Conceptualizing Speed

[Manic Typist]

What exactly...... IS Speed?

 

Well, no, my real question is this: What are the SFX BEHIND Speed?

 

For instance, how much Speed does an Olympic sprinter have? Speed 1 with a ridiculous movement rate? Or something more moderate, but a Speed 4?

 

What is an example of someone or something at various levels of Speed?

 

At what Speed do you begin to leave a blur behind, or even move too fast to be fully seen?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

What exactly...... IS Speed?

 

Well, no, my real question is this: What are the SFX BEHIND Speed?

 

For instance, how much Speed does an Olympic sprinter have? Speed 1 with a ridiculous movement rate? Or something more moderate, but a Speed 4?

 

What is an example of someone or something at various levels of Speed?

 

At what Speed do you begin to leave a blur behind, or even move too fast to be fully seen?

 

You're coming at this from the wrong direction. SPD is a game mechanic and can hae any number of SFX depending on the character.

 

For example, one character might be a quick thinker, and thus has good reaction time, and thus has a fairly high SPD. Another character is very agile and thus can perform more actions than other characters. Another character is simply defined as 'heroic' and moves as often as a heroic character is expected to move.

 

And as for the blur effect, that too is a SFX, and can happen at any level of SPD, or not at all. It all depends on the character and the SFX of his SPD.

[OddHat]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

I'm with Dust Raven. It's a game mechanic representing how many meaningful actions you can take within a 12 second period of time. Any sort of SFX could be used to describe it. The fact that movement links to it is actually kind of sloppy.

 

I usually think of it as a question of reaction time and procesing speed.

 

Bubba Joe Bob is a good athlete. He can run fast (+12" running), and he can throw 4-6 good solid punches in the space of a second or two (Two Weapon Fighting, Rapid Attack, +4 w/ Sweeps). On the other hand, he doesn't think that fast, and isn't really ready for the pros (SPD 2).

 

Mike Davis is an ex-Navy Seal, with plenty of combat training behind him. He's not that great a runner (-2" Running), but he's able to think and act shockingly fast in a stressful situation (SPD 4).

[Fitz]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

Actually, that reminds me, I wanted to detach movement from SPD. The problem is how to do so -- I can't think of an elegant way of doing it. I considered assuming a base combat Running rate of 12" per Turn as standard (same as a SPD 2 Normal) and having the players able to use a fraction of that per Phase, but it all starts getting more complex and cumbersome than I'm happy with in what's supposed to be a fun activity.

 

I suppose in the end I'll just let inertia have its evil way with me and do nothing, as usual

[OddHat]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

Actually, that reminds me, I wanted to detach movement from SPD. The problem is how to do so -- I can't think of an elegant way of doing it. I considered assuming a base combat Running rate of 12" per Turn as standard (same as a SPD 2 Normal) and having the players able to use a fraction of that per Phase, but it all starts getting more complex and cumbersome than I'm happy with in what's supposed to be a fun activity.

 

I suppose in the end I'll just let inertia have its evil way with me and do nothing, as usual

 

What I usually do is figure out the max MPH I want a "normal" to be able to achieve. If a non-Super PC can run faster than that, I sell back some running. An inch or two usually does it. For Supers, I don't worry about it.

[gojira]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

In Twilight 2000 (and it's sibling, Dark Conspiracy), they had a speed mechanic very similar to Hero. Speed was a number from 1 to 6. The more experienced in combat a character was, the more often he could move. Characters who were not experienced spent much of their time in "duck and cover" rather than making effective movement. That's how I think of speed, mostly. Civilians started at speed 1, comabt trained folks started at 2. Only real combat could make you go higher.

 

Twilight 2000 also had a mechanic that allowed any character to take "repeated actions." A repeasted action was anything that was essentially the same from one phase to the next. Running was one repeated action. So was something like fireing at the same target. E.g. blasting away at a zombie filled house with a shotgun or pistol was a repeated action. So was laying down suppresion fire with an automatic weapon.

 

At any time, a character could Stop, or Stop and Go Prone. Those were the only ways a low speed character could change their repeated action if it wasn't their phase (Hero terminology here). Once stopped or prone, they had to wait for their phase before they could do something else.

 

That's how I'd model an olympic runner, is basically a special case of non-combat movement. Allow anyone to make repeated, easy actions (running along a prepared track, for example). Once something "happens", everyone drops back into normal phased movement as they try to deal with an unfamiliar situation.

