RQ Movement Rates

[Kagan Altar]

Hello everyone.

After some trouble creating an account, I can now post the question that's been puzzling me for the past hour.

I'm in the process of reading the rules. I really love the way the system has been cleaned-up and updated, but one thing I've read on p.84 of the main rulebook just made me stop and think - "huh?"

The movement rates. See: In a combat round, you get 1 to 3 Combat Actions depending on your Dexterity score. All humans have a fixed movement rate per Combat Action of 4 meters.

Now, a combat round lasts 5 seconds. So it means that a normal human can walk from 4 to 12 meters per 5 seconds, according to the rules. Double that speed if s/he sprints. Then, the movement table explains that an average walking human covers 48m. in a minute, 2.9km. in an hour and 34.8 km. in a day.

Does that seem realistic to you?

I know RPG rules are abstract representations, but still. I mean. Walking normally, I can sure walk more than 12 meters in 5 seconds, and I don't think I have 18 Dex. A world champion can cover 100 meters in sprint in less that 10 seconds. According to the RQ rules, a world champion with 18 Dex would have to run for more than 20 seconds (24 meters per 5 seconds) to cover the same distance! Weird...

Is there something somewhere I forgot to read? Something I misunderstood? What do you guys think?

Once again, great job on RuneQuest. Congratulations on the design!

 

[Hoitsu]

If your champion have armour and weapons+back bag with you all the time. That guy wont definitely sprint 100m to 10 seconds...

 

[Kagan Altar]

Probably, indeed.

Is it actually written down somewhere that movement rates assume all humans moving 4 meters per Combat Action are heavily armed, armoured and equipped ? If so, where exactly (page reference) ?

 

[Trifletraxor]

I don't like fixed movement rates for my players. I'll use SIZ+DEX divided by 6 instead (for humans). Creates a bit more variation. Easy to calculate new formulas for non-humans too, should your palyers want to play one.

SGL.

 

[Deleriad]

The movement rates. See: In a combat round, you get 1 to 3 Combat Actions depending on your Dexterity score. All humans have a fixed movement rate per Combat Action of 4 meters.

Now, a combat round lasts 5 seconds. So it means that a normal human can walk from 4 to 12 meters per 5 seconds, according to the rules. Double that speed if s/he sprints. Then, the movement table explains that an average walking human covers 48m. in a minute, 2.9km. in an hour and 34.8 km. in a day.

Does that seem realistic to you?

Well ok. A modern-day Olympic champion sprinter can run 100m in, for argument's sake 10 seconds. Let's assume that this person is DEX 21 and STR 18+ (muscle is important for sprinting) has Athletics/running around 500%. This person has 4 CAs per round and probably some sort of Legendary Running ability or Athletics/sprinting special skill. So let's say that lets him add +2m to his MOV rather than the normal +1m. So his mov is 6, doubled sprinting to 12m. Runs 48m in one round, i.e. 96m in 10 seconds. Pretty damn close. Given as well that olympic athletes have specially designed running surfaces and equipment then that'll take up the slack.

Now I don't know what an average untrained human STR 10-11 DEX 10-11 takes to run 100m but I would guess 20 seconds or so. In RQ an average human (2CAs) can sprint 16m in 5 seconds which is too slow. A physically fit human (3CAs) can sprint 24m in 5 seconds. Again a tad too slow. A physically fit trained runner (decent athletics) can sprint 30m in 5 seconds.

However remember that the movement rules assume that a person is involved in some sort of activity, not kitted out to sprint, not on a running track etc. The movement rules are based around a situation not allowing out and out sprinting. There would be a good argument if you really want to model a sprint that you either bump up the MOV rating (due to ideal conditions) or allow an extra CA or you could say that a sprint under ideal circumstances allows a person to sprint at 3*MOV rating. All of a sudden, your untrained human (CA2, STR10 DEX 10) sprints 24m in 5 seconds, takes just over 20 seconds to "sprint" 100m. Your trained human (CA3 STR13 DEX 13 Athletics 95%) runs 45m in 5 seconds and an olympic champion just hit superhuman heights (MOV4+2*3 per CA) and can do 64m in 5 seconds (7.18seconds to run 100m).

