Why is Speed so unpopular?

[phoenix240]

Outside of the Hero System community mostly. The Speed mechanic and its function seem to be one of the primary complaints brought up by people that don't care for the Hero System aside from the math and perceived complexity of play and character generation. It's never really seemed that complicated to me and has even proven very smooth in online play. Juggling initiative mechanics can be a real pain in PBEM/PbP.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

It's too predictable. That's the main complaint I've seen. Other than that, I don't really see any flaws in it. It's one of my favorite aspects of HERO and one of the deciding factors when I chose it as my system of choice.

[Lucius]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I suggest you ask the people it's unpopular with. If I make a guess why they don't like it, I'm just guessing.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks I should guess anyway

[sinanju]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

"Too predictable" is not a complaint I've seen. The one I've most often encountered is the difficulty of keeping of who goes when. Which, yes, in theory can be done easily enough if you use some kind of chart. But which in practice, in games I've seen or played in sometimes, proves troublesome. People (players or sometimes NPCs) get overlooked when their segment comes around, only to realize too late that they missed their phase.

 

There's also the issue of a potential wide disparity in a player's involvement in the game. Especially if he's new to the game and doesn't grok the importance of speed, he could find himself sitting through long stretches of combat with nothing to do while players with considerably faster characters are busily engaged in smiting the bad guys.

 

But really, the guy in our gaming group who least likes Champions (we play it sometimes, in rotation with GURPS, Fudge, Seventh Sea, D&D and other systems) doesn't care for that--but has more issues with calcuating OCV & DCV and counting the stun and body on large handfuls of dice, and comparing it to defenses which can vary dramatically from one character to another (or on the SAME character, depending on what kind of attack it is). I think he has a point, frankly, but I still enjoy the game.

[phoenix240]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I suggest you ask the people it's unpopular with. If I make a guess why they don't like it, I'm just guessing.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks I should guess anyway

 

Generally they are

 

1. Unpleasant to deal with.

 

2 I have and the answers have been variation on "It suxxors!!!!1111eleven..."

 

And I was also curious what people in the community felt about the situation and if my experiences were unusual or fairly common as far as that goes.

 

Edit: To be fair, when I can get a civil answer its often something like it slows down game play which I really haven't seen, at least not anymore than other initiative systems.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Not exactly my favorite mechanic when you have to change it in mid combat.

 

The Speed chart isn't exactly the most intuitive thing to learn. I remember the first time one of my fellow player spent XP and bumped up from a 4 SPD to a 5, expecting to just get 1 more phase to act on. They were not expecting the middle phases they acted on to actually change.

 

I also remember there was quite a lot of confusion with held actions and aborting when we first started playing...

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I think that the easy way of doing SPD is to give every player a a green ticket which means they are free to act. When they act they give the ticket to the GM who keeps track of the phases and returns the ticket when the character is able to act again. It is easy for the players as they know when they have a ticket they can act.

 

The GM is usually the most aware of the system (though a more experienced player could administer player phases leaving the GM free to do villain stuff).

 

Doc

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I just took some index cards and wrote down, in thick black marker, which segments each speed acts on, but them where everybody can see them, and flip them as we move through segments, and count down DEX. It's usually not even that necessary, as we only have to track speeds 5-7 (with a very rare 4) in superhero games, and 3-4 in heroic games. I consider the predictability of the Speed Chart to be a feature, not a bug. I like it that way.

[Lucius]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I think that the easy way of doing SPD is to give every player a a green ticket which means they are free to act. When they act they give the ticket to the GM who keeps track of the phases and returns the ticket when the character is able to act again. It is easy for the players as they know when they have a ticket they can act.

 

The GM is usually the most aware of the system (though a more experienced player could administer player phases leaving the GM free to do villain stuff).

 

Doc

 

That's the ticket!

 

But personally I plan to run Heroic games in which all the player characters will have SPD 3 and opposition will range from 2 to 4.