 

The other idea is some evil limited power construct, like +10 SPD, only for noncombat -1, only for familiar situations -1. But it's easier just to handwave it and assume anyone can walk, jog, swing a hammer, talk, etc. as often as they want as long as it's "normal life". Once the normality ends, it's back to phased movement.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

Speed is a great strength and sometime weakness of Hero: the weakness coming from segmented move rates, and movethrough damage.

 

One way around it is buy move rate per turn not per phase, then treat turns as the time blocks of combat, with phases as the number of actions you can get per turn.

 

Movethrough damage is based on mvoe per turn not per phase.

 

Move rate can either be (take up to ove/speed (round up) per phase to a max of move per turn) or (take your move whenever you like in your turn).

 

That would make the deliniation between move and speed clearer (and hopefully answer your question - the Olympic sprinter has a high move).

 

Mind you that is not how Hero works and it is not likely to change, so I'll probably stick with what we have.

[Toadmaster]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

What exactly...... IS Speed?

 

Well, no, my real question is this: What are the SFX BEHIND Speed?

 

For instance, how much Speed does an Olympic sprinter have? Speed 1 with a ridiculous movement rate? Or something more moderate, but a Speed 4?

 

You could go either way, assuming a Spd 2 normal runs 12" a phase (non combat) that would be a 50 yard dash in just under 12 seconds (pretty slow), even +6" running would only bump this up to a 5-6 second 50 yard dash as would doubling Speed to 4, so my guess is Spd 3 with some extra running, since that would keep everything well within the NCM although it could be done several ways since I don't think an olympic athete neccessarily needs to be fully within the NCM. Oddhat pretty much sums up my concept of speed.

 

(world record 50 yard dash is in the 3-4 second range, there were kids in my Jr high were doing a 5-6 second 50 yard dash, while I was in the 8-9 second range and considered pretty darn slow).

 

 

What is an example of someone or something at various levels of Speed?

 

As has already been mentioned by several, there are many ways to represent things, if you want something that is very responsive you need to use more speed, if it is just fast then a movement power is probably what you want to use, Ex an Indy racer (high spd and lots of movement) vs the Blue Flame rocket car (tons of movement but probably no extra speed, maybe only speed 1).

 

At what Speed do you begin to leave a blur behind, or even move too fast to be fully seen?

 

Now this is just me, but I would say the blur bit would come in somewhere around 500-1000 miles per hour (lets say when you exceed 1000" per turn Non-combat), to fast to fully see? faster than that. But keep in mind in game terms you could do this at any speed by buying additional powers linked to your speed and even by reaching the high speeds I mentioned if you wanted it as something more than just a special effect (for example if you wanted to have limited invisibility) you would need to buy that as a power.

[Black Rose]

Re: Conceptualizing Speed

 

Twilight 2000 also had a mechanic that allowed any character to take "repeated actions." A repeasted action was anything that was essentially the same from one phase to the next. Running was one repeated action. So was something like fireing at the same target. E.g. blasting away at a zombie filled house with a shotgun or pistol was a repeated action. So was laying down suppresion fire with an automatic weapon.

 

~~snip~~

 

That's how I'd model an olympic runner, is basically a special case of non-combat movement. Allow anyone to make repeated, easy actions (running along a prepared track, for example). Once something "happens", everyone drops back into normal phased movement as they try to deal with an unfamiliar situation.

 

The other idea is some evil limited power construct, like +10 SPD, only for noncombat -1, only for familiar situations -1. But it's easier just to handwave it and assume anyone can walk, jog, swing a hammer, talk, etc. as often as they want as long as it's "normal life". Once the normality ends, it's back to phased movement.

This is pretty much how I see Speed. If you're "experienced" at a given (non-combat) task, and know what you're doing to the point where you can think about other things while your doing it, you can do it a lot "more" than someone who has to consciously make every single movement. I'm thinking of implementing some sort of bonus to repetitive tasks based solely on how many levels have been bought in a skill; it makes sense to me, since if you're naturally talented at something you often don't take the time to practice, since you never needed to.

 

In theory, I can draw as well as Fred Perry (of GD fame). I've seen his work, I've read his art tips, and I have full motion in my shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers. Obviously I can't, though, and here's why; I haven't practiced. If I took the time to "hardwire" the ability to draw like Fred Perry into my muscle memory, by the time I could do it, I'd have PS: Draw Like Fred Perry 8-, maybe even 11-. And that would prove my point, wouldn't it?