to provide a framework for answering such questions ahead of time. Then anyone running in that universe sits down and asks "why can't they just short-circuit this by doing x". IMO, you should be doing that every time you run anyway.

 

It helps to know your players as well. If you expect your players to ask something like that then you durn well better know *an* answer. Doesn't hurt to ask yourself in advance in any case in case one of your players surprises you.

[austenandrews]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

I game with a couple of astrophysicists (myself being one) and a couple of engineers. When we play sci-fi campaigns the GM usually sits down ahead of time and defines the physics for the campaign to provide a framework for answering such questions ahead of time. Then anyone running in that universe sits down and asks "why can't they just short-circuit this by doing x". IMO' date=' you should be doing that every time you run anyway.[/quote']

Half of me would love to sit in on a SF game with astrophysicists. The other half would flee in horror.

 

It helps to know your players as well. If you expect your players to ask something like that then you durn well better know *an* answer. Doesn't hurt to ask yourself in advance in any case in case one of your players surprises you.

I've found it useful to set parameters for how "realistically" the campaign will be handled in different areas. For instance, I used to game with a RL tank commander. Our regular GM set a clear rule that real-world military tactics did not apply in the game, because the GM didn't know them like the tank commander did. I'd say the same is true of travel times - if it's too much trouble, just make it clear right off the bat that travel times will be ballpark numbers, not exact calculations. Then if your players ask, you can smack them for it.

 

(I also just played in a game where the GM felt it necessary to obsess over every last detail of every firearm carried by the PCs, even though neither the players nor the characters cared and gamewise the differences were practically nil. That's kind of the other extreme.)

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

I've found it useful to set parameters for how "realistically" the campaign will be handled in different areas. For instance' date=' I used to game with a RL tank commander. Our regular GM set a clear rule that real-world military tactics did not apply in the game, because the GM didn't know them like the tank commander did. I'd say the same is true of travel times - if it's too much trouble, just make it clear right off the bat that travel times will be ballpark numbers, not exact calculations. Then if your players ask, you can smack them for it. [/quote']

I like that approach and your example, aa! Though I often get a little too involved in the "science" aspects of science fiction for my players' taste, I can sympathize with both sides of that issue. But then again, if we played everything by realistic physics, we wouldn't have much in the way of high adventure SF games, would we?

[Jaxom]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

Half of me would love to sit in on a SF game with astrophysicists. The other half would flee in horror.

 

We're pretty well behaved and accept the suspension of disbelief premise most of the time. The issue comes up when you get to adding flavor and you mention how your space travel works while adding flavor... Then you tell me I can't get there from here... Wait a minute, that contradicts what you said over here! That gets *most* players bummed out so we avoid it by the means mentioned above... Know your universe before you put your foot in something stinky.

 

I've found it useful to set parameters for how "realistically" the campaign will be handled in different areas. For instance, I used to game with a RL tank commander. Our regular GM set a clear rule that real-world military tactics did not apply in the game, because the GM didn't know them like the tank commander did. I'd say the same is true of travel times - if it's too much trouble, just make it clear right off the bat that travel times will be ballpark numbers, not exact calculations. Then if your players ask, you can smack them for it.

 

(I also just played in a game where the GM felt it necessary to obsess over every last detail of every firearm carried by the PCs, even though neither the players nor the characters cared and gamewise the differences were practically nil. That's kind of the other extreme.)

 

Obsession is not the answer since that just leads to wasting time looking things up (or risking misremembering and offending someone). The "tactics" don't apply might make sense but I'd just go with a "the physics don't apply and that may require changes to your tactics" and "the enemy has not studied standard tank tactics so don't expect them to do what you would". It's a different way of wording most of the same thing but it seems more palatable to the folks I tend to game with.

 

One of the conversations over lunch today went, "So, since it's comics I was going to give this character an x-ray laser... That going to bother you immensely? It's just a 4d6 RKA with no visible power effects... I can make it infrared if it bugs you but X-ray is what struck me first and I liked the sound."

 

"No, I know current physics says that requires a building the size of this one (a major downtown mall) and roughly the same power consumption as all of Seattle for an hour, but it's comic books. I'll live with it being hand-mounted in the power armor and we won't worry about the power source."

 

The fun discussions come in the threads here where INT is overpriced because you can't use it to do anything... If you want to see someone blow up over that one, poke Cancer a few times.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

If you want to see someone blow up over that one' date=' poke Cancer a few times. [/quote']

Are you and he in the same gaming group, then?

[Curufea]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

I go by "importance to plot" which is really an almost subconscious calculation.

 

Will the randomness of the dice screw up my plot too much? Or will modern understanding of scientific principles screw up my plot too much? Can it be worked around? Will I have to modify things so it doesn't screw up my plot too much?

