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

[Harmon]

Sniffles, we played Champions for a long time, true combat takes a lot of time, but if the GM keeps everything rolling fast and furious it should not take hours for a couple of minutes unless you have a group over six.

Don't let the lulls hit, keep the pace fast on the table, everyone she know where they want to move before thier turn comes, everyone she have their range mods figured and plans set. If not, ya, the game lags, and you can actually go to the store on the end of phase4 and get back before all those phase 5ers have gone (actually had this happen at a session).

Anyone knocked out for that length of time can fix dinner, read up on some rules, make a run to the store, or better yet a civilian runs over and grabs the hero and smacks him or her around yelling "wake up! The good guys are getting their arse's kicked- they need you!"

BTW- glad to hear someone is still playing the Hero System

 

[sniffles]

Anyone knocked out for that length of time can fix dinner, read up on some rules, make a run to the store, or better yet a civilian runs over and grabs the hero and smacks him or her around yelling "wake up! The good guys are getting their arse's kicked- they need you!"

BTW- glad to hear someone is still playing the Hero System

I love Hero system. It's so versatile.
We have a running joke in our game that the cops will never show up until the combat is over. No civilian would ever be allowed to take an action that would help out the PCs - civilians all have a speed of 2.

 

[BWP]

My GM isn't adversarial, but he does have a tendency to assume that if he's enjoying what's going on, we'll all enjoy it too. He was enjoying running the villains, and I think he forgot that one player didn't have anything to do.

It's a very easy thing to do, especially in a game like Champions, where a group of NPCs might have many diverse options available to them. A bunch of mooks will all do the same thing, more or less, and are easy to "program", but more complex characters take more mental effort, especially if the PCs are being their usual creative selves. It's unfortunate, but we're not all blessed with an ability to pay equal attention to everything all the time.

Better to explicitly alert the GM than to suffer in silence ....

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Heck, in my group if we have a fifteen-minute long combat, and everyone's conscious and involved till the end, they're bored silly.

I'm bored by that point, too, though, so we don't usually spend that long on fights. God bless my group, for we are uniquely suited for each other.

Regardless, though, my opinion is that leaving anyone, anytime, for any reason, bored and twiddling their thumbs for more than a half hour is an abject failure of GMing. Period. Nope, can't sway me, sorry. Just my opinion, though.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I don't know how this would run in your game, but in D&D we always used two characters each. That way you're not out of action unless both of your characters are KO'd which is much less likely than having just one out of action.

 

[Jubilee]

*waves* Thanks for your sympathy, sniffles.

I am the new player in question. Yes, I know I ought not to get knocked out, but I really didn't do it on purpose. I was knocked out in phase two in the first round of combat. I got shot and then smashed before I had a chance to even get to my own action. I could have dodged the 2nd attack, but if I dove out of the hex, I would have no more action until the next round came up in which I could act, and since the people after me were speedier, I would simply have gotten hit in the next phase and have no dodging option. Sure, I could spend the whole combat dodging and doing nothing else, but that's as fun as spending the whole combat unconcious, so I thought I could take the hit and retaliate. 18 inches of knockback and a wall later. . .

I have played Champions with this group & the GM 4 times now. In all 4 sessions, there was a combat, and in 3 of them, I was knocked out for the duration of the combat. Once I was running sniffle's character, and another time I was running an NPC. This time I have tried making a character of my own and am doing my best to learn how to play her.

Personally, the whole super heroes genre is not all that interesting to me to begin with. So far, I think Champions is painfully complex and occasionally boring, and I am only playing because the GM kept inviting me and my husband, who is in the game, wanted me to try it again.

At least I got to read some interesting articles in the Sunday paper. (I wish Dave Barry weren't on vacation from writing, though).

 

[Desdichado]

Facetiously, I will say that the solution to your problem is to play Mutants & Masterminds.

I was going to make the same remark.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Jubilee, that sounds really, really awful. I think you should put your foot down and tell your husband that you're not willing to be bored just so he can have you around.

Or at least bring a book, or something.

This is that same GM that Sniffles said has no other social outlets other than gaming, right? And he's pulled this crap on you three times already? Jeez. It sounds like the other people in the group are there because they feel sorry for him; don't let yourself get sucked into the same kind of obligation.

 

[Harmon]

I love Hero system. It's so versatile.
We have a running joke in our game that the cops will never show up until the combat is over. No civilian would ever be allowed to take an action that would help out the PCs - civilians all have a speed of 2.

Ya, Hero is a great system. Wish I could get my group reinterested in playing it.

In my experience its not really a joke about the cops and civilians so much as a reality, which is really sad.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

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.

Sharing the pain there brother!

I still get the shakes when I think about one combat where in the time it took me and a fellow mage to say, "Loooooook! Soooomethiiiiiiigs happppppennnningggg!" the other three characters charged into a building, knocked out everyone who was on the ground floor, then charged up the stairs to the first floor and knocked out everyone there too.