"Okay, I'll just lie here..."

[sniffles]

I've been playing Champions for years. I really enjoy the superhero genre. But as anyone knows who has ever played Hero system, combat takes forever to play out. And not playing it out isn't an option - combat is what supers is all about!

Sunday we had a session of our longterm ongoing Champions campaign. We've recently added a new player. Her character was knocked unconscious about halfway through the combat. She spent the rest of the session trying to find something to occupy herself while the combat continued, until her PC finally recovered consciousness near the end of the session.

In game time that all took maybe a minute. But it real-world time it took a couple of hours.
I don't know how the system could be altered to avoid this problem, but it's often possible for a character to get knocked out at the beginning of combat and have a player spend the next 3 or 4 hours of game time waiting for their PC to wake up. Speaking from personal experience, that sucks big time.

Just had to get this off my mind. I felt so bad for the new player.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Shadowrun 2e was the same way. If you didn't take any reflex enhancers, you could fire a gun, go out for pizza, and by the time you got back it still wouldn't be your turn.

 

[diaglo]

Lesson learned by new player: "Don't get knocked out"

 

[The Shaman]

And the GM didn't give her an NPC to run in the meantime?

*tsk, tsk, tsk*

 

[sniffles]

Lesson learned by new player: "Don't get knocked out"

This is true, but not a whole lot one can do about it when it's the bad guy's turn to take a whack at you and there's nothing you can do to defend yourself. :\

 

[Ambrus]

I once played in a Vampire LARP in which the players (about 20 to 30) formed into a warband to fight the BBEG demon-lord. The demon got initiative a sent out a wave of fire that we had to save against or be knocked down for a round; which my character failed. In vampire, rounds last three seconds. During the rest of the first round, PCs were divided up by the number of actions they had due to Celerity (a magical speed ability). Action by action the combat progressed. The demon possesed PCs and attacked other PCs until it's current host would be destroyed and then it would possess another while wave after wave of PCs assaulted the demon both physically and magically. After an hour or two of playing the combat the PCs eventually prevailed and the demon was destroyed. On the next round, my PC sat up.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

DC Heroes' combat was the same. Combats took for-EVAR.

 

[JoeGKushner]

How many people per side in this conflict?

For most of the Champions games I've been in, combat, while lengthy, generally doesn't take hours unless it's the end of a big battle.

Ways to spend up Champions include static dice damage (3.5 per die), as well as rolling to hit and rolling die damage at the same time among others.

You might want to post this on the Hero board as they have a great community there.

 

[JoshWilhoyte]

While I wholeheartedly agree that HERO character creation takes for freaking ever, I don't find that the combats take much longer than your normal D&D combats. And when they do run long, it's for the same reason D&D combats do, players and/or DMs are unprepared. Once character creation is complete, you only have so many possibly actions in combat (barring insane Variable Power Pools and the like). If the players are paying attention to the combat, then when their turn comes around they "should" know what they want to do and be able to do so rather quickly.

I know in our weekly game, I can take my full rounds movement and actions in under a minute, including all declarations and dice rolling, because I've been paying attention to what's going on and am ready to act on my initiative. Meanwhile, one of the other players has to be told it's his turn, then he surveys the battlefield to see what's changed, then he has to check and see what his options are. Then he complains when he misses something obvious. It takes him five or more minutes for a single round's actions. Its kinda crazy.

I cut the DM some slack there, he's running four or five characters that'll probably only be around for one combat. But PCs? Come on, you take the dadgum character home with you every week, how can you not be ready?

But it does take work, I think there are a couple articles on the main page right now with links to how speed up combat. Give them a try.

 

[Crothian]

My suggestion is don't knock the new player out. Let the new player have fun for a session or two and just get lucky but having few bad things happen to her. THen once sh'e got the feel for the character, the game, and knows it is fun then treat her like the rest of the PCs