 

In general I go with whatever the players are likely to have the most fun with, and enjoy completely rewriting my plots to fit them (I'm a Baron Munchausen GM in most things). If they like science, I reduce the rubber content.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

It helps to know your players as well. If you expect your players to ask something like that then you durn well better know *an* answer.

Well put. The players in my last group liked their science on the hard side, even if the plot itself sometimes tended towards space opera. I'm the same way, so it worked out well. I tried to have reasonable explantions for such things, and they were good about accepting the "that's not how it works in the game" handwaves as long as I didn't do it too often or too glaringly. They were particularly forgiving when it was obvious that their actions had taken us away off the prepared adventure and I was winging it -- which happened frequently, of course.

 

Actually, the hardest part was when the player-engineer wanted to do something that was beyond the character-engineer's abilities. Player: "But *I* could do that!" GM: "Sorry, your character isn't as good an engineer as you are." (In fairnes, we had another player who was a better martial artist than his character.)

 

Now with my current Champions group, I don't have to worry about such things. "Speed of plot" is fine for this group in this genre. The engineer in the group is the first one to say "Hey, it's a comic book!"

 

 

bigdamnhero

“I have a cunning plan, which cannot fail...â€

[Cancer]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

Are you and he in the same gaming group' date=' then? [/quote']

 

Aye-yup. The Monster is another in the group.

 

It must be said: I have learned the hard way that things I think are interesting and game-relevant sometimes bear little resemblance to what other players think are interesting and game-relevant. (I am overly concerned with game-world consistency and rationale, underlying causes and their discovery.) I'm on a long-term self-imposed hiatus from GMing for that reason.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

I would worry more about being consistent than scientifically accurate. Larry Niven is often cited as being "hard SF", but really, his science is so rubber you could carve it into superballs. Stasis fields? Teleportation booths? Even his fusion drives are miraculously efficient.

If your players are the type to read maps, measure and make calculations, make a system that allows them to do that, reserving some of the GM "X" factors mentioned before. Otherwise, just tell them how long it will take.

When I ran the Solar Colonies, the fifth installment revolved around the development of an FTL drive. I had star charts, databases, formulas, theory, a great big curtain to cover the impossibilities, and in the end, the players wound up just asking me, "How long till the next system?"

The scenario was an "X-months to save earth" kind of thing. They were back-tracking an interstellar invader and thus were mostly worried about how much time they were taking.

 

Keith "Inventor of the thread-pulling drive" Curtis

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

Larry Niven is often cited as being "hard SF"' date=' but really, his science is so rubber you could carve it into superballs.[/quote']

 

 

Keith, I just found something to replace my long-running "TAP" counter! Thanks!

[austenandrews]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

I wouldn't say the term "hard SF" excludes "rubber science," though. FTL is hardly uncommon in hard SF, for instance, and that's about as rubber as it gets. Personally I rate "hardness" based on the importance of known numbers and phenomena to the story. "Ringworld" couldn't exist without Niven's passion for the numbers. A story about a ringworld could exist, but not the stories that Niven wrote. The existence of "rubber science" elements (I confess, that term is starting to wear thin on me) doesn't change that.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

I wouldn't say the term "hard SF" excludes "rubber science' date='" though. FTL is hardly uncommon in hard SF, for instance, and that's about as rubber as it gets. Personally I rate "hardness" based on the importance of known numbers and phenomena to the story. "Ringworld" couldn't exist without Niven's passion for the numbers. A story [i']about[/i] a ringworld could exist, but not the stories that Niven wrote. The existence of "rubber science" elements (I confess, that term is starting to wear thin on me) doesn't change that.

Good point. Let's face it, the idea of a future where mankind has made no new scientific discoveries and everything works exactly as 20th-century science predicted is probably the least-likely future of them all. Not to mention a boring world to game in.

 

To me, "hard sci-fi" fiction tends to mean a focus on the scientific aspects of the story, as opposed to being more plot or character focused. (That's not to say the two are mutually-exclusive - it's a relative thing.) RPGs by definition tend to be more plot and character driven, so a "hard sci-fi game" to me means one where an attempt is made to keep the science consistent and believable. Where rubber science exists (like FTL, etc), it is set up with rules that explain how (if not why) it works -- it's not just Magic-Tech.

 

 

bigdamnhero

"I've never shot anyone before."

"I was there, son. I'm fairly sure you haven't shot anyone yet."