 

As for reasons to dislike it - I do find that the way SPD interacts with Movement can confuse people. Even experienced players will assume "One character has a Run of 8 m and the other of 12; the second character is faster" when if their SPDs are 3 and 2 they have the same ground speed, and if the first has SPD 4 the second character is actually slower.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I have a ticket to ride a palindromedary

 

Lucius Alexander

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Speed reminds me of the famous Winston Churchill quote about democracy ("It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.") Yes, SPD has some flaws (predictability, artificiality, weirdness with segmented movement). The only thing it really has going for it is that it works better than any of the alternatives I've ever seen for simulating how some characters take more actions than others in the same amount of time.

[Clonus]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Outside of the Hero System community mostly. The Speed mechanic and its function seem to be one of the primary complaints brought up by people that don't care for the Hero System aside from the math and perceived complexity of play and character generation. It's never really seemed that complicated to me and has even proven very smooth in online play. Juggling initiative mechanics can be a real pain in PBEM/PbP.

 

I'm not all that good at organization and that mean that I had trouble as a GM keeping track of when everyone moved.

[Shiva13]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

In my experience, SPD is the most abused characteristic in the system. It is the most prone to getting artificially inflated, simply over a player's desire to have their character act more in a turn. Instead of actually giving a care to actually the game's scaling.

 

This causes innumberable problems with actually running a game in the Hero System. It slows things down dramatically, to compensate for those artificially inflated SPD scores. And it starts a SPD arms race that the GM finds themselves having to play "keep up" with just to make adiquate challenges for the PCs.

 

Let's look at the game's scaling. Every 5 points spent on a characteristic is a doubling on the scale. And since SPD is 10 points a pop, that means a SPD 5 actually represents 4 times the ability to act as a SPD 4. Pretty significant overall.

 

SPD inflation breaks the system.

[Escafarc]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Well, I would tell Speed not to worry about it. When he grows up he'll be a great race car driver and have a cute girl friend named Trixie.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

That's the ticket!

 

But personally I plan to run Heroic games in which all the player characters will have SPD 3 and opposition will range from 2 to 4.

 

As for reasons to dislike it - I do find that the way SPD interacts with Movement can confuse people. Even experienced players will assume "One character has a Run of 8 m and the other of 12; the second character is faster" when if their SPDs are 3 and 2 they have the same ground speed, and if the first has SPD 4 the second character is actually slower.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I have a ticket to ride a palindromedary

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And this was one of the situations that the optional Velocity Factor rules were created to help deal with.

[Greywind]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Speed kills.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

From a related thread about tracking combat:

 

If you check the 'similar threads' section at the bottom of the page you can find links to similar efforts by other board members.

 

I Have found that it's functionally easier to just use herodesigner to printout a group list of DEX & SPD (I forget what it's called but it is one of the default exports available from the vault) and then use something like the following at the game table.

 

http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/o/openMindGames/v5748btpy8bkr

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Speed kills.

 

Yep. And having wildly different Speeds among characters with no clear concept behind why some are faster than others can sour folks on the system. Some GM oversight is necessary to make things fun for everyone. I've found that Speedsters are one of the hardest character types to create and play in groups where there is no GM control over Speed-creep. If the campaign average is a 6-8 Speed then a Speedster practically needs a 9-10. This is fine if there is no point cap but when combined with 350pt 5e & 400pt 6e generic starting caps it is essentially a 30-40 point penalty for playing a Speedster. This is the primary reason why all my JLA starting character writeups have 4 Speeds (with the exception of Flash, arguably the 1st Speedster, who has a 6). It's the only way I could model the entire team in a somewhat balanced fashion on a budget.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Let's look at the game's scaling. Every 5 points spent on a characteristic is a doubling on the scale. And since SPD is 10 points a pop, that means a SPD 5 actually represents 4 times the ability to act as a SPD 4. Pretty significant overall.

