Checking back to the email I was answering: that's what you appear to say here:
> In all cases, the character either has a
> dramatic goal, or he does not.
> If the former then "a few days" always suffices.
> If the latter, 17 resistance does.
And no, "a few days" does not always suffice. Not when the time limit is a *known* number of days. Sometimes it may well do - but *not* in the cases I'm actually trying to discuss!
> This
> whole sub-thread started with you commenting that my
> conversions in terms of miles seemed nice and tidy
It did - I'm not sure if it worked, and we now have several other models to choose from, but it's tidy.
> Your objection was, I thought, that
> describing things in terms of
> resistances was problematic.
Nope, just as long as we *also* get the miles. We can all visualise a mile.
> Or that one always needed to know what the
> distances and actual times involved are.
Not "always", no. But you've been saying "never".
> If you agree that coming up with nice consistent
> conversions to resistances
> is a fine way to inform players of the distances
> involved,
No, I don't think it's a good way of informing them of anything. We can visualise a mile. We meet them every day. We can't visualise a 10W resistance. It's a good way of finding out if a PC whose ability to travel distance at speed is measured in those units can do a given job or not, but as a meaningful description, it's terrible.
My preferred method (PBeM, not F2F), is that the players see as little of the purely abstract resistances as possible. I tell them how many miles, the fact that they reckon they can do it in so many days because they're tough but that they'll be knackered at the end, and they roleplay from there.
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