[Jaxom]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

To me' date=' "hard sci-fi" fiction tends to mean a focus on the scientific aspects of the story, as opposed to being more plot or character focused. (That's not to say the two are mutually-exclusive - it's a relative thing.) RPGs by definition tend to be more plot and character driven, so a "hard sci-fi game" to me means one where an attempt is made to keep the science consistent and believable. Where rubber science exists (like FTL, etc), it is set up with rules that explain how (if not why) it works -- it's not just Magic-Tech. [/quote']

 

Look at that, a spot to further hijack this thread. The primary difference I see between a space opera and a "hard-sci-fi" campaign is the degree of fleshing out that is done with the future tech. If your FTL is done by waving your hands and saying that 6 days later you drop into orbit around your destination system then you're soft. Note that this leaves you without anything defined with which to rationalize the time it took, whether or not a ship could be interecepted, etc. If, on the other hand, you take a page from CJ Cherryh and define jump points and in-system physics then you are hard-sci... Not because you've figured it all out, but because players understand the expected mechanics for all their waking moments. They don't have to explain it, but there is nothing going on behind the curtain.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

Look at that' date=' a spot to further hijack this thread. [/quote']

Hey, I'm game!

 

The primary difference I see between a space opera and a "hard-sci-fi" campaign is the degree of fleshing out that is done with the future tech. If your FTL is done by waving your hands and saying that 6 days later you drop into orbit around your destination system then you're soft. Note that this leaves you without anything defined with which to rationalize the time it took' date=' whether or not a ship could be interecepted, etc. If, on the other hand, you take a page from CJ Cherryh and define jump points and in-system physics then you are hard-sci... Not because you've figured it all out, but because players understand the expected mechanics for all their waking moments. They don't have to explain it, but there is nothing going on behind the curtain.[/quote']

But to get back to my original question, do you need to know the scientific reasoning behind why FTL works (folding space-time, superluminal, hyperspace, etc.), or the game mechanics behind how it works (travel times, can you be tracked or intercepted, etc)? Both? Neither?

 

 

bigdamnhero

“Zoe produces a FUTURISTIC DEVICE! That is a tape recorder -- of the FUTURE! (Somebody design this please.)â€

- From the script for the Firefly episode “The Messageâ€

[austenandrews]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

Look at that' date=' a spot to further hijack this thread. The primary difference I see between a space opera and a "hard-sci-fi" campaign is the degree of fleshing out that is done with the future tech. If your FTL is done by waving your hands and saying that 6 days later you drop into orbit around your destination system then you're soft. Note that this leaves you without anything defined with which to rationalize the time it took, whether or not a ship could be interecepted, etc. If, on the other hand, you take a page from CJ Cherryh and define jump points and in-system physics then you are hard-sci... Not because you've figured it all out, but because players understand the expected mechanics for all their waking moments. They don't have to explain it, but there is nothing going on behind the curtain.[/quote']

Mind you, science is perfectly welcome in space opera. For me, hard SF puts significant emphasis on the science. Space opera can have all its scientific ducks in a row, but if it's primarily a ripping adventure yarn, that's space opera, not hard SF. I've only read one of Cherryh's Chanur books, but I would put it squarely in the space opera category. Cherryh could have totally fudged the physics and the story would not have significantly changed. If Niven had fudged the physics of Ringworld or Clarke Rama or Robinson the settlement of Mars, the whole thrust of the story would be changed.

 

Of course it's all semantics. I grew up reading hard SF and I tend to base my opinions of SF around it.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

My very general, very broad, "guidepost" authors in regards to space opera or hard sf:

 

Space Opera: E. E. "Doc" Smith

 

Hard SF: Hal Clement, Robert Forward

[Cancer]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

But to get back to my original question' date=' do you need to know the scientific reasoning behind [u']why[/u] FTL works (folding space-time, superluminal, hyperspace, etc.), or the game mechanics behind how it works (travel times, can you be tracked or intercepted, etc)? Both? Neither?

 

From bitter experience ... the game-mechanics effects matter. The "scientific" reasons do not matter a bucket of warm spit to players.

 

However, clear thinking about how the "physics" works, and what it does for your game-world, will give it a much more distinctive feel, and a much better insight into the game-mechanics questions that do matter to your players.

 

You also stand a considerable chance of bashing your head against a lot of sci-fi tropes.

[Heroman]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

Hey, I'm game!

But to get back to my original question, do you need to know the scientific reasoning behind why FTL works (folding space-time, superluminal, hyperspace, etc.), or the game mechanics behind how it works (travel times, can you be tracked or intercepted, etc)? Both? Neither?

 

I think the question, from a gaming perspective is more of a "can this affect you?" in determining importance of details. If your engine runs off an inexhaustable energy supply, details are not important. If you need to refuel, it becomes important. If ambushes and in transit combat are not done, how/how long is not important (aside from rough guesses). If you need to travel 100 planet diameters before you can engage your FTL drives, then it can be important. Heck, I had been running my space game far, far before SH and 5th and never really worked up details on the ship and space combat because the design of the game did not make it important. Only now, with a interest in fighter combat and the like does the science 'harden'...

[Curufea]

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

 

And you should point out that the scientific basis for FTL is "rubber" science. If it was actual science, we would have it now