Telephone conversations in combat

[Martin2]

My player group tend to phone during combat. One example was to phone a UNTIL contact during a combat and try and get back up to pick up the villains they had knocked out already.

 

Someone on their action called a number and expected them to answer the call in the action and then communicate to the person who does not really know them and arrange for UNTIL to arrive as soon as possible to a strange location under the city.

 

I sort of delayed it a few segments before anyone answered and they got a confused person on the other side of the phone who did not know what was going on. In the end the player got pissed off at the time it took to arrange UNTIL to come around and clear up the mess so they hung up. UNTIL then called them back shortly after the combat to find out what they wanted.

 

Was I being a bit mean and should they expect an instant reply in the same phase and to communicate everything they wanted?

 

How would you sort this out?

 

I was thinking of putting dice rolls into the next occasion. How about a perception roll (with modifiers?) and say that if they make the perception roll that the person can answer thephone on their next action. If they fail the roll they take that number of segments to realise the phone is ringing. What perception modifiers would that be for a land line ringing in a busy office? Or a mobile / cell going off only on vibrate (I can miss several calls from the wife when I am work with the mobile on vibrate and it’s in my pocket!).

 

Also transfer of information speed to say a speed 2 Int 10 telephone operator? How long would it take to get useful information? Also what’s is the modifiers to OCV / DCV when having a hands free conversation / non hands freeconversation?

 

Has anyonedone this before?

[Asperion]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

I don't beleve that you were being mean. The basic question here is: how well respected are your PCs? If they are well respected then they are treated better than the average joe on the street. At no time though they should ever expect to get an instant response from any agency, especially one that would get an overwelming level of calls such as UNTIL would. The die roll is only ment as a guide, never as a hard and fast rule, so it can be modified as necessary. And remember, just because someone has a phone (even a mobile one) does not mean that they will always carry it.

 

The transfer of information occurs only as fast as a person can read it, regardless of how fast the tech can carry the info, so that is how fast the data should be determined to be transported at.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

Well, if they paid points for the phone (like, High Range Radio in a battlesuit), I wouldn't put too many roadblocks in the way. Same answer if they paid points for an UNTIL Contact -- they should have him on speed-dial.

 

[Edit: If they're trying to convey complex instructions, that's a different matter. Saying "Send a crew to pick Ogre up at Seventh and Main" is easy enough. Saying, "Send a crew to pick up Ogre from the secret sub-basement under the Towsley Tower, you get in through the elevator by pressing the Lobby, 2nd floor, and 5th floor buttons simultaneously, we're in the second hall on the right, look out for the pit trap" is another matter entirely.]

 

If they're wanting a freebie, and to have it take no time and bear no effect on their ability to fight besides, that's another matter.

 

If they were just using their normal cell phones to make the call, I'd have said taking a full Phase would have handled it well enough. They're effectively paying with their wasted action. Presumably, UNTIL has an emergency contact line for when supervillains are on the rampage.

 

I wouldn't get into requiring PER rolls to hear the phone ring, etc., or worrying about the SPD of the telephone operator.

[Christopher]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

I agree with Bolo:

If it is a contact and they had some form of Hands Free Communication, it should not be hard to get them.

 

Now if they were unknown heroes dailing the official hotline while using a normal (free) cellphone:

First, there is the problem with reception. Very vew secret lairs feature Mobile-Phone-Repeaters. If they aren't even insulated against normal-radio-signals. If it's free expect it to not work when fighting superhumans (they will cut of phonelines first).

Using a mobile Phone in the fight, is somethign I would put at 1/2 DCV at least. And the interaction with the person on the other end would need at least several phases.

Unlike the stuff superheroes carry around, a normal people Mobile Phone could be destroyed just by being to close to a superpower in use. They can be fritzed by the magnetic field of a lighting bolt hitting nearby in Real Life.

Trying to convince an operator who does not knows you without having any fast identification codeword is a matter of interaction rolls. And thus time.

 

One good idea ist to give the team a "Justice League" Cartoon Style Earpiece communicator. Pretty solid hands free communication, usually build this way:

"Comm Link: Mind Link, Specific Group of Minds; Only With Others Who Have Mind Link (-1), Sense Affected As Radio instead of Mental (-0), additionally affected as Hearing (-1/4), IIF (Earpiece; -1/4)" Maybe give it out as Freebie, wich allows you to invoke the "it does not work here" without having to stat out the Darkness or even affect the sense of people who bough HRRP and other Radio Group Senses.

[Martin2]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

Thanks for the feed back.

 

The mobile was a freebie and the telephone number was a GM given contact number for a GM contact which was also a freebie and not fully set up as an official contact number (best described as possibly the direct dial to a section that could contact the UNTIL officer who last talked to them).

 

So no character points were spent so the contact route would be less reliable.

 

None of it was official so it would not work as well.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

Maybe I am not grasping the situation here, but why were they calling in the middle of combat? Most combats take less than a minute of game time, so there is no way UNTIL could get anyone there that fast. Why not just wait until after combat and call when the timing is less important? The UNTIL troop are going to get there 30 seconds later than they would have otherwise, and the player doesn't have to waste time on the phone while being shot at.

[Folded]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

If it were critical, I would suggest the following guidelines

 

1) Using a normal cell-phone puts the character at 1/2 DCV for the duration of the call. Using a hands-free model without voice-command dialing puts the character at 1/2 DCV during the phase that the number is being dialed.

 

2) Dialing a number is a half-phase action. Speed dialing might be a zero phase action.