Bottom line is that the rules are actually pretty close to modelling actual human speeds.

Frex average human walking speed on good terrain is around 4kmh (roughly 1.1m/s). Average human has 2CAs and MOV 4. Thats 8m every 5 seconds which is 1.6m/s. Of course movement in combat is not the same as long distance walk. IN fact, if you do the maths, movement in combat slightly overestimates, on average, human movement speeds.

Bruce

 

[simonh]

P
Is it actually written down somewhere that movement rates assume all humans moving 4 meters per Combat Action are heavily armed, armoured and equipped ? If so, where exactly (page reference) ?

No, but equaly it doesn't give penalties for characters so encumbered, and in most game situations characters using these rules will be.

I think it's fair to assume that the rules for movement are intended as a rough approximation for the common case, for which they serve adequately.

 

[Kagan Altar]

Well ok. A modern-day Olympic champion sprinter can run 100m in, for argument's sake 10 seconds. Let's assume that this person is DEX 21 and STR 18+ (muscle is important for sprinting) has Athletics/running around 500%. This person has 4 CAs per round and probably some sort of Legendary Running ability or Athletics/sprinting special skill. So let's say that lets him add +2m to his MOV rather than the normal +1m. So his mov is 6, doubled sprinting to 12m. Runs 48m in one round, i.e. 96m in 10 seconds. Pretty damn close. Given as well that olympic athletes have specially designed running surfaces and equipment then that'll take up the slack.

Athletics has specific rules covering Brute Force, Climbing and Jumping. I don't see any specifics regarding Sprinting. As for Legendary Running, same thing, I don't see it in the rules.

This example is really great, Bruce. It made me stop and think "hmm". That's good houseruling I think. That's not in the rules per se, though.

Now I don't know what an average untrained human STR 10-11 DEX 10-11 takes to run 100m but I would guess 20 seconds or so. In RQ an average human (2CAs) can sprint 16m in 5 seconds which is too slow. A physically fit human (3CAs) can sprint 24m in 5 seconds. Again a tad too slow. A physically fit trained runner (decent athletics) can sprint 30m in 5 seconds.

Nothing to say there. I don't know if the average human would run 100m. in about 20 seconds.

Oh yes, one question: STR doesn't have anything to do with a character's speed in RQ, does it? If so, where does it precise that point?

However remember that the movement rules assume that a person is involved in some sort of activity, not kitted out to sprint, not on a running track etc. The movement rules are based around a situation not allowing out and out sprinting.

I undestand the logic behind your statement, and can get behind it, but is this written in the rules? If so, where? That's the kind of statement I've been searching for yesterday and didn't find anywhere.

There would be a good argument if you really want to model a sprint that you either bump up the MOV rating (due to ideal conditions) or allow an extra CA or you could say that a sprint under ideal circumstances allows a person to sprint at 3*MOV rating. All of a sudden, your untrained human (CA2, STR10 DEX 10) sprints 24m in 5 seconds, takes just over 20 seconds to "sprint" 100m. Your trained human (CA3 STR13 DEX 13 Athletics 95%) runs 45m in 5 seconds and an olympic champion just hit superhuman heights (MOV4+2*3 per CA) and can do 64m in 5 seconds (7.18seconds to run 100m).

Bottom line is that the rules are actually pretty close to modelling actual human speeds.

If you houserule and make assumptions, yes. I'm not saying it's wrong to do so. Absolutely not, and you're extrapolations make sense to me. I guess I just would like to have seen this in the rules rather than flat movement rates without any sort of explanations. It's all about suspension of disbelief. When I read rules, it's sort of disappointing to stop at some point and think "huh?" like I did. It breaks my suspension of disbelief and makes me think "could have been done better". There's another area of the RQ rules that made me think that, that's the animals with a flat INT rate. That's another topic altogether.

Frex average human walking speed on good terrain is around 4kmh (roughly 1.1m/s). Average human has 2CAs and MOV 4. Thats 8m every 5 seconds which is 1.6m/s. Of course movement in combat is not the same as long distance walk. IN fact, if you do the maths, movement in combat slightly overestimates, on average, human movement speeds.

