Getting Rid of Range Bands

[Jimalcoatl]

I'm gearing up to run my first game of Trinity Contiuum. I like most of what I've read in the core book, but I honestly hate range bands, and so do several of my players. We've used them in other games (Exalted, Gensys) and despite giving them an honest try have firmly come on the side of "Range bands suck". So now I'm left with a problem, I want to run Trinity, but I absolutely don't want to use range bands.

Does anyone have a good house rule for a bit more standard movement and range? I was thinking of just using the "typical ranges" to generate a movement rate that characters can use, but the range on the "typical ranges" is pretty broad and that won't be able to be the same for weapon ranges without seriously stretching the suspension of disbelief.

[Heavy Arms]

If you have any of the CofD books, Hurt Locker swaps traditional distances to range bands. While the systems aren't 100% the same, it seems like a pretty good starting place to go in the opposite direction with numbers that will make sense for at least normal humans and Talents in TC.

Scale shouldn't be too hard. Apply the Narrative Scale multiplier as usual, and the Dramatic Scale can just add a flat value to your movement distances (maybe 6 per scale as a rough eye ball).

[Jimalcoatl]

I have both CoD and Hurt Locker. I forgot that that was a thing (I never used the range bands in Hurt Locker). It should be doable to reverse engineer it. Thanks for the tip.

[Mateus Luz]

Just reinforcing Heavy Arms
I would start with Short/Medium/Long range translated to 10/100/1000m (30/300/3000 feet).
Regular movement would start around 10m (30 feet) or maybe sum of Physical Attributes meters (x3 to feet).
Scale multiply by 5 for each scale above 1, so lets say scale 4 will move 1250m (10 x 5 x 5 x 5) per round (3750 feet).

Yet, my position is, unless you are using a map and rulers (or squares), range bands do ok. But, your game, your rules.

Edit: why 5? Because 5 makes you reach Something near light speed at scale 10.
For Space Speed, I start with 10m and x25 per scale, resulting near light speed at scale 6 (there is no space speed above 6).

[Jimalcoatl]

We often do use maps. Also, we find that range bands become a pain to keep track of when you start introducing multiple antagonists or objectives. It's often very unclear how moving towards/away from one target alters the distance in relation to other targets. As an example, say a PC is in combat with an Enemy lieutenant and two groups of henchmen, but also wants to save his friend who is suspended from a bridge. At the start the PC is in close range from the first group of henchmen, medium from the lieutenant and medium as well from the second group of henchmen, and the henchmen are medium away from the lieutenant.

Say the PC moves one band towards the second group of henchmen who are away from the lieutenant, where is he now in relation to the lieutenant? Now add his captive friend, who was behind the second group of henchmen, at far range from the PC. Does moving closer to the henchmen by one band also move him closer to his friend by one band?

Yes the GM can often figure that stuff out, but it's a lot to track mentally, or even with notes, that distracts from otherwise running a fun encounter. Players are often confused as to where they are in the scene and the general organization of the encounter breaks down very easily. Giving simple, relatively objective measurements makes estimating distances fairly intuitive and allows for the option of having tactical map encounters to break up the pace of the campaign (I generally switch up my encounters between theater of the mind, maps, and rough zones/ICRPG-style set cards depending on the nature of the encounter).