How would you set up the zones for a speeding train?

[Leadfeather]

I  am wondering about the best way to set up a scene. The game I run takes place in the 1880s in England, and will open tonight with the party of chest deep PC's on a speeding train (40 mph). At some point in the evening I expect a fight to break out on the roofs of the train cars, because fights on the top of trains, like bow ties, are cool.

Every car roof is one zone, there are +x borders between each of them. There are also the scene aspects Strong Wind, Soot Cloud and Unstable Footing, perhaps occasionally add in Dark Tunnel, or Low Bridge Abutment.

My question is how I should treat the zones on either side of the train. They are speeding by at a fast clip (40mph), I am arbitrarily saying that 10 cars pass a given point during one exchange.

If the PCs fall and are still able to fight, I  would like them to have a chance to somehow get back on the train. I am considering giving the border going from the ground to the train a very high shift count, not sure how high, and then any shifts above that, that the PC gets can be applied to decrease the number of cars that have passed them.

How would you set up this scene?

[FishStampede]

I'm still kinda iffy on zones, but I'll take a stab. I'd personally say, due to the difficulty of getting back (unless there's a pc with both inhuman speed and flight) that those side zones are basically "taken out." No one should be heading there willingly. Even if thrown there, unless they are actually taken out of the fight I'd just leave them clinging to the edge.

[Richard_Chilton]

The only way it makes sense (to me) for a PC to be able to get back on a moving train is if he is forced off one of the front cars and manages (through an athletics roll) to get on one of the rear cars.  Even with Speed powers, you need mythic before you can keep up with vehicles.

But then there's the stress of leaving a train.  If you get knocked off of that 40 mph train then you still are moving at about 40 mph when you hit the ground.  Even if you hit the ground running you're looking at some pain.  Part of me wants to say that's a take out.

But then again, for a pulp style game, I could see an athletics roll to avoid most of the damage and then being able to snag a car a few back from where you were pushed off.  It's definitely something that Indiana Jones could do, and that's always a good rule of thumb for sketching pulp actions.

Richard

[Haru]

As has been said, actually falling off the train should be the common taken out result in this conflict. I would not allow the use of a skill to push someone into a bad zone and therefore out of the fight (not even with a grapple), that would be pretty boring (you could allow might attacks however, per the normal attack rules).
Instead, I would use the standard conflict rules, and if someone is taken out, he will be thrown off the train unless he can make a good argument for the opposite. Concessions can be anything from "falling off the train without hurting yourself" to "trips and falls into a cargo wagon where he becomes unconscious, but remains on the train unseen by his opponents", to avoid some or all the nasty repercussions that come with falling from a train.

Of course it is a great opportunity to make indirect attacks. For example, you could make an alertness declaration that you see the large branch reaching over the tracks and then tag it on a subsequent athletics "attack" where you shuffle around to get your opponent into an optimal position, while you duck out of the way in the last second.Your GM might even apply a decent weapon rating to the branch. He might also make you roll for defense yourself, or make the other realize your plan in time and turn it around on you.
Double edged for the win!

The important part here is: taken out means you are no longer fighting, but it does not have to mean you fell from the train. And Falling from the train does not mean you are taken out. You could jump through a window and then jump out the other side the next moment for a surprise attack.

because fights on the top of trains, like bow ties, are cool

Please let the train wear a bow tie. Pretty please. With a fez on top.

[Leadfeather]

Thank for the advice all it will come in handy, especially the reminders about using taken out to mean out of the fight not necessarily off of the train.

I believe the conductor might be Indian Jones wearing a bow tie and a fez, that way all the bases are covered.

[Sanctaphrax]

Even with Speed powers, you need mythic before you can keep up with vehicles.

Not quite so.

You can set aside the Mythic sprint boost in order to easily keep up with a moving vehicle, regardless of your Athletics. So with Superb Athletics and Supernatural Speed, you can probably outrun a car over a short distance.

I figure that if a non-magical cheetah can do it (which it can, under the right circumstances), then Supernatural Speed ought to enable it.

[Richard_Chilton]

Not quite so.

We disagree.

In the right circumstances*, I am faster than a moving vehicle but I wouldn't base game rules off that.  Since characters in Dresden move by "zones" (which is a subjective and often changing distance) it's impossible qualify how fast (in mph or kph) a character can move.  Someone with "merely" Supernatural Speed can moves 2 zones and acts normally and as for sprinting...