Bruce

Averages on human walking speed vary, as I discovered from googling the subject a few minutes ago. When I was a kid, I was told 6km/h. On wikipedia, you can read:

For human beings, an average walking speed is about 3 mph (~5 km/h, 1.39m/s), although this depends heavily on factors such as height, weight, and age. (...) The speed of long distance jogging for average persons is about 6 mph (~10 km/h, 2.7 m/s). Top athletes can sprint at a speed of 23.03 mph (~36.85 km/h, 10.24 m/s) within a short distance such as a 200 metres dash.

The long distances approximations from the RQ rules seem fairly close. Now, an average person walking covers, according to this article, 6.95 m/5s. Somebody with 2CA in RuneQuest = 8m/5s. Not too far from the mark indeed.

Now for an athlete, in RQ 4 CA = 32m/5 seconds. The top athlete from the article above 51.2m/5 seconds. That's bad for the RQ approximation, if you ask me.

It seems that the approximations for average human beings are okay, after all. The MOV for real human beings seems to vary enormously under certain sets of circumstance including training, height, weight etc in RL though. The flat MOV 4 rate doesn't satisfy me, to be frank. I might use a houserule like Trifletaxor's.

No, but equaly it doesn't give penalties for characters so encumbered, and in most game situations characters using these rules will be.

That's a good point Simon.

I think I would have liked to see it written in the rules rather than just leave me wondering about it.

Really, I think I'm going to try Trifletaxor's suggestion and precise to the players that these movement rates assume characters not moving straight or being completely free of their movements.

Thanks for your suggestions so far. They are really helpful!

PS: Just to precise, I may have given the wrong first impression in this thread - I'm not a ruleslawyer by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just trying to make sense of a rule that rubbed me the wrong way, but really, I'm not usually getting into that kind of nitpicking comparisons between rules and RL.

 

[Deleriad]

Well ok. A modern-day Olympic champion sprinter can run 100m in, for argument's sake 10 seconds. Let's assume that this person is DEX 21 and STR 18+ (muscle is important for sprinting) has Athletics/running around 500%. This person has 4 CAs per round and probably some sort of Legendary Running ability or Athletics/sprinting special skill. So let's say that lets him add +2m to his MOV rather than the normal +1m. So his mov is 6, doubled sprinting to 12m. Runs 48m in one round, i.e. 96m in 10 seconds. Pretty damn close. Given as well that olympic athletes have specially designed running surfaces and equipment then that'll take up the slack.

Athletics has specific rules covering Brute Force, Climbing and Jumping. I don't see any specifics regarding Sprinting. As for Legendary Running, same thing, I don't see it in the rules.

p85. A character may make an athletics roll at -20% to increase their MOV by 1 for 1 CA or 1 minute. It's under chasing.

Given that the rules are fairly broad and generic it is not to be unexpected that they don't cover extreme cases such as an olympic sprinter using modern technology, steroids (...) and running surfaces. RQ as a system has always encouraged GMs to use the rules as a jumping off point. If for some reason I had to GM a 100m sprint as part of some competition then I would simply allow characters to flat-out-sprint providing they are wearing effectively no encumberance at MOV*3. Each combat action I would allow the characters to make an athletics roll at -20* to increase their speed for that action. If two or more cross the finishing line at once then I would resolve it with an opposed athletics roll. Now this is the kind of detail you don't have room for in 120pg basic rules book but is easy enough to extrapolate from the rules.

 

[Kagan Altar]

Thanks for the page reference, Deleriad. Useful detail indeed.

I agree that the nature for the RQ system was always more of a spring board for GM's to extrapolate than a literal by-the-rule cookbook. Something that's good to have from time to time. Gives a break from other games, like D&D's Third Edition, some players would want to interpret literally (I'm a huge D&D fan, and I truly think that stems from the user's attitude towards the rules, not the rules themselves, but having an alternative, intuitive system like RQ is nice to see).

What about Athletics tests during combat that could make you improve your MOV rate? What about taking that Chase rule with Athletics -20% test for +1 MOV for instance, and houserule that anyone can use it at any point of combat? What about an Athletics test for +1 MOV on a single CA, Athletics -30 for +2 MOV, -60 for +3 MOV or something like that?