In my game, Effects are built from component Elements called "Functions". For example, if the Power you're building Blocks something, it uses the BLOCK function.

In other words, you build Effects from their most fundamental rules elements rather than picking off the rack, which would often lead to redundancy in the rules (10 different types of damaging attack, etc.).

Anyway, these Functions are currently Ranked on a linear scale from 1-5, with 1 being defined as a minor effect (20%), and 5 being defined as a total Effect (100%). For example, in a damaging Effect, Rank 1 would deliver a light wound, and Rank 5 would kill in one blow.

By default, when you succeed in delivering an Effect, you deliver it at its Rank, so a Rank 5 damaging attack kills in one blow. The dice can modify an Effect's Rank up or down, but it has a baseline.

These Effect Ranks are somewhat separate from their driving attributes so that Rank 5 means the same thing whether your Strength analogue is +1 or +5. Your attribute and the defender's Attribute do interact with the amount that your Effect is raised or lowered by, but it's all in the probabilities- not a set of hard limits. If you can affect a foe at all, you have the potential to deliver that killing blow.

Here's my dice mechanic, if you need to see it to make sense of the above.

So far so good.

My issue crops up when I get to the Function that governs movement. It's called "RELAY" (I may change it to "MOVE"), and I'm finding that it doesn't make sense when I try to fit it into the 1-5 Rank scale.

It seems like movement needs to be open-ended. It seems like having Rank 5 mean something like "The effect gets all the way there" would lead to very strange in-game results. What if "there" is another planet? what if it's just a few feet away? The Effect could go anywhere. That might be a feature and not a bug, but I'd have to see how it worked out.

Also, if 5 means that the Effect gets all the way there, what does Rank 4 mean? The range of a weapon would depend on what you were aiming at. To hit any target, you'd just have to aim far enough behind it, rendering its Rank pointless.
See my problem?

I'm thinking that I need to tie the distance in to the governing Attribute's Rank, but that would mean that movement was the only thing that was handled that way. Also, using exact distances might slow the game down a lot, especially if you rolled well and got some extra distance out of your Test (as in a chase)

Does anyone have any good ideas for abstract movement that might solve my issues? I'm not opposed to using the Attribute as a benchmark, but I want to find a relatively intuitive solution.

Thanks a lot.

Quote from: Monster Manuel;696592In my game, Effects are built from component Elements called "Functions". For example, if the Power you're building Blocks something, it uses the BLOCK function.

In other words, you build Effects from their most fundamental rules elements rather than picking off the rack, which would often lead to redundancy in the rules (10 different types of damaging attack, etc.).

Anyway, these Functions are currently Ranked on a linear scale from 1-5, with 1 being defined as a minor effect (20%), and 5 being defined as a total Effect (100%). For example, in a damaging Effect, Rank 1 would deliver a light wound, and Rank 5 would kill in one blow.

By default, when you succeed in delivering an Effect, you deliver it at its Rank, so a Rank 5 damaging attack kills in one blow. The dice can modify an Effect's Rank up or down, but it has a baseline.

These Effect Ranks are somewhat separate from their driving attributes so that Rank 5 means the same thing whether your Strength analogue is +1 or +5. Your attribute and the defender's Attribute do interact with the amount that your Effect is raised or lowered by, but it's all in the probabilities- not a set of hard limits. If you can affect a foe at all, you have the potential to deliver that killing blow.

Here's my dice mechanic, if you need to see it to make sense of the above.

So far so good.

My issue crops up when I get to the Function that governs movement. It's called "RELAY" (I may change it to "MOVE"), and I'm finding that it doesn't make sense when I try to fit it into the 1-5 Rank scale.

It seems like movement needs to be open-ended. It seems like having Rank 5 mean something like "The effect gets all the way there" would lead to very strange in-game results. What if "there" is another planet? what if it's just a few feet away? The Effect could go anywhere. That might be a feature and not a bug, but I'd have to see how it worked out.

Also, if 5 means that the Effect gets all the way there, what does Rank 4 mean? The range of a weapon would depend on what you were aiming at. To hit any target, you'd just have to aim far enough behind it, rendering its Rank pointless.
See my problem?

I'm thinking that I need to tie the distance in to the governing Attribute's Rank, but that would mean that movement was the only thing that was handled that way. Also, using exact distances might slow the game down a lot, especially if you rolled well and got some extra distance out of your Test (as in a chase)

Does anyone have any good ideas for abstract movement that might solve my issues? I'm not opposed to using the Attribute as a benchmark, but I want to find a relatively intuitive solution.

Thanks a lot.

What about having two types of abstract Zones, one for somewhat close distances and another for huge distances?

Or possibly two types of 'Move', or both.

Quote from: Monster Manuel;696592My issue crops up when I get to the Function that governs movement. It's called "RELAY" (I may change it to "MOVE"), and I'm finding that it doesn't make sense when I try to fit it into the 1-5 Rank scale.

How about SPEED and the 1 - 5 rank is a function of it's velocity range. i.e.: Humans can move at any SPEED from 1 mph (creeping along) Rank 1 to 15 mph (sprinting) Rank 5. Bullets only have one speed when they start; Rank 5, but they have a real life range and will drop off in speed the farther they are from the barrel. (Medium difficulty algebra for ballistic equations can probably be summarized in a chart based on angle of elevation at firing). Vehicles would have SPEED rankings from 1 mph to top speed (120 mph for most cars, for instance, 400 mph for prop planes, Warp 7 for star liners, etc.)

Have fun.

Thanks for the replies. I have a friend who clarified that this is a non-issue.

5 can mean "All the way there" because of the way Tests work in my game. When rolling against a higher attribute, if you succeed at all, you have a lower chance of getting an increased Effect, and more of a chance to get a lowered Effect. If that Effect is movement and you're racing a faster opponent, you're more likely to have your effect downgraded.

If you roll a 5, you catch up. Anything less, and you don't.

As for bullets, they have a higher attribute rank, which is what the die mechanic modifies, so running along side a bullet  requires a high attribute to even have a shot, and depends on how close your attribute is to the speed governing attribute of the bullet.

I like the idea of having bullet speed drop off with distance, though.  I think modeling that or not would be a campaign concern in my system. It would be about how you built guns in your game.

Thanks again.