Sprinting is very subjective.  Someone with Supernatural Speed and no athletics can sprint as fast as someone (say a Pure Mortal) with Great Athletics.  A character with neither athletics nor a speed power who's tapping the right aspects can (in theory) move faster still.  And how far are they moving? Depends on how you define a zone.

Do you consider the current world record holders to be Legendary Athletes, or at least Epic ones? I'm not taking about the "average" Olympian, but the folks who hold the "I did this the fastest in history" record.

In my mind they are up there - and in game terms would be loaded with stunts and related Aspects to increase their performance.  And the fastest any of them have ever traveled is 24.12 mph (38.81 kph).  And that was in perfect conditions for a mere 37.81 seconds.  I can't see Superb + Superhuman (which only takes you a step beyond Legendary) being that so faster that it goes from 24 mph to 40 mph, or the 55+ that mythic speed gives you.

Richard

* = those circumstances being heavy traffic when cars are crawling along and anyone walking is moving faster than the cars.

[Mr. Death]

I'm with Sanctaphrax on this one. Your Athletics score (plus Speed bonuses) doesn't translate directly to an actual speed. You could have someone with Superb athletics who can sprint 100 meters in 10 seconds, and another character with Superb athletics who can do a backflip but can't run to save his life.

There's nothing in the game saying, "A moving car is moving at Legendary speed". What the rule in Mythic Speed says is you can sprint at +6 or you can put aside the bonus to just keep up. I.e., you might be able to keep up with Supernatural speed, but with Mythic speed it's simply a given that you can keep up without extra effort. Supernatural Speed, you have to roll to try and follow the car. Mythic speed, you don't have to roll, it's assumed you do.

[Richard_Chilton]

Someone who holds a world record in running speed has:
a) top human level of athletics - which I'd like to think is Legendary, Epic, or at least Fantastic
b) Fleet of Foot
c) Virtually all of his aspects tied to running fast (as opposed to back flipping).  High Concept, Guest Star, etc - all ready to be tapped for that one race when it matters.  Maybe even his Trouble links to Speed.

Five Aspects + Fleet of Foot = 12 steps before you add athletes.  Why Five and not six? Because one would be saved for a re-roll.  Add in merely Superb Athletics and you're at 17 before rolling.  And with all that you're still not going 25 mph in perfect conditions.  And some of those conditions ("Best Running Shoes That Money Can Buy", "Mentally Prepared", "The Coach Knows I Can", "World Class Track") are probably aspects that you can tag to improve your results - and still not hit 25 mph.

Then you have Mythic Speed, which is in a class by itself and says that you can keep up with vehicle.

Richard

[Sanctaphrax]

By a similar mechanism, a mortal strongman can tear a hole in a reinforced bank vault door. That bank vault door is difficulty 12 to break.

I think it's best to assume that world records are set without FP or exceptional rolls. Otherwise, things don't make too too much sense.

If you must include FP, don't give the guy 5 or more of 'em.

[Mr. Death]

Someone who holds a world record in running speed has:
a) top human level of athletics - which I'd like to think is Legendary, Epic, or at least Fantastic
b) Fleet of Foot
c) Virtually all of his aspects tied to running fast (as opposed to back flipping).  High Concept, Guest Star, etc - all ready to be tapped for that one race when it matters.  Maybe even his Trouble links to Speed.

Five Aspects + Fleet of Foot = 12 steps before you add athletes.  Why Five and not six? Because one would be saved for a re-roll.  Add in merely Superb Athletics and you're at 17 before rolling.  And with all that you're still not going 25 mph in perfect conditions.  And some of those conditions ("Best Running Shoes That Money Can Buy", "Mentally Prepared", "The Coach Knows I Can", "World Class Track") are probably aspects that you can tag to improve your results - and still not hit 25 mph.

Then you have Mythic Speed, which is in a class by itself and says that you can keep up with vehicle.

Richard

You seem to be under the impression that a world record means that's one of the only times the record holder has ever come close to that record. That's not the case. A world-record holder for that sort of event can hit or approach that world record with quite a bit of regularity, otherwise they wouldn't be competing in the first place.

[Becq]

While the book is far from precise on this subject, it's probably worth noting the following:

1) Inhuman Speed is described on YS178 as follows, my emphasis: "You are very fast, just past the edge of human capability."
2) I am led to believe based on a wiki entry that "The fastest human footspeed on record is 44.72 km/h (27.79 mph), seen during a 100-meter sprint (average speed between the 60th and the 80th meter) by Usain Bolt."