 

3) Assume an average of three rings for the person on the far end to answer. At (roughly) one ring per segment, this means the call will be answered three segments later. You could also roll 1d6 for segments to answer, with a 5 or 6 maybe indicating the call went to voicemail.

 

4) I would allow a single, brief sentence to be spoken per phase (5-10 words or so). Comprehension on the other end would take at least another phase.

 

All in all, unless you're calling in an airstrike, I can't see a whole lot of reason to bother with trying to call someone in combat. For me, a phone call takes a minimum of one minute, which is five full turns. That's a very long time in game terms, and nothing in terms of actions-after-combat.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

Talking is zero-phase action, so using the phone/commlink/radio as much as you want during a phase. Depending on the genre, I wouldn't penalize the PC much, if at all, for using the phone during the fight (supers, for instance, do crazier things on a regular basis) outside of having one hand occupied. How fast the person they're calling can get to them, and how helpful they feel compelled to be, would be the limiting factors.

[Ice9]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

Since my current character is a robot, and can make phone calls inside his head, he tends to do so often, keeping UNTIL appraised of any incapacitated villains for pickup or last known directions of escaping foes. Given how fast combat moves though, it's rare that any reinforcements will arrive before the battle is over - the exception being when fighting someone like Grond, where stalling him may be the best option.

[Folded]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

Talking is zero-phase action' date=' so using the phone/commlink/radio as much as you want during a phase. Depending on the genre, I wouldn't penalize the PC much, if at all, for using the phone during the fight (supers, for instance, do crazier things on a regular basis) outside of having one hand occupied. How fast the person they're calling can get to them, and how helpful they feel compelled to be, would be the limiting factors.[/quote']

 

Talking is a zero-phase action, but holding a detailed conversation is not. My post above is based on the idea that playing out the entire thing is critical, that for some reason, exactly how it plays out will affect immediate gameplay. Otherwise, I agree, just wave it away.

[drunkonduty]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

I had a similar thing one session I ran.

 

One player, who refused to allow the dirty alien telepath access to his head and so wasn't in the group mind link, wanted to text the location of an incoming VIPER strike team to the rest of the party as a 1/2 phase action.

 

GM said no.

 

I mean, sure he could text it, but not that quickly. I said 2 phases. In the end the player opted to highlight the VIPER team's location with a grenade.

 

cheers. :-)

[Christopher]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

Since my current character is a robot' date=' and can make phone calls inside his head, he tends to do so often, keeping UNTIL appraised of any incapacitated villains for pickup or last known directions of escaping foes. Given how fast combat moves though, it's rare that any reinforcements will arrive before the battle is over - the exception being when fighting someone like Grond, where stalling him may be the best option.[/quote']

That's the benefit for payign for HRRP without Limitation, instead of trying to do it with a normal People Mobile Phone.

I even thought about using Rapid for transmitting senses (including Voice), to simulate that talking is a extremely simple task (even if the other side has no Rapid for this sense or only a lower multiplier, at least talking requires a lot less concentration).

 

I had a similar thing one session I ran.

 

One player, who refused to allow the dirty alien telepath access to his head and so wasn't in the group mind link, wanted to text the location of an incoming VIPER strike team to the rest of the party as a 1/2 phase action.

 

GM said no.

 

I mean, sure he could text it, but not that quickly. I said 2 phases. In the end the player opted to highlight the VIPER team's location with a grenade.

Fully acceptable for me. Even if he was at SPD 2, 1/2 phase would have been 3 seconds at best. And no normal person (SPD 2) can type that fast. Not even with the Text-autocompletion feature of modern mobile phones.

12 Seconds (2 Full phases) for a normal Person is already very fast (considering that the words needed might not be in the wordbook of your phone), so I would have increased the time to at least 4 phases.

 

Here is how I would build a normal person, mobile phone:

My Little Phone: Detect Audio based Mobile Phone Tansmissions (Single Thing, 3 pt), Simulated Sense Group (Radio Group), Range (free), Sense (free), Increased Arc of perception (360°; 5 pt), Transmit (2pt), 10 Base Points, Only when connection via Mobile Phone Network and number known (-2), Real Equipment (-1/4), Gestures (to Activate; -1/4), Concentration (Pressing it agaisnt your ear; througout use; 1/2 DCV, -3 Per Rolls; -1/2), Aditionally affected as Hearing (-1/4); 3 Real Cost

 

or

 

(my preferred version)

Sensroy Talent: Mobile Phone Reception, 3 Character Points, No Perception Roll, Affected as Radio Group

That is for a "build in, mentally controllable and mentally useable phone". Your normal Mobile Phone would add most of the Limitations from above, bringing it down to 1 Real Cost or even a total Freebie.

[Folded]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

I include cell phones in modern campaigns as Everyman gear.

[dmjalund]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

but the second one does not allow the character to transmit

[Christopher]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

but the second one does not allow the character to transmit

I regard taht as part of the entire 3 point cost.

 

In fact it is part of the 2 point Cost increase between the Detect of "Radio Transmission" and "HRRP", among other things.

It's little more than a Landline Phone you carry around and even if you can use it "at thought", it's hard to justify a cost on par with Federal/National Police Powers and higher than: Right to carry concealed weapons, Local Police Powers, Private Investigator Lisence, Knightship or Lower Nobility.

[Arkham]

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

 

For an actual mobile phone, I would have it take one action to make the call, being at 1/2 DCV while dialing. Between 6 seconds and an entire turn before someone actually answers the phone. A typical phone rings once every three seconds, so answering on the third ring would be 9 seconds later. Then they can attempt to explain who they are and what information they want to exchange.

 

Most combats are between 12 and 24 seconds long.

 

It is probably best to wait until after the firefight to make the call.