No offense intended, but while that might look like “two seconds of addition and subtraction” to you, I see division in there and no one in my gaming circles could do those equations in under a minute without a calculator unless all those variables were single digits. I think you seriously underestimate your skill with math relative to the general public.
Nah. The numbers ARE single digits or close to it. That's the whole point of using logs. And the formulas are GM-facing. You use them to set up scenarios. The players are simply comparing an action value to a resolution value. Having now run the game for dozens of sessions, I can comfortably assert it's the fastest superhero RPG I've ever played. I've played with FASERIP, MEGS, and Champions players, and it just hums. I also played it with my M&M group, and it's vastly simpler in play than M&M while making the GM's job a lot easier.
Water controller rolls 1d20+their Water Control Rank vs. DC 10+ Fire’s Power Rank. Done.
That level of simplicity only works if you hand wave anything of substance. E.g you assume the water controller has unlimited access to water, the building doesn't matter, and that you know what the fire's power rank is. Where did you get that information? What if the building is fire-resistant or flammable? What if there's not any water nearby? If you don't care about that stuff - if you just want Drama and Narrative -- you're welcome to make up those variables or ignore them. On the other hand, maybe you think "it would actually be awesome if superheroes could do what they really could do if superheroes are real". And then Ascendant has your back 100%.
Let's imagine Bob is playing a character with 8 SPs of Fire Control. (SPs are "supermetric points", e.g. logs). He literally want to use a challenge check to turn off the fire. Here's the actual challenge check formula for putting out the fire:
• EXTINGUISHING FIRE: TIME + FIRE CONTROL VS. FIRE MAGNITUDE - 3
Time means the time you have to spend on it. Like everything else, it's a log. Time 0 SPs = 1 combat round. Time 1 SP = 2 combat rounds. Etc. So anytime you are doing an action in one combat round, you ignore Time. (The game calls these Instant vs Extended Actions). So that gives:
• EXTINGUISHING FIRE: FIRE CONTROL VS. FIRE MAGNITUDE - 3
The GM sets the Fire Magnitude. The formula is Fire Intensity + Fire Volume. Both values are benchmarked with the GM with lots of examples, just like DC Heroes benchmarks Weight and so on. So if you want to do the towering inferno versus a kitchen fire cause nana overcooked the bread, it's right there.
Let's image Bob arrives at a house fire. He says "I use my Fire Control to put out the fire. I have 8 SPs of Fire Control". And the GM says "The Fire Magnitude is 6 SPs" and so Bob rolls on the CHART at +2. (The CHART is a color-coded FASERIP/ZEFRS style chart.) That's your example above. Easy.
Now let's imagine that the fire is a raging inferno on a skyscraper (Fire Magnitude 20 SPs). Bob is not going to succeed at 8 vs 20 on the CHART because that's a -12 RV. But all that means is he can't do it in one combat round (3 seconds). Bob could, if he wanted, roll every combat round. That's tedious and boring and frustrating. And that's where most games just halt.
But in Ascendant he can use an Extended Action and add the Time spent (logarithmic) to his action value. Let's say Bob spends 1 hour (10 SPs). Now Bob is at an action value of 8+10=18 vs. 20. He's at -2, which is hard but doable. You can't do that in DC Heroes/BOH because the resolution tables aren't actually logarithmic; adding Time fucks things up.
Or, Bob could say "I can't put out the entire skyscraper, but can I just put out the fire at the front entrance?" The GM knows that the Fire Magnitude is 20. A Skyscraper has Volume 15 and the Fire Intensity is 5. The volume of a lobby is just 3 SPs. So now THAT Fire Magnitude is just 5+3 = 8. So to just extinguish the lobby fire, Bob is now at 8 vs. 8, which is doable.
The game is exactly as simple as you want, it just is also comprehensive enough to handle literally anything you throw at it. Since EVERYTHING is logarithmic you can do any combination of team, team-ups, portions of areas or volumes, etc etc. It Just Works.
How long does the fire take to destroy something? Building makes a Toughness saves vs. DC 15+Fire’s Power Rank and suffers some damage with each failure. So it could, in theory, go at any time (which feels more real and tense for a rescue situation). Done.
But you can do it that way if you want. From the rules: "Structures suffer Thermal Damage from a Special Thermal Fog with SPs equal to the fire’s Intensity. Damage is reduced by the structure’s Thermal Protection." You can just do damage to the building each round. Now let's say you have *a city* on fire. Do you want to sit there and roll for 4000 buildings? Or do you just want to know how long the city will take to burn down? You can hand-wave it. But Ascendant can handle it in moments.
What if a bunch of fire fighters show up to help? What does that do? Does it matter if they have one fire hydrant or two? You can hand wave it. Or Ascendant can handle it in moments.
I applaud your efforts and am glad the system you described works for you, but your present implementation doesn’t look remotely as simple as FASERIP or either 2e or 3e of M&M and possibly not even Champions to me if calculations like those you’ve laid out must be done in actual play.
Please hold the applause as you don't yet understand the true glory of the system!
The system can do anything those games can do as simply as they can. And it can do anything that a high-complexity game like GURPS can do far simpler than GURPS can.
"Calculations must be done" - no, you can just hand wave it and it's as simple as X vs Y, roll.
"Calculations CAN be done" - YES, and those calculations are easy.
A lot of game design these days is based on "roll your skill vs target number" and then advises the GM to make up the target numbers as he deems appropriate. I find that unpalatable. There's no balance, playability, and verisimilitude, UNLESS the skills and target numbers are appropriately benchmarked.
But what is the appropriate benchmarked? I find that sort of "wave your hand and make it up" system is tolerable when working with ordinary human ranges where our intuitions can roughly guide us. Yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger can pick up a motorcycle but not a tank. But nobody "intuitively" understands what a telekinetic can do. If he can pick up a jetliner and fling at 30mph, what else can he do? Can he halt the entire NASCAR Daytona 500 with a sweep of his hands? Ascendant could answer that. Let's answer that!
Let's say our villain Telekhan has 20 SPs of Telekinesis. A jetliner weighs 15 SPs. He can throw the jetliner at a Speed of 20-15 = 5 SP. 5 SP = 30mph.
What about stopping a car dead in its tracks? The challenge check to stop a rolling object is TELEKINESIS VS. OBJECT WEIGHT + OBJECT SPEED -6
A NASCAR car weighs 1625lbs (7 SPs) and goes at a Speed of 180MPH, or (7 SPs). So that's 7+7= 14 SPs. 14-6 is 8.
Telekinesis 20 vs 8. That's a +12 RV, which is an automatic success. If Telekhan can throw a jetliner, it's trivial to halt the racecar.
But Telekhan wants to halt ALL the racecars. There's 43 race cars. That's a 43-target multi-attack, which imposes a -10 penalty. Now we're at 20-10 = 10. 10 vs. 8. That's a +2 RV, and quite doable. Wow! Telekhan really can just halt the ENTIRE NASCAR 500 with one sweep of his hand. That's really cool.
Now, you might not care about that. You might just say "I'll just decide if it's dramatically appropriate for Telekhan to halt the race cars" or "I'll make up a number I think will be fun" or "I will make the decision based on my experience reading comics". That's fine. You can do that in Ascendant. The GM could just say "uh, we'll call it Difficulty Value 7" or "12" or whatever number he wants. But he can also work out the real physics.
The game is fractally comprehensive. You can play it as simple or complex as you want. The point is that it can handle tremendous complexity with great ease. There is literally nothing else that can do what Ascendant does, while Ascendant can do anything those other games can do.