My parsing of this is that statement #1 is comparing an otherwise typical/average character that has acquired Inhuman Speed to the absolute best possible mundane human capability (as described by statement #2).

So, if I was to put numbers on paper, I'd probably say that a character with Average Athletics (+1) and Inhuman Speed can expect to reach about 30mph -- assuming a short sprint, average success, and no aspects invoked.  A more athletic character with Inhuman Speed and with more of an investment in moving as fast as possible (running a race, running from something that wants to eat him) would be noticably faster.

Based on this, I would say that a character with Inhuman Speed might be able to keep up with that 40mph train if he had a significant investment in speed-related stunts, athletics, etc, and rolled well.  Maybe.  A character with Superhuman Speed ought to be able to catch up to the train fairly easily.

The RAW for Mythic Speed indicates that it allows a character with no other prerequisites to "simply declare that you have no problem keeping up with a moving vehicle".  Another vague statement; this could be rules-lawyered to mean that a character with Mythic Speed could casually keep up with, say, a spacecraft -- which is technically a moving vehicle.  For the sake of sanity, I'm going to assume that they meant something much more mundane -- say, a car moving at freeway speeds (70mph).  And again, I'm going to assume that practically any character with Mythic Speed can achieve this, regardless of other abilities.

So here's a chart to play with, completely abitrarily recorded by me based on the above:

average human (sustained/sprint): 6mph/10mph
optimal human (sustained/sprint): 19mph/28mph
Inhuman Speed* (sustained/sprint): 20mph/30mph
Supernatural Speed* (sustained/sprint): 40mph/60mph
Mythic Speed* (sustained/sprint): 70mph/100mph?

(*) baseline for otherwise average human capabilities

Feel free to disagree!

[Richard_Chilton]

You seem to be under the impression that a world record means that's one of the only times the record holder has ever come close to that record. That's not the case. A world-record holder for that sort of event can hit or approach that world record with quite a bit of regularity, otherwise they wouldn't be competing in the first place.

I'm under the impression that the people who set world records (and those who come to close to those records) are Pure Mortals.  That while they are literally among the best athletes in the world, they have no supernatural powers speeding them on.  That their athletic skill is at the top that humans can reach.  And while there are many athletes with skills at these levels, the top athletes have Stunts and Aspects to give them that extra omp.

For example, here's a top athlete, someone who can swim far faster than I ever could, but he was never in contention for a medal.  He's a Great or Superb athlete (maybe even Fantastic), but he lacks the Stunts and Aspects to get to the next heat, let alone the final heat, a win, or a world record. 


So I'm using the top athletes in the world as baseline for how fast a Pure Mortal can run, looking at their speed, and looking at how steps it would take for them to get to that top speed.  Then I'm comparing that number to someone with Superb Athletics and Superhuman Speed.

Yes, the system does not lend itself well to number crunching, but can someone think of a better baseline to use?

Note: as I was typing, Becq answered that question by posting a good baseline.  I must learn to type faster.

Richard

[GryMor]

Zones for a train:

[3i: Caboose] *Climb 3i-3* *Walk 3i-4i* [4i: Car] *Climb 4i-4* *Walk 4i-5i*  [5i: Car] ...

[1: Left Side]
*Grab caboose 1>3*                   *Fall 4>1*                            *Fall 5>1*
[3: Caboose] *Gap jump 3-4* [4: Car Roof]  *Gap jump 4-5* [5: Car Roof] ...
*Grab caboose 2>3*                   *Fall 4>2*                            *Fall 5>2*
[2: Right Side]

You only get one chance at grabbing back on, but it's a bit easier the farther up the train you came off.

[Tsunami]

I'm still kinda iffy on zones, but I'll take a stab. I'd personally say, due to the difficulty of getting back (unless there's a pc with both inhuman speed and flight) that those side zones are basically "taken out." No one should be heading there willingly. Even if thrown there, unless they are actually taken out of the fight I'd just leave them clinging to the edge.

^this
I do agree with wholeheartedly. Thrown off is a taken out result. Anything else is clinging on the side, thrown down the train a few cars, flung back into the inside of the train through a window...

Otherwise if you absolutely need to use the zones beside the train:

Set a difficulty for getting back on the train.
For every exchange it takes the fallen character to get back on, move the train a number of zones.
Now if/when the character gets back on he's farther down the train and has to move back up the train to get back to the fight.
If it takes to many exchanges to get back on the train has gone past and the character is taken out.

But again, if would go with the first option.