Author Topic: base movement  (Read 1591 times)

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Offline juza

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base movement
« on: September 16, 2016, 03:00:48 AM »
Hi guys, I'm playing with the Italian version of RMFRP and i think that the base movement is too high. In the Italian version the base movement for humans is 15 meter in a round + quickness bonus that means 15 feet + quickness bonus in a round. A round is 6 seconds so in the end all the players are faster than the world's record man.
I think that the translators make an error, isn't it?

Offline juza

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Re: base movement
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2016, 03:02:43 AM »
Sorry I made a mistake in the previous post 15 meters are 49,2126 feet not 15 as I wrote.
Sorry..

Offline jdale

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Re: base movement
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2016, 10:01:15 AM »
In RMSS, base movement rate is 50 feet + stride modifier + 3xQu Stat bonus + Weight penalty

If you use meters, 15m + (stride modifier should be one third as much) + Qu stat bonus + (weight penalty should be one third as much) makes sense.

A round is 10 seconds, though, not 6.
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Offline juza

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Re: base movement
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2016, 02:48:13 AM »
Thank you Jdale for the clarification, I still think the movement is too high but now I'm sure there is no translation error. Thanks a lot.

Offline arakish

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Re: base movement
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2016, 09:33:30 AM »
In a study (if you can call it that) I did in college for a class called Mathematical Models, my partner and I worked out a plan to find out just how fast most normal persons walked.  Throughout my primary education (grades 1-12), all the textbooks listed the walking speed of humans as being 4 mph, or about 5.867 fps (mph = miles per hour, fps = feet per second). 

We measured a section of sidewalk (2200cm IIRC) between the pressure seams, then timed about 5000 persons (as many different persons as possible) walking that distance.  Persons we felt were walking faster (in a hurry thus purposefully walking faster) or slower (moseying), we did not time.  We did our best to time persons who "seemed" to be walking at their "normal" walking pace.  Of course, this was entirely subjective (we were not REQUIRED to be objective, but should try best), since we had to make our best "guess" at what appeared to be a "normal" walking pace.  Another problem we had was that we were using the metric system for our measurement and had to convert to the screwed up American measuring system.  The most major areas of error were our judgment of when to start/stop the timing when crossing the pressure seams, and judgment of persons walking normally.

When we averaged all those walking paces, we found the average walking pace was about 4.4328 fps, or about 3.022 mph.  After this study, if you can call it that, I changed the Base Movement Rate (BMR) in all RM flavors to 40 feet per round (4 fps, 2.727 mph).  This worked much better for me as GM since the 40 could be broken down into 10, 8, 5, 4, 2, and 1 second rounds without having ugly decimal portions.

The current BMR for the RMUbv2 is 20 feet per 5 second round, or 4 fps.  I find this much closer to "realistic" than in previous versions of RM.  I also modified the Pace Multiplier system so that a person running a 100m Dash would need a Pace Multiplier of about ×8 to equal Usain Bolt's world record of 9.57 seconds (Or is my memory failing?  Too lazy to look up...).

Perhaps one day I shall look for this system on one of backup CD/DVD, polish it up, and post it, or put it in the Vault.  Right now, I just usually wing it since I kind of have it memorized since writing it up.

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Offline juza

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Re: base movement
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2016, 03:29:36 AM »
Arakish your study is great! Thank you very much for posting it. I think I will follow your suggestion.
Thank you very much!

Offline arakish

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Re: base movement
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2016, 08:00:33 AM »
Was wrong about some of the numbers in previous post, due to a failing memory :o.  Many apologies...  :worthy:

Attached (wait for approval) is a CSV file of the first 555 records of our original file (just change the .txt to .csv).  I cannot give all the records since my partner (which I have lost contact with) also holds the copyright.  He got it copyrighted under both our names.  Thus, without his approval, I cannot give all the records away.  But it is slightly more than 15% of all the records.

However, 555 records may be enough to perform some analyses.  I may even go back and do some analyses starting from scratch...  Maybe...

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Offline Hurin

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Re: base movement
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2016, 10:07:15 AM »
I think we can agree with your general point though Arakish. Real life human speeds are a little slower than past versions of RM have suggested. I don't think anyone is disputing the point.
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Offline jdale

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Re: base movement
« Reply #8 on: September 23, 2016, 12:07:01 PM »
I'm not sure walking speeds are the best measure. There seem to be cultural differences in whether people tend to do a slow walk vs a brisk walk, which in RM terms is 1x BMR vs 1.5 BMR. So then it's hard to know what you're measuring when you observe people.

Whether it's realistic or not, movement speeds in RMSS are inconveniently high. That was one of the reasons we went to a 5 second round in RMU, it cuts the movement per round in half.
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Offline Warl

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Re: base movement
« Reply #9 on: September 23, 2016, 04:06:32 PM »
Along with Jdale, I would have to agree that we are speaking of a large  cultural difference/Change between the way people walk today and the way they would have walked 100 to 500 years ago.

Much the same Idea that if one was to tell people 200 years ago that people today would "Run" for pleasure, would get you odd looks.

We are a Much more lackadaisical society. Though we may Run for pleasure, when we walk, We often don't walk with the 'purpose' that people 200 years or further back would. They did not walk with out purpose or Direction. They walked to get things done and to get to their destination and/or get home.

We often don't really walk today, we stroll. Because if we are walking, we are often in no hurry to be anywhere.
So to fruther Jdale's observation, I would say there is a distinct difference in our own perceptions of what strolling, walking, and Fast walking are. Mainly because we do not have the sense of urgency our ancestors had.

That being said, I still always felt the base 60' per round was "Fast" for the average person. Because it made everyone an Olympic Runner.
I had it explained, once long ago on RM forums, that it was because they wanted characters to be Heroic, But then there wasn't really a base line movement given for the average human. One had to assume either a base of 60, Or assume that all "Average" humans had a Quickness Penalty (which was not represented in the racial bonuses.)

So, though yes, I agree that the base movement allowed for max speeds that were fairly fast, I am not sure the problem was in the base movement. 
Maybe a small adjustment to 50 or 55 could have been useful, Or perhaps, the real problem is in the Pace Multipliers.
Perhaps certain Paces, such as x4 and x5, should not be able to even be reached without some skill. Let alone be maintained for any amount of time without severe chance of Stumbling unless you've trained in maintaining such a run.
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