 

Unless there's some hidden rule I'm unaware of that allows SPD 5 characters to act 8 times a 12-second Turn, that isn't the case. Speed is an exception to the normal logarithmic progression of characteristics. (Though for characteristics less tangible than STR or BODY, defining "twice as good" can be a matter of opinion anyway.)

[Lucius]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

So is the question "why do some people hate SPD" or "what do we do about some people hating SPD?"

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary remembers a character I posted that hated speed

[Vondy]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I see pros and cons to speed.

 

The main con I see to speed is that big spreads can 1) be hard to manage, and 2) allows characters on the high end too much "face time." Its also a relatively expensive and limited way of modelling some "speedster" or "fast combatant" effects. There are other ways to model those things using powers, modifiers, etc. that don't automatically give the players of speedsters and their ilk more "face time" than other players.

 

On the plus side, I'm used to the speed chart and like the way it deals with recoveries. I also think its an excellent way of giving leading characters an modest edge and more face time - insofar is the spread remains reasonable.

 

My games - which are all heroic - tend to use set speeds based on drama ratings.

 

Extras, Bit Parts, and Mooks are Speed 2

Recurring Cast and Henchmen are Speed 3

Protagonists (PCs), the Big Bad, and his "Dragons" (e.g., Vader to Palpatine) are Speed 4

 

For supers I would expand the range to include Speed 5 for "fast guys," but would tell players to model "speedster" FX using other mechanics.

[Vondy]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

So is the question "why do some people hate SPD" or "what do we do about some people hating SPD?"

 

Do? Why do we have to do anything about it?

 

If they assume they don't like it, that's one thing.

 

Then trying to persuade them to try it seems reasonable.

 

If they have used it and don't like it - then they don't like it.

 

If so, maybe we should just live and let live....

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Unless there's some hidden rule I'm unaware of that allows SPD 5 characters to act 8 times a 12-second Turn' date=' that isn't the case. Speed is an exception to the normal logarithmic progression of characteristics. (Though for characteristics less tangible than STR or BODY, defining "twice as good" can be a matter of opinion anyway.)[/quote']

 

STR is really the only attribute that works for at all, mostly because it's the only attribute that measures something concrete (lifting capacity). Movement obviously doesn't fit that pattern (6" Running vs 12" Running, twice as fast costs 12 points), and 'twice as agile' is pretty indeterminable. I suppose BODY, defining a 20 Body as 'Twice as hard to kill' as a 10 Body, but that's 20 points, not 5. DEX 23 would be 'twice as accurate' as DEX 11 (OCV 8 vs OCV 4), though that doesn't take the target's DCV or bell curve of the 3d6 attack roll into account. (OCV 4 vs DCV 4 is a 62 percent chance to hit, OCV 8 vs DCV 4 is about 90 percent ...), so on, so forth.

[lemming]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I happen to like the speed mechanic, but in the group I played with, we had the speed chart with everyone on it and a time dilator (usually a 4 sided die) that pointed at the person who was going.

I also tended to be more tolerant of people buying up speed if they were a quicker player.

 

We also noted that there was less of a difference between a six speed and an eight speed, than a four and a six.

[Balabanto]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Because more actions=more face time by default. Nothing angers fellow players like watching someone go every other action phase when they have a SPD of 4.

 

My advice is this: Having run the same game for 25 years or more, keep the SPD range tight (4-6, 3-5, etc) Allow master villains and giant monsters to have 1-2 points of SPD higher than this number to reflect that they must fight alone against an entire group of people much of the time. To reflect super speed, build powers and movement abilities that reflect the character's ability to cover ground and attack multiple opponents rather than allow them a vastly superior number of actions.

 

The problem is, most people want the vastly superior number of actions AND these abilities, which is how speedsters get to be broken.

[Greywind]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Well, that's certainly one opinion on the matter. Builds are only "broken" if the GM can't say "No".