Has anyone ended up using the idea of the abstract rounds and distances in the way that the GM book suggests they might be used (having close range as anything within a city block, have a round equal to an hour of time etc)

I like the concept of this and in theory it will work within the mechanics, but has anyone done this and were there any problems?

I'd like to use it to allow certain actions (spells and the like) to work over an extended period of time without having to have them re-cast, but has anyone tried this and has it caused any problems with players, with things like the percieved issue that a spell cast in combat, which lasts for a few rounds, is lasting for a "short amount" of real time, whereas when cast when using a different base time unit for the abstract round, means that the spell lasts for a few hours of real time (but still only a few rounds mechanically)

Has anyone had problems trying this out or have players just gone with the flow and embraced the abstractness of it all!?

No haven't tried it yet, but have plans rolling around in my head for using that kind of concept to track a larger scale battle going on around a smaller scale set of PC actions during a siege on a city.

I often use rounds as abstract periods of time during story mode.

For example, the action Call of the Wild (I think that's its name) grants a [W] bonus to various nature related skill checks for a number of rounds. Well it makes little sense, and would be very cumbersome, to have the player roll the action every time a related skill check comes up during a multi-day or hour trek through the woods. Say they are tracking orcs, for example.

So in that kind of situation I treat "round" to mean "round of skill checks", even if the skill checks are minutes or hours apart. This also rolls quite nicely into combat type situations because then "round of skill checks" converts quite nicely into "round of combat".

I use a similar approach to social skills. I prefer to handle social situations in story mode, rather than social encounter mode.

In my experience, most players just roll with it. Some players are still having issues wrapping their heads around relative distance and rounds. But the players that embrace relative distance also embrace relative time.

zelbone said:

Yer, i can see this working quite easily for social skills/actions as the length of time that they have an effect for are pretty abstract anyway in real terms.

I guess the one i struggle a bit more with are spells, whose real term duration, one could argue should be pretty constant no matter when or where they are used. This could easily be argued away using the fickle nature of magic concept though i guess, if needed (what with its power being drawn from chaos and all anyway, shsshhh don't tell the colleges...)

I'm certainly going to give this kind of thing a go though, just from practical gaming purposes (as you mentioned regarding Call of the Wild) if nothing else

Abstract ranges being variable is one reason why I don't want to use battlemaps. While it might seem nice to have a floorplan of a Inn drawn out to show where everyone is at in relation to one another, I don't want players to get the idea that any given range band is fixed to a certain scale distance. If you use battlemaps however, once they've been in one fight where close range is 10 squares, they'll potentially be more argumentative the next time when you tell them they are at medium and someone counts out that it is 10 squares again. Now I probably wouldn't go as far out as close range being a city block, but I do like the freedom of making ranges relative.

As for spell durations, you can rationalize that in the more relaxed atmosphere of story mode, maintaining spells should be easier. There are fewer distractions and you aren't being threatened with bodily injury. Combat OTOH, is stressful and it's much harder to maintain the concentration necessary to keep spells going.

Haven't had to tackle the problem of Magic with extended rounds yet, but the concept of extended rounds/scale seemed to work really well during a little secenario we had play out where a small town was getting over run, the encounter then became the whole town. The range increments became streets, and each bulding was its own engagement, so 1 maneuvre to go from outside to inside, and you were then in an engagement with all things inside that same bulding, even though the building might be 2 or 3 stories, with one large, or many smaller rooms. The concept worked out really well, but like I said, there was no magic involved.

You may want to consider adjusting the scale/recharge of some of the actions when adjusting the scale of time/distance as well then, reduce some actions recharge time, or just maybe assume that when using a spell with a duration since the round might last for an hour, that duration actually represents multiple castings, or uses of that spell, or perhaps even linger effects, a bulding continuing to burn after a bright wizard lights it ablaze, or something to that effect.

If you do end up using magic in a scale like this, let us know how it works out, I though the mechanics worked out great when using it without magic.

I don't really have anything to add to the topic. I just wanted to say I love how flexible this system is, as BCA's post shows so well. I'm definitely going to use that in my own game.